I am...

Here are two great examples of our 'I am' poetry from last week. Some of us are still publishing our poems. Everyone has done a fantastic job and we are all pretty confident at rhyming (especially with a little help from rhymezone!)

Tino pai Brooke rāua ko Te Amohanga! Great self-regulated learning!

Writing Week 5

This week we are going to be learning all about conjunctions; how they are used, why they are used and where they can be placed within sentences. Before we start joining our sentences together with these special joining words, we revisited how to write simple sentences.

Today we were learning to identify verbs (or verb phrases) and subjects within simple sentences.

We know that a simple sentence is made up of one verb and one subject. At first we found it tricky identifying the subject but we learnt that the subject is what the sentence is about so the subject is the 'thing' that is completing the action (verb). 

Here are some examples we came up with on the board, altogether:
(Note: we put a red box around the subject and an orange box around the verb/verb phrase) 

Miss Osborn has started to introduce writing prompts for free writing (there are some weird and funny photos on our writing wall, that we can use to help motivate us to write if we are stuck for ideas). The picture we used today was of a boy surrounded in a mysterious, brown sludge - some of us thought it was mud and some of us thought it was chocolate, it was a great debate! We got to choose what we thought it was when we went to our desks to write our own simple sentences.

Stay tuned for some snapshots of our out-of-this-world simple sentences.

Chipmunks Weather Kid

Check out the talented Molly Henderson! Molly was lucky enough to read the weather on the radio, last Wednesday. She did such an awesome job; her classmates said that she was confident and spoke in a clear voice and they thought that was great!

Stay tuned for a sound clip of Molly on the radio! 

Fit Kids!

A huge congratulations to Ollie and Cody for their efforts at the 'Weetbix Tryathlon' in the weekend! We are so proud of you two, ka pai kōrua!

Here is a message and some photos sent in by Ollie's mum, Rachel (thanks Mrs Davis!)

"What an amazing day Ollie and Cody had at the Dunedin Weetbix Tryathlon. A record 1234 children participated and the boys did us proud. They worked really well as a team - Cody swam 100 metres, then Ollie biked 4 kms then they both ran 1.5kms together to the finish line. Both families were really proud of them."

Outstanding Work 18/2/16

Check out this amazing work! Well done Connor, you worked so well and put in lots of effort! RERE would be so proud!

We were learning the Māori names for:
Mountain: Maunga
Hill: Puke
River: Awa
Lake: Roto
Ocean/Sea: Moana
Canoe: Waka
Tribe: Iwi
Sub-tribe: Hapū

We have already talked to our families about landmarks and water sources that are important to us and we will use this information to write our pēpehā (a way to introduce ourselves in Māori). This will link in to our 'take a dot for a walk' art.

*Excuse my lack of macron in tō (your)

Reading Rotations

This week we are focusing on learning what is expected of us during Reading time.

Today, we discussed ways to help us find a book that we will enjoy reading. We know that we can read the blurb at the back to find out some information about what is inside a book.

We also learnt the acronym EEKK that we will use when we are buddy reading from our group browsing boxes.

Check out some of our fantastic readers practising the correct behaviours when completing activities at these stations:

WALT make 10

For homework this week, we are learning to make 10 in as many ways as possible. Today we learnt how to play the game Make 10. So far, three cards is the largest number of cards used to make 10. I wonder who will beat the record by the end of the week?

Check out some of our mathematicians learning to play this fun and competitive number knowledge game:

Ko te Rāpare tēnei rā, te 11 o Hui-tanguru.

Who were our stars today?

Drum roll please... Congratulations to: Te Rōpū Kikorangi - The Blue Group!

Ka pai, well done for working as a team and setting such a good example by displaying our school values (Respect, Effort, Responsibility and Empathy).

Meet our amazing stars (they are having their ten minutes free time before eating their lunch).

Photogenic Faces

Today during our Brain Break we took some photos outside. Sadly we are missing one key member of our classroom as she is away in Christchurch! It is not a problem though, we will take many more photos throughout the year!