Welcome to week 10 - 7th April - 11th April

Kia ora,
We are now up to week 10 - wow we really do need to enjoy the moment - as time goes SO FAST!
We have had an awesome week 9 in Room 7 - Friday being especially fab! The children were just amazing today - so helpful, caring & going that extra mile for each other.
I loved coming into the class after each break and they were either reading or doing their work from the previous session. 
We hosted Totara syndicate assembly on Tuesday - and it went off without a hitch (well we had a little hitch, the ipad was overloaded with photos & videos, which meant while Schalk was videoing the assembly we only got the Karakia! = the 1st 2 minutes!!!!)

Here we are - getting ready for assembly...this is our practice.

On the day - having a wee practise b4 the big moment!

Sausage sizzle & lemon drinks = this Wednesday 9th April.

Thank you to everyone for getting your orders in for this....we were having the fundraiser for a new flag (and as luck would have it the flag turned up .... ;)

Now the money from this fundraiser will go to support Jacob Skinner who is an ex-student of our school. Jacob is a gorgeous young man who has recently been diagnosed with cancer. Jacob & his 2 brothers all went to Greytown School - a fantastic family!

As an Auntie who has been through the cancer walk with my nephew Brad - it is a humongous life changing time. It is like your whole world has been tipped upside down! My brother & family were so supported by the people of Greytown - & it really really helped to have that support.

So our loving support goes to Jacob, his lovely mum Rowan & his 2 brothers Callum & Hayden. 

This photo was taken during the week - Giselle & Claudia had a pass the kindness ticket - & they wrote this on the playground concrete. Very appropriate.

This message was written by Giselle =)

SHARP STUDENT of week 9 was Emma - Emma showed PRIDE in her eating space. What I was looking for was when the children 'read & feed' at morning tea time, that they eat over their lunchbox, tidy any crumbs up & put rubbish in the bin. Emma always has a tidy working space - well done Emma!

At the moment the school is trialling a new lunch time SHARP initiative.

 (Each lunch time all the children sit from 12-12.15pm and eat - a bell then rings. The children then have to put their hand up to let the duty teacher know they are ready to leave their eating space).

We are trialling from year 1 up that the children can leave when the 12.15pm bell rings without having to put their hand up at 12.15pm - they will leave no rubbish. 

This puts the onus on the children. If the trial works we will keep this new rule, if not =( we will go back to the children having to put their hand up to be let go from their eating space. 

Portraits - the children have been doing sketching - well this has been an experience. We started by doing a quick 5 minute drawing of ourself or a friend. Then the children were taught step by step to draw their face - we broke the page up so the drawing was in proportion...well I must say we did have some laughs. I can't wait to get the before & after sketches up in the room.

 Wow -wee - busy lil artists...

 Thirmira & Ruby sketching their faces .... look 4ward to the finished results!!

Emma & Boston showing off their sketching skills - bit of a foot in the way!

Lachie's master piece....we did a bit of work on shading. 

(Someone (not Lachie) ended up with a moustache! ;)

Now I better explain THE CAVE! We have the writing corner & we have made a cave where the children can go to ... to do their fun writing. You will see in the middle photo Bailey & Cameron busy doing their fun writing..... it was so funny - they were so quiet working away - someone had to say "Miss Burt - shall we tell Bailey & Cameron to come out?".....

 Narrative writing - getting started.....roll the dice -

 Cameron & Bailey in the cave ;)

Writing the day away........

Golden/SHARP time - we wrote a name - cut it out & opened it up.

In the middle we turned it into an alien or a creature ...

Look at these fabulous creations. 

 Lachie's name......then open up - ta daaaaaaaaaaaaa

Bella's pink rabbit...

 Ruby's Mum's name.....

ta daaaaaaaaaa....a frog

Monet's awesome alien who has eaten someone's brain!

Bailey presented me with another SURPRISE present - wow a lovely handmade bookmark & card with an old 10 cent coin in it (Bailey said he didn't need the coin anymore!)...here is a pic of Miss Burt looking stunning wearing the lovely bow that Bailey gave me. Thank you Bailey.

And to finish this week's post - well well - we had a bit of April Fool's going on....look at this from Sam & Cam ;)

They got Miss Burt!!

On that note - enjoy the rest of the weekend. Loving this sunshine!!

