Ella's Around New Zealand Trip!

Ella shared news about her trip around various parts of New Zealand.  Check out the map of all the places she went and the awesome 'summer-tubing' photo.  We had not heard about summer-tubing before so we were very interested to hear about Ella's experience.

Ella 'summer-tubing' at Lake Tekapo

All the places Ella travelled.

Where did you go over the holidays?

Did you do something you had never done before like summer-tubing?

Coleus Plant

Annabelle has gifted a Coleus plant to the class to put in our reading area.  She says the leaves feel "hairy on the darker part of them".  We will have to remember to water it!

Welcome to Room 1!

We would all like to welcome 3 new students to Room 1 - Eli, Ella, and Sean.  Welcome to our learning land - we hope you enjoy your time here!

Fishing Game

Shayde brought in a fishing game that he and his family had made at home from paper, magnets, rope, and some amazing artwork!  What a great way to start off our sharing time this year! 

Shayde was able to tell us about all the different sea creatures: red snapper, eels, lobster, squid, angler, catfish, and many more.

New Learning Links

A few new links for you to check out - enjoy your learning! 

Which one is your favourite?

Geronimo Stilton

Grammar Ninja

Bookworm

Around the World in 80 Seconds Maths

Tumbleweed Maths Maze

Penguins from Antarctica

Shayde brought a poster to school for Room 1 from his dad. It was a to say a special thanks for keeping in touch with him while he was away in Antarctica. We have put the poster on the wall and we are writing stories from the perspective of a penguin in the poster. Check them out next week after we have published them...

Tyler and Shayde with the penguin poster from Shayde's dad.

Brain Food Break

Due to the bell times changing we have decided to have a 'brain food break' prior to morning tea so that our students will stay alert, on-task, and focused on their learning. 

Bell times are as follows:

8.55am - Start of the day

11am - Morning Tea

11.30am - Class time

12.50 - Lunch

1.40pm - Class time

3pm - Home time

Delicious fruit!

As this is a very quick break and we want to 'feed' their brains, please ensure that there is a healthy food option available in your child's lunchbox.  Food such as fruit and vegetables will need to be cut up as time will be limited.  Please see your child's Home Connection book for further details.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at school.

Welcome Back Room 1!

A huge welcome back to everyone - I am so glad you kept yourselves safe over the holidays. 

As always we have a jam-packed term ahead to look forward to.  Please keep an eye on notices and homework bags to keep you informed about where and when things are happening.

I am always available - we have an open-door policy at Tokomaru School - so please come and see me if you have any questions about your child's learning and development.

Mel Bismark

EzCover-School Book Covers

Competition link - please click here and sign up for us to be in to win!

EzCover is a company that makes reusable, recyclable, and easy to put on covers for school books.  I would love to win a class set for Room 1, so please click on the link and sign up.  This does require Facebook access, so over 13 year olds only please.  You can also enter and nominate Room 1 to win the set - so spread the word!

EzCover

Tinch Christmas Colouring Competition

The whole school entered a colouring competition run by Tinch Design Studio at the end of last year.  There were some amazing entries and Tokomaru School did very well - Mikah won a prize of a colouring booklet for her entry.  The judges made this comment: "A lovely luscious green tree, sparkly and fresh with careful detail. Effective outlining, beautiful subtle shimmers on the train, rainbow, owl, guitar and cupcake. This is a very confident use of one hue which has been beautifully finished."  Wow! 

Mikah's entry

Tinch Design Studio has also given the whole school a prize of a rainbow decal for all our amazing entries, so a big congratulations to everyone.

Stationery for 2012

I hope that you are all having a great break with your family and friends, enjoying this great weather! 

If you are looking to label your stationery before you bring everything to school, here are what the books are for:

Scrapbooks:

- Maths x2 (one for assessments and one for daily work)

- Reading

- Spelling

- Poetry

- Topic work (eg: Social Sciences/Science etc)

The two 1I5 books are for Writing.

Please ensure that all pencils, pens, felts etc are labelled with your name on them - vivid or tape work really well for this.

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