The 19ers

What a cool bunch of learners.   I have had a great time with you all this year and wish you the best for your futures.   Regards, Mrs Croll

Chuck Close Art

We have been learning to create a portrait of ourselves by using similar methods to those used by American artists, Chuck Close.   It took a long time to complete our art as we had to colour in each box in the grid, and at the same time, think very carefully about which colour we were using.

These are a few of the finished portraits.   Mrs Croll thinks that her students did a marvellous job.  What do you think?

Reflection of Week 5, Term 4

Eloise learned that she can do percentages of whole numbers e.g.  40% of 150

1. You do 10% first and that equals 15 (I divide 150 by 10)
2. You times by the 10% amount by 4 to get 40%
3. So it's 4x15 = 60

Charlotte learned from her reading study that you can put your reading information on a reading bag.   A drawing of the character on the front on the bag.  Information about the character's likes and dislikes on the side, then the summary of information about the character by putting objects in the bag.

Ashton learned that the milk in our Milk 4 Schools programme has cheesy flavour.   He also learned a few things on Word Rocks. 

Ethan leaned about digital citizenship like not giving out your personal I.D.    

Beau and Leeland's 'Dipper' song

We have been learning about how our actions can have a positive or negative effect on other people - and ourselves.    Over the last week, we have been singing the 'Bucket Dipper' song and read the 'Bucket Dipper' story.  We looked at our own lives and wondered how we can be 'bucker fillers' instead of 'bucket dippers'.

Beau and Leeland put together this song to illustrate their understanding of what it means to be a 'bucket filler'.  Enjoy!

listen to ‘Leland and Beaus dipper song’ on Audioboo

An author visits the 19ers

We had a surprise this week with a visit from author Lucas Chisholm.  He came to present his book to our teacher, Mrs Croll, who looks after our school library.   Lucas Chisholm had a difficult time at school because he has dyslexia.  He started doodling the 'flargies' during English class in secondary school.  His mum drew the illustrations for the book; it took one week to draw some of the pages!

"It's about looking into the pictures, not at the pictures."

We felt very special to have a real author visit the 19ers.   Lucas Chisholm is an example of how you can achieve your dream if you keep trying.

Little Red Ridding Hood!


Little Red slowly pushed the creaky door open and tip toed into the room. Her eyes widened and a mysterious look ran on to her face.

She said, "Granny what big hands you have?"
Granny answered, "They're to scratch my back with."

"OK," said Little Red with a confused look on her face. "What big eyes you have?" added Little Red.
"STOP talking about me! What's in the basket?" screamed Granny

Then the wolf took off the Granny mask and Little Red realised that she was right.  It was not Granny at all.  It was the wolf.  A fight erupted between the two, like a sister and brother with ducking, punching, kicking and screaming.

Suddenly, an angry woodsman SMASHED the window clean off the hinges and killed the wolf.

Granny and Little Red lived happily ever after.


THE END
By Charlotte

Our New Road Patrollers

It's that time of year when things start getting ready for the following year.  One of the things to do was to select our Road Patrollers for 2014.  Room19ers will have Sharysse, Sophie O'S and Eloise making sure that the roads are safe for us to cross at the beginning and end of the day.

Thanks girls!

The Green-Gold Award (Week 2, Term 4)

On Tuesday, a group of visitors came to our school to judge us for the Green-Gold award.  This is the third time that our school has been reviewed and a lot of work had been completed by the EfS (Education for Schools) Review team to ensure that we were ready.  

The visitors were welcomed with a powhiri in the school hall.  After that, Keagan and Brianna (our class representatives on the EfS Review team) went to the library to show the judges a presentation about the murals that we created for the juniors and how they were made.  Then we went to the juniors' area to see the murals and the butterfly garden.  By then it was time for morning tea; we went to the staff room to have some food (it was very tasty!!).

After morning tea we went up to the top field to show the judges our fantastic Kaiawa Gardens.  We explained our interactive challenge and looked at the insect hotel made by Room 21.  It was very interesting. After that we went to see the skunk home which is next to the Oasis (after school care) room.

We had many things to show and tell our judges.  Later we worked together to discuss what learning has taken place and make suggestions for our next steps.  Ms McLeod says that we have so many brilliant ideas that we will be busy for quite a few years!

The most exciting moment of the day was right at the end when we were told by the judges that we had retained the Green-Gold award.   We were all so delighted!

