Stomp and Jump Jam Performances

Check out our amazing Jump Jammers and Hip Hop crew, and our awesome "Halswell Style" Stomp performance at this year's learning celebration.

This week's reading

Your challenge this week is to answer your question about the moon, by researching in books and on the internet. The guidelines are:

• You must work in pairs or threes
• Create an open question to research - remember an open question has a long answer, not a yes/no or one word/fact answer. I have to check your question before you start researching.
• You have to use at least 2 books, and no more than 2 websites to get your information (choose carefully!)
• Use the links on our blog to help you get started
• Use the sheets provided to record your information and where you got the information from (the sources). Take notes (no copying directly - only choose the most important information)

When you have gathered all of your information, you can begin thinking about presenting it. See Mrs W to talk about your possibilities.

Timeline:
Monday - writing question and beginning research
Wednesday - gathering more information
Thursday - finish gathering information and meeting with the teacher about your presentation
Friday - begin work on presentation

Week 9 - finishing our presentations and presenting them to the class.

Eclipses

Click on this link to learn all about lunar eclipses. Please leave us a comment below once you have figured out what these words mean:

-umbra
-penumbra

Visit from Super Tourers Drivers

On Friday, we had a special surprise! A few of the Super Tourers drivers brought some of their cars (not the V8's, but porche's, mini's etc) to show us. Some of us got autographs, and all of us left with smiles on their faces.

Oooooooooooo................................

Mr Topham let us in on a wee secret this morning........... some powerful V8's are visiting us tomorrow after morning tea, plus some Motorsport stars! There may be another special guest (although he's a month early!). I'm very excited - I hope you are too!!

The Moon!

Willowbank Videos

Last week we visited Willowbank to look at the animals and participate in the Ko Tane experience. We learned all about the haka, rakau and poi. Here are 3 videos of our class performing in front of Rooms 18 and 19. Enjoy! Please leave us a comment below to tell us what you think.

Hi from this week's bloggers!

Hi it's Bella and Georgia this week's bloggers. We are very excited about going to Willowbank and seeing cool animals in their habitats.We are also looking forward to Art Gallery and swimming.

5 sound experiments

Explanations to come from Tristan and Eli:
Musical straws

Twanging rulers

Tuning forks

Rice drum

Balloon voices

Fun Science: Sound

This clip is a great way to learn about sound! Please leave us a comment to tell us what you have learned about sound!

Weekly wrap up Week 9

 Congratulations to Liam: for getting distinction in a science test. (ICAS Science)

Liam is now the proud owner of an ICAS Academic badge - not many Year 4's achieve that!

 Congratulations to Zara and Georgia: for getting a score of  13.1 in the jump jam comp.

Your coaches are very proud of your efforts!

Congratulations to Grace: for getting a credit in spelling.

Well done Grace!

Balloon Popping Fun!

Today we did balloon popping. The balloons have flour in them so we can see them Pop!

by Millie and Kyle


~Today the Year 3/4 team went out to the field, to watch the teachers pop balloons that had air in them. We learnt that light travels faster than sound, so we heard the balloon popping after we saw the flour explode from the balloon. We also discovered that we don't know much about how sound works, so we are going to experiment a lot to find out!

Volcanoes!

Our Volcanoes reading centre has been going off with a bang!

This week, you will be looking at the different types of volcanoes, and how they erupt differently.

Your 'Must Do' Task This Week:

Each group will need to watch this video (Press 'play video' to watch and make sure your headphones are plugged in). You will need to write down the key points for each type of volcano (composite, cinder, shield and ashflow caldera) in your literacy books before adding to our class summary sheets.

Tennis is fun.

Today we did Tennis with some of the Halswell coaches.  They took us through a lesson but we broke it up into 2 lessons.  They knew some faces and they taught us lots of tricks.  They taught us lots about tennis.  By Ruby and Grace.

Jet Boats and Sailing on Land

4 more years!

until the next Olympic Games. Do you know where they are going to be held?

Check out this website for some wonderful information on NZ's journey during the London 2012 Olympics.

Well done to all of our medalists, the latest being Lisa Carrington, who won GOLD for her mighty effort in the K1 200m race.

Bloggers - Week 5

Our bloggers for this week are....


