Week 2 Term 4

This week we had a special treat during our fabric and fibre lesson. We wanted to make poi to practise plaiting wool and Tracy asked Te Pouahi if they would like to teach us some poi dances afterwards. Te Pouahi were so helpful that they offered to show us how to make the poi as well, so we had a whole afternoon with them on Tuesday sharing our learning together.

This week we have continued to think about narrative writing and we used the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff to help us think about describing a character. Here we are painting our own trolls.

This is what Will wrote about his troll picture.

My troll is green. My troll has long legs and big green feet. He has a small body and a green head with whiskers.

In our popcorn inquiry we moved onto the "acquire" stage of our learning by looking at different products made from corn and discussed how they looked, smelt and tasted. Here are the results for the products we have tried so far.

Our poem was also about popcorn. We published it this week but want to add some percussion to it before we make a sound recording to share with our families and friends. Have a listen to what we are aiming to achieve.

On Friday we had our Kowhai good work assembly. Can you spot some of our Room 11 friends getting certificates?

Finally we have been practising a new waiata for a special powhiri we are having on Monday. The children asked me to put the video up on the blog so they can practice at home, so here it is

Thank you, as always, for all your support over the last week and I wish you all a safe and happy Week 3.

WHAT ARE WE LEARNING IN WEEK 3 TERM 4?

Tricky words: back

Grammar: verbs

Writing: simple recounts

Maths: numeracy, skip counting in 2, 5,and 10

Inquiry: The Pop Corn Shop

Art: : Fabric and Fibre

P.E. Tennis and Throwing

ICT: Scootpad and Animation

Maori:  colours

REMINDERS

Buy get your copy of the Central Food Cook Book now!!!!

Friday: Library Day, library books must be returned on or before Friday each week.
Monday 17th December Kowhai Big Day out at Founders Park, $2.50 per child
Term 4 ends 18th December 12.00 noon

Week 1 Term 4

This week in maths we learnt all about equal sharing and fractions. We shared groups of objects equally between ourselves and a buddy so we had half each.

 

Then we shared objects between 4 of us, so we each had a quarter of the objects and some of us even shared our objects into fifths.

 

                                               

We finished of by doing a worksheet so Tracy could see how much we had learnt. The best bit of all was sharing popcorn because then we got to eat it! In fact we are going a bit popcorn crazy in Room 11 as we have started our new inquiry topic called "The Popcorn Shop". We are using the SAUCE model of inquiry as shown here.

We set the scene by comparing 2 types of popcorn, Kettle Corn and Frutti popcorn to see which was most popular. The Kettle corn won by one vote. We liked this best because it was crunchier than the Frutti popcorn.

Then we moved on to  the Acquire stage by recording what we already know about corn and corn products. Next week we will be looking at different corn products, so if you have any packaging from corn products please send it in to class by Thursday.

On Thursday we had the first of 4 1/2 hour Grass Hopper Tennis sessions with Andre who already knew some of our Room 11 friends. See how we got on:

Friday was an especially busy day. We had visiting children joining us in the morning and we shared one of our favourite Sloppy Tiger stories with them before colouring, cutting and constructing our own tigers.

We then had our Kowhai Good Work assembly. Take a look at some of our Room 11 friends who have had a birthday recently or have been working extremely hard.

On Friday afternoon we learnt all about the Battle of Agin Court from Captain Blunder and his friends. Then we watched our buddies take part in a mock battle and cheered on the red team with our flags we had made earlier.

We ended the week with a story called ERF read to us by Thomas's mum. At the end of the book we spotted Thomas's name!

Our poem for this week reminded us to wear our sun hats at morning tea and lunch time. In Term 4 every child and adult needs to have a wide brimmed sun hat at school.

As you will be aware we started using a maths and reading on line eductaional site called Scootpad this week. It is the first time I have used it and I am pleased with the results so far. I hope you all receieved the information about how to sign up at home. If you have any queries pop in and see me or send me an email.

Still on the subject if ICT some of you who had iphones, ipads or ipods may find this information evening useful:
On 1st November, Allanah King, local ICT facilitator, is co-ordinating an iPad evening at 7pm at
the Wooden Spoon cafe, 251 Queen Street in Richmond sharing education uses and apps of particular interest to parents. The evening will be limited to 40 people. If you are interested in attending please either email Allanah directly allanah.king@gmail.com or sign up on this doc.

WHAT ARE WE LEARNING IN WEEK 1 TERM 4?

Tricky words: back

Grammar: verbs

Writing: simple recounts

Maths: numeracy, ordinal numbers

Inquiry: The Pop Corn Shop

Art: : Fabric and Fibre

P.E. Tennis and Throwing

ICT: Scootpad and Animation

Maori:  colours

REMINDERS

Friday: Library Day, library books must be returned on or before Friday each week.
Term 4 end 18th December 12.00 noon

Week 11 Term 3

Emoticons

Emoticons

This week was our last week of a very busy term. On Wednesday we shared our folk dancing skills with our families and we even got them to join in with us. Take a look at the following Movie Maker clip from the performance. We had some other videos shot from a camera but they are too big to upload here.  I will play them before school during week 1 of next term.

On Thursday and Friday Tracy was working with us individually whilst Dean taught the class all about mammals and birds. We also had a visit from some ex Room 11 children, now in Year 2, who returned to share their picture books with us.

Friday was also a sad day for us as we had to say good bye to Katharina. She has worked in classes across the whole school but has spent a significant amount of time with us in Room 11. She has been part of our room since Term 1 and we will certainly miss her next term. Good luck and thank you for all your support, we look forward to arranging a skype story time with you when you are back in Germany.

Finally check out the new tab  to "Our Note Page". This is an online board where we can leave notes to each other to say "hi" to our Room 11 friends and tell them what we are doing in the holidays or tell Tracy about our learning.

Who will be the first to try it out......?

I will send out a general email later in the holidays to let you know what is going on in Term 4.

Have a safe and happy holiday.

Tracy