Thursday 29 October 2015

Week three - a short week but loads of learning!

Vince came on his first visit to school.

Charlie started school on Wednesday.

How is this for applying maths to everyday situations? We were all having a drink after morning tea and suddenly the children decided to measure their drinks bottles against each other and ended up ordering from shortest to tallest, all without me, well done, folks!

Checking out the line for height order.

One of our reading groups concentrating.

Maths games with friend groupings, taking turns and sharing so very well indeed.

These boys chose to play toy story dominoes.

Whereas another group chose dominoes with number patterns.

This group played dominoes really well too, with their own rules.

As a class we looked at each others' final games and decided if everyone was right in their rules and choice of number patterns to match up. Listening to the children discussing is very interesting.

Getting ready for our Friday assembly Kapa Haka performance - the junior syndicate.

Here is Charlie after his first day on Wednesday, welcome Charlie!

Keira received her homework certificate to reflect great work in her alphabet book.

Ella came on her first school visit this week as well.

To get our waiter correct, two lovely role models from Room 6 came to help us out, thanks girls!

Frankie can do magic with her string games.

Ozzy brought his fathers medal to show and tell.

I bought some new toys for the class and we loved discovering what was in the basket, using our maori to introduce ourselves before showing what we had chosen.

Keira is learning how to use this maths puzzle to 10.

Addison and Alice sharing the new food items.

Cohen and Roman sharing one of our laptops.

te Pakira, Imogen and Noah playing wiht our new doll, Lily.

Keira's Auntie Kelly brought her four pug puppies in for us to enjoy, they are so well house trained they even used their mats when they needed to go to the loo!

Room 7 were with us for buddy reading when the puppies visited so they were delighted to join our fun.

Buddy reading is fab.

Mia was ready for Kapa Haka Boogie when she was reading with Frankie.

To  help us with our training for Athletic sports, we teamed up with a senior class and watched them running in straight lines....

...then they helped us!

What super leaders we have at Birchwood, so kind and helpful with our little children.

Jaxson has completed his sticker chart, well done, Jaxson!

We have been building on our knowledge of animal groups based upon their coats, last week we used some great photo resources to group our animals and today in problem solving time, we worked in friendship pairs to assign groups to animals, choosing hair/fur, feathers or skin/scales which our animals are covered in.

Ozzy did great homework in his first week with us :)

Dantae was also due a homework certificate this term - he was away last Friday so didn't  receive his then with his peers.

I hope you enjoy our Blog this week - remember next Thursday is mufti, wear red and bring a gold coin donation please. Wednesday is library, so return books in order to borrow another one and thanks for a fabulous week, your children are amazing.

Star of the week, week three.

Isaac was totally astonished to be the recipient of our award this week, watching his face as the realisation dawned was a real treat!  Isaac received this to reflect his superb manners in class at all times. He is thoughtful and respectful, polite and keen to please, always remembering to say 'please' and 'thank-you' which is fantastic. Keep it up, Isaac, we are so proud of you!

Tuesday 27 October 2015

Week two term four!

Ozzy started school on Monday and is so happy to be with us at last!

Addison brought his full set of dominoes from Countdown to show and share.

Dante sharing beautifully with Cooper.

Frankie chatting and sharing her bracelet with Imogen.

Ordering our numbers to 10 and negotiating with each other which number goes where...

Dantae is keen to walk the number line!

Roman carefully counting as he walks the numerals.

Keira loved making an animal with play dough to take home.

Cohen learning to roll dough for his animal.

Roman counted out his legs and wanted tall ones for his giraffe.

Clinton loves to construct with lego.

Ozzy was delighted to take his certificate home.

We are learning our alphabet and singing the alphabet song as we go.

Our poem this week was about our silver scaled dragon with jaws flaming red, he waits at my elbow to toast my bread - so we had to make and eat toast! We used it for our literacy language work and described carefully using our five senses.


Tasting, touching and smelling our toast...

Addison read a book to us!

He read it so beautifully the Kindy wanted him to read for their circle time when we visited - he was fabulous!

We have been sorting animals according to their coats...


Working in small groups is exciting.

Here you can see Addison reading to his friends at Birchwood Kindy.

On our Kindy visit, Alice played babies.

Many of the children helped in construction.

Te Pakira has awesome skills with a hammer.

look at Keira and Frankie loving the tyre swing together!

Clinton played in the sun.

We went to Animal Farm on Thursday and were SO lucky to have great weather. This is their yak.

We loved feeding the animals.

Looking at the guinea-pigs.

Alice is writing her numbers to 11 now.

Great homework certificates!



Oh, back to Animal Farm...


Out class is super!

I would love a pig - would you?

We hope you like our photos - there are many more in the classroom and the foyer where your children hang their bags, please feel free to come into Room One and enjoy them, you can also read your children's comments about the animals.
A big thank you to parents who were able to assist with lifts and to Dave and Vicky from Animal Farm for hosting us so well. There were so many animals to enjoy, do go back with your children on a good sunny day and let them show you around!