Orkut Scrap Toys

The Magic Box

In Room 20, we are writing our very own poems based on Kit Wright's 'The Magic Box'. Here it is:

THE MAGIC BOX, by Kit Wright

I will put in the box
the swish of a silk sari on a summer night,
fire from the nostrils of a Chinese dragon,
the tip of a tongue touching a tooth.

I will put in the box
a snowman with a rumbling belly
a sip of the bluest water from Lake Lucerene,
a leaping spark from an electric fish.

I will put into the box
three violet wishes spoken in Gujarati,
the last joke of an ancient uncle,
and the first smile of a baby.

I will put into the box
a fifth season and a black sun,
a cowboy on a broomstick
and a witch on a white horse.

My box is fashioned from ice and gold and steel,
with stars on the lid and secrets in the corners.
Its hinges are the toe joints of dinosaurs.

I shall surf in my box
on the great high-rolling breakers of the wild Atlantic,
then wash ashore on a yellow beach
the colour of the sun.

Click here to hear Kit Wright read his poem.

Thank you Jessica and Zara!

A huge thank you to our first EVER rtwozero bloggers - congratulations on making our blog so interesting for our followers! I wonder who will be next... watch this space...

greece pots and plates

Thursday- today we had to find all the bits of pots and plates and then we had to put them together and then we had to guess what the pics on the pots and plates meant . by Zara &Jess Y

Weekly wrap up - Week 3

Monday- today we did our Margret Mahy poems based on down the back of the chair book we like it  because it has really good illustrations , cool rhyming words and amazing alliteration.
by Zara&Jess y

Tuesday- today the Tui  group preformed their play called snow white. It was awesome!

by Zara and Jessica Y

This week's wrap up

This week we have been learning about Ancient Greece and today we had an Olympics mufti day. There were gymnasts, hockey players and runners etc. By Zara and Jessica Y.

Ancient Greece

On Friday, we were introduced to our new inquiry topic - Ancient Greece. The children were split into 3 groups -

Boys - went to an Athenian school to learn their alphabet, some poetry and to compete in the Olympics
Girls - learnt how to take care of the household for when they had husbands and children
Slaves - a mixture of boys and girls who had to do whatever their masters told them to do

The Athenian schoolboys enjoying a soak in the tubs

Athenian boys getting their feet washed by slaves

What an interesting day! There were both positive and negative comments about daily life in Ancient Greece, but most importantly, we had lots of questions we wanted answered.

Here is a wee video with some wonderful facts, and a cool tune!

Note for parents: We are in the process of making lapbooks to present all of our new learning - this is a huge task, and requires us to use a combination of known and new reading strategies to make judgements about what information we need to summarise. Most of our reading programme during Week 2, and parts of Week 3, will be based around Ancient Greece.

As always, we ask that each child reads for 15-20 minutes each night. Here are some suggestions:

• Research on Ancient Greece - children may need help with search terms if using the internet
• Bug Club - new books added today
• Library book of your child's choosing
• Browsing box book from the class - children are required to self-manage this.

Welcome to Term 3!

Hi Room 20! It's going to be a busy term, with some very exciting topics coming up for you. I hope you've all had a lovely break, and have managed to get a lot of rest so that you are ready to get into your learning tomorrow. I know I'm rested and ready to go!


The Olympics start on the 27th of July - a competition I will be following closely. What sports would you like to watch during the Olympic Games? Leave us a comment below to tell us (please remember to leave your name, and check your spelling and punctuation before posting).

The Olympic Rings - I wonder what they symbolise?

Some (very late) snow pics!

Some pics of our snow bunnies - Kate, Zara (both with siblings) and Harriet. What huge smiles you all have!!

100 word challenge!

We used this 100 word challenge prompt to writing a story about Moby and his friend (who we later found out was called Tim). Please read what 4 children in our class wrote, in 100 words or less. Aren't they clever?

