Friday 31st May

     
From Leeana

Today I went to the staff room.I got a empty milk carton.We had to get the straw out of the plastic with
out the plastic coming off.Then we had to fold it lots of times.It was hard.I also had to help a new
entrence girl so I pretty much had to do 2.The lady said that you had fold it to ship off to Thailand otherwise it would be to big.

Tuesday 28th May

Kia Ora all

Today we managed to get a small amount of snow falling outside. It sure has been a cold day. Maybe it will be snowing tomorrow...


READING - Summarising texts

Our main reading focus this term is the key skill of summarising texts in different ways. This might involve researching information about an animal, and summarising this information by writing your own information report. It might involve summarising a text by producing a poster to show the main points / facts.

 It also means the ability to read / or listen to a reading and summarise what was read / heard by verbally retelling the key / important information.
And this is what we did today.

We listened to a reading about baby orangatans who were rescued and taken to a safe place. Below is the text.

Click here to see a magnified view of the text

We then got into pairs and took turns summarising the key points from the text. The first speaker had 30 seconds, the second speaker had 20 seconds, and then the first speaker had only 10 seconds. 

We talked about the skill is not to speak faster, rather to just recall the IMPORTANT (KEY). information.

Scott pointed out the summarise sounds alot like samurai, so we decided that each time we do the 30,20,10 activity, we will select a 'Samarai Sumariser' - the one who gives the best summary.

Today's winner was Ashton who gave a clear, controlled summary. a special mention to Alissa who did a great job of summarising in her own words.

Maddison, Fonterra and Milk 

Today Maddison joined a group of other students as Fonterra launched the Milk in Schools programme. She did may exciting things and shared some of these with us during oral language. Below is a picture of Maddison and some of the goodies she received. Mr Forman even scored a milk container to go with his chocolate cookies. Tomorrow Maddison will add some comments.

Tuesday 21st May

Kia Ora all

A copy of the week 3 newsletter can be viewed in the Notices and Newsletters page.

Yesterday at the Kauri team assembly the awesome MYA received the Room 5 RESPECT certificate. Mya has been an amazing role model for the "R" value of our CARE values. She respects other students right to learn, is kind and helpful and helps take care of our classroom resources. Ka pai, Mya.

Orana Park

Today we jumped in the bus and made our way to Orana Park as part of our science inquiry learning.

It was a bit wet and some of the animals decided to keep in their enclosures, but we were fortunate to get access to the giraffe enclosure to view, very up close for some, Harriot and two adult giraffe.

Apparently we were the first Zoo School group to get access to this area.

We learned many interesting facts about the birds, mammals, reptiles etc at Orana Park, and it was pleasing to see the depth of knowledge students already had. Each student had their notebook, with many doing drawings, some writing down questions, and many others jotting down facts and new vocabulary. We will use these tomorrow to review our visit.

Wednesday 15th May

Kia Ora all

Yesterday we all went to the hall in the morning for our art lesson.
We learned some useful techniques for drawing animals. With guidance from the artist, Neil Shansky, students crafted their own 'deer sitting on ground' artwork.

We were lucky enough to be given Neil's own art work that he did whilst instructing us. You can see it in the middle of the photo below. Here we are holding up our artwork.

Here is a short video of use in action on Tuesday.

Monday 13th May

Kia Ora all

Last Friday we led the Anzac assembly. Unfortunately the photos were a little too dark and hard to see. But we do have a real nice photo of Anneke and her Koro. Anneke is wearing his medals. She wore them with much pride when she read the poem, "In Flanders Field".

We all wore a poppy to mark the occasion and decided to get a photo taken to show you. So here we are.

Here are some photos of the Kauri Cross Country held last Wednesday. A great day had by all, with some outstanding results. Way to go, Room 5!

 
 

 

Wednesday 8th May

Kia Ora all

Hopefully your toes are dry and your socks aren't too smelly after today's Kauri cross country.
Well done to everyone who took part - you have all earned house points.
Many also earned extra points for finishing in the top 15 in their year group.

A special congratulations to Ashton and Mya who finished first in their event, and Jamie and Courtney who finished third. You are now the proud owners of kauri Cross Country medals.

As promised, here is the "mystery maths question" - to be in the draw you need to write your answer on a piece of paper with your name, and place it in the "Notices and Permission Slips" orange container - before 9:00am.

The winning entry goes to the 'prize box'

Here it is: At today's cross country you earned 15 house points for coming first, and 13 points for coming third.
[1] Add Ashton and Jamie's points together. How many points?
[2]  Add Mya and Courtney points together. How many points?
[2] Add ALL the points together. How may in TOTAL?

Good luck.

Tuesday 7th May

Kia Ora all


Cross country is on tomorrow. House colours if you can. A warm top definitely, as well as any medication.
Parent helpers: please come on in to class when the bell goes.

Permission: There are still a couple fo outstanding permission forms. Without these students will need to stay at school. The school office sent an email earlier regarding this with further instructions.



This morning we listened to a recording of the reading "Anzac button" from our Anzac Ration Pack.

Here is the link to listen to the recording. 

Once there, scroll down and look for "The Anzac Button". You will get an mp3 download which can then be opened in itunes, or a similar PC media player.


Group 1 did a reading called, 'The Long, Long Night' about World War 2.

For writing we practiced using either a [.], [!] or [?] to end a sentence. We talked about how we can 't see what the writer is feeling, so they use these punctuation parks to show their feelings.

Today we launched our term 2 inquiry -  Science and the living world - animals.
We watched a funny video of 'how animals eat' and then had a discussion about living and non-living things, and gave our explanations as why we consider them to be such.

Some of the things we discussed were: water, chocolate, a giraffe, a chimpanzee, a box, a rock, grass

Here are some pictures of us in group discussion.

 

 

ANZAC CONNECTIONS

Today Grace shared two medals belonging to her grandfather, and Maddison shared an excerpt from her great-grandfather recorded in the book, 'Torpedo. Kiwis at sea in World War 2." It was a letter he wrote about conditions during the war.

Thanks girls. It's great to see you are helping us with a very important meaning of anzac day - Lest We Forget.