Our Virtual Chick

Jared and Thomas decided we should adopt a pet chick for our blog as well as the ones we have in class.

adopt your own virtual pet!

Eggs and chickens

We are expecting some day old chicks to arrive in our class sometime in the next few days.
We have been finding out about the life cycle of a chicken.
Here are some videos. The first one shows a hen laying an egg. The second one shows a chick hatching from an egg.

November record of the weather

This is our record of the weather for the month of November. Most weather has been sunny. Some days have been a little bit rainy and cl0udy. Now we have finished November, we are up to December. :):) 24 zzzzzz to Christmas.

Our Worm Farm

Ages ago, last year, when we were thinking about rubbish and recycling, we decided that it would be a good idea to have a worm farm at school.
This term, we remembered about the worm farm when the Leopards were reading "Extraordinary Earthworms" and we realised that worms change the soil and food scraps, so this week, we made a worm farm.
Here is the part of a procedure when you tell all the steps for how to make something.
We forgot to say: Put the lid on.
Now we have put the worm farm in a shady place and we will check it to keep it moist for the earthworms. We will put some food scraps in too.

Making Waffles

Today we were making waffles in the staffroom. We used milk, salt, egg yolks, flour, sugar, egg white, baking powder, and butter. We mixed them all together and we popped it in the waffle iron and we waited for 10 minutes until out popped yummy waffles.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Radish Seeds Sprout

Another video: A Plant Story

Narrated Video: A Plant Story

More educational games & videos on Plants at NeoK12.com  

Time lapse radish seeds sprouting, top and roots growing
We couldn't watch our cress seeds sprout like this. The change happens too slowly. This video was made over a long time and then sped up so we can see the changes happening.

More science games & videos on Plants at NeoK12.com

Slow Change with Cress

On Thursday Mrs Parris told us to plant some cress seeds at school in the class. We were finding out about slow change and how seeds start to grow.
We used cotton wool and seeds and water and a saucer for each group.
We split into eight groups and first we got a saucer and then we got cotton wool and then we put the seeds on and sprayed water on it.
On Saturday and Sunday they all grew.
Arleigha and class

Quick Change

Check out our quick change brainstorm. We came up with a lot of ideas.
One thing we thought about was how some changes are "in a flash," like fireworks and other changes are not quite so fast, like an ice cream melting on a sunny day.

Thinking about change

Here is our voice thread where we shared our first ideas about change.
Here is a poster and some collage pictures that show some of the things we can think of that change.

Show Day Reflections

Listen to our stories about Show Day in this voice thread. Ms Donnell asked us to think about reading with expression.

Show Day in our classroom

This morning was very busy as we worked to get our classroom ready for Show Day tomorrow. You can see what we made in this animoto video.
There is a a slide show too, so that you can read our stories.
We had to work very quickly to get everything finished in one day.
We were also learning to bring our photos into Kid Pix and save our work by ourselves.

Show day 2010

View more presentations from Tina Donnell.

Harold and the Healthy Food Pyramid

We have Harold the Giraffe visiting our school this week.
Here is a link to a great website to find out more about a balanced diet using the healthy food pyramid.

Learning from Picture Books

In this story we decided that the author wanted to tell us that people (or mice) who look and think and dream can help us as much as the ones who do other jobs.
Frederick helped the family of mice get through the long cold winter because he reminded them of the warmth and colours of the summer and created a beautiful poem to share with them. These were his supplies.
Here are the collage pictures we created after looking at Leo Lionni's beautiful work.
This was a good way to use the paintings we made earlier in the term.

Musical Instruments and Ideas About Sound

We have been thinking about musical instruments and the way you play them to make sounds. Ms Donnell asked us the question, "What causes sound?"
You can see some of the work we have done in this animoto video.

Colour Wheel Clowns

These clowns have made a big splash in our corridor but here they are on our blog.
We made them with a mixture of paint, collage and pastel. We hope you like them.

Exploring Running

Simon was teaching us running and jumping. All of us were practicing. We were jumping over some big hurdles.

Our Concert

The big night has been and gone. The concert is over for another year.
We all worked so hard to learn all the songs. We played and we danced and our costumes looked great. There was lots of laughter and our family and friends enjoyed the show.
Here is a voice thread to show you the different acts we put on. We will work to tell some of our stories about the show.
When we made our comments, Ms Donnell asked us to listen to what other people had said and try to add some new ideas.

Thinking about earthquakes

We have heard about the earthquake in Christchurch and seen photos of what has happened to buildings there.
What makes an earthquake happen?
You might like to look at this video to find some answers.
What should you do in an earthquake? Click on this "Things to know" picture to find out.
How do earthquakes change the land? Look at the slide show to find out more.

