Select Page

2020 Classroom Blogs

Mini-camp

Mini-camp was a huge success this year!

Our Year 4, 5 and 6 friends went to a One Day Camp and we decided that we didn’t want to miss out on the fun……so, we had a mini-camp at school!  The weather was a little changeable so we pitched the tents inside.  We did manage to play some fun outdoor games and Mr D’s famous pikelets went down a TREAT!

A fun day was had my all and we look forward to taking part in it again next year!

 

Term 4: Athletics Day, Speeches and Science

Athletics Day

Beautiful weather and belly-loads of enthusiasm. Athletics Day 2020, was great.

The ponytail acts as a propeller

The boys maintain the lead by…violently sucking in more oxygen?

Fasten your seatbelts, it could be a rocky landing!

Kicking the bar out of the way could work!

Looks like it’s going to be a smooth landing. Thanks for flying with us.

The old “holding an imaginary rugby ball” provides extra motivation.

Knocked backwards by a powerful explosion?

Grabbing a fistful of air for extra lift

Holding an invisible flying fox seems to work for her

Someone needs to insert a skateboard to complete how cool she looks!

HELP! The parachute didn’t open!!

Sponging the neck. He’s all about hygiene.

Listen closely to the shotput. Is is ready to be thrown? What are its hopes and dreams?

Speeches

We all enjoyed listening to each student’s speech.

Science

We’ve been exploring electricity and how circuits work.

Term 4 Sports

It has been lovely to get outside and enjoy the glorious weather, whilst enjoying some wonderful Wentworth sports.

Recently, we have competed in whole school cross-country and athletics days. Here are a few pictures of the events. The children had a fabulous time and all did incredibly well!

 

What have we been up to?

We have had a very busy few weeks.

The beginning of Term 4 saw us work hard to complete all of our end of year assessments.  We have done a wonderful job and have made great progress in all curriculum areas.

Next, we visited MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology).  Our focus has been on making connections between who we are today and the history of New Zealand.  We certainly had some fun investigating the school house and learning about what the ‘pot’ under the bed was used for!  Thank you for the wonderful parent support – we couldn’t do these visits without you – thank you very much – we appreciate you!

Then last week we had our annual Athletics Day.  It was a wonderful event and I was so impressed with the way that the Kiwi class cheered each other on.  Thank you to the parents who made us yummy popcorn and another big thank you to Mr D for the cooling iceblocks.

Have a look at the fun we had!

 

Run, run, run……..as fast as you can…….you can’t catch me…………

    ….because I am running really fast in the cross-country race!

We were so very excited that the school was able to hold our annual cross-country event at the end of Term 3.  It was lovely to see and hear the cheering crowd urging us towards the finish line.

Congratulations to all of our Kiwi Class runners and a big thank you to the College helpers who enthusiastically supported us throughout the race!

 

Cross Country and Production Term 3

Cross Country

A great day for it! Happy smiles were replaced by red, determined faces, and then happy smiles returned again when the ice blocks were handed out.

Production

The performance of our school production “Ye-Ha” was wonderful. Plenty to keep the eyes and ears entertained: bright costumes, expressive faces, witty lines, and funny pratfalls.

Term 3 Various

Here’s a few things we’ve been up to lately:

Science

For science, we have been continuing to explore how sounds works, including how it uses vibrations. Paper cup and string phones are a practical, and fun, way to demonstrate this.

“She said, what?? Give me all the juicy details!”

“I’m sorry, you’ve called outside of business hours. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you shortly”.

 

We have also been studying the human skeleton.

Micro-surgery on the lower leg bones

“Sshh, it’s dice in their natural habitat. Isn’t nature amazing?”

Reading

For Reading, we recently completed “Literacy Circles”, where groups shared the same novel and had different roles, week-to-week.

Must be serious discussion, based on those expressions

Can you guess who’s crowned himself king of the group?

Have they noticed the rolled up tube and its projectile, creeping on from the right?

P.E.

For P.E. we have been learning hockey skills.

