LAST DAY FOR 2008!!!!

Dear Room 4
I can't believe our year has finally come to an end. I really didn't want it to finish. We have had such a superb year and I have loved every minute of my job. It has been such a privilege to have you all in my class. Thank you all for your wonderful attitude to learning. I have just reread all your messages in the cards you gave me and they are now hanging up above my Xmas tree in pride of place. Thank you for the lovely gifts I have been given. I was rather overwhelmed! My very best wishes to all your families for Xmas and New Year. I hope you have a very relaxing holiday. I am looking forward to next year in Year 6.
Love from Mrs Mac X

End of 2008

Hello everyone. We certainly had a busy exciting week last week. Congratulations to the 6 people who won awards at the Prize giving-Fletcher, Jared, Lucy, Demi, Koen and Zoe. All your reports went home on Friday and I hope you have been through them with your parents by now. WELL DONE to all of you. We really have had a superb year. We will do some reflections next week and... get ready for that big basic facts test!!
On Tuesday we will have a shared lunch for our class party so bring some party food along and we will celebrate our fabulous year. We will have it at about 12:00 noon. If any parents want to come and join us please do so. The only homelearning for the last week is to keep practising your basic facts! Enjoy your weekend.

Week 8 Term 4

Just a quick reminder to bring your work about your inventor to school tomorrow.
Have a look at the post that Morgan wrote about Christine Hurst, the author, visiting us in June. Read the comments. Another school in Auckland has made a comment on our blog. Use the link to listen to their podcast about "The Boy Who Bounced Around Aotearoa" and write a comment on their blog.
Remember to bring your togs tomorrow also.

Week 7 Term 4

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. It is definitely getting warmer now.
For Home learning keep going with your research on your inventor. You will also have Dragon Maths to do and your spelling list on Thursday. If you think you might be in the Interschool Athletics team bring your whanau sports gear every day this week. And we also have Phys Ed on Monday and Thursday.Can you please remember to bring your donation for our Bible teacher's Xmas / Thank you present. Also if you want to add Xmas decoration to your electronic invention please bring it to school. Try and add a new post to your blogs this week and put a comment on someone's blog that you haven't visited yet.
We only have 20 days of school left this year!! Let's have a super-duper week.

Famous!!

WOW! Have a look at today's edition of the Howick and Pakuranga Times-We're famous!

Week 6 Term 4

HOMELEARNING
For the next 3 weeks I would like you all to choose an inventor of electrical inventions to study and report back to the class. I have put a good site on our "Favourites" list for you to look through and choose someone. It would be great to be able to share your information on our interactive whiteboard and include various forms of technology (eg photos, video, powerpoint...) Be creative and think of different ways to find and present your information. Remember to keep a Bibliography and quote ALL your sources and resources of information. Have Fun!
You will also have Dragon Maths pages due on Friday and keep using Mathletics. Spelling is Thursday night.
Our Athletics sports are on Tuesday and we have a practice on Monday, so remember to bring your whanau gear.
Have a great week everyone.

Guiness Book of Records Attempt.

Thursday 13th was a successful day for us all! Yippee we did it!!!!!!!

WHAT A BIG DAY!

We had a fabulous time at MOTAT today and learned many things about electrical, electronic and many other inventions and how they have impacted on our lives. It was great fun in the Tactile dome and we all managed to find our lumps of coal in the coalmine. The tram ride was awesome and the lesson in the classroom was excellent. We saw lots of different inventions that people have used over the last century or more to make life easier. The robot vacuum cleaner was proved to be pretty hopeless though!
We enjoyed our visit to the Telecommunications building with some of us ringing others on the old fashioned telephones.
At 3:00pm we did the countdown to the start of our Guiness World Record challenge. WOW! Everyone was amazing and we had a big audience giving us lots of encouragement.
WE DID IT! At 3:30pm we finished with a big cheer and then went inside for a celebration party. YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week 5 Term 4

You were all stars at your performance at the school assembly on Friday. Well done. I was very proud of you all. We have a busy week ahead of us and we are half way through the term. Bring your whanau gear every day this week as we will try and fit in athletics practices at lunchtimes. Remember to tell your families about our Guiness Book of Records World record attempt at 3:00pm on THURSDAY. We go to MOTAT on Thursday too so come in correct school uniform. You will have Ms Anderson teaching you on Monday and Tuesday as I am released to work with the senior staff on our 2009 plans and programmes. Remember to bring your 9 volt battery to school. We will get started on our electronics work on Wednesday. I have an interesting site for you to work on for Homelearning this week. Many of you were interested to know exactly how a battery works so that is what you will be learning about.
HOMELEARNING:
1. Click on the link to the Duracell Battery website in our Favourites list.
2. Click on "What is a Battery?" and read the instructions.
3. Click on "Components of a Battery" and read all the information there.
4. Click on "Important Battery Terms" and find out what they are.
5. Click on "How a Battery Works", read the information and answer this question
-When a device is connected do the electrons flow from the positive terminal or the negative terminal to produce a current? (Make sure you turn the switch on).
6. Click on "Life of a Battery" and find out what the life of a battery depends on.
7. When you have finished learning all about batteries you might want to have a go at the games in the "Fun Stuff" section in the top right corner.See if you can earn a gold medal.
8. Keep going on the Mathletics site and do the assigned pages in your Dragon Maths book.

