Week 8 Term Three

Wow, only two weeks to go and it's the holidays! (Yikes, only two weeks to go and so much to do).

The students have been completing their animations of a myth this week.  A great opportunity to practice cooperative skills and the key competency of managing time effectively.

Reading has focussed around a 2011 School Journal which is packed full of terrific articles to do with the Rugby World Cup.  Their country studies are shaping up nicely with lots of talk around the shared lunch next Monday (October 3rd).

While we were at the museum last week we took in the exhibition of Nigel Brown's art.  This week we started planning a piece of our art that reflects his style.  These will be well underway next week.

Next week we will also be drafting questions for our section in the inaugural KiwiKwiz which is on Wednesday October 5th.  This will be fun night and a chance for students to impress us with all that they have learned around Kiwiana.  Please start organising teams of 6, three adults and three students, and enter either by email or with the form in this weeks newsletter.

Order forms for the calendar fundraiser went home today.  You can view the art that will be used in the calendar in a folder in Room 7.

Keep up the reading, spelling and basic facts at home, this is making a difference in class.  Ask about the secret weapon for learning multiplication facts but shhhhhh, you didn't hear about it here!

Week 7 almost over already and once again it has been a very busy week in Room 7!

Today I have the pleasure of teaching again as it is Mrs Donnelly's turn to be sick.  She has lost her voice, which I am sure her husband is pleased about?

Tuesday was a late night for many of our class as they participated in the ILT Sing Out at the Civic Theatre.  Our singers were Baylee, Azra, Saraya, Dominic, Ella and Emma and they thought it was initially 'nerve racking', but quickly got over their stage fright and really enjoyed it! The school's individual items were amazing and in particular Room 7 were inspired by the Girl's High item.  Emma commented that, "they sung like angels!"

This week we have been busy preparing to create our "I Can Animate" retellings of our myths and legends.  Firstly, we had to select our background pictures and then we had to make our characters.  Our next step is to use the video cameras to take all our clips to make our animation.  We can't wait until we see our end result.

On Wednesday we had a panel of guest speakers made up of parents from our school.  There were two people from South Africa, one from Germany, one from Australia and one from England.  They talked about the differences between their home country and here.  Some of the interesting facts we learnt about were;

1. In Germany you are allowed to go as fast as your car can go on the highway.
2. In England they lock their doors, even when they are in the house because they don't know who is lurking around.
3. In England and Germany their Christmas is in winter.
4. New Zealanders are know for our sheep.

Yesterday was lots of fun because we got to go on a Scavenger Hunt around Invercargill.  We had to figure out the places by reading poems and finding the clues.  We took lots of photos as evidence.  It was really fun because we got to work in groups with our friends and work out challenges.  Some of the places that we had to find were the Water Tower, Queen's Park, Anderson Park and The Trooper in the roundabout.  After the Scavenger Hunt we went to the museum and saw the photographic exhibition of Invercargill 150 years ago.  We learnt that Invercargill has changed a lot, but some of the buildings are still standing such as Boys High.

Yesterday was also the start of our Global Children's Challenge and we have been accumulating lots of steps on our pedometers.  In our quest to be the winners we have realised that walking/running lots makes us really tired.  We were surprised at how many steps we took in a day.  It was a lot more then we thought!

Happy reading from Mrs Webster and the fabulous learners in Room 7

Blog List

Hi Room 7

I have added a link to the blog that we looked at today with the cool video clips on it.  This blog is curated by a lady and a three year old so there are some pretty interesting and unusual clips added.

Take a moment to look at 'The Kid Should See This' and scroll down to watch Scottish Pro Rider Danny MacAskill do some amazing trial riding on the streets.  I wouldn't recommend trying anything he does but it is amazing to see someone else do it!

Week 6 Term Three

Week 6 has been wicked in Room 7!

Mrs Webster has been away sick this week so I have been at the helm and loving it.  We have got stuck in to measurement in maths with  groups exploring perimeter and area and beginning to work on angles.  Check out a couple of links under the measurement heading on the left of this blog to see what some have been practising.

