How the Sea Became Salt

We read the story 'How the Sea Became Salt' today. It is a story about how a poor man gets a mill that grinds out whatever you ask for. You have to know how to command it to stop as it will just keep on grinding otherwise. The man sells the mill to his rich brother for some money, but the rich brother forgot to ask how it stops. He asks for milk and herrings soup, and the mill grinds it out, but the rich brother can't make it stop. He takes it back to his poor brother, who stops it. The poor brother decides to sell it again to a sea captain. The poor brother is now rich so he is happy. The sea captain decides to get the mill to make salt so he doesn't need to work anymore. He also forgot to ask how to stop the mill! The mill kept on grinding salt on the sea captain's ship until the ship sunk. Now the mill sits at the bottom of the ocean grinding salt out. That is how the sea became salt!

Check out Ask Kids to find out why the sea really is salty.

We came up with some ideas about what we would ask the mill to grind if we had it:

"Fish 'n' chips because I could share them with the entire world" Lukaz
"Diamonds, jewels, crystals, gold, and a gold crown because I would like to be rich" Annabelle
"All the Harry Potter things because I love Harry Potter stuff" Ryan
"Princess clothes and a magic wand because I want to be a princess" Meghana
"Endless kittens and puppies because I would be really popular with everyone" Tara
"A wand, magic hat, and smarty pants because then I would be really smart" Cheymani
"Chocolate milkshakes because I like them" Tyrone
"Diamonds because I'll be rich" Bailie
"A car like a hot rod with a big engine too because they are colourful" Tyler
"A racing car because it is fast and I could win races" Gianlucca
"I would ask for gold because I like gold" Domonic

What would you want the mill to grind for you? Leave a comment and share your wishes!

Meghana's Lino It Canvas!

Meghana went home and decided to use Lino It to ask Room 1 some questions. You can click on the link below to go into her canvas and give some feedback:

questions for room1

Our first Skype video chat!

At noon today we had a chat with Mrs Stewart and Hayden. Some of us had thought of some questions to ask them. It was great to be able to see them while we were talking to them. Below is a photo we took of them:

Thank you so much for chatting with us, and we look forward to talking to you again, and anyone else who likes to chat as much as we do!

Today we thought about the question:

How can we use Skype in our classroom as a learning tool?

This is what we came up with:
• Chat to friends from other places
• Learn about other countries
• Learn about people from other countries
• To communicate
• To co-operate
• Communicate with school if you are away
• Can see other people
• If you haven’t met family, you could Skype them and see what they are like
• Communicate with family and friends overseas
• Ask other schools questions, and what they are learning about so we can get different ideas
• Keep in touch with friends
• Learn other languages

How do you use Skype? Do you have any other uses for it that we haven't thought about? Leave us a comment...

Skype chats

Hi everyone that visits our blog,

We are really interested in learning about all sorts of different things. We would really like to have some conversations with people from other schools and our parents and community.

Is there something you have expertise in that you could teach us? Would you just like to have a chat about what you do at your school? If so, our Skype name is tokomaru2010. Try giving us a call during school hours, or you can arrange a specific time by leaving a comment below.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Room 1

Fairy Tale Feedback

Room 1,
Please click on the link to leave your feedback about our Fairy Tale unit so far:

Class Feedback Canvas

Lino It!

I was at an ICT Cluster meeting today, and among other things, we learnt about a great brainstorming tool called 'Lino It'. Have a go with the one I have come up with for 'Giraffes Can't Dance' and see what you think. Just click on the link below...
How could we use this for our learning?

Giraffes Can't Dance

Blogging presentation

I had a presentation to make at Hokowhitu School today about what Tokomaru School and our class is doing for ICT. The above short videos are just part of the presentation, with a few students sharing their ideas about why we blog. Check out the rest of the students' responses to blogging questions in the page 'Blogging' up the top.

Fairy Tale Creators!

Over the last two weeks we have been very busy writing our own fairy tales. Today we had a go at creating a storyboard of our tales. We used the Myths and Legends Creator website to help us. Check it out and see if you can create your own story.