Moby in the Jungle
Once upon a time there were two men but actually one was a robot. But lets get on the the story. Moby and Darryl slept in the jungle for 100 days and 99 nights. On the last day in the jungle, they went looking for something. Can you guess? It was gold. But guess what they found? P.S they found rubbish. The end.
~by Ruby

Moby and his friend Sam were walking along in the creepy jungle. Just then a cheeky monkey came along and stole Moby's hat, then behind some trees they saw what they've been looking for, for ages... They tried to open the treasure chest, but it wouldn't budge, so they looked around for a while, and found a key. They opened the treasure chest and were amazed what they saw. There was gold, diamonds, gemstones, and rubies. It was incredible. They ran as fast as they could and stuffed it all into their pockets. "At last Moby we found it all."
~by Harriet

Once upon a time there were two young men searching the jungle and a monkey stole Moby's hat. The two young men opened the bush and found a lion on gold. They were happy but Moby wasn't because the monkey stole his hat. He was kind of happy but they were more happy that they found it. They ate the chocolate up that they got from the lion. The end. P.S it was fun, yum chocolate. Yum, yum, yum.
~by Lily

Moby and Harry are walking through the jungle. They heard a Tui, parrot, chirping, a monkey and a cricket. Then suddenly a monkey came and took Moby's hat. He was annoyed. Then Harry said, "At last Moby we found it." An old brick, viney, slippery, big, slimy, rickety house with heaps and heaps of really shiny gold. "Moby, aren't we lucky?" "Yeah we are," said Moby. The end.
~by Eli

The North Pole in Christchurch

Snow, snow, and more snow! On Wednesday and Thursday, school was cancelled because of the big snow dump that happened early on Wednesday morning. It was too dangerous for us to come to school because of the ice, so we got to have 2 days off!

Back at school today, we had a challenge where we had to make snowmen in 2 teams. We had 3 minutes to make the first part of the snowman, and then 2 minutes to make the rest of the snowman. We tried as hard as we could to make a big snowman, and we put decorations on.

Our groups both worked really well, and as you can see, the Year 4's all tried really hard to lift the giant middle section they had rolled. They had some success in the end, but the Year 3's won the challenge because they made their snowman in the time that we had.

Check out our photos - Room 20, if you have any snow photos you want to put on the blog, please send them to emma.woolford@halswell.school.nz.

What did you get up to today?

at AnswerGarden.ch.

SNOW DAY!!

Most of us predicted it would snow overnight! It didn't start settling until around 7am, so school wasn't closed until 8.30am. I hope you're all rugged up and warm. How many of you have been outside to make a snowman or other cool snow structure?

Does it look like this at your place? My family and I have been watching big clumps of snow fall of the trees this afternoon. Tell us all about your snow day experiences by adding an answer to our Answer Garden question below

The Kakapo group presents a film about plagues...

The Kakapo reading group have read all about Plagues throughout history. Each group member found key facts and summarised them in their own words. We then talked about how we can share our learning with others. After writing the script based on our summaries, we had to use our self-management skills to practise, learn our lines, perform and film! Here is the finished product:

Note from Mrs W: Well done Kakapo group. You are all stars! You have done so well to self-manage this project and produce such a great film for a first attempt (without a tripod to steady the camera!). The knowledge you have gained shows how well you have skimmed the text for important information, found key facts about your selected area of interest, and summarised in your own words. I am very proud of you all :)

This week we are looking at Bradford Moor school. Please visit their page and make a comment after you have read or watched one of their posts.

Remember:

1. Read the post
2. Start with a greeting (hello, bonjour etc)
3. Comment or make a compliment
4. Maybe ask a question
5. Say farewell (bye, sayonnara)
6. Check spelling, punctuation and check that it makes sense.

Shane Bond!!

We were so lucky to have Shane Bond, a world famous cricketer and proud Cantabrian, come in to talk to us today. We learned that Shane can bowl at 150 kilometres per hour (km/h) - 1 1/2 times faster than the fastest speed cars are allowed to go! The wonderful team at the National Bank put on a free lunch for us, as well as each child receiving a cool mini cricket bat, National Bank cap and Black Caps poster! Thanks to Eli's mum, Jo, for winning such a wonderful prize for us all!

 Eli with retired Black Caps bowler Shane Bond

 Trying out our new caps!

Getting our new gear signed by Shane!

A special guest....

We have a VERY special guest coming in to Room 20 for lunch and a game today! We will add some photos later, watch this space.............................

Quadblogging has reached Room 20!

Our class has started 'Quadblogging' with 3 other schools around the world. We will be completing challenges with our buddies, and learning how to write wonderful comments in writing.

I have added the blogs of our Quadblogging buddies, to the right of the page for you to have a look at. Next week, we will be learning about our buddies from Trull School in the UK.

