Stuart Hale Digital Photography Workshop

I am at a Digital Photography Workshop today learning more about how to get the most out of taking photos with a digital camera - no more just leaving the camera on auto and snapping a photo! I will update throughout the day to show you all what is happening!
We are learning about how to get a photo of something to make the background subject clear and the foreground blurry.
My before photo:

After photo:
'Alphabet Activity' - taking photos of things around us that look like letters or numbers. What letter is this? Mrs B's self portrait using the camera timer (I'm not holding the camera here, although it does look like I am!)
In this photo we were learning about how to get the foreground in focus and the background blurred. Bendo says hi:

Statistics - Bar Graphs

For the last two weeks of this term we are learning about Statistics. At the moment we are learning to gather information using a tally, and putting the results onto a bar graph. We used KidsZone Create-a-Graph to make the bar graphs, and we would love to have more ideas about statistics we could collect, so leave a comment for us. We will post the results of our information-gathering soon.

Bailie decided she wanted to know more about her family's favourite fruit. She decided on the different fruits to include and took a tally. Here are the results shown in a bar graph Bailie created:

All Whites Soccer

This is a cool new website for the All Whites soccer team so you can send messages to them. Most of Room 1 has written an individual message sending them questions and comments to wish them well in their World Cup games. Hopefully they will reply within the next few days. We wish them all the best!

These are the messages we sent to the All Whites:

All Whites are my favourite soccer team in the whole wide world. All Whites are a really good soccer team. Your team does big kicks and in my brother's soccer team his goalie does really big kicks. Good luck in South Africa.
Kind regards, Tara.

I've heard that you play for New Zealand and that you have scored some goals. Did you have fun when you played against Italy and Slovakia? I hope you win against Paraguay. You're the best soccer team of all!
Kind regards, Meghana.

I think your team is the best soccer team ever and good luck for winning the World Cup.
Kind regards, Cheymani.

Nice game that you played on Monday. My dad let me stay up until about 3am with my brothers and him, and my dad let out a scream because the All Whites got a goal.
Kind regards, Mason.

How many players in your team? I like your soccer team name.
Kind regards, Lukaz.

I hope you win the World Cup for our country and I hope you win the World Cup because it is the greatest cup in the world! You have done great at the World Cup because you are the best team in the world.
Kind regards, Bailie.

I have heard that you had a tie with Italy and I hope you win the World Cup. You are the best players in the whole wide world and it would be great if you won.
From Gianlucca.

You have tried very hard. "Go All Whites! Go!” Keep on trying. You are the best team in the world.
Kind regards, Corey.

I hope you will win against Paraguay. You did well playing against Italy and Slovakia.
Kind regards, Annabelle.

I think you are going good and are trying very hard.
From Tyrone.

You are so good at soccer. You are doing so well. You are great.
From Domonic.

I know you have scored a lot of points. It must be hard and difficult. You are my favourite team. You are the best of all time!
From Ryan.

Birthday Celebrations for Corey!

Corey brought in a delicious banana cake with chocolate icing for Room 1 and Room 2 (including teachers!) for his birthday celebration. We would like to say a big thank you to Corey and his family for sharing this with us.

Corey would like to say a special thanks to his mum for baking him such an awesome cake - it was huge!

More Discovery Learning!

Our Discovery Time every second week is continuing to give the students some beneficial learning experiences. Check out the photos below of some great activities the students take part in during this time.

Tyrone and Corey co-operate well together to complete a tricky puzzle:

Tara shows off her completed activity:

Class Speech Competition

We had our class speech competition today and it was great to see students overcome their nerves to speak in front of an audience. Tomorrow is the school speech competition and the finalists from our class that will be sharing tomorrow with the whole school are: Cheymani, Mason, Tara, and Corey. The competition will start at 9am, and parents are welcome to come along. We are looking forward to some great speeches! Keep an eye on our blog over the next couple of days for videos of the students' speeches to be posted. As long as you have Windows Media Player you should be able to listen and watch them! Please leave comments so the students can read feedback about their speeches.

Bailie speaks about how the world would be a better place if everyone was rich. What do you think?


Tara shares her views on the world would be a better place without animal cruelty:


Mason makes us think about whether the world would be a better place with money to cure diseases and sicknesses:


Meghana shares her ideas about trees making the world a better place. Do you agree?


Corey tells us about how the world would be a better place if everyone was rich:

Cheymani tells us all about how having friends make the world a better place:

Ruairi talks about the impact of war on our world. Do you think the world would be a better place without wars?

Annabelle shares her ideas about animal cruelty:



Tyrone wants us to know the world would be a better place if we were all nice to each other:

National Standards and Overall Teacher Judgement

Today I attended a workshop about National Standards and using "overall teacher judgement" and moderation to support our decisions about where our students are achieving in relation to the Standards. If you are interested in reading some information about the National Standards and assessment, click on the links above.

Teacher's Only Day

Although there weren't any students at school today, the teachers were kept very busy! I taught Mr R and Miss B how to set up blogs, and you can find the links to those sites on the sidebar or click on their names in this post. It will be great for us to share our learning through our class blogs!

The World Would Be A Better Place If...

Our written and oral language focus over the next few weeks will be (persuasive) arguments. Our topic is 'The World Would Be A Better Place If...". We have come up with several ideas:
The World Would Be A Better Place If...
- There were no poor people
- Everyone smiled all the time
- We were all nice to our neighbours
- There were more trees
What do you think? Leave a comment to share your ideas with us...
Try Writing Fun to practice your persuasive argument writing. If you have a go, leave a comment about whether you found it useful.

Update on the Cross Country...

We will make a decision by 9.15am tomorrow morning regarding whether we will be doing the Cross Country. We have had a look at what the weather may be like tomorrow, and it looks fine. We are really pleased, and can't wait to get out and compete!

Here are some action shots from the day!

Lukaz comes across the line!    Cheymani is still smiling
                                                after her run!

Gianlucca is ready to rest!     Tara demonstrates great
                                             running technique!