Pass on the kindness =)

Here's a clip the children loved....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxB5ut-KTs

And lastly:  Leigh Perry (teacher in R5) and myself have been given an amazing opportunity to travel to the United States to look at ICT in schools on the West Coast. We leave Sunday 27^th April and will be away for two weeks. We will be travelling with 12 other teachers from around NZ – visiting schools in LA, San Francisco and San Diego. This means that Rose Scheyvens (pronounced Scavens) (whom the children have had teach in R7 before)  will be teaching the first week of term 2.  So in 3 weeks time today I will be in Auckland awaiting my flight to Los Angeles. I'm so looking forward to this opportunity but also quite nervous (I don't like flying that much) which is ridiculous as I travelled so much in my 20's and loved flying! Old age, I blame! And that means in 5 weeks time I will be landing back in NZ - yay! And I will be back in Room 7 on the Monday. I look forward to bringing what I learn in the States back to Greytown School. Watch this space!

Basic Facts Ladder

Hi all,
Just to clarify the Basic Facts ladder that the children do in their homework book.

The step your child is on is from a) the testing from beginning of the year and then b) from the weekly testing. I am lucky in room 7 that Jenni helps me to test on a Friday. Some classes only test on a fortnightly basis.

 They need to be able to answer the questions within 4-5 seconds. We call this quick recall. The idea behind this is so that when they are doing their maths on a day to day basis they have this quick recall & can then transfer this into when they are working out maths problems.

The main thing is that your child has this step consolidated. So that in weeks down the track they can still answer that basic facts step. It's a bit like learning weekly spelling - they may get 10/10 on a Friday but do they spell that word correctly in their written work after being tested?

The basic facts ladder - goes from Stage 1-Stage 8. The ladder starts at year 1 & goes through to year 8.

Please bear in mind if your child is super stuck on a step - I do not keep them there forever. I will move them up but each week they will learn the step that they're stuck on plus the next step.

A good site to look at is the families page on NZmaths (numeracy project) this gives you some good ideas to help with at home.
http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/number-knowledge-activities

The worksheets that are given are for the 1st time they move onto a new step - after that could you please make up some questions for your child to do in their home learning book. Ask verbally too so that you can see if they have that QUICK RECALL.

Any questions please email me: rburt@greytownschool.com

Week 9 - 31st March - 4th April

Hello & welcome to week 9 in Super SHARP seven,

ONE excited teacher - thank you to the 13 children who entered the Learning Support colouring competition. Because of this I went in a draw & won a night at the White Swan - deluxe package!
Pretty thrilling for me - & the children  have suggested I take Batman =)
Thanks to Koby's wonderful Movie World photos & the fantastic Batman pics! (hehe we had a bit of a laugh about Batman & that Batman could go for dinner with Miss Burt to the White Swan).

Koby showing us his Batman cape. Koby kept a great journal while he was away. I read it to the class on Friday, we enjoyed the photos. Lots of oohs & aahs at the adventures of the Dennes family. Miss Burt was a little envious of the photo shoot of Koby & Ceejay lying by the pool! How nice! Great to have you back Koby.
I must say R7 were so gorgeous on the afternoon Koby surprised us with his return...the children were very excited that he was back. One wee boy even made a sign welcoming Koby back.

DATE  FOR  THE  DIARY!
Greytown School Cross Country to be held (earlier than usual)....Tuesday 6th May at Barton's farm - more information will be given nearer the time. Bear in mind this date is the 1st week back for term 2. We will be doing training at school - but any you do at home would be brilliant! 

Library day is Thursday - we're having a high success rate of children remembering library day - sitting at around 96%. 

Headlice
It appears headlice are enjoying themselves in R7. I have sent a notice out previously & have also talked to the children. I'm quiet vigilant about when the children sit closely together on the mat, we've talked about making sure our heads don't touch. We had a good discussion about headlice & the children were quite knowledgeable. Brought up a good discussion on the lifecycle.
Could you please check your child's hair. This is a good remedy: (hopefully!!).

• Use a lice comb to manually remove lice and their eggs. Coating the hair in conditioner & then running a lice comb through. Use a tissue to wipe the comb on - you will then see any eggs/lice. 

Thank you for this - and I know they're a pain (having a daughter with lovely long hair). 

Zumba - each Friday we have a Zumba session in the hall. We attended Zumba 2 weeks ago & R7 appeared to really enjoy this (99%). I videoed the children & I watched it again yesterday - great fun! If you ever want to see this just ask me & I'll show you on the ipad. 

MOVING MARCH - did you ask your child what they knew about Moving March?

We had some great discussion about this - as you can see from the photos - some fab art work too. 