What an exciting action packed week we are going to have!!!!!

Guiness Book of Records Attempt.

Hello everyone. I have been trying to work out what time to do our record attempt at sportstacking on Thursday 13th and have come to the conclusion it would be easiest to do it at 3:00-3:30pm. I hope you can all stay to take part. I know some of you have things on but maybe you could just change your times for that one occasion. It is a very unique thing to do and I would really like everyone to be there if at all possible. Remember to show this to Mum and Dad so they know what you are doing.
Well done the people who have been practising stack-ups, you are certainly getting better!! We will have a practice tomorrow for our assembly item-the play group and sportstacking demonstration. Also please all remember to bring your whanau gear for PE. Keep using the Electricity activities on our Favourite sites for Homelearning.
REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR 9volt BATTERY TO SCHOOL. We start on our electronic work on Monday. School photo orders need to come to school tomorrow or Friday. Thank you to everyone who has paid for the MOTAT trip, only a couple to come in now.
Enjoy your trip to Hong Kong Michael.
See you tomorrow.

Week 3 Term 4

I hope you all enjoyed the sunshine on Labour Day. I have been finding some good things to do with Electricity on the internet and you will be able to have a go at them for your Homelearning this week.

I hope you all told your parents about our exciting news.
BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!
We are registered to take part in a GUINESS BOOK WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT!!! On Thursday 13th November we will be Sport stacking with lots of other Sport stackers around the world. Everyone in Room 4 will need to Sport stack for 30 minutes non-stop. What a thrill to take part in this. The record will be for "Most people Sport stacking at Multiple Locations in One Day". I will be receiving the Stack-up packet of information this week so will keep you informed.

I was extremely proud of ALL of you on Friday. You very quickly organised the equipment and set it out exactly as you were told and your instructions and support given to the Junior children was FANTASTIC! It is great to know that I can rely on you all to act so responsibly and independently. THANK YOU!

HOMELEARNING:
1. Complete an online "Lightning Safety Quiz". Click on the link in our Favourite Sites. Check your answers online.
2. Go to "Electric Avenue" and complete the activities. Click on the link in our Favourite Sites.
3. Have a go at the activities about electrical safety at "Electrical Safety World". Just click on the link in the Favourites list.
4. Create a poem on Poetry Spaltter. Go to www.rif.org/readingplanet/gamestation/poetrysplatter
Click on "My Favourite Game" under Age Group 9-11
If you can, print your poem out at home and glue it into your Homelearning book.
5. NO Dragon Maths this week but keep practising your tables and go onto Mathletics.

HAVE A SUPER WEEK-REMEMBER TO BRING WHANAU SPORTS GEAR THURSDAY AND FRIDAY AND SUNHATS EVERY DAY :)

Monday 20th October

I hope you all enjoyed your day today, I am looking forward to seeing what you did. I had a very exciting day. It made quite a change to get on the ferry to go into the city and guess who was sitting beside me...Mackenna's dad!! The course I went to was very inspiring and our class has been chosen to be a trial class for Financial Literacy which is part of the new NZ curriculum. We have some great activities to try out and I am looking forward to sharing all the resources with you. I hope you are enjoying the homelearning sites. See you at school tomorrow.

Term 4 begins.

HELLO EVERYONE-at last I have found time to get onto the blog!
We all enjoyed our holidays and had many different experiences which we enjoyed sharing on our return to school. It is hard to believe we have already had one whole week back at school. At the end of Term 3 we farewelled Denbigh and his family who have left to start a new lifestyle at Flaxmill Bay on the East coast of Coromandel. It will be good to hear how he is getting on and be sure to visit him if you are over that way any time.
We are continuing our Inquiry process this term . Our main inquiry, related to the overall theme of "How are science and technology changing my world?" will be "How do the inventions of other people impact on and affect our lives today?". We are beginning with a science study of electricity and have already started looking at simple circuits. During the term we will extend into electronics and all the students in the Senior school will be constructing something with electronic components. EVERYONE WILL NEED TO BRING A 9VOLT BATTERY TO SCHOOL and we will supply the rest of the components. We will also be looking at electric and electronic inventions. We enjoyed the visit by the teacher from Vector on Thursday. She talked to us all about how to keep safe around electricity. It was a really dynamic presentation and we learnt a lot about electricity.
For Phys. Ed. we are focusing on Athletics-running for speed and distance, jumping for height and distance, throwing for distance, and relays. Hopefully the pool will be warm enough towards the end of term so we can get some swimming done as well. We are back into Jump Jam with Room 5 three times a week to build up our fitness levels too.
We will soon be asking Year 5 children to think about what senior monitor duties you would like to get involved in as a Year 6 next year. You will need to apply for some of the positions and the Road Patrols and Librarians will be trained this term.
HOMELEARNING: week 2
1. Mathletics-we only have a few weeks left on our subscription so make sure you spend some time on this every day. Keep practising those tables, remember we have a BIG test coming up.
2. Dragon Maths-Statistics-pages 100 and 101.
3. Electricity-on our Favourite sites I have put several websites for you to have a look at. These will help you with the activities that we will be doing during the next few weeks. Do as much of them as possible and repeat the ones you are not too sure of.
4. Spelling-Thursday night.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK AND ENJOY LEARNING ABOUT ELECTRICITY.
REMEMBER-bring your whanau clothes for PE on Thursdays and sunhats and correct school uniform EVERY DAY.