More Kandinsky Circles

Kandinsky Circles on Kid Pix on PhotoPeach

Jared's Story About the Concert

In a couple of days we are going to have a concert at the hall.
I am going to be a dancer.
There's a green group and a red group.
Tom and Tuhirangi and Joel and Oliver are dressing up as dinosaurs, if they like.
The green group is dancing for Riverdance and Shake it up, baby. I am in the green group.
I feel excited about the concert.

Irish Dance

We had a go at hip hop today. That was fun, so let's have a go at this step for Irish Dancing. It might be handy for our Riverdance item.

Hip Hop Dance Move

Today we were trying out some hip hop and rap dance moves. Here are some ideas you might like to try.




This one is a little trickier.

Collage Circles

We are learning to create collage pictures.
In these pictures we had to trace around the shapes, then cut them out and arrange them on our black paper.
We learned to use the scrapers with the PVA to put the glue around the edges.
An artist called Kandinsky had this idea for creating pictures.
He thought that making art is like making music. He wrote this: “ "Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."
You can see some of his circle pictures here.

Facial Expressions

Communication - what is it?

Our theme this term is COMMUNICATION. Here is a voice thread about some of the thinking we have done so far. You will see our brainstorm where we tried to work out what the word communication is about. You will see our definitions of communication and some examples of ways people communicate.
We will be adding our voices to this over the next few days.

Maths Week 2010

Maths Week is coming up next week. Check out this website to find out more.

Oliver's See-through Clock

On Friday Oliver brought his see-through clock to school.
I got to take photos of it but they were bad so I had to delete them so Ms Donnell did one and it was good so we didn't delete that one.
We put it on the computer at the doorway. by Maddison
Maddison took a responsible risk and had a go at taking a photo of Oliver's clock. It was very hard to get a good photo because the clock was see-through and we needed to hold some paper up to make a background. It took quite a few tries before we got a photo that was good enough.

Model Clocks

Model Clocks
We had fun on Friday making these model clocks and practicing o'clock and half past times.
We hope you enjoy this show.

Clocks and measuring time

Clocks on PhotoPeach This week we have been thinking about time. Ms Donnell asked us to draw the clocks we have at home and bring our drawings of them to school. There are lots of clocks to look at.

Reflecting on our models

This is a voice thread, but we did not have time to read our writing for people to listen to our stories.
Ms Donnell thought we worked well to share our ideas about how we did.

Vehicles with Wheels and Axles

Our Road Transport Models on PhotoPeach

Our Voice Thread About Making Models

Click on the link to hear our voice thread about making our models.

Making Model Vehicles

We have been so busy today. We turned these boxes into fantastic model vehicles.
We have lots of photos to show us all at work, gluing, cutting dowel with the hacksaws, axles, and doing so much learning.
Hopefully Ms Donnell will be able to get them onto animoto for everyone to enjoy. There was a technical hitch today.

Learning about levers

Yesterday we followed some instructions from a book to make a lever.
We used the lever to lift a heavy book. The block you can see in the picture is called the fulcrum. We put the fulcrum at the 30cm mark on the metre ruler. This place worked well to make it easy to lift the heavy book.
A lever is a useful machine to help people lift heavy loads up and down.

Thinking about machines

Machines
If you click on the menu at the bottom left of the slide show, you will be able to look at this on full screen.

View more presentations from tinad.

How do things move?

News about one of our frogs from Olly

Oliver sent me an email with this comic strip on it.
Read and find out what he has to say.

The Rodney Library Road Show

We had a visit from Anne and Nicky from the Warkworth and Mahurangi Libraries today.
It was fun helping them to act out their stories. Look at our video to see some of the things we got up to.

Crazy Hair Day at Kaipara Flats

It was crazy hair day today. Room 3 were raising money for the Make a Wish Foundation.

Tornado at Kaipara Flats

On Saturday something very scary happened at Kaipara Flats. There was a tornado.
We have been writing and talking about it.
Click on the picture to hear some of our stories.

Questions and Answers About Transportation

Today we had another look at the questions we asked about transportation. We talked about different places you can go to find answers to your questions and how it's a good idea to look in more than one place to find answers. We also talked about how it can be good to ask people for information too.
In one book we looked in about helicopters, it described how some people who work at sea use helicopters to get there. Thomas and Cody thought it would be good idea to ask Nick, who works on oil rigs, if he ever uses helicopters in this way.
If you click on this picture, it will take you to a voice thread where Cody and Thomas and Alexie talk about why people fly helicopters.
We are hoping Nick might be able to tell us about why people use helicopters too.

Making Our Own Stories

Our Cool Class Goes To School on PhotoPeach
We have been reading two great books: Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! and Miss Pool is Cool.
We have used ideas from both of these books to create our own pictures and stories.
We hope you enjoy them.

Maths and Kid Pix

Triangles think about number stories on PhotoPeach
In our maths we have been using transport to make up stories for number sentences.
Ms Donnell has been getting us to think about cars in garages like this: I have 5 cars and a very big garage. 2 cars are parked outside. How many are parked inside the garage?
Now the triangles have been using Kid Pix to make up some stories if their own.
We hope you enjoy them.