Moving March posters by R7 - they got hung outside to make a long mural for Enviroschools. The posters represented what the children saw, heard, smelt or felt when they walked, scootered, biked, ran, skateboarded or caught the bus to school. 

Moving March Maths - tally chart to go with discussion about how children in R7 got to school on a) Monday & then b) Thursday - great to see a difference on Thursday. 

Pair work - Moving March.

What a stunning busy working class. 

Tahirih & Grace's Moving March poster - gorgeous - look at all the things the girls saw & heard on their way to school.
Look at the hair - this is what they felt - the wind in their hair! Fabulous!!

 Narrative writing - we have started preparing for narrative writing. You may have heard your child talking about fun writing. (This was previously called personal writing). Well - this has taken off with a hiss & a roar. The idea behind this fun writing book - is just that to make writing FUN! This book will be used during our writing rotation BUT I have told the children it can be written in at other times eg: b4 school - during wet breaks etc... At the front of the book there is space for the children to write down any ideas (we did a big brainstorm of ALL THE TYPES of writing we could do) big list hanging from the ceiling in the classroom....EG: Revolting recipes, a letter to someone we love, a crazy poem, a comic strip, roll the dice to get the character/setting/theme, choose a letter & write down numerous things to go with that letter.
I also have set up a writing corner with lots & lots of things for the children to use to get them writing - from story starters to pictures to comic strips....
We did an awesome activity the other day (what I call a 'hotspot' - to get the children writing like a warm up). I explained they would have a time limit to complete a story starter...4mins - complete the starter..eg: I was walking in the deep dark woods, I came across a big haunted house, I opened the door and... "go - 4 minutes writing" - then we did 3 minutes (with a different story starter) then 2 minutes, 1 minute THEN 30 SECONDS!!! Wow we got some awesome writing - and laughs! Each time I modelled an idea (bit of drama involved to spice things up).

They then shared these a) as 1-1 with the class and b) in pairs.
Now this book is free writing and won't be picked up so much for spelling. They are encouraged to use their red dictionary - and self check. Their more formal writing book will be where the spelling is picked up/proof reading is done.

SUPER SHARP 7  - Cameron & Archie S - SHARP winners for the last couple of weeks.

Thank you birthday girl Monet - for the BEST EVER chocolate cake Miss Burt has ever tasted. R7 really enjoyed this gluten/dairy free cake =)

Things like this MAKE MY DAY! Just precious. I was given a grass sword & some nun chucks...(I had to google nun chucks) hehe! 

Sweet sweet sweet - our lil baby blue Marco - graced R7 with his presence last week. Proud big sister Giselle & Mummy Nicole. Oscar got some wonderful photos on the Ipad - lovely to see the R7 faces looking at Marco.

This is how you do the big sister thing =) Giselle & Marco.

1 to end this blog post off - Who is hiding behind the masks??? And it's not Ted or Cuddles =)

Have a great week!!! and remember to 'pass the kindness'.......

Oh and p.s. R7 are hosting syndicate assembly on Tuesday - we will show the other classes our wonderful Cuddles slideshow & the idea behind Cuddles. We have our fantastic river connecting/individual art work to share. We will be singing the Happy song - link 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt4qZgghw20

Website for writing the children like

Hello - here is a writing site I showed the children today - they liked it...give it a go at home:
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/index.html

And....this song for our syndicate assembly we are hosting on Tuesday =)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIgRTPglVaI&safe=active

Week 8. 24 - 28th March

 Kia ora & welcome to week 8 in Room 7.


I hope you have all have had a fantastic week - Room 7 had another busy bee one.
Thanks to all the children for wearing mufti on Thursday and raising over $500 for Lachie's little sister Lily who will be having her 2nd cochlear implant. I have some gorgeous photos of your cherubs wearing their mufti clothes:

A wig even! The new BIG SISTER Giselle shows us all how to wear a wig =) The children thought it was all quite hilarious!

Butter wouldn't melt! I love this photo we had been working in pairs discussing our interests.

Inquiry - READY, SET, Go.
As part of our inquiry unit we had some fantastic discussion on our interests - what they are - why it's important to have interests. We discussed that our interests make us "special, unique & join us with other people" - We had a question "Can we have the same interests?".
This led into us looking at our place in the world. We start with 'me' - our circle moves out into our family/extended family ----> our community (what is community?)--------->The world.

I have been impressed at the childrens' ability of talking in pairs (a good way to get information shared) and then to come back as a whole class & share those discussions & ideas.

25 nights reading: 

Woop-te-woo - big excitement!!