Week 10-LAST WEEK OF TERM 3
Wow where has Term 3 disappeared to?? Haven't we all had a very busy, action-packed term!
Good luck to the first ever Kapa Haka group to represent BBPS this week. You will look awesome. I have tingles up my spine every time I hear you do the haka. Kia kaha for your performance on Wednesday night.
HOMELEARNING
I have been really impressed with the enthusiasm you have all shown for doing your homelearning on the internet via our class blog this term and a big congratulations to all of you who have taken up the challenge of creating your very own blogspot. I love reading them and looking at your comments to each other and to me. It has been exciting to see students actually enjoying their homework so much! The cartoons that some of you managed to create about Conservation on "Toondoo" last week are just fabulous-WELL DONE!
This week I would like you to...
1. Continue using Toondoo if you need to finish the Conservation one or have a go at another one.
2. Also please spend some time on Mathletics.
3. Add another post to your blogspot and comment on at least two other people's blogs.
4. Dragon Maths book pages 90 and 91.
5. Research and record 5 facts about the Takahe.

HAVE A FABULOUS WEEK ALL OF YOU.

Week 9

What a fantastic week last was. The Art exhibition was awesome and Room 4's Kites and paintings were much admired. It was great to see such a huge variety of outstanding art from all areas of the school. I tried to put some photos on the blog but it was going VERY SLOW tonight so I will try another day. Our three Year 5 Gym girls in Room 4 trained hard for the Champion of Champions competition which was held on Friday and they performed extremely well. I was so proud of the all the gym children and the results were excellent.
We only have 2 weeks of school left before the holidays but there is much to do yet. The Interschool cross country is on Tuesday and I will be accompanying the school team. Good luck to the whole team.
HOMELEARNING: We will continue using the conservation site so keep viewing the video clips on there. I would like you all to create a cartoon this week.
1. Go to http://www.toondoo.com
You will need to register first but that is really easy to do. Then create your cartoon with a NZ conservation theme. Remember to save it when you are finished.
2. Go to this Author's site-http://toddparr.com/intro/1.html
Under Todd's photo with his dog click on "Here's a bio of Todd" and read his biography. After that go up to the top menu and click on "Fun" and have a go at some of the activities.
3. Go to the National Library site at http://createreaders.natlib.govt.nz and have a good look around their site. They always put up the latest book reviews on really good quality books. They also have lists of good books to read for your age group.
4. Dragon Maths-you will have 2 pages to do this week-page numbers are on the board.
5. Spelling lists go home Thursday for testing.
Have a super week everyone-the weather forecast looks quite promising. Remember your whanau gear on Monday and Cross Country people come prepared on Tuesday.
PARENTS-calendar pages are at the office if you want to preview them.

Week 8 Term 3

Another busy and exciting week this week. Our big Art exhibition has its official opening in the hall at 6pm on Tuesday. Encourage your families to come along and have a look at all the wonderful artworks from every room. They will be on display until 12:30pm Thursday.
Also we have 3 girls from Room 4 competing in the Auckland GymnasticsChampion of Champions competition on Friday Good luck to Zoe, Amy and Demi.
HOMELEARNING: I will not be putting the homelearning on the blog this week as I want to do the introductory work in the classroom first then assign different things as we work our way through it.
REMEMBER TO BRING WHANAU GEAR-Sport with Mr Whatman is Monday again this week.

Homelearning revised

Hello everyone-it seems lots of people can't access the site I gave you so I have put links directly to them in our Favourite sites list so have another go and see if it works from there. If you have no luck then check them out at school.
Mrs Mac

Week 7 Term 3

Today is the first day of Spring-Yippee! Let's hope the warm sunny weather is not too far away.
It will be a busy week for our Junior school this week and we are looking forward to seeing their Production.
I was really impressed with the high standard of your calendar art Room 4 and I know your families will want to order them. They will make great gifts to give to people at Xmas. I have handed these in to the office if any of your families want to preview them, just ask Mrs Bayer or Mrs Taylor. Please remind them to be careful with them though so the pastel doesn't get smudged.
The Art exhibition is next week so make sure your families pencil it in on their calendars.

HOMELEARNING
Our main focus is on writing a BOOK REVIEW this week. I want you to have a look at our school LIC wikispaces site. Click here https://bbpslibrary.wikispaces.com/Reviews .On the Reviews page you can visit Room 2's book reviews. There are also two other places you can look at. One of them is very helpful at explaining how to write a book review and the other site is a school in England where children have written their own reviews. First of all choose a Fiction book and read it thoroughly or it may be one you have already read. We really want to know your opinion of the book so others can decide whether or not it would be suitable for them to read. I will be getting you to add your reviews to our Library Wikispaces site later on.
You will also have some pages to do from your Dragon Maths book. The other thing I would like you to do is to add to your own blog and make a positive comment on someone else's blog. If you haven't yet made a blog have a look at the ideas on the others. Ask at school if you need help with something.
We do not have PHYS.ED with Mr Whatman until Thursday this week so remember your Whanau gear then.
Have a super sunny week everyone :)

Homelearning week 6.

