Email Santa

It's getting late now to send Santa a letter, but you can email him on this website.  Click on the picture to go to the website and start your email.

Flexible furniture

Here we are trying out our new flexible furniture for the first time.
We now have cookie cushions, bows, bumps and hokki stools as well as our normal school chairs to sit on.

We can use this furniture in different ways.  It is flexible and gives us choices.
The cushions make it more comfortable to sit or kneel on the floor and they help us remember to stay in one place when we are working.
The bows can be like a couch or we can turn them on their side to be a stool at a table.
The bumps are good at the back of the mat, because they are a bit higher and we can see over people's heads.  We can also lie over them when we are working.
I think the furniture that I like the best is the hokki stool.  It's good to use at a table when you are working.  It has a rounded base, so as you work, you can gently rock.  It's kind of comforting.

So now we have this flexible furniture to help us to make our "smart spots" for working more comfortable.

Maths Fun To Reach Your Goals

Papier Mache Pulp Monsters

mache monsters on PhotoPeach

This week we have moved on from clay to oh so gooey papier-mâché. Some of us were quite grossed out having to stick our hands in gluey mushy newspaper. We have created mâché monster bodies inspired by Hari's King Lear characters. Now we just have to wait for the paper to dry so that we can paint and decorate them. Another challenge will be to add legs and arms. When they're all complete we will make them into fridge magnets. Nic took these photos and uploaded them to Photo Peach for us.

Clay Faces

Clay Faces on PhotoPeach

Magnets - Push and Pull With Toy Cars

This video was made from the work we did in groups to use magnets to push or pull toy cars.
Magnet Magic from Tina Donnell on Vimeo.
In this video, you will find out about some of the ways magnets are used.

Sharing Our Learning at Assembly

This week it was Room 2's turn to host assembly. Here are a couple of items we shared.

Show Day Vegetable Creations

Our Vegetable Creations on PhotoPeach

Zoe's Rainbow Town Story

Zoe has written a story about Rainbow Town. Here she is reading it for us.

Kane has recorded his description on Rainbow Town for you to listen to. Can you find all the things he describes?

Lola and Fletcher's Rainbow Town Pictures and Stories

In our art we have been looking at the way Hundertwasser created his pictures.
We noticed his curvy lines and patterns and vivid colours.
We listened to the story "The Wizard and the Rainbow" by Kath Vickers and imagined what Rainbow Town would look like.
Just like Hundertwasser, we used lots of curvy lines and patterns and colours to create the things we heard about in the story.
Here are two of the pictures and the stories that go with them.

Balance like an Olympic Gymnast

Have you watched the gymnasts in the Olympics?  I wonder if you have noticed how they finish their routines.  They have to finish with good balance and they land on two feet with their arms in the air.
This week Tony was teaching us about balancing and being balanced.  We also worked on our tennis skills.
Here is a video showing us at work.

Cross Country - Fun in the mud

Here are the photos we took as children raced this Thursday. It was certainly very muddy. Hippos would have loved it and lots of kids took advantage of the chance to wallow, despite the teachers' best efforts to keep them clean and dry. Here is Year 1's video.
Make your own slideshow at Animoto.
This one is Year 2 children.
Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.
This is some Year 2 boys and Year 3 girls.
Try our slideshow creator at Animoto.
I think this is Year 3.
Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.
This one is mostly about mud.
Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.

"Faster, higher, stronger"

"Faster, higher, stronger" That's the Olympic motto and that's also what we worked on with Tony this Thursday in our PE lesson.
He asked us to think about how we can jump higher and how we can jump longer.
When we ran the relays he challenged us to run faster to improve our time to complete the race. The challenge was for the whole class to finish the race in a faster time than children from other schools.
And you know what? WE DID IT!
Have a look at the photos below to see us in action.

Counting back with Finger Count

There was a lot of popping going on in Room 2 today as children worked with buddies to practice counting backwards.
We were using an app called Finger Count.
First we had to count forwards to 40. Each time we touched the screen a number would appear where our finger had been.
Once we got to 40, we took turns to find the numbers, counting backwards. If we got the right one, it would pop and disappear. If we missed, a new number would appear. If we popped a lower number, all the other numbers would change.
What were we learning? We were learning to count backwards and at the same time we were working together.
How did we do?
Well, there was certainly a lot of popping going on in Room 2 today.

Olympic Dreams

Read this ebook about the Olympics.

Sharing our learning with other classes in New Zealand

Click on the picture to go to another blog where children from different schools have shared their thinking about caring for the environment.
A group of children in our class are working on making a slideshow to post on this blog. When we have finished we PASS IT ON to another class. That is why the blog is called, "Pass it on".

Interactive Writing - A Poem

Today we were reading our poem for the week about making popcorn and we noticed that it was organised in a special way.
We called the organisation: "Instruction, then sound words" and we had a go at writing a poem like that about making our cardboard prints.
Here it is:
Cardboard Print
Get out the cardboard.
Flippety, flippety flip.

Cut with the scissors.
Snippety, snippety, snip.

Spread the glue.
Splishety, splishety, splish.

Stick on the shapes.
Sticky, sticky, stick.

Put the cardboard block on the shelf to dry.
And wait…. and wait….
Now get ready to print.

Roll the roller in the ink.
Rollety, rollety roll.

Roll the roller on the block.
Bumpety, bumpety, bump.

Put the paper on the block…
and roll… and roll…
Now lift the paper off.
Wow!

Art - Print making

Last week we made blocks for cardboard prints, and on Friday, we finally got to see the finished result.
We can watch Grady and Jack as they print pictures from their blocks.
The subject of our pictures this time was a house. We were thinking about adding details.

Looking after our teeth

We have been learning about brushing our teeth.The messages are: Use fluoride toothpaste. Floss daily. Brush at least twice a day. Limit the times you eat snacks. Have a regular dental check up.
For art today we made posters about teeth. You can see them here in two animoto videos.

Try our video maker at Animoto.

Make your own slideshow at Animoto.

Principal's Achievement Award

We have had two Friday assemblies so far this term. Four awards have been won by Room 2 children. The awards are for different ways of thinking interdependently.
Grady's award was for following the rules. It's important to follow the rules because then you know what to do and so does everyone else. That is part of thinking interdependently.
Nic's award was for being willing to help others.
Billy James' award was for seeing when a job needed to be done and doing it quickly and quietly.Kane's award was for helping people with technology.

It is great that we have interdependent thinkers in our class.

A great location for a swim

The OK Picnic Book on PhotoPeach
We talked today about all the places we like to swim.  One of the best places has to be Martins Bay.  That's where we have our picnic every year.
This year a group of children worked to create a story based on "The OK Book" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld.  All the children made pictures showing the things we do at the picnic.
Here's a link to another class that has done some work based on this book

Kane asked me to post this list of swimming locations that the class made together.

The big idea for Term 1 is...

LOCATION
What does that word mean?

Read to Self Fun

In these photos you can see the boys and girls reading to themselves.
If you read, you get really good at reading. It makes you better at reading.
If you read by yourself, you're trying to figure out what the author is trying to tell you. You check for understanding.
When you read you can learn things and you can travel to different places in your mind.
Reading to yourself is fun.