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.

Learner Conferences

Kia ora koutou

I would just like to thank everyone who attended this weeks learner conferences, I really enjoyed talking to you all! It was great to see your children sharing their learning experiences with you.

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!)

Week 7 Update and Looking Forward

Kia ora koutou!

Sorry we have not been posting a lot this week, it has been a very busy week with our visitors from the Education Review Office.

We have now set up each of our individual learning journeys (student blogs). These blogs are private and can only be accessed through our class google account. If you would like to become an 'author' so that you can post comments on your child's blog, I am more than happy to set this up for you (all I need is your email address).

WOW! We have had an amazing two weeks listening to everyone share their pēpeha for oral language! Miss Osborn is blown away by our out-of-this-world pronunciation! For the next few weeks we will be sharing a book review for news. Below are a few examples of children delivering oral book reviews. Students will be given the opportunity to prepare their book review in class (during reading time) and are allowed to use our classroom devices to pre-record this as one of their 'can do' tasks.

Because we have a short couple of weeks with the Easter break coming up, homework will look a little different this week; we are going to be doing Hauora Homework. Your child will explain to you how this works on Monday afternoon.

Mā te wā (until next time)

Miss O

Week 6 Assembly

Kia ora koutou

Room 8 is presenting a video in assembly on Friday. We would love for you to come along and check it out.

It will include some photos of us working in class, some pictures of us with our recent 'take a dot for a walk' artwork and a few of us will be on the big screen sharing our pēpehā.

See you there!

Here we are putting our 'science glasses' on!

WALT solve + and - problems by splitting numbers to make tidy 10s

Today the Tapatoru group were learning to split numbers to make tidy tens. Lucy caught on super fast and by the end of the lesson she was using this strategy without materials. She was even solving problems that involved larger numbers too, isn't she clever!

Miss Osborn was really proud of all of our group today, she thinks we did a fantastic job of splitting numbers!

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.

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!