Some fun activities for you this week. You will need to go to our Favourites site and click on the "WICKED" site.
1.Click on "General Knowledge" and do the last quiz (number 16).
2. Click on "Interactives" at the top then click on "What on Earth". Click on the "Three in a row" activity and play the game.
3. Click on "Interactives" again and click on the "Maths" button. Click on "Multiple Matrix" and follow the instructions.
4.Click on "Topics" at the top then click on "More Topics". Click on "AOTEAROA ADVENTURES" and choose one of the one point activities.
ENJOY YOUR ACTIVITIES. REMEMBER TO CONTINUE WITH "MATHLETICS".
Remember to bring your Whanau gear for PE on Monday, and all those children who were in the top 10 placings at the cross-country will need to have your PE gear and running shoes every day for training for the Interschool Cross-country.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYONE.

Gymnastics Competition-Wednesday 20th August.

What a fantastic day we had at the gym competition. All the children in our BBPS teams achieved great results. They have worked hard at all the practices and Mrs McKenzie is thrilled with the progress everyone made. CONGRATULATIONS to the Year 5 Girls team who won 1st overall. First Individual girl was Jessica and 2nd was Holly (Room 5) and the other girls in the top places were Zoe, Amy and Demi. The Year 5 boys performed creditably and were close to getting a team placing too. The Year 6 boys Team also gained 1st place and Dean was 1st Individual and Quest 3rd Individual. These were outstanding results considering there were at least 13 schools with teams of up to 10 girls and 10 boys at each year level. Mrs McK is bursting with pride. The two winning teams will be going to the Champion of Champions competition on Friday September 12th.

Week 5 Term 3

Congratulations to everyone on your fabulous presentations on the Olympic sports. Both Miss McCallister and Mrs Mckenzie were amazed at the Green Hat thinking and effort that had gone in to your work. It was extremely interesting to listen to and you have all tried extra hard to use a high level of thinking and creativity. WOW! Thank you.
The Art on Friday afternoon was great and I saw some excellent results produced in Room 4.
The Olympics has been stunning to watch and very motivational. Aren't we the lucky ones to have an interactive whiteboard in our room during these games. The multimedia articles and activities available this year have been a tremendous boost to our learning and teaching.
HOMELEARNING : We will keep it fairly easy this week as you put so much effort into last week's homelearning!
1. We do need to get back to the Dragon Maths book this week and our focus will be on
symmetry and transformations.
2. As this is the final week of the Olympics I would like you to choose two NZ Olympic athletes
from two different Olympic sports that you do not know much about and write a profile on
those athletes. Click on the link at the top of the Favourites Site then click on "Profiles" and in "select here" you need to choose the sports then choose the athletes.
Write your information up on an A4 piece of paper (no bigger than that). If you can find a photo of your athlete that would be great.

ENJOY YOUR WEEK EVERYONE. The gymnastics competition is on Wednesday so we have a couple of practices before then and also the choir will be practising hard this week getting ready for their big performance soon.

Goodbye Miss McCallister!

It was a happy and sad day on Friday. Miss McCallister taught us for the last time though some of us will get to see her on Wednesday next week when she comes up to watch the gymnastics
teams compete. We hope she can come and see our Art exhibition
in week 8 too. She was really thrilled to be given all her gifts and
she said how much she had enjoyed her time in Room 4 this year.


GOOD LUCK MISS McCALLISTER- WE know you will be
a great teacher.

Week 4 Term 3.

This is Miss McCallister's last week in Room 4 so let's make it a memorable one for her. She has been with us for a total of 10 weeks and has worked very hard. On behalf of everyone I would like to thank her and wish her the very best of luck in her future teaching career.
HOMELEARNING
This week I have put 3 Olympic sites into our Favourites list. Your task is to find out 5 different things about your chosen Olympic sport for our Inquiry study. At least 2 of your pieces of information need to help answer your queries about how Technology has impacted on that particular sport (e.g. clothing, equipment). Present your information in a way that represents your chosen sport (e.g. a ball-shaped booklet or chart in the shape of a piece of equipment) - use your green hat thinking skills!! Use any other resources that support your answers and make it visually attractive. Bring it to school on Friday to present to the class.
Remember to bring Whanau gear for Gymnastics on Monday and on Friday afternoon we have the Art workshop (some people have yet to bring their permission slip and pay
for this).
Have a great week.

A day of celebration.

Miss McCallister has been teaching our class this term and today she was assessed by her University lecturer. We all went to the Library Information Centre for a lesson using information and inquiry skills about the Olympics. We were put in 8 groups and each group was given a different activity. We used computers, the projector, encyclopaedias, pictures, news articles, reference books, photos and charts to find the answers to our questions. We really enjoyed all the activities. Miss McCallister's lecturer thought she was an excellent teacher and we were all really excited when Miss McCallister told us that she had passed the test. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS MISS MCCALLISTER
Here are some photos of some of the things we have been doing lately.

