Prize Giving

Congratulations to all the Room 5 students on a very successful year.

Today at prize giving, 4 of Room 5 students received awards -

 Aleki for Best Junior Presentation, Tulialo for Top Year 2 Academic student, Shayna for Most Improved Year 2 Student and Sione for Junior Citizenship Award.

Well done, we are so proud of you!!!

Welcome Michael Jackson and Sasha Banks

What an excitement we have had this week with Michael Jackson and Sasha Banks coming out of their chrysalis. We waited for them to be strong enough to fly then we let them out.  Sasha Banks got tangled in the spider web and it took us a long time to get it out from the sticky web.

We found out that both the butterflies were males!!!

Visit from the Nurses

Sore throats or skin infection- the nurses came to talk to us about skin infections and what to look out for.  They also talked to us about cleanliness and they told us to tell them if we had sore throats.

We were also lucky to get some free gifts from them to help us keep clean.

Garden to Table

We have been growing some vegetables in our garden so we decided to make a salad using the red lettuce that we had grown.  We also used carrots, capsicum and cucumber.  First, we chopped the carrot, capsicum, cucumber and shredded the lettuce.  Then we mixed them all together.  Lastly we added some salt.

We then ate our salad.  Some of the vegetables we tried were interesting!!!

Graphs

We made graphs to show our favourite pizzas.  While most of us like cheese pizza, 3 people in our class don't like pizzas at all!!

We also made a graph to show our favourite fruit.  The most favourite fruit in our class is watermelon.

Making Butter

We have been learning how to write instructions so we decided to make some butter and then write our instructions.  It was hard work shaking the jar full of cream but the butter was delicious with crackers!

Joseph's instructions on how to make butter.

Blowing Bubbles

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles!!!!

As part of the science experiment, we made bubbles using washing detergent and water.  We then tried different ways of blowing it.  It was a lot of fun.

How to make and blow bubbles- By Tulialo

Flower Art

Georgia O'Keeffe is an American artist and we have been looking at her art.  We enjoyed her paintings of enlarged flowers so we decided to create some of our own.

Meet Michael Jackson and Sasha Banks

There are 2 monarch caterpillars in our classroom and our job is to look after them.  First, we had to name them so each of us had to think of two names and why those names were suitable for our caterpillars.

Some of the names were Jamy, Jack, Lumpy, Bumpy, Jackson Bowie, T J Purkins, Rain, Maria Tutaia, Michael Jackson and Sasha Banks.  We wanted to give them names so they won't be teased by other butterflies and names they could be proud of. It was a hard decision so we had a vote and the winning names were Michael Jackson and Sasha Adams.

Learning Together with Room 1 and 3

All the students at our school are learning about plants so we decided to have a shared lesson with Room 1 and 3.  Our job was to predict if a food came from the plant or not.  We were not sure about some of the foods so we had to move them a few times.  We found out that lots of our food came from the plants.  

Do you know that noodles are made from rice and weetbix are made from wheat?  We are going to look out for all the foods that are made from plants!!!

Will it Sink or Float?

As part of our science experiment, we decided to test if the things we had selected would sink or float in the water.  First, we made predictions and then we tested them.

This table shows what we predicted and what actually happened. The most tricky ones to predict were the limestone and the stick.

	Float- our prediction	Sink- our prediction	Result
Yogurt pot	12	3	float
Plastic spoon	13	1	Float
Dry leaf	15	-	Float
Stick	5	10	Float
Marble	3	12	Float
Rock	1	14	Sink
Limestone	2	13	Float
Bottle	13	2	float

All About Plants

Why do we need plants?  How do they grow?  Where can we find them?  What are different parts of the plants called and why are they important?

These were some of the questions we had to investigate about plants so we went out to study them.  We looked at different types of plants, the parts of plants and noted where we found them.  We found out what roles different parts of plants play and how important plants were for our survival.

We found out that "WE NEED PLANTS TO LIVE".