Week 1, Term 4

Halberg Sports Day
This Friday we had a sports day to raise money for the Halberg disability foundation. We dressed up as our sports hero, or our favorite team.  Dylan dressed up as All Black Ben Smith, Sophie O'N dressed in her hockey uniform - she was Sophie Cock from the Black Sticks and Ryan dressed as a Springbok. Everyone caught being FERN got a FERN card and some people got a little prize.  These were some of the activities: hurdles, frisbee tag, tennis, Jump Jam and dodge ball.


Citizenship
This term our inquiry is focused on citizenship and what it means to be a citizen.  We have been contributing ideas to the citizenship window.  We have also been learning about filling buckets and emptying buckets.  This means that each time you say or do something positive, your bucket or someone else's bucket, will be filled with a drip.  If you say or do something unkind, your bucket will loose a drip.  You can take drips out of other people's bucket too if they feel upset by what you say or do.   We have watched and listened to some videos about being a 'bucket filler'. Everyone in the class likes singing to the 'Bucket Filler Rock Song.

We used window chalk to show our current thinking about citizenship and will add any new learning to it.

Enviro Expo

At the end of last term, our school celebrated our environmental education with an Enviro Expo.   We all had a product and a service stall which we organised with our buddy classes.   Each class had a competition for baking, sustainable craft and art.   Here is a collage of photos from the day.

Body Sculptures

To be a Beachlands Learner, we need to be adaptable and problem solvers.  One way to do this is to be placed in random groups then asked to use our bodies to create an imaginary creature.  We had a fabulous time exploring shapes, getting involved and presenting to others.  Here are a few of our "creatures".

Enviro Expo 2013

Our school-wide focus for Term 3 was all about technology and what better way to see this in action but to learn how to make a product and organise a service for our annual Enviro Expo.

We met with our buddy class over the course of the term to learn about the processes involved in technology - to identify our market, source ideas, create prototypes then manufacture our product and service.  We had an enormous amount of fun creating our photo frames and paper planes.

On the day, we also had a classroom full of outstanding sandart and recycled sculptures, along with insect art and mouthwatering bug baking.  Certificates were awarded to the best on show.  Our judges had an extremely challenging task to decide who were the best.

Enviro Expo is a celebration about the environment and it helps us to realise that we can be sustainable.  We just need to put our creative caps on.

Our Garden Post

In Term 3 the 19ers learned all about plants and what to plant in which season. We all learned about the space that each plant needs, then designed our own garden plans.  Mrs Croll took a little bit from each plan to make a combined design.    Now we are very excited because the gardens have been cleared of last season's plants which means we can start planting!

This afternoon, some of the 19ers visited our plot in the Kaiawa Gardens to check out the area (others were with our school Kapahaka group, performing at a child care centre).   Room 21 have placed a path of old bricks down to separate each room's garden and give us something to walk on.  We found a few weeds, that were easy to pull out as the soil is so soft from all the rain that we have had lately.

Mrs Croll is going to pick up some seedlings tomorrow and we will take turns to work in the garden during morning tea.  We can't wait to see how it all looks - and tastes!

Art with Peter Max

Mrs Croll introduced us to perspective drawing by artist Peter Max.   He is a German-born American illustrator and graphic artist, known for the use of psychedelic shapes and colour palettes.   We were inspired by his work from the 1960s where he used bright, neon colours.   Peter Max was interested in astronomy and this is reflected in his art which included stars, sun rays and planets.

We learned about ruling from a visual point (the VP)  and placement of shapes on paper.  We are using water colours to achieve the bright colours - just like Peter Max did.

Hiwi the Kiwi

Week 4 started with a surprise when Mrs Croll told Room 19ers that we were off to the hall to the 'Hiwi the Kiwi' show.  We were entertained by the humourous lyrics and stories from Minstrel - with the help from his wife - Mrs Minstrel!

We learned about special places called 'marine reserves' where we are not allowed to fish.   Minstrel told us that we could lose our boat and car as a consequence of fishing in a marine reserve.

He showed us a special ruler sticker that can be stuck on the side of the boat.  We can use this ruler to measure the fish that we catch to make sure that we are not taking any baby fish out of the sea.   Fish are measured from the tip of their mouth to the 'V' in the tail.  Minstrel suggested that we pick up the fish with a wet towel so that we don't disturb any of its scales.   We also learned that the big fish should be put back too.  Libby (from Room 16) won a prize because she told us that this big fish might be a 'mother'.  Minstrel added that both the mother and father fish are needed back in the water becuase they are the fish that are going to make babies.  So, all the big fish should be put gently put back in the water.

