Shayde's Antarctic Skua Bird

Shayde received a postcard from his dad all the way from Antarctica! It had a photo of an Antarctic Skua bird on the front. Shayde's dad said in the postcard that the Skua is "like the seagull of Antartica" because "it eats all the leftovers and hangs around the rubbish dump".



Shayde with his postcard and the Christmas tree decoration he made for his mum and dad.

Shayde's postcard from his dad with the Antarctic Skua bird on the front.

Below are some links to some more information about the Skua and other Antarctic birds:

Antarctic Fact file link

Wikipedia information

Tokomaru School Athletics 2011

It was a stunning day for our School Athletics this year; the sun was shining and everyone was ready to compete!    A huge thanks goes to our awesome Home and School for the iceblocks after we had finished.

Check out some of the photos from the day taken by photographer of the day, Lukaz:

Tokomaru School Athletics Day 2011 on PhotoPeach

Annabelle's Shells

Annabelle brought some shells in to share with the class. She got them when she went to Foxton Beach on one of the sunny days we have had lately.

Christmas Play at Tokomaru Church

Yesterday we went to the Tokomaru Church to present a Christmas play as part of Religious Education.  As we were walking to the the church, a donkey led us across the road!  We all had a part in the play and we read our lines well and sung 'Away in a Manger'.

A special thank you to our RE teachers who organised this with us. Christmas Play on PhotoPeach

Moto-X - Tyler

Yesterday, Corey and I went to Moto-X lessons.  We were doing jumping.  I did a big jump over the hill and went up a really big hill.  Corey did ten jumps and I did about fifteen.  We had fun going over the hills and the paddock.

Lizard Skin

Bailie brought in an interesting news item to share - a shed lizard skin! Check out the close-up photos below:

Why do some lizards shed their skin?

Are there other creatures that shed their skin?

What are they?

Ag Day

This weekend we have our annual Ag Day event. There are lots of things on this year, so please remember to bring everything you need on Friday - flowers, vegetables, vase, baking tray etc - in preparation for Saturday.

Button bracelets, mosaic mirrors, cakes, sausages, coffee, face-painting, bike decorating, gumboot throwing, Tokomaru School Art Gallery, bottle tombola and stalls along with the animals - all on this

Saturday 12th November starting at 10am.

See you there!

My Dad's Trip to Antarctica - Shayde

Shayde's dad is in Antarctica so he has written a stroy about his exciting adventure!

My dad went to Antarctica. He went on a c17 plane. My dad is staying at McMurdo base which is  an American  Base. He took pictures of  himself in  the  snow and one is  of penguins.  There were 3  penguins in the photo  and an Observation tube and  Pressure Ridge. The Observation tube goes under the ice, but only one person can go down in it at a time.       

Shayde

The clip below is a Google Earth tour of some parts of Antarctica: I wonder what it would be like under the ice?

Do you have any questions that you would like to ask Shayde's dad about Antarctica?

    

Tyler's Rugby Experience

Tyler with his dad and grandpa waiting for the game to begin!

Tyler got to go along to the Rugby World Cup semi-final between Australia and New Zealand! He has written a recount of his experience of the game:

In the holidays I went to the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup with my dad, grandpa, and Aunty Nessa. The game was the All Blacks versus Australia. We sat at G 12, 13, 14 and 15. We sang the National Anthem and we saw the All Blacks do the Haka.

The All Blacks got one try and two conversions and two penalties.  The All Blacks missed three tackles and Wallabies missed 20 tackles.

The stadium held 62,000 people.  It wasn’t a full stadium.  Me and my dad saw one seat empty!

Tyler S

Did anyone spot Tyler in the crowd while they were watching the game? 

New Zealand are Rugby World Cup Champions!

The game was a bit of a nail-biter but we got there in the end and won!  A big congratulations to France for getting to the final and to the All Blacks for winning!

What were your favourite parts of the game? 

What did you like about having the Rugby World Cup held in New Zealand?

Rippa Rugby

We were very lucky to have a representative from the Horowhenua Rugby Club teach us some skills that we can use in Rippa Rugby games.  He taught us about evasion, which means how to dodge players that are coming at you.  There was also some discussion about 'fair play' and we had to brainstorm what that looks like on the field.