Week3 Term3

What a busy week! We have had some members of Room 4 gaining fantastic results in the Australasian Science test and others playing rugby against another local school, several went to a chess competition (have a look on our Senior school blog in our profile) and the members of the Senior dance group performed their amazing item at School Assembly on Friday. Also we heard all 32 speeches during the week. WOW- Miss McCallister and I were most impressed with the high standard of the speeches. Well done everyone! We will hear the semi-finalists this week and then choose our class representatives who will be saying their speeches at the Senior school competition. The kites are coming on and really looking brilliant. Unfortunately one of the kites had a mind of its own on Friday- while it was outside drying it suddenly flew up over the school roof never to be seen again!!!!
This week on Thursday we have the first of our three-way conference sessions. I am looking forward to the children sharing their learning with their parents. We are counting down to the Olympics now and have started various related activities.
REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR WHANAU GEAR FOR GYMNASTICS ON MONDAY.
Wasn't the Disco fun on Friday night!!! Have a great week everyone :)
HOMELEARNING:
*Click on "Olympics Activities" in Favourite Sites. Scroll down to "Grab The Glory-100 meter sprint"-click-read instructions-START (you may need to get someone to install Adobe Shockwave Player for it to work. Don't worry if you can't just go to the next activity). Play the game and see if you can beat me-I scored 9815 points.
*Click on the Olympic rings at the bottom of the page, it will open on "Social Studies Fun; The Olympics"- Read the introduction then do the Summer Olympics Wordsearch. Print it (if you can) and glue in your Homelearning book.
*Click on the Olympic rings again, scroll down and click on the sun symbol by "Are you an Olympic Expert?" and answer these questions in your book:
1. Name the city and the year of the first Olympic games.
2. How many times has the Olympics been held in Paris?
3. Name the cities and the years the Olympics has been held in Australia.
4. Where in Korea was the Olympics held?
5. In what years were the Olympics held in the USA?
6. When and where will the next Olympics be held?
7. How many Summer sports will there be at the 2008 Olympics?
*Go back to our main blog page and now click on the Beijing countdown clock at the top right.
Scroll down to the "Photo Gallery" and click on the 'More' sign under the photo. Scroll down and find the photo of the NZ delegation and click on it. Read "New Zealand Delegation dances it up in Olympic Village" and find the answer to this question- Q.-What is it that the NZ team rub as they leave their apartments to bring them good luck during the Olympics?

Week 2 of Term 3.

What a great start we had to Term 3. Miss McCallister is doing a fabulous job teaching Room 4. She introduced several great Maori legends for Maori Language week and we started making our wonderful kites on Friday. Everyone enjoyed the drama activities acting out the parts of the legend "Rona and the Moon". On Monday we started doing gymnastics with Mr Whatman and he was very impressed with the number of talented gymnasts that we have in Room 4. It was good to welcome Koro Percy back to our school on Tuesday and we have started learning some new waiata (songs) and the Kapa Haka group had their first session. I think we are going to hear the haka echoing around our school soon. And what a fabulous day we had for the school cross country on Friday. Congratulations to all the children who achieved their goals.
We are looking forward to hearing all the speeches this week. There is quite a lot of excitement about them and I know you have all been working hard on writing and practising them. Good luck to you all.
HOMELEARNING FOR WEEK 2.
We will keep it easy and fun this week as I know you will still be practising your speeches. We will start getting you to do some OLYMPICS activities.
1. Go to our Favourites site and click on the link there. Play the "WORLD FLAGS MATCH GAME".
2. Click on "OLYMPICS JIGSAW" and do the jigsaw.
3. Go back to the main page and click on "GYMNASTICS SLIDE PUZZLE" click start. Write down how many clicks it took you to complete it.
4. Go back to the main page and click on "NAME THAT FLAG".
You can reset and redo any of these games during the week.
5. Click on the Beijing Countdown at the top of the right side of our blogsite. Make yourself familiar with this website as we will be using it at school too.
6. Dragon Maths book-do the next page on TIME (page 58).
Remember to be prepared for Gymnastics with your Whanau gear on Monday.
Have a great week everyone.

Term 3 begins.

21st July 2008
Welcome back to school everyone. I hope you had a restful, happy holiday. The weather wasn't wonderful was it but it gave me a good excuse to curl up in front of the fire and read lots of books.
It was great to read a few comments on our blog from some of our class members during the holiday. Well done those of you who gave some thought to your speech.
Miss McCallister and I spent a couple of days at school and lots of time at home preparing for the first few weeks. She is looking forward to being your teacher. We have a very full programme organised again. Dancers need to remember you have a practice first thing on Monday and we have gymnastics with Mr Whatman at 9:45am so bring your whanau gear. Please remember to bring your morning tea and lunch in an appropriate container so you can take your scraps home again. Let's see if we can be the best class at being environmentally aware.
HOMELEARNING
1. Speeches: Everyone needs to spend their Homelearning time writing their speeches this week. We will be going over this in class and you will have specific instructions glued into your book. This is the major focus for the next two weeks. Check out the website I have added in our Favourites list.
2. Maori Language week-this term Koro Percy is back at our school teaching Te Reo Maori in classes. He will be taking a Kapa Haka group on Tuesdays at 2:15-3pm. Maori language activities will be a focus in our room during this week and we would like you to have a look at the Maori language site that I have added to our favourites list. It is interactive so make sure you have your volume turned up on your computer.
3. Mathematics-You will need to do Page 57 in your Dragon Maths book-focus for the first 2 weeks is "TIME". Also get back into Mathletics-we are not featuring at all at the moment so see if you can improve your results. We are going to have a 4 OPS basic facts test this week and it would be awesome to see all of you improving on last term's results.
4. CROSS-COUNTRY-this will take place on Friday (weather permitting) so remember to bring your gear and do some running each day.

