End of Term One- 11 weeks of learning!

Today (Friday) marks the end of a fantastic 11 weeks of learning in Room 7. While we are all feeling a little weary, we have managed to tie up all the loose ends nicely this week- finishing a recount all about "The best party ever", completing some art, topic and PE portfolio pieces, having a fun "Healthy Sandwich" making lunchtime on Thursday, and completing some amazing self-portraits in pencil and charcoal.  We have been busy!

Room 7- enjoy the 2 week break! See you next term!

Healthy Sandwiches

As promised, here are the photos take at Lunch today, when Room 7 made the healthy sandwiches. They all looked delicious!

Using a ranking ladder as an assessment activity

This afternoon we started an assessment piece for this term's topic, "Happy Healthy Me".  Rather than individually writing a report on what they have learned, children worked in small, co-operative groups to brainstorm ideas about what they can do each day to stay happy, stay healthy and stay fit. They recorded their ideas on post-its. A couple of children chose to illustrated some of their ideas, if they felt they didn't quite have the words to describe their thinking.

Next, the children worked together to discuss the 'importance' of each idea. Each group used a ranking ladder to do this. Rules for using the ranking ladder include:

• each member of the group must be satisfied with the place of each idea on the ladder.
• If disagreement occurs, each person must explain why they wish to rank that idea the way they do
• If disagreement continues, then the idea is placed to the side.

Finally, they numbered their most "important" idea as number one, and then worked down, in terms of importance.

This activity promotes lots of oral discussion and negotiations skills. It also allows for students to support each other with the remembering of key moments of learning.  Rather than 'sinking or swimming' individually, collectively the group can all work together to achieve a successful outcome.

New student work on Class of 2011 blog

Recently Room 7 have written description of people we know really well. We have started to record these descriptions and post them on the Class of 2011 blog (link to the right). This is our first time using Vocaroo, but we hope to get much better as the year goes on!

Using Vocaroo to record a story

Learning about the digestive system

Over the last 2 weeks we have been learning all about our digestive system.

We spent some time exploring the insides of our body using a really good interactive website. We then summarised what we had learned about each part of the digestive system. 

adding a description to each part of the digestive system

Reading what others have written

Checking with a buddy for accuracy

We also had fun replicating the digestive system using a banana, some papertowels and a plastic bag.

Thomas and Dylan being 'teeth' and munching the banana

Milly being the stomach, and mixing stomach acid (we used vinegar) into the banana.

Edie and Charlotte squeezing the banana nutrients through the small intestine

We were also very lucky to have Dr Beena Hegde (Max's Mum) come into class and teach us all about the intestines and how they work. 

Dr Beena Hegde using her son Max as a medical model!

Listening for

Borborygmi!

The class is being the digestive track, and the ball is a piece of food. Where does it go? What happens to the food?

The word of the day is 'Borborygmi', otherwise known as tummy grumbles. Listening through the stethoscope was lots of fun!

Yesterday's trip

We spent a wonderful day yesterday in Wellington at the Capital E Arts Festival. Excitement rose when we were picked up at the school gates in a double decker bus!

The first show we saw was at Downstage Theatre and was called "Grimace" . It was a mix of different nursery rhymes and fairy tails all jumbled up, wit wonderful actors who jumped, climbers and raced all over the stage. The musician for this show was fantastic!

Next we went to Paramount Theatre and watch the fantastic presentation "Passing Wind". Linsey Pollak

is a very talented composer who makes musical instrucments out of every-day objects- like camping stools and carrots! Amazing!

Linsey Pollak playing the carrot

Last show of the day was in the  Capital E auditorium. "Boats" was a humourous, sad tale of lost love at sea. There were some amazing scenes, my favourite was when the actors made a real 'storm in a teacup'!

We had a really great day. Thanks to our Capital E host and the others a Capital E who have worked very hard on this years festival.

Growing seedlings

We are growing seedlings for the Year 3-4 garden. We are growing an autumn crop of Bok Choy, Spinach and Cauliflower.

 

We are growing the seedlings in teabags. The teabags have all the nutrients that the seeds need to grow into seedlings.

Mr Dobson found this ideas HERE in the Kiwi Conservation Club magazine. It's a great way to recycle used teabags!

Today's picnic at Days Bay

We had a perfectly sunny day for our picnic at Days Bay today. After a great sand-sculpture competition, we headed over to Williams Park for lunch and games.

 

We had a great time!