Happy blogging!

Spider Dioramas!

What was ANZAC cove previously called?

During our discussions about the origins of ANZAC day, some wonderful questions were asked by you all! Harriet asked what ANZAC cove, in Gallipolli, was called before April 25, 1915. This was an easy one to find on google. ANZAC Cove was previously known as Ari Birun. It was renamed shortly after the Gallipoli landings.

Welcome to Room 20

Our classroom is fun to be in.

It's full of art!

You can find out information on the walls about spiders at the moment.

We have really cool books to read in the class library section. The classroom is cool to be in. We have lots of educational games to play with too! Thanks for visiting!

ANZAC day Wednesday 25 April

Tomorrow is ANZAC day, marking the 97th anniversary of the ANZAC's landing at Gallipolli, as well as marking a day where we remember all of those (soldiers, nurses, orderlies, other important roles during conflicts, and family members of those serving) who have sacrificed for our country. We particularly remember those who have made the greatest sacrifice when they have lost their lives.

We learnt today about the landing at ANZAC cove, the poppies in Flanders Fields, and the history of ANZAC biscuits. We then made some biscuits and ate them - yum!

I hope you all have a lovely day tomorrow. If you can, head along to one of the dawn parades to show your support for those who have fought for our freedom (and other peoples too).

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left to grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them."

A new and exciting term ahead!

Strap on those thinking hats and get ready for a fun-filled and action-packed term! We will be learning about fractions before tackling time to start the term. We are starting off the term with some Readers' Theatre - start practising your fluency and expression! Our shared story for the term will start after ANZAC day. We have a new topic for our inquiry this term............ WATCH THIS SPACE (I'm not giving it away just yet!) I hope you all had a fantastic holiday Room 20. Welcome to our new blog viewers and followers. We would love for you to leave us a comment. Please check your spelling before you press enter, and leave your name so we know who has visited us. Thanks!

Some notices:

Woolford Wages are changing - I will explain on Tuesday so please just keep collecting them until we talk about it. Remember to bring a jersey to school EVERY DAY. This term will see colder weather, and it is your responsibility as great self-managers to make sure you are warm on chilly days. Buddy news or buzz groups are on Mondays. Please do not bring in any special items on other days unless you have talked to Mrs W first. I would hate for anything to go missing or get damaged because we haven't taken great care of it. Welcome to Term 2! I know we will have a blast learning new and exciting things. We also have a special person coming to see us regularly from Week 2... I wonder who it is?!

What did you do in the holidays?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

Peter Rabbit

We had a visitor today - Joely and Noah's rabbit, Peter! He was an absolute star and was so calm, even with 28 children wanting to pat him!

Thanks for bringing him in Joely and Noah!

Spider Wordles

 by Liam and Caleb B

by Harriet and Grace

 by Jess H and Zara

Book Character Day

Today at Halswell school we dressed up as our favourite character to raise money and because it's book month. Zara was Nanny Piggins, Eli was Shane Bond, Kyle was the hungry caterpillar and Kate was Pippy Long Stocking.

Today was book character day we got to dress up as our favourite book character,the whole school had a big parade and the school council chose the best dressed.The people that got chosen got to go to the front to get an Easter egg.The money that was raised is going to the people that got seriously hurt or effected in the tsunami. For book character day Harriet was Geronimo Stilton, Caleb was from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Noah was Ron Weasley and Ruby was The Queen Bee who never said  please.

Today it was book day. It's to raise money for Japanese children. we raised over $501.00.

On Wednesday the whole school had book character day. Sterling was a rich boy, Georgia was Sheer Khan, Matthew was Liz (the lizard from the Magic School Bus) and Joely was Angelina Ballerina.

Today we had book character day to raise money for a Japanese kid who got badly affected in the tsunami and earthquake. The school had a parade. We raised over $500. Jaimee was a tooth fairy, Grace was a girl from 'A Bad Case of Stripes'. Millie was the Easter Bunny. Bianca was Cinderella.

Today we had book character day. We had it to raise money for Japanese children. I was the BFG. We had a parade. Mr Topham was a dalmatian. Caleb dressed as Ron. Mason dressed as Harry Potter. Mr Ferguson dressed as Captain Hook. Jess was Geronimo Stilton, Tristan was a scientist from Horrible Science, and Liam was a dinosaur.