Gymnastics

We really enjoyed learning new skills at our first gymnastics lesson.  Our instructor, Kain taught us names of different skills and showed us the correct way to roll, jump, balance and land.

We wonder what he will teach us next!

Silverbeet Soup

We have been growing silverbeet in our garden and today we made silverbeet soup using onion, garlic, coconut cream and oil.  We chopped, fried, poured, stirred, smelt and tasted our yummy soup.

Thank you Mrs Finau for helping us today!

For our writing today, we had to write about how we made the silverbeet soup.

This was written by Kaulave.

How We Made Silverbeet Soup

First, we picked silverbeet from the garden.  Next, we put the oil in and then we chopped  the onion and garlic.  We got the cooking spoon and stirred the onion and garlic.  We chopped the silverbeet and put it and the salt in then we stirred it again.  Lastly, we  put the coconut cream in.

Trip to the Botanical Garden

The sun was shining, the birds were singing and we were on a trip to the Botanical Garden to study the different types of plants in different types of gardens.

What a great trip we have had to the Botanical Gardens.  We learned about different types of gardens such as rose garden, herb garden, rock garden, African garden, children's garden and edible gardens. All these gardens had different types of plants growing in them.  We enjoyed walking through the blossom valley.  Our favourite flowers were roses and bird of paradise and our favourite gardens were the rose garden and the children's garden.  We were fascinated to find a crocking frog in the bog garden.

 We can't wait to visit these garden with our families!!

Poetry Recital

Poetry Recital

What a challenge our Poetry Recital was!  Not only did we had to remember the poem but we also had to say it aloud in front of the other students and parents and stay still at the same time.

Our 3 finalists from Room 5 were Tulialo, DJ and Joseph.  We are so proud of them!!

Tulialo's whanau came to support her

Exploring Patterns with Maths

Maths is so much fun, especially when we get to 'play'!  We have been learning about Algebra- making patterns, continuing others patterns and talking about them.  We have used ourselves eg long hair/short hair, girl/boy, shorts/long pants.  We have also used shapes, other types of materials, colours and number patterns too.

Open Morning

We had invited our whanau to come and watch us working in our classroom for our open morning.

Shelan with her dad and Sione with her mum

Thank you for visiting us and watching us work!

Skip Off

What a great day we have had for our skip off!  Our 3 finalist, Aleki, Christina and Ariel tried their best with Ariel coming third in the junior skip off.  Shelan got the certificate for the most improved skipper.  We have learned so many ways of skipping, both in the short and long rope.

The junior skip-off

Showing our skipping talents outside our classroom

Room 5 Cross Country Winners

Congratulations to our cross-country winners!

World of Insects

We have been learning about insects and now we know lots of facts about them.  Did you know that insects have 3 body parts- head, thorax and abdomen and that there are more insects in the world than any other animals?  They also have their skeleton on the outside of the body and they belong to a group of animals called arthropods! 

We went for a hikoi to study some insects and we found bees, a monarch butterfly and ants. We studied how they moved, where they lived and what they looked like.  We were careful not to hurt them.

We also wrote letters to insects inviting them to our parties or giving them information.


21.9.16

Dear Fly

I am inviting you to a Stinky Dad's Shoe party.  The party is outside the steps.  The party starts in the afternoon.  I'm inviting a lot of flies, cockroaches and ants in my dad's stinky shoes.  We are having a a party because we want to surprise you.  It is on Friday afternoon.

From Christina


22.9.16

Dear Ant

I found junk food in the cupboard.  It was sugar that I had found but there was ant poison too.  I had a heart attack everywhere in the house and I nearly got trapped.  I looked somewhere else and suddenly I found something I liked.

It was my favourtie, it was a strawberry.  I ran back home to tell my mum and dad.

From Solomon


20.9.16

Dear Monarch Butterfly

I am inviting you to a flower party and I have invited the bees and caterpillars too.  You can come to the daisies on the field, in front of room 5 and come in the afternoon.  I am having a flower party because it is spring.

From Shayna

We Are The Champions

What a great day we have had for the cross-country race today!!!  We are very proud of ourselves.

