Saturday, October 31, 2015

School Fair

A big thank you to all the amazing helpers who organised and manned our two stalls at the school fair today. You made the day so much easier, and so enjoyable. It was a fun day. It is great that we have raised funds to give our children more opportunities to learn. Thank you for your support. 

Here are some pictures of the Cycle Blenders and The Fun Zone. 






























Thursday, October 29, 2015

Funny story of the day

Marcus looks at the worksheet he has just been given, and says, "I've just realised why there are no trees at my bach!"

Highlights

Fire wise

We made fire safety posters today. We wrote 'Be fire wise' and the Te Reo equivalent, 'Maui tinei ahi'. 

Coded numbers

In Math Ms Bland's sister (who is also Ms Bland!!) showed us how to make some place value monsters. See if you can work out the value of each monster using these clues...

100 = feather
10 = sticker
1 = googly eye 

Instructions

During writing time we wrote instructions about what to do if there's a fire. 




Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Drawing step by step

This week we have been doing some step by step drawings. We drew a fire fighter and a fire engine. 




Making 100 fast

One of our friends found a very quick way of making 100 with sticks. She found ten bundles of ten sticks! When she explained her thinking another boy in the group commented on her faster and easier method of counting. 



Long i sound

We thought about words that had the long i sound. We found out that there are lots of ways to write the sound...


Special lights

One of our friends brought this picture of some lights that are important to him. 


Types of fires

We have been thinking about different types of fire. We looked at the pictures below and worked out if they showed indoor or outdoor fires. 


Making our stories better

Yesterday we wrote some stories, and today we made them better. The black writing below is what we wrote yesterday. The blue text is what we added today to improve our stories.


On Friday there was a fire drill. All the kids were on the grassy hill. I felt happy because I listened to the teacher. It was important. All the teachers did the roll.
By Campbell

On the weekend I went to the Fruitvale Park with my mum.I went with my scooter too. I played on the swing, slide and monkey bars and then I went home, and then I ate something. I was happy.
By Vansh

On Saturday I went to a party. The girl's name was Amisha. It was her 16th birthday party. There was a lot of music over there. We were dancing a lot over there. There were 25 girls and 3 boys. I felt happy because I like dancing with Amisha.
By Jiya

Using popsicle sticks to solve math problems

Let's make 25...

"First I make 20."

"Then we add 5 sticks to make 25."

"Let me check if I got it right."

"To make 29, how many more sticks do I need to add?"



Understanding 100

Some children had the task of making 100 by bundling sticks up into tens. They learnt that 10 tens make 100.


This is what 100 looks like!

Our stories

We wrote stories yesterday. Here are some of them...

On Sunday night I watched the movie called Spy Kids. They save their parents from being kidnapped. They are the spy family. My whole family watched it. 
By Lucy

In Saturday my sister and I were playing on the balcony. We were in a box. My sister kept falling out. 
By Sophie

In Fiji I saw a parade with my mummy and my grandma. When the parade finished we got some lollies. 
By Aleena

On Friday there was a fire drill. All the kids were on the grassy hill. I felt happy. 
By Campbell

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Sight Words champions


A cultural exchange

Some South Korean students visited our school with their teachers. Our senior school performed a powhiri to welcome them. Afterwards the Koreans performed for us. 

We sat on the bank to watch them perform some traditional music from their country. The music was loud! 








Some older Korean ladies performed a graceful dance for us. 








Getting ideas from others

We watched a video that showed a mehndi being painted on a woman's arm and hand. We noticed that it started from a single dot and talked about the shapes that we used. Lots of mehndi designs use circle shapes, flower and vine patterns. We tried using those ideas when drawing a rangoli design. 

Ms Bland used tear drops and diya shapes in this design. She also used vine patterns and tried to make her design symmetrical. 




Fire drill

We had a fire drill. Some people could not hear the alarm so they did not arrive until a louder alarm was sounded. Luckily it wasn't a real fire!


Thursday, October 22, 2015

Highlights

Place Value Monsters

To help us understand Place Value better we made a monster or robot from pictures of Place Value blocks. It was fun!


Making lanterns

Today we started to make some paper lanterns. We glued Popsicle sticks onto lunch wrap to make four squares. Next, we will decorate each square. 


Curiosity helps us learn

We watched a video of a house burning down. It helped us realise how quickly fires start and how dangerous they can be. We noticed that all the windows of the house had shattered (one of our new words). If our house burnt down we would be devastated (our other new word). 

After watching the video we had many questions about fire. We would like to ask a firefighter our questions...


Responding to images

It was fun to look at some photos and videos of flames and then, in response, move our upper body to look like them. These two friends had interesting asymmetrical movements. 



We thought that slow movements would suit best and that our arms and hands should move up and down at various heights. Even our fingers should be moving! 

We also tried making 'flames' using our legs but they weren't so effective. 


Expressing our thinking

Lately, when solving Math problems, we have been encouraged to explain our thinking. In a friendly way, we have also been encouraged to agree or disagree with someone's point of view and say why. It's surprising what we figure out when we listen to a peer explain why they disagree with us.