“Do we wait for the ball to come to us, or should somebody get it?”

He adamantly tells the ball that if it doesn’t behave and go in the direction he wants, it will get a paddle.

Music

With Mrs Poppe, the students recently completed their “Teddy in my Window” music video. It ended up winning “Best Original Story” in the competition!

Lately, the student have been learning to play notes on various instruments.

She trained her to carry that bear, herself.

Ready, Teddy, Smile.

“When do I get to be a Rockstar and live the self-indulgent life?”

It’s all in the cock of the head

Doesn’t even need to look

Electricity!

We have been learning about electrical circuits during Science time.

We now know that electricity travels in a circle, which is called a circuit. A battery or a switch or a break in the circuit, can cause our power to stop going around and our bulb does not work.

It has been fun finding out what other things, apart from wires, can conduct electricity.

 

 

Sharing learning experiences across the Primary

Over the past term, the Piwakawaka children have become excellent data collectors. They have discovered there are many ways to present their data; such as tally charts, pictograms and block charts. Extending from this, the children learnt to read and interpret data so they could solve problems and answer simple questions.

Today, the Y1 children had the wonderful opportunity to see how all that learning can grow and be extended when Y3 shared their learning from their ‘Data Handling’ unit. In Katipō Class, they have been investigating a chosen topic and storing their collected data in data bases that they have each created. They then each created a corresponding quiz to share with other children.

For our Piwakawaka children, they each had the opportunity to explore the journey of their learning through to Y3 as the Katipō children paired up with a Y1 child and walked them through their journey from data collection, to creating a data base, to developing a corresponding quiz.

What a fantastic real world learning experience this was for our children, and we had lots of fun!

Purple Mash Computer Science Integration

Year three students have been using the Purple mash programme across the curriculum, here is a show case of some of the work produced.  This has been implemented throughout the year.  The main is focus remains paper and pencil.

Once you have accessed the link you can interact with the programme.

The first piece of work is from 2DIY3D, with this programme the children had to design their own game.

 https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNjg0NCZzZz1hNjliMTI2MmJlY2Y1Nzg2NWIwNzE0ZjI3MGViZTIyNA==

Another programme the children have used is from 2 question which is a branching database that one of the students created.  https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNjg0NSZzZz0xMGIyZWUxZDZlY2M4OGU1ZDhiY2U0N2RhYmMyZWI4Zg==

We have used 2 connect to plan and write write stories.  The great thing about this programme it allows the children to have their plan beside them and insert parts of the plan into the writing.  https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNjg0NiZzZz1iNDY5ODRkM2YwZTk5ODBhMWMzZWJjZmM5ZjRkOWRhZA==

The children have been creating music compositions with Miss Sancto.  They used the progamme 2 sequence.  https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNjkwNCZzZz02ZDNkMmFmZDJkN2JjNGZkN2UyNDBlOWNkOTMyNWE1Mg==

Next is an example of a reading response from Serial Mash.  https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNjg0OSZzZz04MTlkYmU3NjE4ZWVhYWEyNjFkMGFiYWZiYjZmYThhZA==

Lately the children have created a database using 2 investigate.  They have thoroughly enjoyed using this programme.  The next step is using the database to create a quiz.  https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNjgzMCZzZz01ODBkYzAyMTk3NDJiZjllN2Q2MDkwYWJlYjU1NTRlZA==

Collaborative Learning!

We had a new teacher in our Kiwi Class today. 

Our new teacher (a lovely member of our Kiwi class) brought in the most interesting news and discussed perspective and different viewpoints of objects, such as a cup.

We then drew three different views of the cup!

 

Grow! Protect! Taste!

The new mantra in our Kiwi class is……

Grow, Protect and Taste vegetables.

Our Kiwi Class have become members of a special club called the Little Garden League.  This is an initiative designed to encourage children to enjoy vegetables and develop an understanding of how plants grow.  This is perfect timing given our next Science topic is actually called ‘Growing Plants’!

Have a look at the fun we had today.

 

09 424 3273

Email

Location