Sharysse won a poster because she was able to translate 'kai moana'.  

We sung a song with Minstrel which included hand actions too.
Kai Moana
Kai moana food from the sea 
Kai moana to feed the family
Fish for the future and there will always be
Kai moana for you and me

A joke from Minstral:
Q:  How do you keep a fish cool?
A:  Put sunglasses on it!   (ha ha ha...)

Minstrel gave us a challenge of making up our own hand movements to the words of a song about eating a slater from a refridgerator and having it for lunch, with tomato sauce so that you can't hear the crunch (eeewww!)     Lachie, from Room 6, was selected by Mrs Minstrel for having the best hand jive.  He won a huge prize bag that included a poster (that he had to go and ask Mrs Nankivell to laminate), a magazine and a Kilwell cap.

We also learned the following:

• Always use salt ice, not fresh water ice for keeping the fish cool and clean the fish in salt water.  Your fish will taste a lot better.
• How a locater beacon and flare works if we have an accident while we are on the water.  We need to ring the Coastguard, or Police if we see a flare.   
• If we are on the water, we might see orange smoke.  This is likely to be coming from another type of flare, while a person (or people) could be waiting to be rescued.

Now, we are going to put this learning into practise to write some fabulous stories that include any of the things that we have learned about keeping safe on the water and making sure that our kai moana is preserved for future generations to enjoy, just like we do now.   We hope that one of our stories will be published in the magazine.

Week 3

Book Week

This week we had our annual Scholastic book fair.  The whole school was dressed in their favourite book character.  Some looked really good.  Even one person was dressed as a Minecraft character.  Five people  were taken from each class to walk on the catwalk in the hall.   And the people from our class were Keagan (ghost buster's sign from the movie/book), Sofie (a super-girl), Briana  (Katniss from the awesome Hunger Games), Leeland (Robin Hood) and last of all Sophie O's (Anne from Anne of Green Gables).

The coolest Book Characters ever!

(Can you spy Sharysse?  She came as Harry Potter, wearing his invisible cloak)

Cross Country

Some people from our class ran with the Yr 7 & 8's for Cross Country to see if they qualify for ECCS cross country competition. They did really well and they came back huffing and puffing, and the people who got through to ECCS cross country (east counties country schools) are Sofie, Keagan and Sophie O's. 

Dance Competition

Briana has been busy dancing her shoes off.  She is in our school's dance team and they were performing on Monday and Tuesday night at Elim School, along with students from other schools in the Howick area.

       

Art with Mr Braddock

We are learning how to draw a rabbit

Step 1

We used our maths skills to check and measure how the object is going to fit on the page.  Our page is split into thirds.  We decided how far away parts of the body were from the edge of the page.

First work out the start and the finish lines eg. where the head and body will be. Then work out the big shapes e.g. the body.  After that work out the smaller shapes e.g. feet.

Step 2

Every new thing gets measured off what you have already done eg. we checked the width of the ear against measurement that we already had for the eye from the top of the page.

We got to stand up and share what we had done so far and make any changes.  

Step 3

Now we changed from pencil to crayon to do fine detail and shading.  We looked for the dark things first.  Check for things like the sparkle in the eye. 

This part was quite tricky because our crayons were fat.   

Step 4

Add yellowish dye to colour the rabbits body with sunshine.    Add a browny blue to the shady parts of its body.  Use blue for the shady side 

What we thought about our art:
"It was fun because we learned all the steps to get to the shading"
"Little bits, like the shading were hard to do"
"The eye was difficult to do because it was hard to get it like Mr Braddock's one.   Maybe it was because he was using a hard and thinner crayon than we were"
"We liked it when he dyed the rabbit at the end and added the finishing touches"
"The dye made the rabbit stand out"

Beginning of Term 3

Fitness
Our focus this term is to get ourselves fit and ready for cross country.  On Monday we started our fitness programme with a Beep test.    This is when you run 20m, starting with 10 seconds and it decreases by one second every ten laps.  We played 'Giants and Lumberjacks'.  This is when the Lumberjacks try to knock over 6 cones while the Giants pick them up.   If all the cones are knocked over then the Lumberjacks win.

