Spuds in a bucket!!!

Today (Wednesday 5th Nov) Mr Graham and Jordan from the school council came to give us all a red bucket.

We decorated it with vivid pens and then went over to the school garden to get some dirt.

Mr Graham then put in a handful of fertiliser to help feed the plant as it grows. He put in a seed potato with the sprouts pointing upwards.

Then he put in some more dirt on the top. We will have to remember to water out potato and put it in the sun and we will be able to take home our potatoes and eat them over the holidays!!

Yum, Yum!

Hula Hooping

On Tuesday we had a visit from Milly who came to our school to show us how to use a hula hoop. She talked to  us and demonstrated all the different ways we could use the hoop around our bodies. She showed us how to start it around our waist. Milly had lots and lots of brightly coloured hoops for us to experiment with. It was so much fun!!

Special Visitors to Room 2

On Thursday Josiah and his mum brought along his two piglets for us to look at. They were very cute. They were in a bin with some hay to keep them warm. They were very small - only two weeks old. They drink milk from their mum but when they are bigger they will eat almost anything. Josiah said they don't like orange skins much or onions. They made little squealing noises when Josiah's mum picked them up and they were a bit scared. We tried to be really quiet. We liked having them in our classroom!

Kiwiana Art By Room 2

Here is Xanthe's art work. Notice the lovely koru shapes on the frame.

Here is Grace's piece of art. She has some lovely 'greenstone' shapes on her frame also.

Cameron's Buzzy Bee is flying over the mountains. Cameron has some  NZ koru shapes on his frame.

Kiwiana at the Art Gallery

On Friday we went to the Art Gallery to look at some of the art there that has a kiwi flavour to it. Here we are listening to John our Art Gallery teacher. 

After looking at some art we went into the classroom to create our own pieces. We drew a buzzy bee - one of New Zealand's icons - and coloured it with pastel. We cut it out and stuck it onto a picture from around New Zealand. 

We stuck foil onto the frame and cut out shapes from 'greenstone' (textured paper) to put on top of the foil. We love our masterpieces which are going to be displayed in our classroom at school.

Kiwiana

In Room 2 we are learning about what makes New Zealand special. We have been talking about icons - a symbol or picture of something that is unique to our country. We have created some pictures using kidpix to show some of the well known New Zealand icons.

This is Campbell's  New Zealand flag.

Here is Salani's kiwi.

Jack's All Blacks are ready to play.

Our Olympic Fun Day

On Thursday we had our Olympic Fun day .We started with an opening ceremony where we sang the school song and raised the flag to the National Anthem. The olympic oath was read and Mrs Tobin made a speech.

 The whole school got put into teams and we went round lots of different stations. There were activities like straw javelin throwing, tennis ball shotput, knee wrestling, tug of war , balloon bob and many others. It was so much fun.

The Greatest Feat.

Last Friday was the last day for our pedometers. We were really pleased that we got as far as Rotorua on our map of New Zealand. We are going to keep up with all our wonderful exercise.

Jayden's Kidpix Story

We have been using the kidpix programme on the laptops to plan and illustrate our stories. We had to choose a character and a setting for the first picture. Then we had to introduce a problem in the second and solve the problem in the third picture. We used these pictures to write the text to go with the story. Here are some of our stories.

    

Campbell's Kidpix Story

    

Isabella's Kidpix Story

We have used kidpix to plan and illustrate some creative stories. Here is Isabella's story.

Walking Down New Zealand

This week we have counted up the steps on our pedometer and we have walked 250kms. We are feeling pretty good about this especially since its been so wet!! We can't get outside to run around like we usually do.

Walking with the Athletes

Room 2 is part of the McDonalds greatest feat promotion. We all got our pedometers on Monday and we have been trying to get as many steps as we can. Unfortunately the weather has been rainy so we have been stuck inside. However we have already walked   33.6  kilometres which is pretty good  for 9 five year olds and their teacher. We will try and get heaps and heaps of steps over the next 2 and a half weeks and hopefully we will make our way down New Zealand from the top of the North Island. It won't be easy but we'll give it our best!

Peter and the Wolf

We have  started term 3 by listening to parts of the musical story of Peter and the Wolf. We have found out that different instruments play for different characters in the story. The strings play for Peter and the flute plays for the bird. We are going to think of different ways to move when each instrument plays. We have lots of great ideas in Room 2.

Our Space Pictures

This is Tane's kidpix picture showing how the earth goes round the sun.

Here is Isabella's picture.

Our Trip to the Otago Museum

We went to the Museum on Tuesday to find out about what makes day and night. Keri told us that the earth travels around the sun. The sun gives the earth light. When the sun is shining on our side of the earth it is day for us. The earth also spins around and around and around. When the earth spins around the sun can't shine on our side of the earth so it is night for us.









We went into this big balloon called the starlab. Xanthe said it was dark in the starlab. Cameron said we could see stars in the starlab. Jack D said he could see the sun in the srarlab. Jayden said he learned that the earth travels around the sun. Taylor said the stars that look red are the very old stars. Isabella said that the blue stars are the baby stars and they are the hottest you can get. Jack H said he could see the moon in the starlab. Tane said he learned that the earth travelled around the sun. Abbie said that the red stars are the coldest stars. Sarah said the yeloow/orange stars are the 'mummy and daddy'stars. Salani said she saw the moon rise.





Here we are inside the starlab.

Why do leaves fall in Autumn?

We watched Suzy's World about Autumn.

We found out...
-the leaves photosynthesise to make food for the tree.
-the tree blocks the tubes to the leaves in Autumn and puts a cap in place. The leaves fall off.
-chlorophyll makes the leaves green
-the chlorophyll disappears in Autumn and the brown, yellow, red and orange colours show through.

Autumn Pictures

We looked for the signs of Autumn like falling leaves, different coloured leaves, long shadows and warm clothes. We looked at different shaped leaves as well. We are wondering why the leaves fall off the trees.

Swimming

We are learning to go under the water and float on our backs. By Taylor

We practise doing pencil swimming- we need to be long and straight and kicking our feet. By Xanthe

I can hold onto the board and push myself up on it. By Cameron

We have been learning to blow bubbles under the water. By Isabella

We are learning how to swim. By Jack H

The Brain

The brain sends messages around your body. By Taylor

The brain helps us think. By Isabella

The brain helps you remember your memories. By Xanthe

The brain is half the size of our head. By Sarah

The brain tells us to move. By Jack

The brain works even when we are sleeping. By Tane

Our brain never stops until we are dead. By Salani

Our Topic - the body

The Heart

We learnt that ...
The heart never gets tired.
The heart pumps the blood.
It is as big as our fist.
It pumps around 10 000 times a day.
It works even when we are sleeping.
It is inside our chest by our lungs.

Here are our pictures of Room 2 and bees.

We made these pretty pictures. We used dyes and vivids to make them colourful.

The maori words are Ko wai to ingoa. This means what is your name.

We answer by saying "Ko _____ahau" which is "my name is _____."

We made these buzzy bees with coloured foil so they shine. Each bee is telling us how we can be a friend.

Room 2's Class Photo February 2008

Taylor likes to do lots of dyeing to make pictures colourful.

Abbie likes painting flowers.

Xanthe likes to go on the spider web on the adventure playground.

Tane likes painting pictures.

Jack likes to play kidpix on the computers.

Salani likes to play with the puzzles.

Sarah likes to play t-ball on the top field.

Our class is little at the moment but we will be growing soon as new children start school.