Andrew Chinn

We had such a great time with Andrew last Tuesday and while I did get some photos, none were as gorgeous as this.  Andrew took a real shine to Sophie and loved her fish face.  Here she is dancing out the door.....

Andrew has an amazing gift and we are lucky to have him visit our school every couple of years.  I have been here sooooooo long that this was my fourth time!  LORD!  The children wrote some super cute stories about Andrew and he is keen to read them so they will be emailed to him asap.  Hopefully we will get an email back from him.  Good times with Andrew!

Golden Time Crepes

We had delicious crepes with ice cream and chocolate topping on Friday for Golden Time.  Thank you to Claudine and Jessie who came along and served them up.  Yummy!  We are so spoilt by you Claudine, we might just have to keep you as an honorary parent next year.

Here we are:

Great knife and fork skills Olly.

Geometry - Learning about the characteristics of shapes

Max W discusses his shape design with Olly.

Jesse is hard at work deciding which shape fits best.

Olly concentrates hard on his shapes and matching the colour attributes.

We have been describing shapes that we know well.  We are trying to use descriptive language to talk about what a shape looks like and feels like.  Here are our three new boys engaging in some shape discovery......

Last Term

Last Term we did some fun activities so here are the photos....
The puppet shows were a huge hit and the kids did so well.  Very funny and very cute!

Fairy bread was also a hit and the children wrote some great procedural writing which will appear in their Portfolio's at the end of the Year.

Good times in Room 13.

Room 13 Lean with Dean

We are right into America's Cup fever in Room 13, watching the races on our Activboard with enthusiasm and it has to be said, some disappointment.  The children and I are keen to win a prize on the lean with me website and this is the photo we are sending in.  Go Team NZ!

Superhero readers!

Wow! We have some fantastic readers in Room 13 and recent testing has shown that some of our readers are already reading at National Standards for 1 Year at school.  I am so proud of all the children and would like to celebrate the success of these super hero readers....

Dylan, Aarav, Max and Maiah are already reading at National Standards for 1 Year at school.  WOW, CLEVER! 

Making Kebabs

Last week Whaea Tania made kebabs with the children as part of their Procedural writing unit.  They had to learn a process, practice it then write about it using a particular format.  The children loved making and eating the kebabs and have cleverly explained what they did to achieve the desired outcome - YUMMY KAI!
Here are some pics.....

Lots of concentration needed here - Saya and Kennedy.

First a marshmello, then a grape.....

Putting the kebabs together, Ella and Molly.

Jayda enjoying her kebab.

DJ's Dad

Last term DJ's Dad came to school and showed us his cool Navy uniform.  He also told us lots of information about his job on the ship and we asked him loads of questions.  It was so nice for DJ to have his Dad with us at school and we enjoyed learning some things about what it takes to be a Navy Sailor.  We have been thinking about what we want to be when we grow up...perhaps some of us will be in the Navy like Darren.



Planting Pansies

On Friday we were lucky enough to have Lou, Imogen's Mum, come and plant pansies with us for Golden  Time.  What a cool time we had, painting our pots, planting our pansies and completing a fun worksheet which ordered the tasks we had completed.  Room 13 are sooooo lucky, we have the best parent helpers in the whole school.  Here are some pics of what we did.....

Cross Country Race

We finally held our Cross Country Race on Thursday, in freezing conditions.  After all our practice, it was awesome showing our amazing running talents.  We had some place getters in Room 13 and everyone did their very best.  Mrs Russell was so proud of us!

It was a freezing day and we were worried that the cold might stop us running fast, but not Room13.  Everyone gave it their best go and we all ran the whole way without stopping.  Yipee for us!

Baking Bread

We had an exciting week last week with bread making, cross country running and then Mass on Sunday. Thank you to all the parents who brought their children to Mass.  It was so lovely to see and Father Mark agreed it would be so nice if the Church was full like that every Sunday.

We were lucky enough to have Claudine Bradley and her whanau in last week to make bread with us.  Bread making is a family tradition handed down from Molly's Nana and we used it as an introduction to Matariki and Maori language week.  The children had a ball and enjoyed a delicious lunch of hot bread, butter and jam and hot soup.  We are so grateful to Claudine, Whaea Tina, Whaea Andrea and Molly's cousin who also helped for giving up their precious time to spend some special time with us at school.  What a super whanau you have Molly.  Ka rawe!





It was pretty busy in the kitchen.



It was fun kneading the bread.  We got flour everywhere!





We enjoyed getting our hands in the flour.





We made a bit of a mess but it was such fun.



We waited patiently for our yummy, warm bread.

Cross Country Race

Well the weather was awfully cold and we had a few purple kids at the end of it but it has to be said, Room 13 made me proud at the Cross Country race today.  All those weeks of training paid off for some super racers today.   We had several place getters but our hugest congratulations has to go to Liam who powered around the track and got 1st Place!  Yipee Liam and wasn't it super having your Dad there to see your success.  Congratulations also goes to Maiah, Dylan and KJ.
Here is our little winner.  More photos will follow tomorrow.

Reminders

A few quick reminders for the rest of the week....

*We have photos tomorrow morning.  Please ensure the children are in their correct uniform and that they have their school jersey with them.  Hair tied back for girls please.

*Thursday is our Annual Junior Cross Country race.  As you know we have been training hard for weeks so please come along and watch us clean up!   The racing will start at 11am.

*We will be spending some time this week finishing tasks for the Portfolio's which will be coming home soon.  If your child brings a book home that is not their usual level or you believe it is just too hard, please read it to them and talk about it with them.  Sometimes when there is a lot happening at school, we do not get through all the reading groups and some children may have either chosen their own text or been given a book we have not yet gone over together.

*A huge thank you to Claudine and her whanau, Whaea Tina and Whaea Andrea as well as Jess,  Heidi. and Angela.   We have had a super duper day making bread and we just could not have done it without you.  I am so lucky to have such amazing parents and support people in Room 13.    The children loved it.

Our McDonalds fun trip will probably be in Week 10 on Thursday.  More information will follow and you are all welcome to come along for a happy meal and a play.
Annie

Matariki Lantern

Today Maiah brought a beautiful Matariki lantern to school.  It was very special because she made it herself.  On Thursday night, Maiah, Ariahna, Heidi and Tumanako went to the night market and made the lanterns.  Unfortunately, Tumanako ate Ariahna's.  Luckily Maiah's was still intact and now we have it in our class.  Thank you Maiah, we love it. We lit it in the dark hallway and all the children went oooohhhhh!

Here they are.....

The lantern

The kids watching in the dark, dark hallway.

Malteser Races

The winner (left) and runner up(right)  Well done girls!!!!!

Hi everyone.  Today for Golden Time we had Malteser races.  The children had to move the malteser along the race track with a straw to cross the finish line first.  Never one to let  a learning experience pass by, we then tallied the winners and found out who was the best malteser racer in Room 13.  When we counted up the tallies, we made a malteser picture graph and found that Kaia was the Champion!  Great job Kaia!

Here are some pics.....

This requires a lot of concentration

Saya gets stuck in.

The picture graph

The tally chart.

Kaia and Jayda racing.

KJ and Maiah get read to start.

Max and Saya on the Start line.

Molly and Maiah get ready to race.