            

Art
On Thursday we learned about Peter Max.  He is an illustrator and graphic artist.  We looked at some of his colourful artwork which was produced in the 1970s.   He uses a visual point to help create 3D look with his shapes.    Next week we will be adding colour to our own masterpieces.

Speeches
In class we have been practising how to write different styles of speeches.   The three different types of speeches are narrative, entertaining, persuasive, motivational and informative.    Our next step is to actually write a proper speech for the class speech competition which will be before Friday 30 August.   We might post some videos of our speeches... so don't go anywhere!

Wearable Arts
On Wednesday the whole school met in the hall for our Wearable Arts show.   The show was put into four categories: Margaret Mahy, Maori traditions,  Space, Out of the Box then Beauty and Colours.   Our class entry was worn by Keagan.  We dressed him up like a robot with bubble wrap, rope, plastic bags, chain, flexible tubes, and wires.  His cape was made from some silver fabric from an old screen.  We even used a computer board thing.

Waiata & Jump Jam
Our amazingly talented Mr Garmey taught us three new songs - one was made up.  They were 'A.E.I.O.U', 'We are Beachlands Primary School' (to the tune of Sweet Home Alabama), 'Three Little Birds (by Bob Marley).   Mr Garmey played the guitar while we we sang.   He was brilliant and didn't even have to look at it while he was playing.

Sharing Ideas

We are almost at the end of our inquiry about gardens and how they grow.   A lot of our learning has come from reading articles, watching videos and viewing Prezi presentations made by other people (these have been really interesting).  

Today we spent some time sharing our mindmaps with our Learning Buddy.    It gave us a chance to share our ideas and hear from others.   This allowed us to see if we had left anything out and ask questions about anything that we didn't understand.

Explanation Writing

As I write this blog, the Beachlands19ers are quietly writing to explain  'How do plants grow?'   We have been investigating through science and reading about plants the ways that plants grow.  Our inquiry has helped us to understand how seasons impact on growing, what gardeners can do to encourage healthy plants, why bees are so important and how seeds travel.  

We have carried out some whole class investigations (photos of these will be posted shortly) and the students are now carrying out their own science investigation, in pairs of by themselves.   The purpose of these investigations is to provide us with information that will support us with our own school garden.

Our next step is learn and understand companion planting, then make up two garden plans for our Year 5&6 garden - one for Term 3 and the other for Term 1.    Exciting stuff!  Can't wait to see what the Beachlands19ers come up with.

Mrs Croll

Week 6

Orienteering
We woke up on Friday morning to see, and hear, the rain pouring down in bucket loads.   This sadly meant that the orienteering at Te Puru had be postponed...  boo hoo :(

Now it will be held on Friday of Week 7... yay!! :)

Mihimihi Posters - Part 1

This term we have been learning about the mihimihi which is an introductory speech that takes place at the beginning of a gathering, after the powhiri.    We have learned that the mihimihi is a way to introduce ourselves in te reo Maori by sharing our whakapapa (family and ancestral ties).  Some of us have had to do some researching for Home Learning as we didn't know where our ancestors came from.  

We are learning how to recite our own mihimihi as well as make a visual mihimihi.   These posters will take some time to complete as they will be made up of many layers.  The first stage is to plan and paint or dye our background.    The next step will be to use three different mediums when we collage the detail.

We will post some photos each week so you can view our progress.   At the end, we are hoping to record ourselves reciting our mihimihi then attach this recording to a photo of our poster using something like Fotobabble or maybe Aurasma.    This will be very exciting!

Tree Planting

Today we went to Duders Regional Park to help plant some native trees.  Mags was the park ranger who gave us tips on how to plant these trees.  She was helped by Laura, Rebecca and Mr Duder.   We also had some amazing parents who transported us in their cars.   We planted manuka, flax, coprosma, and kanuka.  The land was quite steep which made it tricky in parts to not slip.

We worked really hard to plant heaps of trees - maybe over 100 in total so we were extremely hungry when we stopped for morning tea.  

It's going to be wonderful to walk through the park in 20 years time and say "I helped to plant all those trees."

Week 4

STRETCH
At the end of week 3, we had our first session of STRETCH.   The Year 5&6 group split up in to 4 groups to experience a wide range of activities.  They are:
Cooking - One group made lollyslice and the other group learned how to make 'chocolate surprise muffins'.   The surprise was gooey, melted caramel.
Sports - We played soccer.  The teams were evenly matched and we had really great goal keepers.  The final score was 2:2.  Next time we will be playing a different sport - it might be rugby, touch or netball.
Art - we are designing a stained glass window  and we also learned how to make music with our bodies.  We performed 'We will rock you' in front of our 'home' class.
Digital Design - we use Befunky to upgrade our camp photos.  Next time we will be taking photos of students in STRETCH then using Befunky to add detail to them.