We have 10 children who have celebrated at home reaching 25 nights of reading in their reading log. Well done to Caitlin, Lachie, Cameron, Tahirih, Giselle, Monet, Sepp, Boston, Ruby M & Shkhan. 

When your child reaches the 25 nights at home - can you please put the sticker in and sign the part in the reading log - make a bit of a fuss (do the 25 nights dance!!)...then at school the children get a mention - their name on the STAR chart & a 'caught ya SHARP ticket'.

I was pretty proud of Room 7 - Caitlin was the 1st person to be mentioned for reaching 25 nights reading at our syndicate assembly. 

MOVING MARCH......This is being celebrated this week - what is moving March?? Ask your child & see if they can tell you =)

A big congratulations to Boston & Mitchell who are part of the walking club. Every Friday morning you will see these 2 boys outside the office stamping the cards of those children who walk, bus, scooter or bike to school. 

Interesting news: Each day we have 2 children share news - we do this on a roster system. This week we had Ruby M who had written a fab story - she shared this with the class and then had a turn on an ipad to use puppet pals (app) to turn her story into a short clip. Ruby, Caitlin, Tahirih & Claudia did this very well - sound effects included. If you have an ipad I would suggest you get this app - it's a great app for encouraging your child to invent their own storylines. 

And...I loved George's news this week (photos & all) one of their cows giving birth to a calf. The children were fascinated by the photos - thank you for those George's mum =)

Bailey & Mitchell the warriors - wow their Grandad visited them from Fiji and look what he brought them ...worth going through Customs for =)

Very exciting for Giselle - the NEW BIG SISTER - welcome to our world Giselle's little brother Marco =)
Thanks for sharing the photos of Marco. Just gorgeous!

Cuddles adventures with Miss Burt - Cuddles came home with me on Wednesday night - well we had fun. Shopping at Fresh Choice - & who did we see but Mrs Lyford. 

Cuddles got to meet my own special bunny rabbit - only 42 years old!!!!!

Well well well - look what I caught Cuddles doing - he sneaked into my little stash of Easter Eggs!! Oh what happens when one takes the class rabbit home! 

Ruby sharing  her 'The ugly giant' story book

Week 7 - term 1

Kia ora,
On Monday I won't be in class as I am attending an ipad course (using the ipad as an educational tool) . Mrs Clark will be in Room 7 on Monday, Rebecca is a lovely teacher whom the children have met before. Mrs Clark used to teach at Greytown School & is now a reliever.

Thank you for coming to your child's goal setting. I look forward to seeing the goals being reached.

We ended Friday with a quick Golden Time where the children played the chocolate game.
As you can see by the photos the children had FUN!

Sam rolled a 6 - quick cut that chocolate!!

Tahirih (in dress up) mmmm that's a 6 for you!

Ruby L's turn =)

Lachie looking fab - just before someone else rolled a 6

Much excitement!!!!!!

Library day - is THURSDAY - 98% of the children remembered to have their books last Thursday - yippee i o! They are just fab-ulous!!!!!
I forgot to mention the last 2 SHARP winners...Grace for having Pride in her work & Ruby L for showing Respect.
Ruby L chose the SHARP reward of 30 minutes free laptop/ipad time with a friend. And Grace has chosen NO HOMEWORK for a week =)
It's pretty hard to pick 1 SHARP student per week as I could have at least 29 =) I do award certificates throughout the week for a little show & tell of the childrens work. Lots of children have gone up in their basic facts - so that's just awesome! THANKS to the fantastic Jenni Lambert who comes in on Friday mornings & helps to test the children on their basic facts..I try to do a large lot of testing on Thursday - it depends how we're going. 

We started writing our next descriptions on the laptops - a lot of learning here...1. Typing on the laptops (word processing, font size, titles etc...) 2. Saving to the server or memory stick. Look at these busy bees: 

Cuddles our class rabbit has been having some EXCITING times at the children's houses = FANCY DANCY going up in a hot air balloon the other day when he stayed at Archie L's house!
And an email picture of Cuddles eating out of a fancy named bowl at the Parker Boys house - gee Cuddles you lead a more exciting life than me.
And then - staying at Sam's house - pirates & carrots & all:

Here's a couple of websites that the children have been using in class & enjoy:

Wacky Web is a fun writing tool - I use it with my own daughter (to write & read). 
Wacky Web Tales - for fun writing using parts of speech

Freerice - which has maths & English (good for vocab help)
http://freerice.com/#/basic-math-pre-algebra/16879

Have a great weekend - and I will see you on Tuesday.
Rachel