Yellow Dots!!!

Wow! We are so impressed with the attention our blog is getting around the world!

So today we are learning to use an atlas to find some of the countries where our blog is being viewed.

Thanks everyone!

Brave men...

Yesterday at 2pm, the whole nation stood still for two minutes so we could remember the brave men who died at the Pike River Mining Tradegy recently.

We discussed what this means, and the children now know that there are 13 children in Greymouth who now do not have a 'daddy', and that those men were somebody's uncle, nephew, son, father, brother, grandson, grandfather, nieghbour and friend.

At 2pm, Room 10 stopped their writing, put their pencils down and stood...to think about those families who have lost a loved one.

Well done, Room 10! You make me proud!

Our new classmates!!!

We have some new classmates!!!

A big welcome to Cecil, the water snail, six wee minnow fish, and a stick insect!!

Thank you to Carla Choi (Miss O'Neill's friend) for giving us Cecil and the fish (we haven't named them as they are too small at the moment). We are taking turns each day to feed the fish. We really like them because they have a bright blue stripe on them. Cecil spends the day eating oxygen weed!

The other day Hunter was writing a thank you letter to Carla and he noticed something crawling up his arm! It looked like a worm...we think he is a stick insect because most of the time he looks like a twig!

The day after...

On Friday we had a relatively 'easy going; day, as the night before was our last performance of Panto Pandemonium. We were all quite tired from 2 late nights and 4 performances...so the expectations were lowered a little that day.

Three girls, Emily, Piper and Olivia, learn Highland Dancing after school, and they had arranged to bring a CD into class for Friday News. Here they are performing a jig:



Here is Piper performing the Sword Dance (Miss O'Neill managed to find two long sticks to act as swords):


The weather was awful on this day. As the rain pelted down, the children had to stay inside to eat and play. Hunter has become quite the KING of the game Connect 4. I had 5 games with him and LOST each game!!! I thought he was so good that I arranged Caitlin to video us on our 6th game...unfortunately for Hunter I won that game. Hunter said I could put the video of him losing...as long as I wrote that he actually had won the 5 games beforehand...deal! You are a terrific player, Hunter!


Is it ok that I was so gleeful in front of a 6 year old???

Circuit Class

For our Inquiry this term we are developing a Circuits Programme for the Otakaro Team to participate in. We are at the 'Immersion' stage, where we need to find out what exactly circuits involves.

So today Miss O'Neill took us to Jellie Park where we met Shelley. She is a gym instructor, and she took us for a class of circuits. We got to do various exercises which specially work just our legs, our hearts and our tummies (abdomen)...it was hard work! Some of us even started to sweat!

We thought the best part was being able to use some special gym equipment.

Thanks, Jellie Park for letting us come and visit.

Welcome to Miss Pricolo

A big welcome to our student teacher, Sam Pricolo. We hope you love teaching Room 10...we are certain you will!

A wee while ago our school received a parcel from another Wairakei School! I know! There is another Wairakei School in the North Island. They heard about our big earthquake, and know we are having lots of aftershocks, and wanted to let us know that they care. Wow! Thanks Wairakei North...it is great to know we are being thought of. Here is a picture of some of Room 10 reading some books made by the wonderful children of Wairakei North School...thanks!

Room 10's Fairy Tale Movie

A couple of weeks ago Room 10 helped Miss O'Neill write a fairy tale. Yesterday we made our fairy tale into a movie.

We hope you like it!

Earthquake!

To the students and families of Room 10, Wairakei School, I hope you and your families are safe. School is closed until next Monday 13th September.

Our school production has been postponed until mid-term 4.

I know some parents are concerned about leaving their child(ren) at school on Monday, and that some children may be frightened about being separated from their parents. We will be starting the day with some news telling (this will be a good time for chidlren to share their experiences of the earthquake with each other). Parents are welcome to stay until they feel comfortable about leaving their child at school. :)

Keep safe, and make sure you give each other lots of cuddles. See you on Monday.

A big hug from Miss O'Neill :)

Our opinions...

This morning on the way to work I was listening to the radio DJ's talk about whether they would live without coffee for 2 months or a hot shower for 2 months. I decided to put a similiar scenario to Room 10 for writing today.

We talked about decision making and giving ourselves a challenge. I asked them to choose between 2 months without pocket money, or 2 months without tv. There were some very interesting responses...and boy! they were very pleased when I told them it was JUST PRETEND!

