Super Mathletes

Wow! We almost got there. Today 20 students received a mathletics certificate. Tr'e top-scored with a massive 5000 points, which allows him to have his name in the draw 3 times for the Year 4 mathletics trophy at the next Kauri team assembly. Many students achieved over 1500points - the minimum to be included in the draw. Well done.

Buddy reading

Today we met with Room 19 for the first time. It was a 'get to know you' time; students asked questions to find out the name, favourite colour and favourite ice cream of some Room 19 students. We are going to meet up with them again before the next buddy reading session so we can choose buddies.

This year Room 5 is the tutor rather than tutee. We will be practising how to be effective tutors so that we can make the most of our time with Room 19.

Alphabetical Order

We are learning about alphabetical order at the moment as this will help us with our dictionary skills. On Friday we were given 5 words: cowboy, cat, come, cake and coat. Our task was to arrange them in alphabetical order.

C
cowboy
cat
come
cake
coat

They all began with the letter c which meant we had to look at the next letter. So we arrange it as:

cat
cake
cowboy
come
coat

This helped order some of the words into CO and CA. However, this was not enough so we had to look at the third letter of each word.

cake
cat
coat
come
cowboy

Now, we finally had the words in alphabetical order.

We decided to use the words in a funny sentence / paragraph. Here are our examples.

Once upon a time there was a cowboy who lived on cake island. His cat sits on his head and has a coat made of cake. Come to my party tonight.    By  Mishca

I  am a cowboy with a coat made of cat. Come to my party and eat cake.    By Jack


Come to my party, eat my cake  and get a coat of cat.   By Summer

I am a cowboy with a coat made of cats come to my party to eat cake      By Liam

I am a cowboy with a coat made of cats come to my party.     By Kynan Durie

I am a cowgirl with a coat made out of cake. I was riding a cat the cat was trying to eat my coat. I said to an old man hurry up old man.  By Brooke

I'm a cat and my owner is a cowboy with a cool coat made of cake .come cat eat my cake...I am a cowboy made of cat. My cat is yummy so bring a cake made of cat.     By Andrei

I am a cowboy and please come to my party and bring a cat with you and one of you bring a cake and most of all is to have fun. By Matina

I am a cowboy come to my party bring a cake or a cats head and let's  eat some cake it we'll taste  good and bring a live cat as well and the cat will be able to eat the cake .By Thorvin

I am a cowboy with a coat made of cats come to my party to eat cake.      By Jordan

Class Dojo and 'Happy' song

Kia Ora all

Next Monday is a full school assembly. We will be singing the 'HAPPY' song. Here is a link to a version that contains the lyrics.

Today we introduced CLASS DOJO. Class Dojo is a website that allows you to create characters for groups in the class and for each group to earn points. We have 4 teams, based on the four tables in class. Each group has a name. Today we used Class Dojo when tidying up our tables at the end of the day.

At the end of each week, just before morning tea, the winning team will be announced. The winning team earns 10 minutes free time outside. Here is a link to the Class Dojo website.

Garden to Table

Today we got the chance to get out into the garden to dig, plant and construct. Then it was over to the hall kitchen for a master chef session from Jacqueline, Suzanne and our wonderful mums and grandmas. Here are some photos and a couple of videos of what we got up to.

Below are two QR codes. They are a bar-code type link to websites. We are using them in class to research  two areas of interest. Yesterday we were discussing the alphabet and students had questions such as, "Why are there 26 letters?", and "Why is it called an 'alphabet'?", and " Why do we have an alphabet?"
So, I used the KIDREX search engine (linked on our class blog) to locate some useful websites, copied the URL into the QR code maker, and it gave our a QR code, as below.

Students are also interested in the flags of students from our class, and wondered why a particular flag was a particular colour and design. So, off we went to the search engine and QR code maker.

Below are two examples. In order to access the QR codes, you need a QR code reader. We use our Ipads and the app  i-nigma ( see image of app below). So, if you have an Ipod or Ipad, give it a go.

School newsletter link

Click here for the school newsletter

Year 4 mathletics trophy recipient

Today we had a Kauri assembly. Every student who has earned 1500 points or more in a week went into the draw. For some students their name went in the hat 3 times as they have earned over 1500 points three weeks in a row.