Our first week at school

We have had a very busy first week at school. We are reading "Georges Marvellous Medicine" and have made some cool 'GR' blend posters, describing George's grandma. Grouchy, Grumbly and 'Old Grunion' were three very popular adjectives!

We also finished our "Thinking hats" about who we are and what we hope to achieve this year. We used the White Hat (facts about me), Yellow Hat (What I am good at), Green Hat (What I want to achieve in 2011) and Red Hat (Things that make me happy/sad)

This term's focus for Art is drawing. This week we spent most afternoons 'drawing what we see, not what we think we see'. It was harder than it sounds!

sometimes the most interesting things were not where we expected to find them!

Next week should be even more exciting!

Meet the class of 2011!

Aren't they a handsome bunch!

PS22 Chorus- New song!

I just love these guys! PS22 Chorus, an elementary school chorus from Public School 22 in Graniteville, Staten Island (New York), just ROCK!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has had a great Christmas and you are all enjoying the great summer weather of the January school holidays!

I have been enjoying a wonderful 2 week holiday in the South Island. The weather, apart from a day of rain on the West Coast, has been warm and sunny. Below are a few Photos of the places I have been visiting:

Kayaking down the Dart River, Queenstown

The Jetboat ride up the Dart River.

Mt Cook in the distance!

About to roll Jaffas down Baldwin Street, Dunedin, the steepest street in the world!

Moeraki Bolders, which were once thought to be fossilized dinosaur eggs!

The TSS Ernslaw, on Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown

Waterfalls coming from nowhere, besides a rainy West Coast road, near Haast.

"Walking with our eyes closed" Poetry

Recently we have been writing a poem about the beach. What is different is the way we are writing this poem, 'with our eyes shut'! What this actually means is that instead of using our sight sense, we are using our other senses to describe the beach- touch, hearing, smell and taste.

Here are some pictures of us at the beach, 'walking with our eyes closed', using senses other that sight to describe the beach.

Our Plate Tectonic movies

FINALLY we have finished our stop-frame animation movies about Plate tectonics. It took a while, but we got there!

Head over to the 'Class of 2010' blog (on the menu bar to the right) and have a look.

Not all movies are uploaded yet, but they will be by the end of the week!

Sewing

Today we spent the afternoon learning how to sew a 'double stitch'.

Plate Tectonics

This week we have been investigating how Nepal was created. We've found out that:

• The surface of the world is broken into large chunks called 'plates'
• These plate slowly drift around ontop of the liquid mantle that is below the surface of the earth
• Sometimes these plates collide, and can force land up or down, making either mountains or deep trenches

We saw on 'Google Earth'  the  plate boundary that runs through New Zealand. We could see the deep ocean trenches and big mountain ranges, where two plates were pushing against each other.

We then looked at Nepal and saw the great Himalayan Mountains. We watched an animation that showed how, over time, the Indian plate collided with the Asian plate, forcing land that was once the ocean floor, many kilometres up into the air. Wow!

We broke into small groups and made our own tectonic plates out of plaster-cine, and made a small stop-frame animation of our plates colliding.

As soon as we finish our animations we will post them on the 'Class of 2010' Student blog. Head over there to have a look (link on the right hand side)

Term 4 about to begin!

What wonderful weather we've had for the 2nd week of the school holidays! Who would have thought a Wellington spring could be so warm and sunny? I hope all of you have been able to get out and enjoy it- a walk in the bush, a bike ride to Pencarrow, or lazing on the beach at Days Bay.

In Term 4 all Year 3-4 classes are going to explore our school's relationship with Bistachap Orphanage in Nepal.

This relationship has been ongoing for many years now, supported through "The Orphans of Nepal Trust"
We will spend a lot of time throughout the term learning about Nepal, and working out 'how we can make a difference' in the day-to-day life of the children in Bistachap orphanage.

The first two weeks of this study will explore how Nepal was formed.....
PLATE TECTONICS and EARTHQUAKES!

Visit the Y3-4 wiki to get a head start on what plate tectonics are, and how the Himalayan Mountains were formed. 

The Short but Incredibly Happy Life of Riley

Over on Muritai TV this post was uploaded today, and is a great recap of the school production "The Short but Incredibly Happy Life of Riley".

What I loved so much about our Year 4 item this year was that probably 80% of the choreography for the dancing parts was arranged by the students themselves! We have some very talented dancers, and it shows!

I hope you all have a chance to see the show this week.