What does fair play mean to you? 
Why is fair play so important?

Is fair play just for team sports?

Cinquains

Cinquains are poems that have 5 lines:

• The first line is the noun or name of the topic;
• The second line is 2 words that describe the noun;
• The third line is 3 action words about the noun;
• The fourth line is a 4-5 word sentence or phrase about the noun;
• The fifth line is a synonym (a word that has the same meaning) of the noun.

Click on me to read me like a book...

Have you tried to write a cinquain before?

Share your poetry in the comments section if you would like to share...

Interface Magazine Blog Competition

We have entered our class blog into the Interface Magazine Best Class Blog Competition.  We decided that this was a great way to show even more people our class blog ad there is the bonus of been in to win a 1TB Toshiba Canvio portable hard drive!

Why do you think our blog deserves to win? 

Haikus

Haikus are a form of Japanese poetry that have 5 syllables in the first and last lines and 7 in the middle line - a total of 17 syllables. We found that they were tricky to write as we had to keep coming up with different ways of saying a sentence as some had too many syllables and some not enough. Our class perservered though and the results are great!

Click on me to read me in book form...

Try writing a haiku at home - see if your family can do one together!

What did you enjoy about writing your haiku?

Our Poetry

Our Spring Poems

Finding out about our Adopted Countries

Each student in our class has 'adopted' a country that is participating in the Rugby World Cup.  We are lucky because there are 20 countries participating in the World Cup and there are 20 of us! 

Flags of Every Country is a site where you can hover over your country on the map and  find out more about your country's flag.

Please click on the link to find out a bit more information about your country.  Go to the bottom right hand corner of the page and click on your country, then on 'Toolkit'.

What are the official languages in your country?

What has been the most exciting fact you have found out about your country?

How is your adopted country different to New Zealand?  (Tyler S - how is New Zealand different to some of the other countries taking part in the Rugby World Cup?)

I Wonder - Poetry Voicethread

For Reading and Writing we are focusing on Poetry. We have been inspired by the start of a new seasong - all the joys of Spring! 

Today we found a post from our blogging buddies the Roadrunners, in America. They wrote poems with each line starting with 'I wonder...?'. So we have made our own whole class poem with each student contributing a line to the poem. You can read it below and also listen to it on our Voicethread. 

What do you wonder?

I WONDER

A COLLABORATIVE POEM BY ROOM 1 TOKOMARU SCHOOL

I wonder how and why God made us?

I wonder why we are alive?

I wonder why the grass is green?

I wonder why my great granddad died?

I wonder why tractors have different sized wheels?

I wonder how metal is made?

I wonder where I hid?

I wonder why dogs bite?

I wonder how you make lollies?

I wonder how the flowers grow?

I wonder why we have concrete?

I wonder why my fish died?

I wonder why schools got built?

I wonder why my cat Topaz died?

I wonder how God came alive?

I wonder what it is like in Australia?

I wonder what it would be like to be at war?

I wonder why some of my pets died?

What do you wonder?

ICT Club

ICT Club starts Wednesday during lunchtime at 1pm.  I am looking forward to introducing you to lots of new ICT tools and ideas.

http://tokomaruictclub.blogspot.com/

Keep up with what we are learning about at our ICT Club Blog.  There will be lots of links and ideas for you to check out!

Due to the limited numbers of students I can take at once many students missed out this term, but please try signing up for next term.

Lego Rugby World Cup Clip!

Fractions - Pizza

Pizza Fractions party! Do the quiz at the end of the slideshow...

As an end to our Fractions unit, we made pizza with Room 2 on Friday. We cut the pizza into halves first, then as we had 6 people in each group, we cut the pizza into sixths - an equal share for everyone. Each person got 1/6 of the pizza that their group made. They were delicious!

Check out some of these links that have activities with fractions:

Pizza Fractions

Pizza Party

Rugby World Cup Clips - How the World Cup Balls are Made

Skype with Extreme11

We had a Skype chat with Extreme11 from Hokowhitu School on Friday.

