Choosing the blog background

This week Tana chose roses.  He wanted to chose them because we have heaps of beautiful roses at our school.

Project Energize - Being in the Newspaper.

What is Project Energize?

Project Energize is a project for Waikato primary schools to improve children's physical activity and nutrition, to improve their overall health.

What does this mean for your school?

• A Team Energize staff member to support your school
• Additional professional development for teachers
• Opportunity to improve the overall health and nutrition of your students
• Continued working relationships with community health services

Libby Gray

Photo in the Waitomo News 

• Today we were lucky enough to have Libby (Our Project Energizer) for the whole day.
• We got fit.
• We play turbo touch and then a Waitomo News Reporter came down to talk to Libby about what she does.  She took our photo and we took some photos too!

Changing Our Blog Background

This week we chose Shayna-Grace

I wanted a Maori pattern but I couldn't see any so I chose the blocks because they are really colourful.

Changing Our Blog Background

Each week we will be choosing one of the students in our classroom to change the background of our blog. We are hoping this will enhance our blog and let the children take more ownership of it.


This week we chose Taipari.
I choose this background because it was money and it was about rich people. I want to be a rich person when I grow up. I want a good job that gives me lots of money.

Pictures about our trip.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

We are still writing but thought you might like a bit of a sneak preview of some of the things we did there.

Maungatautari Reserve

Last week Room 7 along with Room 1 went to Maungatautari Reserve.  Maungatautari is an internationally significant restoration project, this 3,400 hectare forested, extinct volcano stands majestically on the landscape in the Waikato basin, between Cambridge, Te Awamutu and Putaruru, in the central North Island of New Zealand. Takahe, kiwi, kaka (birds) and kokopu (fish) have already been reintroduced to two pest free enclosures!

We saw many wonderful things along the path to the viewing tower.  Over the next few weeks we would like to share with you all the amazing things we have learnt and our journey at Maungatautari.

So keep a watch out for our coming posts.

The Amazing River Swim

I really like the idea that heaps of people get to read what I did in the weekend.  It's almost like I am famous.

On Sunday I strolled to the river my by sister Misty's boyfriend, my brother, my sister Santana and my cousins.  Santana took her friend Shanelle down to the river so that she could have a swim.  When we got down to the river we all zoomed straight into the water.   When I felt it I froze.  The water was freezing cold.  After waiting on the bank a little while I was the first one to dive in because I said "I'm going to be the first one to dive in!"

After I dived in everyone else jumped in and we played tiggy.  I was always in because I could not get over the hard currents that were going down the river.  I tired but it kept on pushing me.  After a long time I made it over and tug my sister.  Then I ran away from her.  It was the best time.  I love going to the river for a swim.

Going to a Weekend Party

I just wanted to share with everyone what I did in the weekend because I haven't put anything on the blog yet.

On Saturday night I went to the Light Party instead of going to a Halloween party.  It is in Te Awamutu.  I got a green poodle balloon.  I wanted a balloon lion but my Mum didn't know where they were.

Tiber knew where they were.
"Why didn't you tell me Justus wanted one," my Mum said.
Tiber said "They cost money."
"Oh, I haven't got my wallet," said Mum.

But that was OK because I got to go on a big kids Merry-go-round and the mini cars.

Wedding Rehearsal

I wanted to share what I did in the weekend with you because its is something new for me, I haven't been to a wedding rehearsal before.


On Sunday at 9 o'clock my mum was rushing around the house getting lunch ready for my cousin's wedding rehearsal.  A rehearsal is when you practice singing.  You can rehearse your plays or anything thats important.  The wedding is going to be at Mystery Creek.  Mystery Creek is where the field-days are held each year.  But it is not at the same place as the field-days, it's just beside there. Mystery Creek is a beautiful creek with lilly pads and blooming flowers around it.  Little ducks were swimming around there.  There was a father duck and a mother duck too.

Doing Jumps at the Party.

I wanted to share my weekend diary with everyone because I think you might enjoy it.  It's interesting.

On Saturday I went to a party and rode a chopper.  I did a jump that was over 3 metres high and a long skid.  When I did the jump it felt fun, but when I did the skid I fell off and it hurt really bad.  I did more jumps after that, because I'm not scared.  The party was fun and we even got to have a swim in the river.  It's neat fun jumping in and out of the water at the river.

Our Weekend Recounts

Every Monday we share what we enjoyed doing with the class.  After deciding what we want to tell each other about we create and title and then write our recount.  Some of the children thought that you might be interested in what they did during the weekend.

We are planning to start putting our stories onto our class wikispace.  If you want to check out some of the things we do in class then click on the link below.

http://room7-ops.wikispaces.com/

Keep a look out.  We are hoping that everyone will have something to share with the world over the next few weeks.

Do you have a class wikispace or website?  If you know of any really cool websites that our class could visit, please let us know.

