Athletics

The emerald green grass sprouted from the mossy ground.  
Pearl white daisies hid among the short stubby grass.
Long striped white lines ran to the end of the field.

“3, 2, 1, go!” the judge shouted.  
I ran as fast as my legs could carry me.  
The sky was sapphire blue and sparkled like the sea.  
Fluffy candy floss clouds flouted fantastically through
the crisp breeze.

Written by Winnie

ACTIVATOR

For a very long time activator has been coming to our school and teaching us heaps of different useful skills like how to dodge a basketball, how to make great shots in netball and this term were even going to have  game of NETBALL!!!.

Every second Friday we all look forward to Youth Town coming and teaching us new things. Activator is the highlight of my week and I cant wait till next time!

We have been taught a range of skillful clever games and through these we have learnt different skills like defending others, how to pivot and a whole bunch of alternative ways to pass a ball amongst team players, this term has been is chest passes.  

I cannot wait to see what next term brings.

Written by Bella
  

Cooperative learning during Keeping Ourselves Safe lessons.


We have been learning about Keeping Ourselves Safe in mixed year level groupings and the children have shown some fantastic cooperative learning skills. 

Group work was a huge part of this unit and we were very proud of how well the children coped with the change of classrooms and peer groups.

The children shared their own ideas and were very respectful of others ideas and opinions, they also learnt more about negotiating and listening to reach a shared understanding. 

Keep an eye on the blog for some reflections from the children on this unit.  

The power of google docs.

This term, through our Science Fair unit, we have been learning about google docs and how to use them.

The children all know how to open a doc and give it a title.  They also know how to share others into the doc.  As we work through the unit we are adding information to the shared group document, this will later become the information we present on our science fair boards.  

Today we looked at 'commenting' and I added comments to each document and the children were able to look at my questions and answer them or change their document accordingly.  This is wonderful new learning and they really enjoyed the instant feedback that was possible without actually waiting for a conversation.

  

The group work is also coming along really nicely with groups well and truly gelled now.   

Editing Checklist.  

Last week as part of writing, 2 of our groups compiled an editing checklist.  

Here is the list they are going to work hard to achieve during editing time in writing each day.  

EDITING SUCCESS CRITERIA

ü Re-read, does my writing make sense?

ü Have I used correct punctuation?

(full stops, commas, questions marks, speech marks, apostrophes, exclamation marks…)

ü Sentences –  

o  Have I used a range of sentence types? (simple, compound and complex). 

o  Have I used a range of sentence starters?

ü Have I used PASSAMOA?

ü Have I used paragraphs?

ü Have I used consistent tense?

ü Have a created MOOD?

ü Have I checked and corrected some of my spelling errors?

ü Have I achieved my WAL?

What do you think of their list?  We would love your feedback.

WRSN Cross Country.

Last week we had the pleasure of travelling to Five Forks School to participate in the Waitaki Rural Schools Network Cross Country event.  
This was so well supported by the WRSN communities and the children were awesome!  Thank you all so much.

Here are a few photos of some of our runners...
We wish everyone competing in the upcoming North Otago event all the very best!

Today at writing time "Wonderland" was looking at PASSAMOA language features.

Here are some of our examples.

P -  personification
The tree danced.  Jed
The wind yelled.  Toby
The cloud cried.  Poppie
The waves leap over the rocks.  Zayvyer

A - adjective
The spiky branches.  Jed
The bright sun.  Toby
The angry bull.  Poppie
The enormous sun.  Zayvyer

S - simile
The tree is as hard as a rock. Jed
The sheep is as white as a cloud.  Toby
The sheep is as fluffy as candyfloss.  Poppie
The people ran like lightning.  Zayvyer

S - strong verb
She limped to the shop. Jed
I strolled at the park.  Toby
I strolled down the path.  Poppie
I gazed at the sun.  Zayvyer

A - adverb
I fell quickly. Jed
I grew quickly.  Toby
She sang beautifully. Poppie 
The cars drove slowly. Zayvyer

M - metaphor
The sun is a yellow button. Jed
The light of the sun is a gold bar. Toby
The sun is a gold coin. Poppie
The snow is a blanket. Zayvyer

O - onomatopoeia
Smash!  Jed
Poof!  Toby
Boom!  Poppie
Roar!  Zayvyer

A - alliteration
The popcorn pops like peanuts in a pan.  Jed
The sea silently sparkled.  Toby
Seven sizzling sausages on a sunny saturday.  Poppie
The trees wave and whoosh in the wind.  Zayvyer


We look forward to sharing some writing later in the term with lots more examples of PASSAMOA.  
Keep checking our BLOG so you don't miss out!

Science Fair.

We are off to a great start for Term 3.  

This week we begin our Science Fair topic, to get used to our new groups and work on cooperation within our new groups we had a task today that helped us to get a better understanding of science fair vocabulary.  

Children worked well in their groups and although this task was hard they persevered and completed this.  This is something that we will do again at the end of the term to see if there is a better understanding of the vocabulary used in science.

We look forward to sharing more of our science journey with you throughout the term.  

  

Big Buddies!

Last week we spent some time with both of the junior classrooms.  

We did some buddy writing with Room 6.  

We were were looking at a 

ROYAL CHARACTER  

like a prince, princess, king, queen or guard,

and describing them using different language features.  

We are going to publish these amazing pieces of collaborative writing on the computers and make them into a published book for Room 6.

We look forward to sharing our published book with you all later in the term.