Maths Flash Cards

We have discovered it is very important to know our addition and subtraction facts, and to be able to recall them quickly. Mrs W has given out some flashcards that some of you may like to try at home.

If you didn't receive flashcards, or would like to practise online, please go to Fact Monster. Start at level 1 and work your way up.

Please remember, basic facts need to be recalled instantly to help you with your strategy work. Keep up the practise, my wonderful Mathemagicians!

Reminders

• School photos are Tuesday (all going to plan). We will practise our lovely smiles in the morning.
• No sausage sizzle this week (Year 7/8's at camp).
• NZ Book Month Character Dress-up day is next Wednesday, 28 March. More information to follow.
• NZ Book Month Poster competition: create an A4 poster. See the big whiteboard for more information.

BUDDY READING: We will be reading with our buddies on Wednesday!! As big buddies, we are going to help our little buddies from Room 4 with their daily reading book. You will be wonderful role models for the younger children :)

Challenge Part 2

This week, the second part of your challenge is to go outside and play!

Challenge - Week 8

Room 20 children and our followers - your challenge, should you choose to accept it (which we hope you will!), for this week is to leave a comment on our blog. This could be telling us all how fantastic the blog is, or replying to a post that we put on. Mrs W will be checking to see all members of our amazing class have contributed during the week.

Good luck! We can't wait to check what you have written.

Play with the Spider!

Click here to control the spider!

Meet Bitsa!

This is Bitsa - named because its made up of 'Bitsa' insects and arachnids!

SUPER BUGS!

Follow this link to create your own minibeast!

Spiders Home Challenge

Ask Mum or Dad to help print this out for you if you wish and follow the instructions. Mrs W has a few copies (not a whole class set) if you can't print it at home. You can also make a tally chart of the blends instead of printing it out!

Spider Find the Blends

A blend is two consonants that are next to each other in a word and blend to form a new sound. Find the blends in the following paragraph.

Most spiders can spin silk. They do this by making a thick gel inside their bodies. Then they squeeze it out through a tiny opening. When the air hits it, the strand dries and becomes strong.

Good luck! Let me know at school how many you found.

Spider Unit and Reading

We have just started an exciting unit on SPIDERS! During the next two weeks, our reading will be focussed on whole class reading and using the spider reading centre questions - as well as researching the features, habitats and adaptations of different spiders - instead of guided reading. I won’t be bringing books home regularly during this time. Here’s what I can do at home instead:

O Go on a spider hunt - note the spider’s habitat, how big its web is and the spider’s features. I can  use the information at school to work out what species of spider it is.

O Visit the Halswell Community Library for spider books

O    Read information on spiders on the internet (see links on this page)

O Read for enjoyment, for 15 to 20 minutes each night.

O Continue learning my spelling words on www.spellingcity.com and using www.studyladder.co.nz

New videos

We have 2 new videos coming soon - slide shows of our final softball session held on Monday and the Bugmobile visit on Tuesday. Unfortunately, we are experiencing technical difficulties (or Mrs Woolford may have saved them in the wrong format!). Hopefully we'll have them up to share with you in the next day or so.

We have added some links to spider pages - great for those spider enthusiasts out there!

Welcome to our new readers!

It's great to see we have had so many visitors to our blog recently. The year for us has started well, with Constable Ross coming in for 2 sessions about identifying bullying and getting help, for our Kia Kaha topic. We have also started softball lessons, and have Suzie from the Art Gallery coming in tomorrow for a lesson about portrait drawing.

It's going to be a busy, but fun term for us all. We hope you'll keep checking back as we post more of our learning activities.

Last week we welcomed Mrs Bartlett into our class. Mrs Bartlett will be teaching in Room 20 every Wednesday morning this year. We are so lucky to have her with us!

Today we had our first of five t-ball and softball lessons. We had such great fun learning how to grip using our 'doorknocker knuckles', and to use our whole bodies by 'squashing the bug' with our back feet!

Welcome to our 2012 blog!

Welcome to our blog! We now have 28 children in our class. Georgia is happy and excited to be back at school. Sophie thinks it feels good to be back at school. Please keep watching our blog for more updates as we have lots of fun learning new and exciting things.

From the Room 20 kids and Mrs W