Week 5 - Tuesday 3rd June - 6th June

Kia ora,
Happy Queen's Birthday - bit of a joke going on about the Queen's birthday on Wednesday - maybe I'll get to sit in our new SHARP chair - phew-weee we're getting flash!

Thee chair! We're pretty happy with it. 

Thanks to Penny Hopkins for her kind donation!

Tuesday 3rd June: Mrs Hopkins will be teaching as I will be attending a follow up meeting to my trip to America re: ipads.

Wednesday 4th June: Shared lunch to celebrate Thimira 

Wednesday 4th June: Football training for those children in the squad

Thimira receiving a present that Shkhan had made him - a jar full of treasures. 

Thursday 5th June: Hockey skills 2pm 

Every day - Cross country training for interschool team. 

WEEK 4 SHARP KIDS!

Here are Sepp & Tahirih enjoying their SHARP morning tea, well done! 

Grace was the FIRST SHARP person to sit in the new chair...look at that - room for another 2 children! Well done Grace & Cuddles!

Inquiry - Was Maui A Scientist?

Last week we did  science demonstrations & experiments with floating and sinking.

These pictures show what we did: I'm sure your child will have talked to you about and I know some children have done some of these at home. 

Working out what surface tension is - creates like a layer of skin on the water. 

The water molecules hold on tightly to each other.  They don’t want to separate.  They especially cling to each other at the surface because there is no water molecule on the other side of them to grab on to.   The water molecules on the surface holds on to each other so tightly that a “skin” seems to form on the surface. 

http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/paperclip.php

This link shows what we did and discussed. Surface tension was the focus. 

On Thursday we looked at and discussed does plasticine float? 

We then tried to make it float - some success straight away and a lot of trial and error by others. 

YAY IT WORKED - THE PAPER CLIP IS .... FLOATING!!

Pushing the tissue down into the water. 

Plasticine CAN float....Monet & Michelle show just this!

Ruby L & Amy - carefully pushing the tissue into the water - to see if the paperclip will float. 

 Success!!!!! George & Sam - yes our paperclip is floating!!

Come on, come on - please work!

Birthday boy-Isaac turns 8!

Look at these cool toys Isaac got for his birthday - they brought on discussion about cells and bones. 

A visit from a new lil man WALT SCHRADER! Little brother of Archie - Congrats to Mary-Anne & Russell: The children loved their visit from Walt. 

Maths - addition....learning to add on using the strategy - go to the nearest ten. Some children have fantastic basic facts knowledge - but we are learning to show our working and how we got the answer. 

Oh dear Miss Burt

Oh - I am getting older...
My apologies I left Koby Dennes out of the excellent 8 photo =) Koby was the 1st child to bring his pass the kindness tickets in =)
On that note - I am so sorry if I've missed anyone else out!

Good on you Koby =)

Week 4: 26th May - 30th May

Kia ora,

SHARP STUDENTS WEEK 2:

Congrats to Archie L & Tahirh for showing SHARP behaviour in getting back to class after breaks - like I wrote in last week's blog - a lot of the children are doing this YAY! So I did draw the names out of a hat. =) Archie chose computer time for his SHARP reward & Tahirih (still to do).

Week 3's SHARP student will be someone that shows Respect to their peers, giving compliments and speaking nicely. I will announce this person tomorrow. 

SHARED LUNCH -  Wednesday 4th June 2014

Leaving lunch & celebrate the teacher being a year wiser! ;)

Sadly Timira is leaving us (boo hoo) - Timira & his family are moving to Fielding - we wish them all the best! Timira has been an awesome part of the Room 7 team - he has a hearty chuckle and a delightful sense of humour. 

On Wednesday 4th June we will have a shared lunch for Timira & also to celebrate my 21st birthday (again-I love being 21 +). Can all children please bring a plate of food to share.

I am aware that some children have special diets so their parents will supply the correct food for them. 

I will organise some drink for the children and a small prezzie to present to Timira. 

Homework - the children are AIMING to get 'Auction $' again this term.
These dollars go towards the end of the term when we hold an auction. This time the prizes will be vouchers that the children can buy with the amount of auction $ they have.
Your child gets $50 for bringing their book in on a Friday - WE NEED THE HOMEWORK BOOK for spelling partner testing on Fridays.
This has not changed - we have been doing this ever since the beginning of last term.

A lot of the children are either a) forgetting homework books or b) not bringing in their reading logs.

Can you please help them to REMEMBER to bring these books as it does hold us up on a Friday when we do spelling testing.

THANK YOU to the 8 children who did the PASS ON THE KINDNESS part of last week's homework - this was an EASY task. It was quite disappointing that a lot of children didn't do this part of the FUN HOMEWORK. 

The EXCELLENT eight who did their pass on the kindness tickets - thank you for sharing!

Go Ruby Leigh, Archie L, Sam, Sepp, Amy, Emma, Archie S & Cameron

Maths time - addition using a number line

 We had a quick visit last Wednesday to cheer our Greytown School Rugby 7's teams. Well done to both the yr5-6 and yr7-8 teams! Fantastic playing and great results! What I loved about R7 is that we were watching a game of 2 other schools & the kids were cheering one of the other school's team on =)

Cheering for Greytown y5-6 Rugby 7's team!