End of Term 2.

Hi everyone. What a busy and exciting term we have had. I have so enjoyed teaching you all and in some ways I didn't want the term to end. I am very proud of all of you and I think you have all worked particularly hard this term. Many of you have been involved with so many other activities which have required a lot of time and effort to practise. We have had many of you being little stars. The Interwrite board has been very exciting and over the holidays I am going to spend quite a bit of time researching how to put it to best use. I am VERY impressed with your enthusiasm at getting your blogs up and running and I will keep an eye on them over the holidays. Remember to keep using Mathletics in the holidays!! Have fun everyone, stay safe and enjoy the 2 week break. I will check for your comments most days. I am going to spend a few days at Bayleys Beach
on the West coast and I am looking forward to going for long walks on the beach to fossick for interesting finds. Try and find out some information about oil to share when we return to school and remember to do some brainstorming about what you could write your speech on.

Week 9 and Homelearning 30th June.

The Storylines show on Monday was absolutely loved by all of us. It was wonderful to see the books we were familiar with being acted out. The actors were just fantastic and incredibly entertaining.
We had a few ups and downs with our interactive whiteboard during the week. There are still a few problems that will need to be sorted but we have used it during a range of different subject areas. Maths has suddenly become a much more interesting topic as we practice our mental strategies before the train leaves the station (ask your children about that one!). The children from Room 4 who are in the Keas reading group have done a wonderful job reading 10 NZ fiction books during the term and during the week they sat a test to see who would represent our school at the Interschool competition. Out of all the Year 5 and 6's who read the books from the 4 Year 5 / 6 classes we are thrilled to announce Zoe topped the test and will be captain of team 1. Other members of our class who qualified for the teams are Adrianna, Kelsey, Tarran and Jared. Only one other student from Year 6 qualified. WOW!!!!! Mrs McKenzie is incredibly proud of you all and well done to the other children who worked so hard reading the books. The NZ Authors competition is this Tuesday so GOOD LUCK to you all.
It is hard to believe this is the last week of term 2. It has been an action packed term for Room 4!!
With the Homelearning last week we had a few children who had trouble getting their "Wordle" created which is such a shame as it is lots of fun. Never mind this is one BIG learning curve for us all. I am pleased the children have been so good at posting their comments.

HOMELEARNING FOR THIS WEEK.
1. Spelling on Thursday.
2. Mathletics-you all did really well last week so keep going on gaining your certificates.
3. Miniclips-go into Matthew's blog and click on his "Awesome miniclips" and have a go at some of the online games. Great site Matthew!
4. "Rader's Numbernut"-click on this in our Favourite sites. It takes a while to load but just be patient! Click on the Fractions section and do some of the activities.
5. Create your own blog! Fantastic those of you who have had a go at this-well done Courtney, Matthew, Amy, Demi and Tayla. Have a look at these blogs and post a comment-remember our 2 stars and 1 wish.
You are all becoming real web 2.0 experts!!
Have a great week everyone.

Storylines show 23rd June

Week 8 Term 2.

What a fabulous week we had with all the excitement during Bookweek. It was great to see so many children focusing on books and reading and showing so much enthusiasm for our visiting authors, librarian and the local Police. Everyone looked awesome on Friday for our dress-up day as a book character. I am not sure who that unusual lady was who was dressed as Aunty Elsie from "Kiss, Kiss, Yuck, Yuck"! The Bookfair was a huge success and it was wonderful that so many people donated a book to our school library-THANK YOU!
Miss McCallister has enjoyed her week with Room 4. She is looking forward to the next 6 weeks.
We had fun sharing our personal timelines with our class and then reading them to our buddy readers. We showed them an interactive book on our Interwrite board. (Have a look at the slideshow on the side)
Here is the Homelearning for week 8.
1. Mathletics-let's see if we can make an all out effort to have everyone qualifying for a silver certificate this week!
2. Wick-Ed- click on the Wick-Ed site and click on Interactives. Click on the Zoo. Read the story then complete the wordfind and the Cloze Missing words activity. Print them off if you can (or copy them out) then glue in your homelearning book.
3. Rainforest Maths- Click on Level D (dark orange) which is the same as our Year 5. Click on Fractions at the end of the Number row. When you finish the Shapes section try doing the ordering section. If you really feel confident have a go at equivalent fractions too. If you find all of this level too hard go back to the start and try Level C.
4.Wordle fun!- You'll enjoy this one. Create your own Wordle like the example on the right side of the blog. Choose any theme you like. SAVE it on the Wordle site and we will look at them on our Interwrite board.
Enjoy!

Interactive whiteboard-Thursday 19th

Well we were finally able to use our Interwrite board today. There was a huge amount of excitement as everyone arrived in the classroom. We had a nice background image of a park on the board. We learned how to select the pen tool and use a narrow line and to change the colour. We also learned how to use the eraser. We think we did a great job and were very successful on our first attempt. What do you think of it?
The photo shows Matthew adding his name on the board.

Tuesday 17th June-Author visit-by Morgan.