What do we want to be when we grow up?

What a strange topic of conversation, but that was what our class spent an hour talking about today.  What would we like to be when we grow up.  It seems like it's going to be ages until we get old enough to do anything exciting.  But we learnt today that there are short term goals and long term goals.  Most of us had short term goals such as wanting to be able to do a backwards flip on the trampoline, or wanting to read a chapter book, or even wanting to learn how to ride our scooter properly.

These were our long term goals.  They are going to take us a very long time to achieve but our class is the ACHIEVING kind.  Just wait and see.

Kymba (Year 4)
I want to be a vet so I must learn to look after animals and then I will be able to own a farm.

Shayna-Grace (Year 4)

When I grow up I want to learn how to ride my bike safely.  I will need to learn to ride carefully.

Justus (Year 2)

When I grow up I want to be an inventor.  I need to go to school and learn everything.

Freddy (Year 2)

When I grow up I want to be a banker.  I have to learn lots of maths.

Matauri (Year 4)

When I grow up I want to play rugby league for the Warriors or the Kiwis.  I have to learn to be like G. M.  I have to learn to tackle properly and not do head high tackles.

Taipari (Year 3)

When I grow up I want to be in the All Blacks.  I have to learn to kick the ball really hard and I need to be really fast at running.

Daniel (Year 3)

When I grow up I want to drive a car.  I need to get my driver's  license so I will need to learn to read and write.

Brody (Year 3)

When I grow up I want to be a TNT tester.  I will need to learn to read so that I can know about all the TNT safety rules.

Tiana (Year 4)

When I grow up I want to work at Warehouse in the book part.  i will need to learn to read so that I can tell people what the books are about.

Tana (Year 3)

When I grow up I want to buy a big motorbike.  I will have to learn where the gears are.  I have to get a helmet and a jacket to keep me safe.

Quintyn (Year 4)

When I grow up I want to be the Warriors.  I will have to learn to pass the ball and not to be scared of bigger people.  I have to be brave.

Luce (Year 3)

When I grow up I want to be a clothes designer.  i will have to learn to sew and look in magazines at people's clothes.

Jessie (Year 5)

When I grow up I want to stunts, like learning how to do a flip over 9 people lying on the ground.  I have to learn how to do a flip first.

Stella (Year 4)

When I grow up I want to be a head chef.  I must learn to cook and stay in school so that I can learn to read cook books.

Sid (Year 3)

When I grow up I want to be able to fly a plane.  i have to ask someone to help me learn to fly a plane.  I have to learn to steer the plane.  I must learn how to take off in a plane and land a plane.

Kristen (Year 4)

When I grow up I want to work at the meat works in Te Kuiti.  I'll have to learn to chop meat.  I'll have to learn what type of meats that you can eat.  I will have to get a car so that I can drive to work.

Forde (Year 3)

When I grow up I want to learn to do a big flip over 10 people on my bike.  I will have to practice a lot.

Let us know what you want to be when you get older.

We are kind and helpful, we do not hurt anybody's feelings.

We have been talking this week in our classroom about how we show that we are kind and helpful people.  This is one of our Golden Rules. Matauri did this picture about how he helps people when they are sad or if they are hurt.

When I see someone crying I go up to them and ask them what is wrong.

Matauri

Sid wrote about some of the things you do to show that you are a kind and helpful person.  He likes to use his manners.

People help me when I am in pain.  They take me to the teacher or to my Mum and Dad.  

When I really want something I use Please and Thank You.  It's called using your manners.

Sid

Rights and Responsibilities

We are learning about our rights and responsibilities to help us with our Topic Study this term.  Our big question is "What are our rights and responsibilities to ensure endangered species survive?"  It seems like a really big and really long question but Room 7 is up for the challenge.  This is what we discovered....

What are our rights?

Our rights are the things that help us live in this world, they are the things we need to live in a fair world.

Everyone has the right to have:

• safety
• education
• shelter (somewhere to live)    
• warmth           
• food   
• clothing          
• personal space            
• to be different

Of course since these rights are for everybody, that means we all have to take on responsibility too.

What is a responsibility?

A responsibility is something that is your job to do something about, or to think about. 

Some of our responsibilities:

• to follow the Golden Rules
• to be the best person that we can be  
• to take care of our own bodies   
• to respect the rights of others
• to look after our own belongings and respect the belongings of others
• to listen to the teacher so that we can learn better
• to care about my family

You might want to watch this movie.  It's about a little boy called Andy and how he learnt to be responsible.  It was made a long time ago and so it is in black and white (that means there is no colour pictures).

We are learning more each day but we wanted to know whether you have any responsibilities at your school. Some of the senior students at school get to be librarians at lunchtime or first aid monitors.  What sort of responsibilities do the children at your school have?

