New pages

Up the top of our blog (underneath the main header) are some new pages that you can click on to take you to other 'pages' on the blog. I have added the songs we are going to be singing at the Cultural Festival so that you can practice at home. You could also practice for your part in our performance of 'Giraffes Can't Dance'.


I have also added a Publishing page for any writing that you would like to share with the world!

We will add more pages in the future.

Parent/Teacher Interviews

It was great to have the opportunity to discuss the progress of each student with the parents that came along this evening. As always, please feel free to contact me if you want to chat about your child's learning and we can arrange a time to meet.

Fairy Tales - Fictional, Fantastic, Fabulous!

For Literacy this term, we will be focusing on Fairy Tales. We will be looking at the features of a fairy tale, the vocabulary used, and we will be writing our own fairy tales. We will also look at 'Fractured Fairy Tales', where the traditional tales are changed into humorous versions.

If you have any fairy tales at home that you would like to share with the class, please bring them along to school.

Today we brainstormed a list of fairy tales we already know about:
- Beauty and the Beast
- Sleeping Beauty
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
- Shrek
- Cinderella
- Jack and the Beanstalk

Can you think of others? Check out this site where you can listen to fairy tales and complete activities about them: Fairy Tale Land

Holiday Recipe

During Writing today we wrote a recipe for our holiday!

First, we made a list of 8 things we did during our holiday. These are now the 'ingredients' for our recipe. We then discussed the vocabulary that is used in recipes, for example 'cups', 'teaspoons' and so forth. For each ingredient we wrote down how many 'cups' and 'teaspoons' - for example:
2 cups of late nights
3 teaspoons of movies
1 ounce of friends
Finally, we wrote the instructions on how to make the 'recipe', for example:
Take all the ingredients and mix them together in a bowl. Bake in the oven for 2 weeks.

We will post some of our recipes over the next couple of days.

What do you think about our holiday recipes? Would you like to 'make' the holiday that we had? Please leave us a comment about our recipes.

Lukaz’s Yummy Holiday Biscuits

1. 2 cups movies
2. 1 cup Bike
3. 10 teaspoons School
4. 2 cups memorial park
5. 3 cups the Warehouse
6. 4 cups sore bum
7. 4 cups sore tummy
8. 8 cups lying on the couch

Mix well. Cook for 2 weeks at 200 degrees Celsius.

Corey’s Cool Holiday Recipe

10,000 cups of lego
10 teaspoons of friends
½ cup model trains
1 cup of playground
2 tablespoons of books
7 ounces of sleep overs
A gram of movies
And 2 cups of Wellington

Cook in a giant oven for 2 weeks at 180 degrees Celsius.

Ryan’s Best Holidays Ever

1 cup of swimming
14 cups of internet
1 cup of Te Papa
1 cup of park
1 cup of library
1 cup of shopping
2 cups of cousins
20 cups of fun

Mix 20 cups of fun and 14 cups of internet and bury it in the ground like a hangi. Keep it in the ground for two weeks until cooked.

Bailie’s Holiday Treats

4 cups of friends
1 cup movies
4 cups of shops
3 cups of walking
5 cups of home
4 litres of town
15 grams of TV

Mix together for 2 hours and into the oven for two weeks.

Mason’s Best Holiday

14 cups of friends
1 tsp of park
2 cups of shops
14 cups of home
14 cups of cars
2 cups of town
1 cup of movies
14 tsp of TV

Mix together 1cup of movie and 14 cups of cars. Bake it in the oven for two weeks at 280 degrees celsius.

Meghana’s Recipe for a Good Holiday

6 cups of drawing dinosaurs
1 pound of some pool
1 gram of school
4 teaspoons of Relatives
¼ of a cup of after day care
½ of books
3 teaspoons of times tables
1 pound of a movie

Mix all the ingredients together and bake them for two weeks at 250 degrees Celsius.

Cheymani’s delicious holiday chocolate pudding

5 cups of painting
½ a cup of T.V
1 teaspoon of sleepovers
3 grams of church
9 cups of cousins

Mix all of the ingredients together
and put a ½ cup of beach and mix
them together for 2 weeks.

Ruairi’s Holiday Recipe

1. ½ a cup of Onga Onga
2. 6 table spoons of best friends
3. 2 cups of movies
4. 1 gram of computers

Mix it together well and put it in the oven for 5 to 10 days.

Tyrone’s Holiday Recipe

1. 5 teaspoons motorbike
2. 1 tablespoon beach
3. 1 cup school
4. 2 cups shop
5. 7 cups mum
6. 7 cups dad
7. 1 cup track
8. 1 cup bike

Take 7 cups of mum and 2 cups of shop. Stir it in.
Put it in the microwave for 2 weeks.

Mt Ruapehu and Taumarunui

We were on our way to Taumarunui for a couple of days, so I was lucky to be able to snap a couple of pictures of the gorgeous view of Mt Ruapehu from the car on the way. Taumarunui was in the news lately for having the coldest temperature there since records began in 1947!

I look forward to hearing about what you have all done during your holiday on Monday.

Last Assembly for the Term

Tomorrow we are having our end of term assembly. We will have Pupil of the Term, class awards, welcomes for new students, songs to sing, three dance performances, and birthday celebrations. We look forward to sharing all this with our community!

Keep an eye out on the blog over the next few days for photos and video of the performances.

Check out the video of the Junior Dance Group dancing to 'Rock Your Body':


Cheymani accepts the iMove trophy that we won for having the most students involved in walking, cycling, and scooting to school. This is the second time we have won this award for our super active effort. Thanks to Manawatu Stu for coming along! We look forward to taking part again in Term 4.

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.