The students have worked really hard to get their very own myths written ready for Mrs Webster next week.  These all look great, what a creative bunch we have!

We have looked deeper at some poems written about Invercargill landmarks.  These poems will be used in our scavenger hunt round town next Thursday.  It has been a challenge to talk about what the poem is saying without giving away the landmark!  In doing this we have expanded vocabularies with some wonderful language and practised those important dictionary skills.

I have taken the opportunity to teach and consolidate some new Jump Jam routines in fitness time.  Two new routines have been added to our growing repertoire, 'She Bangs; and the kids favourite, 'Butterfly'.

During Inquiry time we sorted some animals and discovered that they all have a connection with Invercargill.  Some interesting facts were learnt along the way.  The possum was first introduced to New Zealand in 1858 at Riverton and there are two dead elephants buried here!  See if your child can remember where.

The Dreamweaver visited on Wednesday.  An Invercargill icon in her own right, many of us will remember hearing her tell stories when we were small at the Don Street library.  She challenged the students to retell one of her stories; I wonder who was able to?

We had our final visit with Jenna from Golf Southland.  This has been a real hit!  It was exciting to see so many students achieve a massive improvement in their swing in just two sessions.

I am off on the ski trip tomorrow so the remaining students will be divided in to two groups and shared between Room 6 and Room 10, filling the spaces of the skiers from those classes.  The school will be hosting students from SIT who have planned games and activities for the afternoon.  I look forward to hearing about how this goes, from Zumba Atomic to rugby jersey design, something for everyone.

Hope you have enjoyed reading about our week, have a great weekend!

Gillian

This weekend is the "kick off" of the Rugby World Cup.  Over the next month we will be engaged in lots of learning around aspects linked to the RWC so watch this space for details.  For a bit of Rugby fun follow this link:http://www.ruggerland.co.nz/

Caleb's Holiday

As a comment to our first post there is an update from Caleb M.  Here are some photos of him at surf school.

Reflecting on your learning

Thanks for the invitation to your blog, I enjoyed reading about your learning, you seem to be doing a lot of interesting things.
What did you find out about New Zealand traits or characteristics from watching the ads?

The Placenames Song

Week 5 Term Three

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to our Blog!  We will be using this blog in class as a way to access online material for group activities as well as a way to communicate our learning journey.  Please feel free to leave a comment.  Comments will be moderated by Mrs Donnelly before they appear on the blog.  Below are some highlights of the week written by our students.

We went to a play on Thursday called 'Hear to See' about a boy called Olly.  He battles through his addiction to his playstation.  At the start of the play he ignored everyone around him as he was obsessed with his game.  He meets new and interesting characters that help him reach his   destination. It was an amazing show to see, incredible lighting and puppetry.  

By Holly and Makayla

Over the past two weeks we have been writing our own Maori Myths or Legends about something local.  We are all working hard to get these completed.

By Taz, Caleb M, Taine and Tate

This week we watched ads with Room 6. We were lucky enough to have both Mrs Webster and Mrs Donnelly for this session!  We were watching the ads to gather information about how the personality traits and language of New Zealand is presented in the media.  We also talked about how this    made us feel.  We went into groups and we learnt a new word, rad. Some of the clips we watched were Goodnight Kiwi, ads for Instant Kiwi, L & P and Tip Top.

By Liam and Michael

We have been doing Google designs to make a design for the google home page.  The best one goes on the google home page next year.  Also its a  kiwiana home page. 

By Mandy and Matt

Yesterday we had our first session of golf with Jenna from Golf Southland. We were very lucky to time our lesson with the weather.  We all learned the correct stance and swing technique to hit a ball for miles!  We will be having another session with Jenna next Thursday.

Congratulations to our very own Hamish and Isaac who represented Enrich to win the Southland Island Chess Tournament yesterday.  Outstanding effort!

Another great week in Room 7!