Adding Widgets

After looking at some of the other blogs in the blog challenge we have added some widgets to our blog so that people from other countries can learn about us.
We added a translator so people who do not speak English can read our blog.
We really like the visitor counter because we check everyday how many more people have visited our blog.
We are going to continue looking for some more interesting widgets to put on our blog.

Maybe you can suggest some widgets that you have found to be good?

Following the Golden Rules

Golden Time in our school is a time for relaxation and fun as a reward for good behaviour during the week. Everyone in school is expected to respect our Golden Rules, which are as follows:

We are gentle	We do not hurt anyone
We are kind and helpful	We do not hurt people's feelings
We are honest	We do not cover up the truth
We work hard	We do not waste your own or other people's time
We listen to people	We do not interrupt
We look after property	We do not waste or damage things

Children are encouraged to take responsibility for their own behaviour and understand they have choices and that those choices have consequences.  Every Friday the children who have been following our Golden Rules get a chance to be part of a fun and friendly activity.

This week we have been talking about how we show that we have been following the Golden Rules.  Here is what two boys in our class say about working hard and not wasting our own or other people's time.

Hard workers really concentrate on their work and never talk. I think Sid is a really hard worker in our class because he always gets his work done on time.

Taipari (Year 3)

Does your school follow the Golden Rules?  What sort of fun activities do you get to do?

Cow comes to School for part of the Day

Maybe you are thinking that in this little article that we had a Calf Club Day or an Agricultural Day, but you would be mistaken.

Today at lunchtime we had a cow come running through our playground and then it raced out the school gate and onto the road.  Two brave teachers went out onto the road to try to get it to go into the paddock next to the school but the cow just ran across the road again. Luckily as the cow went up the road some of the parents that live close to the school zoomed out and helped steer it towards another paddock.

We wanted to get it off the road just incase there was an accident.  You can see us cheering everyone when they got the cow into the paddock.

It was such a weird thing to happen that some of the children wanted to share a few cow knock knock jokes with you....

Knock Knock

Who's there?

Cow..

Cow who?

No, cow don't go who, they go moo!

Knock Knock

Who's there?

Annoying cow..

Annoying cow who?

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Back at School and ready for the Challenge

This post is for Challenge 1 in the September 2010 challenge.

We know that we were meant to do this challenge at the end of Term 3 (NZ time) but we slowly ran out of time trying to get all our work finished.  I'm sure you all understand.  We are so looking forward to exploring other blogs.  We like getting to look at where everyone comes from.  Our teacher uses Google Earth to have a look at where people who visit our blog come from.  It feels like flying.

We can't believe it's the last term already.  What a wonderful start to a new term.  Our new Year 2 students started with us today, and the children have loved having them as part of the class.  We have already chosen names for our groups.  We get points for our groups by doing all our homework, keeping our desks tidy, trying really hard to get all our work finished and correct, and by following the golden rules.  This term we are learning about rights and responsibilities, as well as visualizing (that means making pictures in our heads) and endangered species.

We look forward to sharing everything that we learn with children from all over the world.  So we hope you will check out our blog.

Viking Gods

I learnt alot about the Viking Gods.  They don't have just one god they have heaps.  I thought that Asgard was the chief god until I read a bit more about it.

Kristen (Year 4)

Viking gods

View more presentations from delwynmatene.

Viking Weapons

This is the second powperpoint that I have made.  It was really hard to find the information on the internet so we had to look in the books from the National Library.  The powerpoint icon has browny writing around it.  I learnt how to insert a picture in my slides.  I learnt how to insert a new slide.  It took a long time to finish my powerpoint.  It was hard to do all the slides.  I ran out of ideas.  I did find out that Vikings never had horns on their helmets.  Mine has but that was before I knew.

Matauri (Year 4)

The Viking weapons

View more presentations from delwynmatene.

Duffy Books in Homes - Role Model Assembly

Mary Kippenberger and Peter Charlton-Jones

Mary is a storyteller and children’s writer who lives in the Hawke’s Bay with her husband and co-performer Peter Charlton-Jones. They hold an annual music festival, record music, hold workshops and performances at their property, Te Rangi.

You tube – Mary and Peter




Mary and Peter came to our school for our Duffy Role Model Assembly. As part of the assembly we got given two free books. The Alan Duff Charitable Foundation, better known as Duffy Books in Homes, is proud to provide free books to over 100,000 New Zealand children, three times a year. If you would like to know more about this programme click on the website below:

http://www.booksinhomes.org.nz/Home.aspx

My Duffy Books

One of the Duffy books that I was given was about a secret agent called Wax.  This is a very funny book.  Wax lives in Paris and has a gun called Mrs Jones.  I think it is the best one, I really enjoyed it.  The other one is about a poor man who finds gold.  I think I will read it in the holidays.

