End of School Year - 2015

Thank you to all the Room 4 students for making this year special. I've enjoyed having you in our class.

To all my lovely students moving on to Year 2 next year, I wish you all the best.  I do hope you stay as enthusiastic about your learning as you have been this year and that you will keep on talking about and sharing what you are learning.  

Thank you to all the Room 4 parents who have been actively involved in their child's learning this year.  I enjoyed our home-school connection and all the informal 'catch-ups'.  Enjoy the holiday with your children. 

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Awards & Prize Giving

We held our end of year Awards Assembly on Tuesday afternoon.  Students received awards for their hard work during the year.

Congratulations to the following students for receiving special awards in the following areas:

Reading: Ahlia, Zaelia

Writing: Charlotte, Sian, Axel, Hamish, Elizabeth

Mathematics: Zaevin, Chase

Virtues: Elizabeth, Demi, Lillith, Khorus, Ellyse

Our final Prize Giving was held on Wednesday night.

Congratulations to the following students for receiving awards for:

Consistent Effort throughout the Year: Axel, Sian

The most improved in all Curriculum areas: Charlotte, Hamish

Well done to everyone in Room 4. I am very proud of you all and of your accomplishments!

The Junior School's end of year item:

Christmas art

The students had fun making Christmas trees and cards with the help of Mrs B and Mrs C. Thank you to the both of them for the time they've spent in our classroom.

Trees:


Cards:

A visit from Sam Cane!

What a great day we have had when All Black Sam Cane visited our school! He brought with him the Webb Ellis Cup that the All Blacks won in the 2015 Rugby World Cup!  

He answered our questions.... 

He posed patiently for photos... 

The teachers were excited too!

Some of our students...

Thank you for your visit Sam! You rock!

The Daily Post article.

Tuakana/Teina swimming

Room 4 had a great swimming session with our senior buddy class Room 3. Everybody used the virtues of Helpfulness, Co-operation, Responsibility, Caring and Friendliness.

It was also great to see how students came up with all sorts of different creative ideas for some fun games in the pool.

Our last stories

Room 4's worked hard on their story writing this year and made great progress from when they've started writing their first stories in Term 1.

Here are some of the latest: 

Flower Show

Our annual flower show serves to promote creativity through visual arts. The junior students created some neat arrangements with flowers and vegetables.

Cool Bananas show

The junior school students took part in our school's 'Bible in School' programme. They were fortunate to work with Mrs McDonald one day a week. On the last day we watched the 'Cool Bananas' show about the birth of Jesus.

Sing-a-long to one of the songs...

Dairy Farm visit - What have we been learning?

What have we learnt?
The students each choose a picture to help them talk about what they have learned.

Today we learnt...

The glass on the left indicates how much milk we drink in New Zealand and the glass on the right shows how much milk is drank in other countries. People like our New Zealand milk, because the cows eat the green grass, which makes our milk tasty.

Fonterra's milk tankers now have the truck equivalent of a 'high-vis' vest (like the ones we wear when we cross the road)! Each tanker and trailer is covered with a moon and star picture. During the day, the moon changes to a sun and the scene changes to a blue sky and green field.

Sequencing (order) the stages of dairy milk production...

Statistics: tally charts and pictographs

For our strand on measurement, the students have been learning about statistics with Mrs N.

Students took a survey of the class birthdays and created a tally chart. They were able to count and interpret the amount of data displayed.

Then they took a survey of their favourite colours to display on a pictograph. Students interpreted the displayed data and were able to make a statement about it.

Grandparents' & Friends' Day

Although the weather did not play along, we still spent a fabulous day with our special guests at our Grandparents' & Friends' Day. This is one of the days on our yearly school calendar that the staff and students are always looking forward to!

Thank you all for coming along!

Print Making #2

After their second session on Print Making with Whaea Jude, the learners were able to:

• recall print making words: transfer, image, ink, ink plate, roll
• create flower designs, on paper first: stem, centre, petals, leaves
• draw a strong flower design into the plate with a stick or pencil
• roll brayer into ink and over image
• take multiple prints of it

(Blog post about their Print Making #1)

Thank you, Whaea Jude for the enthusiasm you displayed when teaching our learners new art skills! We enjoy having you in our class and at our school!

Making pancakes

Whaea Kate taught Room 4 how to make pancakes! They even used milk that they know comes from the cows...

A visit from Unison

Room 4 and 5 watched a unison movie and then we went outside to look at all the safety gear used by the people working with the power lines. We learned how to stay safe around electricity and what to do in an emergency. We learned to call 0800 2 UNISON and how important it is to look after each other.

Dairy Farm visit - Student Voice

This is what Room 4 had to say, after spending a fantastic day on Peter and Vicki's dairy farm. 

Dairy Farm visit

A BIG thank you to Vicky and Peter Wynyard for hosting our students [as part of our Dairy study] on your farm and for a fabulous, well planned day.  Thank you for organising a BBQ lunch, bottled water and spot prizes provided by RD1 Taupo, flavoured milk and the mechanical cow milking system from Fonterra and ice cream provided by Mark Wynyard.

Also, thank you to Abi Cane from CTL for donating their bus.

Thank you to all the parent helpers for your wonderful support.

Arriving on the farm:



In the Dairy shed:



Watching the cows being milked:



The Fonterra tanker arrives:



Activities in the paddock:



Lunch time:



A clean water stream:

High jump practice

We are practicing for our school athletics and had some of our buddies from Room 3 to show us about high jump.
This is Room 4's first attempts...