Learning about asking questions

Today Ms Donnell asked us, "What makes a good learner?"
Someone said, "Listening." Someone said, "Looking."
That was a really good start.
Someone said, "Lips closed." Someone else said, "Sitting quietly."
"Mmmm," said Ms Donnell. "We certainly need to do that to do good sitting at school, but will that help you learn well when you're playing a sport, like rugby?"
Well, we went on talking for a bit before Ms Donnell told us about asking questions.
That is so important that one time, Room 2 children made it a class rule: Ask lots of questions and be curious.
So today, we've been practicing making questions about the things we wanted to know more about for transportation.
If you click on the picture, it will take you to our voice thread and you can see the questions we thought of.

The Fun Bus

The Fun Bus on PhotoPeach

A Message From One of Our Frogs

Check out this comic book message from one of our frogs who went to Abby's place.
Click on the picture to see the comic better.
Click here to go make your own comic.

Our Term 2 Topic

Today Ms Donnell asked us to look at some pictures and think about what was the same about them so we could work out what our term 2 topic will be.
Here is a mind map to show our thinking.
If you click on the picture, it will link to a voicethread where we can talk some more about our ideas.
We have already written a sentence about what we think this topic is about.
Remember, you can click on the picture in voice thread to zoom in and read the words.

Term 2 Begins

Today was our first day back for Term 2.
We had a great first day.
Mrs Smart took us for assembly this morning and now we know that the habit of mind we are working on is PERSISTENCE. Stick with it and don't give up.
In Little Red Hen the hen persists to make her bread even when the other animals won't help.
This term we need to be like the little red hen. We will set our goals and work hard to achieve them, even when things get tough.
Check out the writer's blog over the next day or so. Milly did some great writing today and some other children have been using Kid Pix for writing. I will post their stories as they are finished.

Teddy Gram Note Generator

Community - the big idea on PhotoPeach
When we went to the Honey Centre one thing we learned is that bees are important in the world because they pollinate the flowers. Without them there would not be enough food.
The BIG IDEA is that all living things depend on each other.
Today we read Michael Foreman's picture book "One World" and we talked about what he wanted to tell us in this story.
Here are some of the ideas that seemed important to us.

More about beehive communities

Why is a beehive a community? on PhotoPeach

Honey Centre Voice Thread

Here are some of our stories and pictures about our trip to the Honey Centre. Over the next week we will be reading our stories for you, as our pictures are uploaded onto Voicethread.
We will be listening to our reading and thinking about how we can make it better.

The Honey Centre

Our Visit to the Honey Centre on PhotoPeach

Bees and other exciting news

Today has been so exciting in Room 2.
Our picture shows our first ideas about bees, with some of the questions we hope to find answers to on our visit to the Honey Cnetre tomorrow
BUT...
You wouldn't believe how much else has been going on.
Santana brought freshwater crayfish to school. We looked at them lots. They have nippy little pincers. Youch!
And... this afternoon we watched while one of our caterpillars changed into a chrysalis. We even managed to record this with the digital microscope.
What a busy day.

Is it a community?

Our School Picnic and other stories

What is a community?

We have had another look at our ideas about community today.
Can you see how our ideas are changing?
We had lots more to say this time.
Our next post about this will show our ideas for some rules to answer the question, "Is it a community?"

Martin's Bay Picnic Word Bank

We have been writing recounts about our school picnic at Martin's Bay.
This is the word bank we used when we were planning our writing.

Parachute Play

Parachute Play on PhotoPeach
In our class community we have to be good at working together. Playing with the parachute is a good way for us to practice this.

"Smile!" - a new story from an old story

"Smile!" said Ms Donnell on PhotoPeach
We've been reading "Smile!" said Dad by Jane Buxton. We have made a story about us, using Jane Buxton's ideas.

Tadpoles in our class community

Community - First Ideas

At the beach with my family

Read our stories about the fun we have with our family at the beach.

Our tadpoles

We have ten tadpoles in our classroom. They are eating lots and growing big. Nearly all the oxygen weed has gone because the tadpoles have been eating it. This morning when we came to school, Abby saw that one tadpole has two big back legs.
On Friday we made frog puppets.
We learned to fold paper to make a w.
We learned how to use the glue so it doesn’t make a big blob!
Our puppets are fun to play with.
It is fun having tadpoles in our classroom.
On Tuesday Santana fed the tadpoles some special tadpole food. They liked it a lot.

Welcome to Room 2 for 2010

The holidays are nearly over and we are all getting ready to go back to school.
I hope you have all had wonderful holidays and will have lots to talk about when you come back to school on Thursday 4 February.
This photo shows one of the beautiful places I visited in the holidays. It is Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula.
If you have photos of places where you have been you might be able to email them to me so we can look at them together.