Ama and Syamel Visit

Wow It has been ages since our last post. Unfortunately we have had log in issues with the blogger site. Expect to now see a lot more posts!

Recently we were lucky enough to have Ama and Syamel visit from Malaysia. They are student teachers who are in New Zealand to look at the way we learn and teach. We learnt a lot about Malaysia and even got to dress up in Malaysian traditional dress. Take a look at the video they made for our blog.

Week 8 Update

This week we welcomed Matua Lawrence Hinton. He is joining us for 7 weeks as a student teacher. His strengths are in Te Reo Maori and Kapa haka so we are really lucky to have him in our class.

In writing this week we are expanding our ideas by adding detail to our writing. We are learning about adjectives so it will be helpful if you could support this at home by describing things in your house.

We have finally started our addition and subtraction unit. Your child has recently learned a strategy in maths to do with addition and subtraction. To reinforce their learning ask them to show you what strategy they learned.

This Thursday a team from Japan are arriving which includes 23 students who are being billeted throughout the school. We have been looking forward to their arrival for some time now and the school is busy making preparations for this.

During the aftermath of the Christchurch Earthquake, the 23 families of the Japanese Exchange students and the 3 accompanying teachers that are coming to our school on Thursday all made a significant donation to NZ Red Cross. It was something they felt strongly about as they knew that many of us have family there.

In light of all that has happened in Japan and the fact that there are members of the travelling group that have had family members affected by the quake/tsunami/fallout, it may be pertinent to return the favour. Whilst it would be impractical to send over blankets and food, we can send over money.

We are going to have a mufti day this Friday for the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami. Gold coin donation - as many gold coins as you would like. A cheque will then be arranged to be presented to the Japanese group during their farewell next week. Check out the newsletter on Thursday for more details.

Just a reminder that homework is due in at the end of week 10 (8th of April).

Thank you to all who attended the learning conferences. It was a great opportunity to meet you and share your child's learning.

Week 7 Class Update

I think last Tuesday was the highlight of the year so far for Room 15 and Pouakai Syndicate.  Both students and teachers looked awesome in pink.  Everyone made an effort to show pride in who they are, not just by their attire but by the way they competed in the various athletic events.  It will be interesting to see who makes it into the inter-intermediate competition. Special mention for Reilly Makea who blew all the teachers away with his amazing throwing ability in the Vortex.

POUAKAI PRIDE

Some of us are getting over our recent fame, we were photographed organising the can drive for Christchurch and put in the local paper. Hashzyre is also our resident TV star winning a spot on the "I love rugby because..." advert. Keep an eye out for him.

 Leo Stacking the Cans

Learning conferences are on this Thursday 17 March and the following Monday 21 March.  It is really important that we meet to discuss the learning direction for your children. I have given your child a sheet that has your time. Please come a few minutes early just to have a look around the room and see your child's work up on the wall.

This week we are finishing our Statistics Unit. We have been exploring mean median and mode and constructing different graphs. Next week we are starting our Addition and Subtraction unit. It will be great if you all good make sure that your child is completing at least two basic facts tests a week at home. This is part of their homework.  I have been impressed with the standard of some of the homework which is being handed in, I would like to see more.  Your children know what their homework involves and what is required of them, please ask them to share this with you if you are unsure.  Every student has homework!

K.O FUN!

Hi all,
This is the first post of 2011! Wow what a year we have had already. As some of you can tell I have changed the name of our blog as I have moved classroom.
We are now situated in Room 15, a large recently renovated room!
We have spent the last few weeks exploring how we would like our classroom to run. We have come up with a Dialogue Covenant, a class treaty and now we are starting our Treaty of Waitangi Unit.

BIG NEWS. We won our first game of K.O in the inter class competition. We gave it our all today and it paid off as we are now in to the next round!

Create a log in and leave comments. We love to hear from you, whether you are from Kazakhstan or Taumarunui!

End of a great year

Hi everyone.

I would just like to thank all my awesome students and their amazing parents for all the support throughout the year. It has been a busy and crazy 4 terms but we have all grown academically and socially this year. My highlights have been camp (where I saw people come out of their shells), Creating our garden, and seeing students win school wide competitions!

I hope that everyone enjoyed 2010 and I wish you all the best for 2011.

Merry Xmas

Kia Kaha

Nick Van den Borst

Our Garden

In Tui Syndicate we have been growing our own vegetable garden. We planted the seeds ourselves and watched them grow into many types of vegetables such as…

Lettuces, Peas, Radishes, Zucchinis, Broccoli, Silver Beet, Spinach and much more.

Here are some photos of Jordan Holford picking some radishes.

CAMP

Well what a week we all had at Mount Holdsworth. The weather was fantastic, we had sun everyday and clear skies for star gazing at night. We had an action packed time filled with activities like Caving, High Ropes, Rock Climbing and Tramping.

It was great to see our students step up to many different challenges like the tramp or braving the cold river! I would especially like to thank our parent helpers who made our week run smoothly.

Here are some photos and videos of our time.