Great sports!

Some of our Y5-6 team...

Room 7 won the loudest cheering competition!

Here we go...

Yay....

Go Greytown!

Hockey Skills - this started last Thursday with Sharon Gates from Hockey Wairarapa.

Hockey skills - Timira.

Learning to hold a hockey stick correctly & dribbling the ball.

Perfect day for it.

Listening to Sharon

Timira & Ruby M

Goalie - Boston!

Myths & Legends: The children seem to be enjoying the Maori legends I have been reading - we work this into our reading ... the overall Inquiry topic this term is : Was Maui a Scientist? If you talk to your child about what a Scientist is...that would be great. We've talked about that we are all scientists really as we try out things, invent things, give things a go.....etc....

Have a fab week all =)

Week 3 Term 2: 19th May - 23rd May

Kia ora to week 3 in Room 7.
What a gorgeous day on Friday - the children were able to get outside & Zumba away. Here are some photos showing Room 7 (mixed in with several other classrooms) doing Zumba on the turf with Miss P leading.

This Thursday we start our Hockey skills with Sharon Gates from Hockey Wairarapa. We have an hour session per week for 4 weeks. Something for the children to look forward to and experience a new sport.
We have started our Arts Rotation within the syndicate the children were able to choose 1. Garage Band (music making on the laptops) 2. Drama 3. Maori musical instrument making 4. Traditional Maori games 5. Dance Splash.
Ask your child what one they are doing...we are in the beginning stages so a lot to look forward to.

The soccer training has also started on Thursdays...a few children in Room 7 are involved in this and seemed to enjoy their first session last week.

Cross country training is in full swing. The children who are going to interschool head out each day for 15 minutes running with Mrs Jones & Miss J. The children who are not stay with me & we have children from the other classes come in, we are doing a mixture of carrying on with work or we do Just Dance.

Just a note on the Reading Logs - the children have the choice to be reading a book from their book box or a book from home. Some children prefer to read their novel from the library. Please make sure you or your child fills in their log book. We have a mixture of nights having been filled in from 31 nights to 76!! I had a chat to the children yesterday.
The log book is an incentive to read - the children get their sticker for 25, 50, 75 nights etc..Plus we make a bit of a fuss in class and they receive a certificate in syndicate assembly (This Tuesday).

Well done to Koby who was the first to reach 75 nights!!!

SHARP STUDENT!

Our super SHARP student for week 2 was Claudia. Wow Claudia is a fantastic helper within the class. She is always willing to help and is SO RESPONSIBLE! I like the way she shows Respect to the teacher and is always offering a helping hand!

Our SHARP student for week 3 will be chosen based on our SHARP lesson from last week which was 'returning SHARPly back to class after breaks'. Coming back to class and carrying on with work. 

98% of the class do this fantastically - so I might have to put 98% of the names into a hat and draw one out. The other 2% are still needing reminding that when the bell rings - it's back to class and heads down reading - we are getting there!!

SHARP focus for week 3 is:

W.A.L.T:

I can speak nicely/ politely to my peers while always respecting their differences.

It made me day on Wednesday when Shkhan's name got drawn out of the 'caught ya' box to sit in the caught ya chair the next day. Several children clapped & one boy stood up and moved over to Shkhan to pat him on the back. How awesome is that!

Homework this week - sometimes there is an added task at the bottom of the homework sheet - well done to the 6 children who did this last week (big pat on the back!)..this week there is going to be a task to make 2-3 PASS IT ON tickets. The children are doing this very well - pass on the kindness. We choose 2 children each day to draw out a ticket - read out what it is - then later on in the day or the next day they tell the class what it was they did!

I think that's all the news for this week - anything else I will email/blog you.

Have a fab week - Arohanui Rachel 

Term 2 - week 2 - May 12th-16th

Kia ora Room 7 whanau,
Just a quick blog update to say I'M BACK! Safe & sound - admittedly a tad tired. 
Wow what an adventure my 2 weeks in California was. As a team of 14 educators from NZ we visited a range of schools in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Fransisco. 
1 thing that stood out for me was that children are quite the same the world over - they may speak a different language - but all inspiring!

I tell you what, yesterday was a very special morning arriving back into Room 7 - the cuddles I got made my day/week!
Rose did an amazing job & the children seemed to enjoy the change (LOL) .... a change is always good!

The biggest compliment for a teacher sometimes is to hear how well behaved, set up and helpful the children are to a relieving teacher - Rose was very impressed with your children. She said they knew what they were doing, knew their routines & displayed SHARP behaviour. Yay. 

A few pics to end this off =)

Miss Burt & Ms Perry on Professional Development with Sophia the first =)

Awww - after all these years - I met him!! MICKEY MOUSE. Picture with Ms Perry Gtn School & Lynda & Luke from Hastings School

Fort making - Friday last day of term 1.

Hi de ho - fort making fun

Loved the conversations as they were creating their forts.

Thank you thank you Room 7 - the White Swan night with Amelia.

Claudia and her Great Grandad's VICTORY CROSS medal. Wow!

Our wreath bearers, Koby, Mitchell & Bailey

Thanks for turning up Room 7 people =)