Writing in Room 8

Wow! I am so impressed with all of our descriptive writing! All of us have been working on a moment in time piece and we finally got to publish them yesterday.

Earlier in the term we were learning about the rule of thirds in photography. We each chose something to photograph using this photography rule. We all chose something non-living/non-human to photograph, which meant we had to use lots of personification in our writing.

When you are reading our booklets, open one tab at a time and see if you can guess what we are. Maecy shared her published writing with her mum yesterday and she was able to guess what Maecy was while reading the second tab! Well done Maecy! Our photos are in the middle of our booklets so you can see them as you open up the last tab (some of our photos went missing after we were given new iPads so we have used photos from google images).


Personification: giving human or human-like characteristics to something non-human e.g. The autumn leaves danced across the damp grass.

Below are photos of some outstanding examples produced by: Connor, Logan, Maecy and Jackson. Ka pai koutou! 

Reading With the Kikorangi Group

Today the Kikorangi group read a fictional text called Rowing to the Olympics. We had great discussions about this story and then talked about answering questions with more detail. Here is a photo of us working really hard today, tino pai koutou! Check out the detailed answer these three clever boys wrote together. I can't wait to read your independent activity answers!

Foyer Display Weeks 3 and 4

Guess what? Room 8 are lucky enough to display some of their outstanding mahi (work) in our school foyer! A handful of students have their animal adaptations art up for our community to read. They look great and Mrs Reid is super excited to have such a wonderful view for two weeks!

Feel free to come in and check it out!

How do people influence places and places influence people?

Today we picked coloured beans out of a cup which organised us into our Social Sciences groups. We then picked another colour, which organised us into roles within our group.

Our roles are: CEO, 2IC, Reporter and Recorder.

Today we had our first group meetings and started brainstorming pātai (questions) in our group books. We are learning to be good researchers by learning new research skills. We are also learning how to work together as a team.

Te Rōpū Tapatoru

Today Miss Osborn was so impressed with the Tapatoru group. They were learning to solve multiplication problems using repeated addition. We also looked at reversing problems.

For example:

4 x 3 is the same as 3 x 4

so

4 + 4 + 4 is the same as 3 + 3 + 3 + 3

They were super clever and did a great job! Check out some photos of us working hard today.

Walking Water

6/5/16

This morning, Room 8 took part in an experiment called Walking Water. Before starting, we had to discuss what we thought might happen after completing the experiment. We had to write predictions.

Here are some of our predictions:

"I think the liquid will soak up through the paper towels into the cup. I think that because paper towels are like toilet paper and they soak up water."
- Deacon

I think the blue water will rise up one of the paper towels and the yellow water will be soaked up by the other one. I think this because paper towels are like towels and soak up moisture.
- Taejin

When Mrs Johnstone came in to help us, she had a great wondering: she asked what would happen if we used tissues (she thought they would be too thin and break). Guess what? The tissues were much more absorbent than the cheap paper towels. Miss Osborn wonders if thick paper towels would soak up the water quicker, what do you think?

WALT explain how some animals adapt to their environment (animal adaptations)

For science we have been learning about animal adaptations. We each chose an animal to research and this is how we have published our information.

Come and check out our findings by opening the flaps we have created on our animals.

Hauora Homework

Well done to Ollie and Molly who put outstanding effort into their Hauora Homework for the past two weeks.

They collected lots of evidence and Miss Osborn really enjoyed seeing the great learning they were doing at home (their homework books were filled with examples of the activities they had done).

Well done to everyone who finished their homework and handed it in on time, what fantastic students you all are!

Here is a photo of Ollie and Molly with their picture collages of the things they love. This task targeted taha wairua (spiritual health) and encouraged them to express their feelings.

Te Rōpū Tapaono (The Hexagon Group)

We have all been very busy solving + and - problems in a range of different ways. Check out what Te Rōpū Tapaono have been learning over the past few weeks:

We have been learning the following things:

Strategy:

Adding and subtracting in ones and tens (place value) e.g.

24 + 62 = ?

20 + 60 = 80 (add the tens together)

4 + 2 = 6 (add the ones together)

80 + 6 = 86 (add both sums together)

so 24 + 62 = 86

Rearranging numbers to find compatible numbers e.g.

70 + 20 + 20 + 30 + 80 =
70 + 30 = 100
20 + 80 = 100

We have 20 left therefore:

100 + 100 + 20 = 220

Subtracting in parts e.g.

24 - 7 = ?

24 - 4 = 20 (subtract back to a tidy number)

20 - 3 = 17 (subtract the remaining number - we had 3 left because we had taken 4 from 7)

so 24 - 7 = 17

Number Knowledge: 

- Know how many groups of 10 are in numbers up to 1000

- Say 100 before and 100 after for numbers up to 1000

- Practising our subtraction facts to 10 (so that we have instant recall)

Here are three of our group members showing us their tidy book work, what a great effort Jacob, Hannah E and Brooke!

Cricket Southland

We were super lucky to have Sam, from Cricket Southland, come and teach us some cricket skills today! We were even given an awesome pack of goodies each! Check us out with our sunglasses and bags (which had colouring in pencils and a ball inside too!)

Here we are putting our 'science glasses' on!

Compound Sentences

WALT use conjunctions to join two simple sentences together. This is called a compound sentence! Ask us about our action/word combination we have made up to help us remember.

Today we worked in groups to identify the verb and subject in each simple sentence and then joined them together to make compound sentences.

Check us out!

Connor, Cody and Brooke wrote a really cool compound sentence that had the conjunction at the beginning. Clever cookies! The sentence isn't shown in the picture below but this is what it said:
As the mud stuck to his face, the boy laughed because it flew everywhere.

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."