We asked several questions and then we got asked some questions. By listening well, we found that there were some similarities and differences between Extreme11 and Room 1:

Similarities:
- We both have year 3 and 4 students in our class;
- Both classes experienced the recent snowfall;
- Our classes both do Art;

Differences:
- Room 1 has year 2 students in it;
- Extreme11 has a pirate ship to play on!
- Room 1 has a fort to play on!
- Room 1 has a teacher that likes to dance to 'Firework';
- Extreme11 has 26 students and Room 1 has 20

Are there any other similarities and differences you can think of?

Leave a comment if you can think of some...

Our morning in the snow at Tokomaru!

Our morning in the snow at Tokomaru! on PhotoPeach

Snow at School!

We were all a bit shocked to find snow at school this morning.  It was all over the bark areas, our shade area, and our slide!  Some of us made some snowballs out of it, but unfortunately the sun came out and melted it all before morning tea.

Do you know how snow is made?

Where else did snow fall in New Zealand?

School Speech Competition

We have been writing and practicing our speech for a number of weeks and after all of this we shared our speeches in our class competition yesterday.  There were so many excellent speeches and some students really challenged themselves to get up and share their speech with confidence.

Six students were selected to go into the school competition on Monday.  A big congratulations to: Annabelle, Charlotte, Corey, Lukaz, Meghana, and Ryan.

Our parents and community are welcome to come and support these students on Monday at 11am in the school library.  Best of luck to you all!

Extreme Eleven - comments

A few of us left a comment for our blogging buddies in Extreme 11 at Hokowhitu School as part of our writing. We have got a couple of replies with questions we can reply to:

Hi, Extreme 11. Cool conversations. It is fun seeing you making conversations with animals. The bird looked like a hawk! I liked the bird and hawk one. It was a crack – up! Cool blog. I like it. Our class has 20 people. How many people do you have in your class? We have 3 classes in our school. How many do you have? I live in Tokomaru. We have lots of farms. I am 7. How old are you guys? I love going to India! It is really fun for me. You get to watch TV in the aeroplane!

Can’t wait for a reply!
Yours sincerely,
Meghana

Hi Meghana
Hi I’m Ethan in room 11 at Hokowhitu schoolWe have twenty four people in our class.We have 14 classes at our school but one is a music and japanese class.Our class has year 3′s and 4′s so our class has 7 year olds and 8 year olds but only a few are 9 and I am 8 years old.Meghana do you know how many people live in Tokomaru .

hi my name is Lukaz I am from Tokomaru School. i like your movie it’s COOL!!!!!!!!

Hi Lukaz
Hi I’m Ethan thanks so much for all your comments we liked them so much !!!!!

Nice dress up’s Extreme 11. My favourite thing to dress up in is my witch costume. It is black all over it is cool. What is your favourite thing to dress up in? Good bye for now .

Hi i am Domonic From Tokomaru school. Do you do art? We do art.

Hi Domonic
Hi I’m Ethan we do art because once we did one about a myth .Are you in the same class as Meghana?

We now need to think of some questions to ask them for our Skype session coming up next week. 

Leave a question that you would like to ask the students of Extreme 11 in the comments section below...

Think about open-ended questions that will give us more information (not just yes/no answers)

Vowel Bat!

Today we did a spelling activity where we had to write our spelling words without the consonants in them. To do this we needed to know the vowels. Check out this cool Vowel Bat video to help you remember your vowels!

A Thank You from 2D at Yugumbir State School, Australia

After reading 'It's Lovely When You Smile' (the book 2D sent us) we created some pictures inspired by the story on ArtPad.  We thought about what makes us smile and then drew that using the online tool.  Then we sent the links to the pictures so they could watch them appear before their eyes!

Here is a link to the thank you on 2D's class blog.

Share the Joy

We watched and listened to Share the Joy' today. The best thing about it is that it is made up of sounds from New Zealand like water at the beach and a tui singing. 

What do you think about the song? 

What sounds can you hear? 

What sounds would you include if you were making up a song like this?

Extreme Eleven @ Hokowhitu School

Today I went to Central Normal School to help run a couple of workshops about ICT. Each teacher was given a buddy teacher from another school so that our classes can share ideas and learn new things. Our newest blogging buddies are Extreme Eleven at Hokowhitu School. You can check out their blog under our 'Blogging Buddies' on the right hand toolbar or just click on this link.