Here are some of the responses:

Emily...

Trajan...

Madisyn...

Pheobe...

Rowan...

A new gadget!

If you look to the right, you will see a spinning globe. This can tell where in the world our blog is being viewed. Can you see the bright yellow blobs?

How absolutely brilliant!

Do you like the blog's new look?

Skipping

We have been skipping for fitness this term. At the beginning of the term, only a handful of children knew how to skip...now most of us can skip!

Here is Emily and Jungmin (forward skipping)...

Look at Trajan and Hunter skipping...Hunter can skip backwards...

Henna is a wonderful skipper. She can criss cross...

What a clever class!

Fairy Tale Day!

Today the children came to school all dressed up in fairy tale costumes. Everyone looked absolutely brilliant! Can you see: Cinderella, Sylvestor, Fairy Godmother, Spiderman, Snow White, Shrek, Bear, Good Fairy, Wicked Witch, The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood, Wendy and Peter Pan?Here is Phoebe, Piper, Kyle, Hunter and myself. Can you tell who we are? Thanks to Olivia for being a wonderful photographer!

Parents and children: please look at post below for the link to our Learning in Room 10 online Survey.

Have a great weekend.

Learning In Room 10 Survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MB2GHWT

I have created a survey for the children and parents in Room 10. Please click on the link above and complete the simple survey. It is a good idea for children and parents to work together on this survey.

Please be honest - as your answers will be very helpful.

Thank you.

Mmmm yum! Gingerbread men!

Yesterday Room 10 earned their classroom award...so today we iced gingerbread men...what fun! We had all sorts of colours to choose from, and decorated our biscuits with pebbles and raisins.

Mmmmmm! Yummy!!!

A big thank you to Mrs Park and Mrs Vogel for helping us! Also, Miss O'Neill was a little lazy...so a very big thank you goes to the bakery beside Pizza Hut on Greer's Road (can't remember its name!) for baking 25 un-iced gingerbread men.

Puppet show...

One of the fairy tales we have been learning about is The Gingerbread Man. Miss Rollerson helped us to make our very own fingerpuppets, and we performed our puppet show to the class. Can you see the Cow, and Gingerbread Man in this photo?

It has been very wet for the last couple of days (and VERY cold)...so we have been allowed to have lunch inside. We love sitting inside for lunch. We know how to keep our rubbish inside our lunch boxes and chat quietly to each other.

Lots of news...

A big welcome to three new people in our class! We now have 22 people - wow! Chloe W started at the beginning of the term.

Kyle started last week. Trajan also started last week. Trajan is part of a visiting group from Korea...he is only here for a term. At the moment we have a student teacher in Room 10. Welcome to Miss Rollerson. This is Miss Rollerson's last teaching placement and in 3 weeks time, she will be a REAL teacher!

Term 3 has begun!

This term we are looking at fairy tales as a lead up to our school production later in the term. We've been talking about all the different fictional characters, such as, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Wolf, and Rumpelstiltskin etc. We used the mini-laptops to create our very own fictional characters on the www.buildyourwildself.com website. It is very cool! You can pick the clothes, facial features and even add animal features to your character!
Today Jahkwon showed off his fabulous reading by reading a story to the class. He did so well!
Also, a big welcome to Chloe W to Wairakei School!

Mr Bojangles Holiday

Mr Bojangles has been staying with me (Miss O'Neill) over the holidays. We have spent the week in Waimate staying with Mr and Mrs O'Neill (my mum and dad).

Mr Bojangles has been a busy bear. I took him to see my old Primary School, which is called Waimate Centennial School. Here he is at the school. The classroom you can see behind Mr Bojangles was our school library...I can remember watching The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe in there, and meeting Margaret Mahy (she had a green wig with birds in it!).Waimate is well-known for its wallabies...so I took Mr Bojangles to see some at the park. He had an absolutely brilliant time! He can't wait to see everyone back in Room 10 after the holidays though...

A really long post today :)

Today we said goodbye to Casey. She and her family are moving to Oamaru (TODAY!!!) and we wish them all the best there. We will miss Casey terribly. Hopefully Casey will email us and/or keep looking at our blog.

Today is also Sam's 7th birthday...he is the first in our class to turn 7 this year.