Tana (Year 3)

Roar like Thunder

My two Duffy books are ‘Start your Engine’ and the other one is about ‘Hot Wheels’.  In the story it is race day and the cars have to start their engines.  The engines roar like thunder. I liked it because it has lots of cars in the book.  The cars circle the track slowly. It has loads of words but I can read it.

Kauri (Year 3)

And we were running on down the road.....

Running! (laa dee daa) Running! (laa dee daa)

I really liked the part when they were running and we had to sing.  They were doing a running action.  There was my brother Nicolas at the front.  He said “Can I move along with you?” because he was a cow.

Brody (Year 3)

The Little Henny Penny

Mary picked out people to help her act out a story.  I thought Henny Penny was funny.  Henny Penny was my sister Hinewai.  She couldn’t fit the hen’s hat but Mary told her it would fit if she pulled her hair tie out.  They had to make these cool sound effects.

Stella (Year 4)

Henny Penny and Duffy Books

Mary and Peter did a show and some tricks.  In the story they did a chicken, a wolf and a cow and dog were going to the palace to meet the King because the sky was falling.  They were running, they were running on down the road.

Sid (Year 3)

Hee Hee Hee!

Last Friday we got our Duffy books from Peter and Mary.  I got Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Booger Boy and Fartious Maximus.  Mary was magical because she made this red duster into an orange duster and then turned into a green bouquet with flowers.  She went “Heehee heehee” and Charlie had to copy her.

Taipari (Year 3)

Henny Penny and Duffy Books

On Friday Mary and Peter came over from Napier to be at our school to hand out Duffy books. They travel the world doing funky acts. They chose 6 people to go up and act out Henny Penny. It was really funny because Hinewai was the chicken and she had to pretend to lay an egg.



by Kristen (Year 4)

After working for a week on our Viking Helmets

Are we there yet? is the question from most of the students in Room 7.  The real answer no, not yet... but we are getting closer....

Ruben the Road Safety Bear

Hi everyone!

This morning we were lucky enough to have a visit from Ruben the Road Safety Bear.  Ruben helps all Waikato children learn to stay safe on and around the road. Ruben comes from the Waikato district and lives in Hamilton East.

His key messages:

• Stop, look, listen and link!
• Look out for sneaky driveways!
• Seat yourself right, buckle in tight!
• Be bright, dress bright!
• Helmet on right and tight
• Look about before stepping out

 

Ruben is part of the Environment Waikato Young Road User Safety Programme. He teaches children aged between three and seven years old about road safety. The Programme is supported by NZ Police and Land Transport NZ.

 

To find out more about the Ruben The Road Safety Bear programme email: ruben@ew.govt.nz or telephone the Environment Waikato Freephone on 0800 800 401    

 

You can check out Ruben the Bear by going to...

http://www.ruben.govt.nz/

Viking Warrior Helmets

As part of our Inquiry study we sent away to the National Library for books about Ancient Vikings.  After the children had spent about half an hour looking through them (I hope reading - but with the speed of the page turning I think they were just skimming over the words and focussing on the illustrations) they had found an article in one of the book about making a Viking Helmet.  We going to be adding some pictures and some of the children's thoughts about this over the next week.  We have started and the class thought it may be nice to share how we are making them.

Materials

• Newsprint
• Newspaper
• Glue (Wallpaper paste)
• Silver card board
• Paint (Bronze or Silver if possible)
• Split pins
• Ice cream container (get the children to write their names on it and it saves having to work out whose balloon belongs to which child).

Method

1. Blow up a balloon the same size as your head.
2. Paper mache the balloon - use glue to put small pieces of paper all over it.
3. Wait for it to dry and then add another layer of newpaper.
4. Wait for it to dry and then add a layer of newsprint (plain paper).
5. Trim around the bottom of the balloon to make a helmet shape.
6. Paint it bronze or silver and leave to dry.
7. To add to the helmet just use silver cardboard to create eye guard shapes, or go around the edges of the helmet with silver carboard.
8. Attach the strips of silver cardboard with the splitpins.

We will let you know how they turn out.  We are so excited about it!!
Room 7

Duffy Theatre

Last week we were lucky enough to have the Duffy Theatre troops come to our school and perform "Duffy's Occupation Exploration".

My Thoughts about Duffy
Duffy was so funny when he kept repeating when the other guy said "Don't chuck it again".  Duffy had thrown a board with a word on.  One of the words was relaxation and that means when we don't have to do anything.  I lie down and close my eyes when I relax.  I thought the Duffy show was excellent.
Stella (Year 4)

A Fresh New Start

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and the children from Room 7 have scampered off home to hopefully complete homework tasks and then have a little fun with their siblings. As the first post in our blog I just thought I’d let you know a little bit about the class. We will keep you informed about what we do each day and also hope to have the chance to send a few messages back to you via your blog.