Waiting for the race to start

See us go

A Fun Duffy Assembly

Henry from Books in Homes came to talk to us about the importance of reading.  He was very funny when he told us how he first started to read during his shopping trips and then discovering the library.

We are going to enjoy reading our library books!!

Going to Tamaki Primary School

What an exciting time we have had at Tamaki Primary School.  We were invited to their Tongan Language Week show and we enjoyed watching the students perform the dance, listening to their band sing and looking at all the costumes worn by the Tongan people.

Thank you Tamaki Primary School for having us!!!

tessellations

Tessellations is a type of art using geometric shapes with no overlaps or gaps.  We have been practising making tessellation art using hexagon, rectangles, diamonds and triangles.  Our next step is to choose 2 colours and colour our art in.

We Made Popcorn

We made popcorn today so we could write a description about it.  We looked at it, we felt it, we smelt it, we heard it and we smelt it.  Some words we used to describe it were white fluffy cloud, sheep wool, crunchy and munchy and buttery.  We watched it pop and the smell was delicious!

The best part: eating!!!

It's Spring

In Room 5, we have been busy learning about signs of spring.  We went for a hikoi around the school to find signs of spring.  We learned that in spring birds make nests and sing, there are baby animals around, the days are getting warmer and longer, the daffodils come out, the plants start to grow and there are blossoms on trees.  

Skipping

We have started to practise our skipping for the big skip off .  We are trying to skip for as long as we can and are learning some different techniques too.

Maths Challenge

We have been learning to solve maths word problems.  First, we worked as a class then in pairs and today we were ready to work by ourselves.  We then got back in pairs to share our ideas and then we worked as a class.

We are getting more confident in talking about our understanding and are enjoying our maths lessons.

Our New Year 2 Class

This term we welcomed room 4, year 2 students in our class and farewelled our year 3 students.  We are going to have a great time learning together.

Making Daisy Chains

Look who was found making daisy chains during the playtime.  Kaulave was sitting on the field, busy making the daisy chains.

Olympic Games

There was Rio Olympic and there was Ruapotaka Mini Olympic Games.  We had an opening ceremony, the march of the 'countries' with their flag, the medal presentations for the Best Sporting Ability and Sportsmanship.

There were straw javelins, gumboot throws, badminton, long jumps, soccer and targets.  

Solomon won the gold medal for Best Sporting Ability.

Chicken and Egg at Get, Set, Go

Shannon had challenged us that if we got tagged, we had to sit like a chicken in the 'nest' and pretend to lay an egg.  We tried not to get tagged but we also enjoyed being the chicken.

We are learning to move in different ways at Get, Set, Go.  We wonder what challenge she would have for us next week!

We are Going to the Zoo

We went to the zoo in a bus!  It was so exciting to learn about all the animals.  We went to the exotic part of the zoo first with the zoo teacher and then we went to the native area by ourselves.  We really wanted to see the big animals and were lucky to find most of them outside.  There were big animals, tall animals, busy animals, not so busy animals, small animals and fat animals.

Some of our favourites were giraffes, tigers and tortoises.

Get, Set, Go

What a great surprise we had today.  Sharon from Get, Set , Go came to take our PE lessons and we didn't know about it until this morning.  We were so excited to use different types of equipment- balls, skipping ropes, bean bags, howler, noodle and cones.  It was fun to just play with our friends.  

 We are looking forward to every Thursday now.

Speech Finals

Tulialo, Shayna and Militina represented our class in the speech finals.  We are very proud of them.  They had to think of a topic, write their speech and learn it.  They also had to be brave and stand in front of the audience to deliver their speech.

Congratulations to Tulialo and Shayna for winning 2nd and 3rd place.

Tulialo came 2nd with her speech on 'Swimming'.  She was awarded a silver certificate.

Check out Tulialo's speech here

Shayna came 3rd with her speech on "Recorders".  She was awarded a bronze certificate.

Check out Shayna's speech here

Militina's speech was on "When I was young"

Check out Militina's speech here.