Yesterday we had a show in the hall. It was called Old MacDonald...and it was really funny! There was plenty of action, singing...and some teachers even had a go up on the stage.

Yesterday afternoon I wanted to see how much Room 10 could remember about making a simple circuit. They were amazing! Each group was able to connect the wires, batteries and lightbulbs together to make the lightbulb turn on. Ka pai, Room 10.

Also, this part is very belated. Two weeks ago 3 gorgeous children moved up from our new entrant classroom to join ours. Chloe, Patrick and Phoebe have settled in very well, and are beginning to learn our routines.Holidays start today (phew!). Everyone in Room 10 have taken home a news letter, goals and the essential spelling lists (up to list 5).

Happy Holidays! See you back on July 19th.

Lots of things happened today...

We have finally finished our light bulb shakers. After a bit of practicing, we took them over to the music room so we could perform a song using the shakers to Mrs Emeleus (our music teacher). She loved it!

Room 2 (year 5/6) are doing their Inquiry on board games using electricity. They knew we have been looking at electricity too, so they came to interview us! We hope we gave them some good information.

We had a bit of time afterwards, so we dicided to show our absolutely brillinat reading skills toour Room 2 buddy.

Thanks Room 2...come again!

Very COOL visit!

Yesterday Wairakei School had some very cool visitors. Four skateboarders came to show us their tricks using ramps, boxes and bars. We saw them do 360's, ollies, kick flips and much more. We thought they were really clever.You can see them again on Sunday, at Jellie Skate Park (12 - 3pm)...there will be a sausage sizzle, competitions and prizes.

Oops! It has been awhile...

One of my students expressed her disappointment to me the other day, that I hadn't added a post recently. So here you go, Madisyn...

Over the term, Room 10 have been making musical instruments (shakers) out of light bulbs. We have paper-mached around it and given it a base coat. Earlier in the week we decorated our shakers. Here is Caitlin decorating hers.
Some of us have been focussing on editing our written work. Up until recently we have been using word charts to help with this...but now some of the children are now using dictionaries (Spell-Write)...aren't they clever? Here are Emily and Rowan using the dictionaries.A cold and flu bug has been making its way around the classroom...just a reminder to wash hands, get plenty of sleep, eat lots of fruit and vegetables, and keep warm.

A couple of things...

Today I wanted to see what the children could remember about making a circuit. So we pretended that some of the things in our class were wires, batteries, switches and light bulbs. Here are Piper and Henna with their circuit. It has two batteries, wires, three light bulbs and a switch. Can you see them? Is the circuit off or on?

We also published some more letters. It has been very wet this week and we wanted to write letters to Room 5 to say thank you for being our ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT wet day monitors. They are always really nice, help solve our problems and play games with us. Here is Jungmin publishing her letter, and Shougo addressing the big envelope.

We hope Room 5 like our letters.

Road Safety

Today Constable Sue came to talk to us about being safe on the road (or walking near the road). She read us a story telling us about all the different types of traffic. There are cars, trucks, bikes, police cars, ambulances, graders, taxis and heaps more.

One thing we did realise, was that some of us need a booster seat when we go for a ride in the car. All children under the age of 8 years (and 148cm) are supposed to have a booster seat. This means that the seat belt will be more comfortable and it will do the right job if we have an accident.

We have our fingers crossed because tomorrow Constable Sue is going to come back and go for a walk with us. Hopefully the weather will behave!

Road safety aside...yesterday Carlos and Emily made a farm out of lego. Can you see the animals drinking from the trough and can you see the tractors?

Ronald McDonald!

Ronald McDonald came to visit us today. He is really tall...even taller than Miss O'Neill!We have all got our very own 'pedometer' to count our steps for the next three weeks as we excort the All Whites to their kick-off match on June 15. We know that they are in a place called South Africa and we know that you would have to get there by plane, so it is a very long way away.

This morning, Ronald McDonald taught us how to use the pedometers. He joined us for some dancing and some spider soccer!

For more information visit: http://www.mygreatestfeat.org/

Posting our letters.

This week we wrote thank you letters to Kiwisport and Science Alive for their visits last week. We published our letters and illustrated them.

We even addressed our own envelopes with our very neat handwriting.

Whoops...two pictures of Piper...can't seem to delete it...lucky Piper! :)

Then we walked to the post box across the road to deliver our letters.

It was fun!

Thank you to Mrs Hey and Mrs park for walking with us!