Today room four went to visit an author in the library . The author's name was Christine Hurst. Christine Hurst wrote a book and went to get it published so she could read it to us. The book was called "The boy who bounced around Aotearoa New Zealand". The book is about a boy who kept on jumping on his bed when his mum told him not to so she told him he would bounce away. Christine thought of this idea when her three year old son was jumping on his bed and Christine told him, "Stop jumping on the bed."
He said "Why?"and she replied "Because...
you will jump away."So she wrote a book about it. She read the book to us and then we asked her questions.
"What are your favourite type of books?"
"I like picture books, chapter books and sometimes nonfiction."
"Who is your favourite character ?"
"Definitely Zack."

Tuesday 17 June.

At last we have had the electrics done for our Interwrite board and tomorrow is training day for the teachers so hopefully on Thursday we will be able to give it all a go. We are all VERY excited about it!
What a lot of fun we are having during Bookweek. Lots of children have bought books at the bookfair in the Library Information Centre. Remember Thursday (by lunchtime) is the last day you can buy a book. Today we had a visit by an author and she was extremely impressed with the high level of questioning that our Room 4 students asked her. It was good to compare her answers with those of the author the children read about on the Homelearning last week. One of our school values-PERSEVERANCE- featured a lot in both their answers. Today the children have been writing about the author's visit and tomorrow they will get to post some of their responses on the blog along with photos of course.
At lunchtime today we had three of our local Police came in to the LIC to read aloud to a group of children while they were eating their lunch. One of them was Morgan's uncle! A reporter from the Courier heard about it and came in to do some interviews so keep an eye out for that article over the next few days.
Remember the Book Character dress-up day on Friday!

Week 7 of Term 2.

Hello Room 4. Miss McCallister (Trainee Teacher) comes back tomorrow. She will be in Room 4 with us until 15th August. I can hear you cheering!! It will be great to have her back with us.
We have a lot of exciting activities coming up this week for BOOKWEEK. On Monday we have a visit by Tina who is the childrens' librarian at Highland Park Library. On Tuesday we are being visited by Christine Hurst who is an Author. On Wednesday selected children from the Senior school will be doing a Writer's workshop with Sharlene Bodle who is a local Author. On Friday we have our fabulous BOOK CHARACTER parade. Have you organised your costume yet??? Both our visiting authors will be available for book-signing in the LIC after the parade on Friday. Our BOOKFAIR continues in the LIC during the week and the final day is Thursday at lunchtime so get in quick to buy your books.
HOME LEARNING.
I had a lot of positive feedback about how much both the children and the parents liked the Home learning being web-based. We will try it again this week so here goes.
1. Remember to keep going onto our Mathletics site-this is a very valuable resource and we need to make the most of it while it is freely available to us this year. We have had many children showing improvement in their maths and earning certificates for their effort.
2. As it is BOOKWEEK and we are focusing on 'Myths and Legends' go into the link on our Favourite Sites and click on "GLOBAL TALES". Click on "AUSTRALIA", follow the instructions and read the story. Choose some of the other countries and read their myths and legends. Be prepared to retell your favourite story.
3. Go onto the link "STORYPLACE" in our Favourite Sites. Try an interactive story at this site. Click on "OTHER THEMES" and choose one of the "TOPSY-TURVY" Tales. Enjoy creating your own story. If you have a printer at home you may like to print it out but ask your parents first please.
4. Some fun interactive maths for you to have a go at-click on "ALIEN ADDITION" in Favourite Sites.
5. Click on "WICKED"-same site as last week-click on "TOPICS". Click on "EINSTEIN" and go into the "Mini Challenge". Have a look at "Einstein's timeline". See if you can create a funky timeline about YOURSELF using photos (or photocopies of photos), dates and information. Present it in an interesting way and bring it to school on Friday 20th. Points to think about:
* Consider colour, layout and design
* Check your dates are correct
* Write a brief caption for each photo
6. Spelling will come home on Thursday.
7. Dragon maths book-Page 33.
Some children have yet to bring their money and permission to attend the "Storylines show on Monday 23rd June.
Enjoy your week everyone.

Thursday 12th June

YAHOO! Our new Interactive whiteboard was fitted in the classroom on Thursday. We are all very excited about it and we can't wait to get cracking on using it to enhance our learning and teaching. It is an "Interwrite" model and it is VERY high tech indeed! Later in the year I will try and organise a time for parents to come up and see it in action. I will be having a series of professional development training sessions on using it-first one this Wednesday afternoon. A big learning curve for us all and a very exciting leap into the new age of learning and teaching.
The photo shows it being installed by Scitech.

Trip to the Museum.

What an absolutely awesome trip we had to the museum. We learned a lot about Matariki and the Maori culture. The Maori performance group was excellent. I did have a little slideshow of photos on here but the firewall at school prevented it from being opened at school so I have removed the slideshow. I will try and find another way to share these with you.
I changed my mind!! Here is the slideshow again. I decided as it was really cool I wanted you to see what you can do with Bubbleshare to show photos. We just won't be able to see it at school. Give me some feedback as to whether or not you like seeing your photos like this.
BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.

Get better soon Mackenna.

We were sorry you were so sick yesterday Mackenna. We will think of you while we are at the museum. Have fun with the homelearning activities on the blog. You might like to also have a look at the museum website at www.aucklandmuseum.com
We will miss you so get better soon.
Mrs Mac

Homelearning week 6.