Print Making #1

Our art teacher, Whaea Jude is teaching the learners in Room 4 to:

describe, simply, how to make prints

use these print making words: ink, ink plate, brayer, roll, ink up, transfer and image

make prints using the new equipment

We can't wait for our next session!

Rippa Tournament

Our school had a Rippa Tournament to support the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup final.

Thank you to our dynamo leaders for helping us and for doing a great job organising this!

Interviewing other learners

Some of the Year 1 learners [independently] 'interviewed' other learners in our school as part of our contribution towards this year's Connected Educator Month.

You can view other contributions on the #Connected Rotorua - Pass the Blog here.

Rippa practice

With the help of some of our senior buddies we learnt how to play rippa rugby. We will have a rippa competition next Friday to support the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup.

Exploring and learning

Room 4 worked with our senior buddy class to explore and learn more about 'Scratch' (a programming language). They learnt to think creatively and work collaboratively, while creating their 'scribes'.



What the students had to say:

'Broadway comes to Broadlands'

Throughout this term the junior students were involved in many rehearsals for our school production 'Broadway comes to Broadlands'. This year our production has been separated as 3 smaller productions. The junior students presented 'Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo' and did an outstanding job! Well done to you all!

Some songs:

Thank you to the many parents who helped with costumes, props (Azarnia for the television, waves and ark windows and Mark and Jo for the ark) and backstage (Leanne and Victoria). 

Using our notebooks

We like to use our Notebooks to help us with our learning. Today we could choose which activity we would like to do on our Individual Learning Plans after working in our learning groups.

We also used our virtues of helpfulness and co-operation when a buddy got stuck.

Nursery Rhyme Recitation

The students in our learning environment used their virtues of Perseverance and Courage when learning and then presenting their nursery rhymes in front of an audience.

Congratulations to you all! I am very proud of you!

Travelling Water Experiment

Our Inquiry this term has been around the concept, 'Cause and Effect' of Change. One of our experiments was 'Travelling Water.'

To carry this out successfully, we followed the basic 5 steps of a science project:

• Step 1: Ask a question
• Step 2: Make a hypothesis (Predict the outcome)
• Step 3: Procedure
• Step 4: Results
• Step 5: Conclusion

Sewing a Spring garden

The students in Room 4 learnt to:

• sew
• use sewing words: needle, thread, fabric, over, under, up, down, top, bottom and across
• sew a spring garden

Science with Jamie from SCION

We were visited by Jamie from SCION as part of our Term 3 Science focus. He demonstrated a few exciting experiments to us.

Turning a liquid into a solid using hydrogen peroxide, liquid soap and potassium iodide...

He changed a solid into a liquid using acetone...

Freezing daffodils using liquid nitrogen...




What happened when he put a balloon and lollies into liquid nitrogen...




A 'rocket' with liquid nitrogen...

Clothes for each season

Room 4 has been learning about seasons. They choose some paper dolls and paper clothes to cut out. Then they divided a sheet into four, glued their doll on and sorted the clothes for the four seasons.

Afterwards they discussed which of the seasons is their favourite and why.

Crossing the road safely

Room 4's students are using the correct procedures when crossing the road to get to our hall. They behave safely and know how important it is to wear their safety vests so they can be visible.

Masks for the production

We are practicing hard for our school production to be held at the end of this term. Our Year 1 and 2 students will be presenting ''Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo.'
Here they are with the animal masks they've created.

Seasons and the Weather

The students in Room 4 is learning about 'Change'.  We are looking at the four seasons and how the weather changes with each season.

Today, Khorus brought his weather station to class. His mum came to help him build it. She asked him to tell the other students how much rain they measured last Saturday night. It was too much for his weather station to hold and the water overflowed!

Thank you, Leann for joining our class with your son.  It was great having you with us!

Watching a Play

Room 4 watched the play 'Jack and the jumping beanstalk' and Nirvana and Charlotte took some photos!



Listen to what some of the students had to say:

Chase

Harry

Libby

Lillith

Spider Weaving

With our art teacher, Whaea Jude the students in Room 4 have been learning

• About why we weave
• To use weaving words: fibre, wool, weave, over, under, up, down and across
• To find woven objects
• To 'spider weave' and 'people weave'

Exploring Position - Where is the spot?

Room 4 is learning to describe the position of objects, using words like on, over, beside, inside, outside, behind, in, under, in front of, middle, next to, on top, before, between and after.

First, we've practiced giving directions to their learning buddies (which included giving directions to show a quarter and half turn) and they explored some of the learning activities on our class wiki independently.

Working with their buddy, they then used our 'zoo maps' to practice giving and following directions. They had to check if they both got to the same spot after following their buddy's directions.

They also used the Beebot to learn how to programme him to go to the letter they've pulled out of the container. 

Move it - Move it

Our class are doing Move it this term. We are learning things like landing, stopping, bending, stretching and balancing. It is actually about gymnastics. We kind of like learning things about gymnastics.

Waiata for Maori language week

This week was Maori Language week. As part of our celebration, we sang waiata together as a kura. We enjoyed this and had lots of fun!

Working with Beebot

Today Carter and Harry showed us how to work with Beebot.

We used Beebot and told him to go to a letter. We had to press a button for him to walk. We had to think very carefully. Working with Beebot helped us with our maths, because we are learning about position and orientation.

Reading workshops

Room 4 have been involved in many activities during our reading workshops this term. Here are just a few:

They've used the Beebot to practice their alphabet names and sounds:

Listen to Reading:

Word Work:

Guided Reading: