80's Disco

The school disco is on Thursday night!!!!

It's an 80's theme and most of us didn't really know how to dress.  When we looked at the dance pictures on our wall we had a feeling that there were no disco pictures so we looked at some pictures and a video clip of 80's clothes and discos.  We noticed a lot of things that were the same or similar. 

Here  we are sharing what we noticed and here are some of the things we learned about the 80's.

Zoe is sharing her thoughts with Nicole from Kaikorai Valley College.

Here's what we noticed or learned in today's session:

Arleyah - Discos are fun.

Cairo - They wore fat and baggy pants called parachute pants

Luke - They wore silver and bright clothes

Briah - They wore colourful tights

Steven - The hair was cut off funny down the nose.

Josiah -Discos are cool and you can dance at them.

KayLee - They have costumes that are brighter than what we wear now.

Kelli - Michael Jackson has weird shiny clothes.

Rebecca - Disco dancing is cool

Paige - They wear shiny clothes.

Caitlin - They have fuzzy hair.

Mina - At disco dances they dance very, very quickly.

Libby - They had fuzzy hair.

Aden - Their clothes were really shiny and colourful.

Zane - They dance cool.

Zoe - At discos the people wear shiny and colourful clothes.

See you at the disco in some weird, shiny, colourful or sparkly clothes.  And don't forget that fuzzy hair!!

Learning on Friday

Friday 

Last week we read a big book called 'Bikes'.  On Friday we designed our own bikes and labeled some of the parts just like the book.  We drew our bikes according to our own ideas but they had to have some things on them.  (Some of us added extra details as part of our design)

All our bikes had to have:

• 1 seat
• 2 handlebars
• 2 wheels
• 5 spokes in each wheel

Here are some of us at work and a couple of the bikes.  

We sat in a circle with all our bike designs and worked out how many seats, handlebars, wheels and spokes there were in the circle.   We counted 16 bikes and because we knew that every bike had one seat, we knew straight away that there were 16 seats. 

Because there were two handlebars on each bike we counted in twos and found out that there were 32 handlebars.  And there were two wheels on each bike too so we predicted that were the same number of wheels as handlebars.  And we were right!

Steven said that there were five spokes on each wheel so we should count in fives to work out how many spokes there were.  Great thinking Steven.  There were 160 spokes altogether.  Then Paige suggested we could also have counted in tens because even though each wheel had five spokes, each whole bike had 10 spokes.   Both ways gave the same total.  Sometimes there are lots of different ways to work things out.

Just because some people in Room 2 love to challenge themselves, we explored yet another way of finding out how many spokes altogether.  If you say that there are 16 bikes and they all have 10 spokes then you can say that there are 10 lots of 16 and that is 160.  You can write this down as 10 x 16 = 160.  Wow - multiplication.  That's pretty advanced maths Room 2. 

ABC

After Maths it was time for our ABC.  ALL of Room 2 were on the green traffic light so we all got to celebrate awesome behaviour.  We had choosing time.  We could choose ANY learning activity or game in Room 2.  

We used the computer, played word games on the whiteboard, made some cool stuff at the design table and played Twister to name just a few choices.  

Libby, Cairo and KayLee teamed up to play hangman. 

Kerrianne did an awesome job of calling out the colours and positions and is very good at reading Left and Right.  Rebecca, Briah and Luke all know which is their Left side and which is their Right.  Yahoo!

Check out Steven's awesome dragon.  Mum, Dad and Steven had a very busy and creative time making it together and he brought it in on Friday morning.  

(Steven told us all about the dragon and how they made it at buzz group news on Monday) 




After lunch on Mondays we go to the library and on Thursdays we usually have Discovery but on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays we  Relax & Read.

Here are some photos of us enjoying reading.  Our reading skills are improving every day!!

 
 

Show Me 5

We are continuing to "Show 5" in Room 2. 

• Hands Still
• Feet Still
• Mouth Closed
• Eyes on the speaker
• Ears open and listening

It's really important when we're sitting on the mat listening to the teacher.

But it's not just on the mat.  We need to "Show 5" whenever we listen to a speaker.  We share news in Buzz Groups.  The speaker has the 'talking toy in front of them to remind the listeners who should be doing the talking.  We're pretty good at it most of the time! 

Here are some photos of us Showing our 5 Listening Skills

Tigue, Zane and Kerrianne with their eyes on Caitlin and the pom pom she made and brought for news.  Kerrianne asked if she could touch it and Caitlin had said yes.

Rebecca, Arleyah and Briah are being polite to Libby by 'Showing 5'.

Steven shares his news with Kelli, Cairo and Aden who are doing a great job of listening carefully.

Zoe, KayLee and Mina have their hands and feet still and their eyes on Paige as she talks about Pinky, the fluffy pink dog.

 See you again soon.

Week 2 concludes

Hi everyone

Last week was exceptionally busy and we achieved a lot.  Learning about Place Value is going well and we've been having a real blitz on using capital letters and full stops in our writing.  EVERYONE is making progress with reading and we are learning more and more new words every day.


Friday afternoon was incredibly exciting.  After silent reading Mrs B announced our ABC.  (Awesome Behaviour Celebration.)  We all lined up and ordered a chocolate or strawberry milkshake from Paige (the star of the week) and Josiah (the super helper for the day). After we ordered we went into Room 1 and had great fun playing with balloons.    And the best thing...  we were all on the GREEN traffic light so we all got to join in.  Yay!!

At assembly we started by sharing the poem 'Undersea' with some really cool actions.  Some of us read out 'Fishy Stories' we had written using cartoon pictures as inspiration.  

Here's a few for you to read.

The Mermaid - by Arleyah 

The mermaid and the dolphin went for a swim in the 0cean.

The Rescue - by Kerrianne

The Mermaid got caught.  The Dolphin saved the mermaid.

The Mermaid - by Paige

Once upon a time there was a little mermaid and her pet dolphin.  They love jumping out of the water and back in again.  The mermaid had long white hair.  The dolphin could talk and the dolphin was pink and sparkly.  The mermaid has a sparkly blue tail.

Dinner - by Tigue

Once upon a time there was a fish in a glass.  One day the cat came and looked in the glass.  The fish was scared so he got eaten.  When the cat finished eating the fish he did a burp.

And finally...

Here is the finished artwork that we displayed in assembly.  We painted a variety of sea creatures with bright acrylic paints like Marcus Phister and cut them out.  After we spent a little while composing the layout we glued them to the watery environments.  Check out the paintings for sharks, starfish, seahorses, puffer fish, sting rays, jelly fish, rainbow fish and lots of others.  Oh, and a few mermaids of course!  We learned a lot about mark making with paint during the last two weeks and how to respond to the work of ourselves and others.  We also think they're pretty cool paintings!

KayLee

Zoe

Fishy Business in Room 2

Well folks - it's great to be back.  

It's been jolly damp and chilly outside for most of this week and we've been inside a lot.  But... we have had some seriously good learning already.

We've been learning about Place Value and how to count in 10's.  There are two great games on a website called ICT games that use Place Value.  

Here are the links.   

http://www.ictgames.com/sharknumbers.html      

http://www.ictgames.com/sharkNumbers_v2.html  

Mrs B is going to give the blog a new look sometime soon and will try and put a few good links on it.  Stay tuned!

We are starting to look really hard at learning intentions.  So we all know just exactly what we are learning and what we will be doing to show that learning.  Have a chat about the learning intention when doing reading at night to see how it works.

Fishy Business

Our fishy friends have been named.  We wrote down our ideas for names and posted them in the class mailbox.  There were so many awesome names but only two fish so two names were drawn out of the box.  And the names are...  Bubbles and Spongebob.   Come and visit some time.

We've also been creating some fantastic artwork with a fishy theme.  Check out the first stages.  The work of world famous Henri Matisse, a local artist called Margaret Bell and the author/illustrator of The Rainbow Fish series, Marcus Pfister, have inspired us.

In the first stage we are applying water colours with sponges and large brushes to give a watery background.

 


Stage two involved observational drawing.  We made little viewfinders to help us concentrate on details.  Our drawing books contain observational drawings of all sorts of fish. Sharks, whales, stingrays, dolphins, starfish, puffer-fish and many others feature along with the goldfish.  There are also a few mermaids quietly swimming around!

Observational drawing is all about drawing what you see - not what you think you see.  And we are rather good at it too!  The viewfinders came in very handy for drawing parts of the fish like eyes, fins and tails in detail. 

 
Come and see the drawing books if you are passing but there are two more stages to go until the paintings are finished.  So you will see the completed masterpieces next time Room 2 is sharing at assembly.  Keep an eye on the newsletter for the date.

See you again soon.

Mrs B and the Room 2 crew.

 

Swimming and Celebrations

Room 2 has been joining Rooms 3 and 4 for our swimming lessons.  Here are some photos of us developing lots of skills for keeping ourselves safe in the water.  

Caitlin, Kelli, Annashay, Steven, Zane and Zoe.

Tigue kicks out.

Smile for the camera Libby and Aden

Annashay, Caitlin, Steven, Kelli, Zane and Zoe show their skills with the boards.

Mina,  Cairo, Dylan and  Briah get ready for a game with Britt 

Fishy in the ocean, fishy in the sea...

Briah and Cairo are kicking confidently with the tiny boards.

Rebecca from Room 2 and Rebecca from Room 4 show off their technique.

ABC 
Room 2's Awesome Behaviour Celebration

This afternoon after swimming we had a yummy afternoon tea to celebrate our awesome behaviour over the last 3 weeks.  

Unfortunately there have been some nasty bugs around so some of Room 2 were home sick.  Luke, Kerrianne and KayLee would have been here if they had been feeling better and almost all of the rest of us were able to celebrate great behaviour.  

Check us out enjoying pretzels, mini rice bubble squares and frozen grapes and banana slices.  

KayLee, Luke and Kerrianne - you haven't missed out altogether.  There will be a wee something for you when we see you next.

 Finally, and oh so sadly, our good friend Stefan is leaving us.  The exciting part is that he is going to join his brother Rob in the North Island.  We will be joining Room 3 for a special farewell to him on Friday afternoon.  We hope you will stay in contact with us Stefan and maybe even leave some comments on our blog.  Kia kaha e hoa.  (Be strong my friend)

Have a great holiday everyone and we'll see you safe and sound in May.

Ka kite ano from Room 2

The Policewoman comes to Bradford

Last Friday, Constable Heather Rei visited our school.  She told all about what community constables do.  We watched a video of Constable Brian and Bobby the dog. 

Here is a new constable to help Constable Rei.  Doesn't she look cool?