We look forward to getting to know our new ICT buddies!

Winter Wonderland Disco 2011

What a great disco! Tokomaru School has some of the grooviest dancers I have ever seen! Cool costumes too! Check out the slideshows of our Winter Wonderland Disco:

Winter Wonderland Disco 2011 on PhotoPeach

Happy Feet - Live Feed to the Penguin who is a bit lost!

Happy Feet live

Check out this live stream to Happy Feet the penguin.  The stream says: "Most of the time this picture will be black and white, as we are using an infrared light and camera. This is because the penguin is actually kept in darkness to simulate current conditions in Antarctica, where it is constant night during winter."
Check throughout the day for fresh snow being brought in and feeding times.

I wonder how far Happy Feet has travelled?  I wonder what he has seen?  I wonder what he is feeling?

Thanks 2D at Yugumbir State School!

Today we received a real surprise in the mail. There was a giant envelope with some special gifts from our buddies in 2D.

The first thing we pulled out was a boomerang! We wanted to have a go with it straight away! Then we pulled out letters for each one of us with lots of questions. Finally we found a book called 'It's Lovely When You Smile'. Mrs Bismark is going to read it to us during reading time so we can find out what it is about.

Thank you so much 2D - it was a great surprise for a Monday morning!

'Tag and Release' by the Gruffalos

Yugumbir State School - 'The Other Ark' Creatures

2D at Yugumbir State School saw that we had read 'The Other Ark' and had done some art based on the story, so they decided to come up with some creatures of their own.  Check out their art slideshow:

Super Skipping!

Tyler S, Aymee, and Karen show their skill in skipping. 

Have you tried different styles of skipping?  The skier?  The bell? 

Have a go and enjoy getting fit at the same time!

School Cross Country!

School Cross Country Competition! on PhotoPeach

Science - Sand, Salt, and Jelly Crystals

All the vocabulary we have been using in our Science unit:

Do you know all these topic-specific words?

The Other Ark Art

The Other Ark Art by Room 1 on PhotoPeach

Tokomaru School Cross Country

Room 1 - Cross Country Training! on PhotoPeachStarting at 1.30pm tomorrow we will all be competing in our school cross country.  Over the last 4 weeks we have been training rain, hail (wind actually!) or shine, so we are looking forward to challenging ourselves in this event.

We would love to see our families, friends, and community at our school to cheer us on!

The Other Ark - The Flying Flapdoodle

Miss Evitt read us a story called 'The Other Ark', by Lynley Dodd.  We really enjoyed the story because it had all sorts of different animals in it like 'flapdoodles', candy-striped camels', and 'mad kangaroosters'.

During writing we wrote a character description about the 'flapdoodle'.

How would you describe the flapdoodle?  What does it look like?  What do you think it can do?  Where do you think it comes from?

If you are interested in finding out more about Lynley Dodd the author of 'The Other Ark', check out this website. 

Spelling Bee

We all participated in the schoolwide Spelling Bee.  There were some very impressive results and it was clear that there had been a lot of studying both at school and at home. 

Sponsorship forms have been sent back home with the number of words correctly spelt in the Bee.  Please return this form with the sponsored money back to school by the 3rd of June. 

We thank our sponsors, families, and friends for helping us with this Spelling Bee.  We are looking forward to getting new Literacy resources for our school.

New Websites added to our Blog!

Enjoy exploring these websites:

Miamopia is where balloons go after being released into the air.  The balloons then seek to learn about the world around them.  Create a character - called a Miamopian - to take part in the activities found in each building, including music, history, an dinosaurs!

Wordmaster is a great way to test your word knowledge and increase your vocabulary!  From the BBC, you're shown a sentence with a word missing.  Click the on-screen keyboard to fill in the blanks. It's against the clock and there are various levels of difficulty.

Take on the Teacher tests your spelling skills - race against the clock to get the highest score!

Story Starters helps you come up with some exciting beginnings for your next story - just spin or push each button on the machine.  It comes up with some great starters - "Write about a day at the amusement park with a yellow parrot who visits the North Pole".