ORIENTEERING
This was our ultimate test to see how fast, and accurate, we could complete the four school maps.  We can't wait to see who Mrs Croll will be choosing to represent our class in the inter-school orienteering tournament.

STU DUVAL
The amazing Stu Duval visited our school on Wednesday.  We were entertained with his story called Flax Cross.    It was about a person (Red McCallistar) who was trying to get out of jail, even though he was innocent.  He got out of jail by going on a seven day voyage, from Australia to New Zealand, as a potato boy, on a boat called Moana.   When he went looking for Sarah, Scree's niece (Scree's the evil guy in the story), he found a different Sarah who was 99 years old and was married to seven husbands!  There's a lot more to this story, but we can't fit in all in here.  Stu is a is a humorous story-teller who constantly made us laugh with his many character voices and fabulous illustration, which he drew while he was narrating the story.

Orienteering - Week 3

This week at orienteering, we did the whole school.  It was challenging, but fun.   We had to use 4 different maps - that was 12 controls altogether.    Mrs Croll is looking for the best 12 students to represent Room 19 in the interschool orienteering challenge in week 6.

Disco Dancing

Today we learned to do a 'disco' dance. We had to dance with a partner (girl and boy). Some of us didn't like doing this. Some thought it was okay. We had to do the disco pose - that's one hand on our hip and one in the air. We also had to hold hands with our partner and step around in a clockwise direction. Another move was to do the 'scissors' across our eyes. Also, we had to roll our hands while we stepped around in a circle. After dancing with our partners we all ran into the bathroom to wash our hands - well some of the girls did!
                

Orienteering

It's our second week of orienteering.   We did the second half of the course - around the buildings.  Last week we did the fields.  Next week we will be covering the whole school.   Shane and Jack are the adults who are helping us to learn about orienteering.  We have to read map (finding north first), then where our first control (that's the marker).   After that we get ready to go and sprint to our destination.

So far, Charlotte is our champion.  Who will it be next week?

The Pop Dance

Today we met Kate from the Footstep dance company.   She taught us a dance called 'Pop'.   Some of the moves were 'diving under the waves', 'slicing the watermelon' and 'bouncing the basket ball'.   A few of the moves were really hard to do so we had to keep practising them. Turning the right way around and keeping in time with the music was a challenge.  We are going to be learning eight different dances this term. It will be a lot of fun.... and hard work!

 

Asian Travel Expo

On Wednesday afternoon, in the last week of Term 1, we held our Year 5&6 Asian Travel Expo.   It was very exciting to not only share our own learning, but to also see what others had to share.   We have learned so much about the continent of Asia.

Carey Park Camp

We had the most amazing time at camp. Carey Park is a fantastic place with so many activities and delicious meal times. We all had a lot of fun getting to know each other - our own class and the rest of Year 5&6. Here are some of the memories:
 Taking the first step off the platform on the flying fox was scary - I did it! - Charlotte.
 Swinging on the rope swing out in the middle of the waterhole was frightening - but I did it! - Angelina.
 I was nervous dropping the egg in the Inventors task because I didn't want egg on my clothes - Ben
 I was proud of myself on the scream machine and I was one of the only girls not to do so - Sharysse
 The food was the best part. I chomped into the big, juicy chicken burger - so good when you need it! - Chris

Spinach's visit to Room 19

We were very excited when Sophie and her mum brought in a large bird cage.  Inside was a tiny baby sparrow.  It had been found, unable to fly, so Sophie and her family decided to look after it until it became strong enough to go back into the wild.  They named the sparrow 'Spinach'.

Spinach (the sparrow) was very cute.  He was even quite happy for us all to have a turn holding him!   It was  wonderful to be able to look at a sparrow so closely.  Thanks to Sophie's mum for bringing him to school.

Introduction

This is my first post for 2013.   I was busy over the holidays moving rooms and setting up a learning environment for my new group of Beachlands Learners.   I am now teaching in the Year 5&6 area and have had two awesome weeks getting to know these fabulous young learners.  I am looking forward to sharing their learning with you.