All names went into the hat - actually a container...and one name was drawn out... KENDRA!!

Well done, Kendra. You have the Year 4 trophy for the next 2 weeks.

mathletics certificates

Fourteen (14) students from Room 5 received a mathletics certificate for their efforts last week. The top score went to LIAM with a whopping 6500 odd points. Way to go, Liam.

Oral language

It seems students in Room 5 love to talk, and share their experiences. Today Natalia talked about her recent visit to the Sunshine Coast and Zoe spoke about her birthday party. Today is her actual birthday, so happy birthday, Zoe. Everyone loved the popcorn.

 

 

School newsletter 11.3.2014

http://oaklands.schoolweb.co.nz/Cache/Pictures/1723907/No_6_-_12.03.14.pdf

Wednesday 5th March

Kia Ora all

Today we visited the Life Education van and talked about, and watched a video of a boy starting at a new school and how he felt. Rachel, the presenter, talked about 'bucket filling' and 'bucket dipping' which is something we have also been focusing on in Room 5. Our last visit to Rachel is on Friday.


Writing


Aim: Explain what we did  for art attack - our visual mihi
Audience: class blog - friends, family, Mr F.


How: Plan - Organise our thoughts and ideas using a planning map


What did we do: We used pictures and brainstormed words for each of the 4 stages. We then used as many of the words to describe what we did, with a partner. We then went back, made our own planning maps, and then began writing an explanation of what we did.


Next step: complete planning map, draft our writing, conference with teacher or buddy, edit and proofread our writing, publish on our blog.











Mathlete of the Week

Bonnie has been awarded the Mathlete of the Week award for last week's massive 4455 points. She has this for the week. Well done, Bonnie.

Oral Language

Today Matina shared oral language about a magazine she has. She used eye contact well and gave informative answers to audience questions. Well done, Matina.

Tuesday 4th March

Kia Ora all

Today a group of students received the first mathletics certificates for 2014. All these students earned over 1000points, with Bonnie amassing over 4000points. Here they are below.

The New Zealand Flag    

This term we are going to look at the country flags that reflect the different nationalities and connections of the Room 5 students.
Today we looked at the New Zealand flag. We decided to use a 'What do you see / why / wonder' thinking tool (I learned about this tool at the course I attended on Monday).

We placed the NZ flag in the middle, and around the outside we brainstormed 'what we could see'. This included 'stars, blue, cross (Union Jack), and the pole. We then described these features. For example 'stars' - cross, white, pointy, special, a shape, red, like Australia.
We then went a step further and completed a 'why' for each of the features.

For example, students thought the 4 stars represented: the Christchurch Cathedral, celebrations, shaped like a cross, the cross related to Jesus, the first stars in the sky, and red was the blood of Jesus.
These are the thoughts, ideas and opinions of the Room 5 students. It showed that we have a basic understanding (Southern Cross) and some misunderstandings. This is fantastic as it means that this is new knowledge, and students are hungry to find out.

We then did a WONDER, where students made sentences beginning with "I wonder..."

Examples were "I wonder what the 4 stars represent"; " I wonder why the Australian flag is similar to ours"; " I wonder why Australia copied our flag"; " I wonder who designed the flag"; " I wonder if there are other New Zealand flags": " I wonder why we need a flag".

Now that students have 'Wonderings' they are much more motivated to seek out the answers. We will build up the skill set required to complete this successfully together as a class, so that students feel capable of achieving success individually.

Our aim is for students to research the history behind the flags of the different nationalities represented in Room 5.

Reading

Today ALL students brought home a GROUP READER.

The following book should be in your child's bag:

Team Tr'e    - Becoming a Kiwi
Team Matina - Becoming a Kiwi

Team Bonnie - 'Annyong!' Means 'Hi!'

Students should read this to you. You can help by asking questions for them to answer; or you read it and you make statements that are True or False, and your child says if it is true or false.

Phrasing - students need to be able to read as if they are swinging on a vine from one group of words to another. This gives English a bit of a rythmical feel to it. Reading robotically can hinder their reading progress. A great idea is to record them reading on a device at home, play it back and get then to identify what they do well, and what they need to improve on.

Have a great rest of the week.