Hello Room 4 I have decided to post your home learning on our blog this week. Well done those of you who have written comments on the blog!
Your home learning is web-based this week and it ties in with our study of Matariki, our Bookweek activities, and for Maths you need to spend some time on Mathletics and an activity on the Wick-Ed site called "Flitting with Fractions".
I know you will have lots of fun having a go at these activities. This a is a new way of getting you to do home learning so we will talk about the pros and cons during the week. It means your parents need to be able to let you access your home computer. I hope this is possible for everyone.
Okay-here is what you need to do. Go to www.tki.org.nz/r/wick_ed/multi_choice/archive.php#
Go to 'New Zealand' and click on "Matariki". Follow the instructions, answer the questions as best you can then see how you scored.
Click on the 'Interactives' button, find "Matariki" and follow the instructions in English.
Have a look at the 'Books' (also on the Interactive button-go to the bottom of the page) and click on the 'Harry Potter' activities. You might want to do the 'Lord of the Rings' activity as well if you have time.
Click on the 'Maths' button and click on "Flitting with Fractions". You will need to watch the Demo first.
Click on the 'Cool Kiwis' button. Go to 'More Cool Kiwis' and find "Janice Marriott-Author". Read the interview with her and answer these questions by writing them in your Homelearning book.
1. Name 4 books written by Janice Marriott.
2.Who are her favourite authors?
3.According to Janice what does it take to be an author?
4.What does she think is the best thing about being an author?
5.How old was she when she wrote her first chapter book?
6.What does she most admire in people?
7. Who is Arlo?
I will put a link to the site on the right of the blog in our Favourite sites spot.
That's it for this week but remember you also need to have your spelling tested on Thursday and read each night. Keas group-you don't have much time left to read your NZ Author books so persevere with them.
Our exciting news is that our Interactive Whiteboard is being fitted on Tuesday so we will be able to use it when we share and discuss your answers to your homelearning on Friday.
We are off to the museum on Tuesday so remember to bring a suitable lunch in a named plastic bag with a named drink bottle and something for morning tea that is easy to eat.
On Thursday our awesome SCHOLASTIC BOOKFAIR opens in the LIC. There will be lots of books for you to have a look at and buy.
Have a great week everyone:) Mrs Mac.

Buddy Reading-Friday 23rd May

Room 4 you are absolute stars! What great role models you are for your little buddies. These photos show what a great example you are with your buddies really engaged in listening to you read. I loved the way you encouraged them to read with lots of expression also when they were reading to you. Keep up the great work!

Mathletics.

Just to let you know there is a link on the right of our blogspot to the Mathletics site. It would be great if you could go on for a few minutes EVERY DAY! Let's see if we can have everyone earning a certificate.

Term 2.

What a busy start to the term! All the Senior school visited the Science and Technology Roadshow at Bucklands Beach Intermediate on Tuesday 13th May. We had a great time trying out all the exhibits. We saw some demonstrations which were amazing. The wind tunnel was a popular place with everyone. We really didn't want to go back to school!
On Thursday the 15th May the whole school celebrated Funky Family Fun Day. We all dressed up in things that reflected something to do with our families. Zoe was dressed all in 'brown'-can you guess why?? Chris was in his motorcross clothing, Demi dressed as a baby complete with nappies and a bib, Adrianna, who is from U.S.A, wore a T-shirt from a mall which had both her name and her sister's name on it and there were lots of people in their pyjamas. Mrs McKenzie came in a 'McKenzie' tartan skirt and hat and a MacGregor tartan scarf with the MacGregor clan badge pinned to it. Our Whanau groups all drew pictures of their families and the PTA displayed them all in the hall.It was a really lovely day.
There have been many sports practices and games happening. The gymnastics groups are being shown their routines for the Interschool competition which is next term and the chess teams went to the interschool competition today. The Choir had a BIG practice at BBI yesterday for the whole morning also.
lots of children have been attending the Mad Science classes after school on Wednesdays. WOW! You should have seen those rockets fly!!!
Chinese language lessons start after school tomorrow. Teachers and children are attending these lessons.
The Room 4 children have been going really well on the Mathletics site. You probably know by now that we won a years subscription from our efforts on World Maths Day. We need to make the most of this opportunity and the children are able to access this site from home. They all have the same usernames and passwords from World Maths Day and these are in their Homelearning books.

Our presentations about the colossal squid.

Room 4 and Room 5 visit Goat Island.

All the Year 5's visited Goat Island on April 3rd. We had to leave VERY early from school but it was worth it. We stopped at Albany and had a yummy breakfast at Burger King before heading on to Goat Island. Room 4 went snorkeling first while Room 5 went up to Seafriends for a lecture and to visit the aquariums. After lunch we swapped over. We also had a look at the rocky shore with Dr Floor Anthoni who told us lots of interesting things about the creatures that live there. We had an incredible experience and lots of children fell asleep in the bus on the way home!!

This is the Bucklands Beach Primary School logo. It is the flower of the Pohutukawa tree which is a large tree that grows in coastal areas. The Maori people say that if the Pohutukawa tree flowers before Christmas then we will get a nice long hot summer.
This last Christmas many Pohutukawa trees were flowering early and we did have a fabulous summer. We like to call it "The Christmas Tree". We have many of these trees growing around our school.