Term 4
In the very first week of the term we had the "Shake Out" day to practise what to do in an earthquake. We looked on the GeoNet sight and learned that there are hundreds of earthquakes every year in New Zealand but a lot of them we don't even feel!
Here we are at 9.15 ,doing what we need to do in case of an earthquake...

Then another week we had a "I wish I was..." day to raise funds for the Make-a-wish Foundation. We had heaps of fun and there were a lot of cool things that people wanted to be...

Week 5 Term 4 2015

It has been a while since our last post...Sorry!  So many things happening and lots of interuptions to our normal programmes.
Next week we are going to be entering items at the A and P show. One of the entries this year was decorated spoons. Mrs Finucane decided to use these characters to inspire some writing as well, and we got to show them briefly at assembly on Friday.
Here is what we said at assembly:

Mrs Finucane showed us some ideas. Some of us thought it would be hard but most of us thought we could manage it.

We had to use our imaginations and decide on a character.

We had to sketch out a plan and add the colours. We traced around the spoon first to get the right shape.

Then we had to paint our spoon. Some of us glued things on first. We needed 2 coats of paint.

Then we got the chance to decorate it! But Kathy and Mrs Finucane did the hot glue gunning.

We hope you like our wooden spoon characters!

Week 7 Term 3 2015

We are very lucky to have Miss Roycroft working with us when Mrs Finucane is working on her other jobs in our school. She has been working on some artwork with us, based on a very famous piece of art by Van Gogh, that feature Sunflowers. 
We have finally finished our artworks  and Miss Roycroft has spent a lot of time getting them ready for display.Mrs Finucane has put them up in our foyer. 

They look FANTASTIC! Come and have a look sometime!

Week 7 Term 3 2015

It has been worth the wait!

While we haven't officially opened our new playground, on Friday Mr Byers let us  have a "play" . We were able to go out class by class and try out all the new things.We were so lucky it didn't rain as the weather has not been great this week but we managed to get our turn.
We are so looking forward to be able to use it at playtimes and lunch.

Week 6 Term 3 2015

A few lucky students from our class got to spend some time in Room 5 with our newest students. They were awesome reading "buddies". Thank you Miss Williams for the photos!

Week 5 Term 3 2015

We have been doing a lot of work this term on writing to entertain and learning to publish our work to share with others. 
Our latest pieces were about cross country. We used what we had learned about staccato sentences to try and set the scene.Some of us used some really strong staccato sentences, but as authors we get to choose how we record our thoughts and experiences so we have a variety of writing on display.
Please come and have a look if you can. We are really proud of our display... 

Week 4 Term 3 2015

This week was cross country. We have been doing lots of running but on the day it seemed like a long way! Everyone tried their best and should be very proud of themselves!

Week 3 Term 3 2015

This week we wrote some awesome stories that created suspense and drama.                     We read a story called "The Screaming Mean Machine" by Joy Cowley , and used it as a model for our own writing. After editing our stories we published them and designed our own screaming machines to illustrate our writing.
Here are some of our illustrations:

Week 2 Term 3 2015

Welcome back to Term 3! 
We have already been busy in Room 8 working on writing and publishing our work for others to enjoy. This week we started to look at small machines and we were looking closely at some simple items in our classroom to sketch and describe.  Here is our wall display . Mrs Finucane thinks that we did a great job!
Come in and have  a look if you can.

Week 10 Term 2 2015

Welcome to the last week of the term. It is also the last week that we will have our school playground  because in the holidays it is going to be demolished and a new one built. We took some photos and recorded some memories about the playground.

Here are some of our stories...

I will miss the monkey bars. When I first was able to grab it by standing on my tippy-toes I was proud.  I like to swing one to one across the bars. I do like climbing across the top. When I first learned how to do it I couldn’t get down but I learned the painful way! I don’t like to hang upside down by my knees!                                                                              

Byron

I will miss the monkey bars. I love to hang upside down. But look on the bright side…There is going to be a different one that has things on the side that you can climb on to get up by yourself.                                                                                                                       

Blayze

I will miss the green slide because I love to play bumper cars with Olivia. To play we have to slide down fast and then another person goes down and tries to bump you off. You just keep doing it until you want to stop.                                                                               

 Shavonne

I will miss the bridge that used to be here. Mrs Finucane took a photo of me beside the space.  I have been playing on that bridge since I was in Room 5.                                    Charlie

I will miss the wooden bridge because I like to swing on it. I like the sound when you walk on it. The bridge is fun to play on.                                                                                

Kazlan

I will miss the tunnel because I used to pretend to play army in it. I used to get my machine guns and rifles from there and then we would go out into the battlefield to battle our enemy.                                                                             

Jake

I will miss the monkey bars. I love swinging, twisting and spinning around the bars and I like to do flips from the top of it. I like to walk across the top.I am nearly crying.                    Noah.

I will miss the bridge because when I run over it the bridge it squeals like a baby, it creaks like it’s going to break and it swings like a rocking horse.                                                  Bradley

Week 9 Term 2 2015

This week we had a follow up walk around the Wetlands to review what we have learned and to try and find some of the plants and animals we know grow in the Wetlands.            We were very lucky to have Mark, from the Matamata Piako District Council to walk around with us. Many thanks to Mark,and Bryan, who helped arrange this.

We stopped see how many species of ducks we could find. 

Trees adapt to living in water .
The trunks and roots change shape to make sure they
don't fall over.
These are Swamp Cypress trees.

This is the newly planted kahikatea grove.
There are 100 trees, one for every year since Gallipoli.
Once New Zealand was covered in these beautiful trees
but many were cut down.

Here we are, entering the Wetlands,
leaving only our footprints behind.

Here we are with Mark, learning about the
 Swamp Cypress trees.
They don't mind getting their feet wet.
 They are a tree introduced to New Zealand.
There are a lot of them in the Wetlands.

  We loved walking through the leaves and
                                   having leaf fights!                                  
They also make a great noise as you walk.

Week 7 2105

What a wonderful week! 
We  were able to travel to Hamilton Zoo on Thursday to look at the Wetland environment and the other animals as well!  The weather wasn't the best but we had a fantastic day and learned a lot about the Wetlands and the animals that live there.
A huge thank you to all of our parent helpers and to the great staff at the Zoo.

Week 5 Term 2 2015

Since visiting the Wetlands we have been using the experience to write some wonderful descriptions about what we saw. This week we looked carefully at chestnuts. 
These wonderful items from the Wetlands are quite a contrast...spiky on the outside, with a furry warm inside, and then a hard smooth nut in the middle.

Here is some of our writing that we published. We hope you enjoy reading it...