In the news

Not a game this week, but a potentially useful website. Kiwi kids news is the news, for kids.

Kiwi Kids News

Although it's probably suited to slightly older children in terms of it's writing, many of our children will be able to read their stories (all the content is suitable).

After they've read a story; how about following up with a few questions...

- What were the main points of the story?

- What did you find interesting?

- What would you like to know more about?

- How does this story affect you / KNS children?

Game of the week

Catch the fly

This game is all about co-ordinates. We haven't really looked at co-ordinates in class but this game is simple enough for all the children to grasp whilst also teaching about co-ordinates.

Catch the fly

Place Value game

Place value is very important for our children. It underpins almost our entire understanding of numbers and how they work with each other.

Year 3/4 children need to be able to identify ones, tens, hundreds and thousands in a given number. The game below is designed to teach and reinforce this knowledge.

Place Value Game

Weekly Reminders

Here are some reminders for next week...

Monday

All the spelling notebooks will need to be back as we'll be copying in our new words and maths for the week.

Tuesday

Library books need to be back today.

Mr Mcintosh is taking children to football today so won't be in today.

Wednesday

Mr Mcintosh is released from class today. 

Thursday

Last day of term! 

Broken Camera!

Unfortunately the camera in Room 12 has reached the end of it's life. So I'm sorry to say that we won't be uploading any photos of our certificate winners, singing awards or group of the week.

It is important to recognise those achievements though - so here are the names for this week:

Singing award: Robbie

Group of the week: Alex, Reilly, Charlie, Robbie, Pearse

Principals award: Isabella, Noa, Athena

Art work

We've been experimenting again with dots in Room 12.

We painted our trunk normally but then had our paint brushes taken off us! We were only allowed to make dots (the leaves) with blunt end of our pencils. We also chose different colour combinations. 

If you can't see your painting on the blog, come and check it out in class before school one day!

Teachers of the week

Every week we have 'teachers of the week'. The teachers of week are smart students who will teach you something they have learnt in class (at the moment, we are focusing on maths). They decide what to say and how to explain the concept.

Here is episode 1. 

Check back next week for a new episode! (Please comment - We would love to know what you think!)

Comments

Some of the children have told me they've found it difficult to comment on posts. Here is a far easier way - just click anywhere on the picture and a post-it should appear. I will hopefully put one of these up each week - feel free to comment on anything you've seen on the blog, in the classroom or even heard we're doing at school.

Created with Padlet

Goals

At the beginning of the term we all made goals to work on. Some of these were easy, others were harder and will take us longer.

This week we have reflected on these goals. We looked at whether we achieved our goal and why/why not this happened.

Next it was time to set our goals for term 2. Although we have written these down, we wanted to share it through a quick video as well.

Have a look below.

Some of our goals are the same (if we didn't achieve them) and some of them are new. Some of them relate to learning, others to behaviour and attitude. If you have a few minutes, talk to your child about how their goal is progressing. 

Group of the week

Well done to our group of the week - you've displayed all the KNS values. We're very proud of you!

(p.s. it's ok to smile next time!)

1000 views!

Well done Room 12 - In just over a month we've already had over 1000 views on our class blog page.

That is a huge amount and shows just how much we use our class blog. 

Maths game of the week

This week's maths game is all about speed. Answer the questions correctly and quickly to get more time on the clock - be quick or the circle round the outside will complete!

Rapid Maths

Fantastic Mr Fox Podcasts 1

Here are two more podcasts we managed to finish. Hayden and Sophie both wrote really descriptive, exciting fictional recounts.

They have both pretended to the Fantastic Mr Fox and are recounting the danger they encountered when sneaking into a nearby farm to steal a chicken or turkey for supper.

Sophie

Hayden

Weekly reminders

Here are some reminders for next week...

Monday

All the spelling notebooks will need to be back as we'll be copying in our new words and maths for the week.

Please bring back any swimming notices that haven't been returned yet.

Tuesday

Library books need to be back today.

Wednesday

Ultimate Challenge meet up - this afternoon you'll quickly meet with your team to go over some last minute things before the big day.

Thursday

Ultimate Challenge Day! 

Friday

Singing and kapa haka.

Basic facts and spelling test. 

Keep checking our blog throughout the week - we'll be updating it throughout the week with some of the things we've been up to :)

Congratulations Room 12!

Well done Room 12 - Mrs Wyeth was so impressed by your behaviour and attitude on our trip that you all received a principals award!

Capital E Trip

Last Thursday all of the Year 3/4s hopped a bus and drove to Wellington to go on a trip to Capital E. (Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures of the shows)

We walked between different places and watched three different shows. The first show was a strange show that involved floating eyes, groovy music and strange creatures from another land.

The second show was really fun. It had acrobats who flipped across the stage and made us laugh. We got to hit huge balloons that drifted across the theatre.

The final show was really funny. They played their instruments, danced and even had a tomato fight! 

Podcasts

We have been learning how to make podcasts in Room 12. Podcasts are a recording of our voices that we upload to the internet. Sometimes you can add a picture to them.

Reilly has written a character description for Mr Twit - a character in a book we read together. Have a listen below!

(I will try to put up others as the children finish them - some of them might not include the pictures as this involves lots of extra steps!)

Kia Kaha - Our ideal classroom

On Wednesday we did a really interesting activity that involved lots of talking, lots of reasoning, and lots of working together.

One of the aims of the lesson was to encourage children to use persuasive language and reasoning.  We tried to use the word because in our sentences. The other was discuss and describe what qualities we felt were important in a classroom.

We were put into small groups and given a list of qualities. The first task was to get rid of three qualities we felt were not necessary for our ideal classroom. This one was pretty easy and didn't take very long.

Each group picked different qualities to get rid of. There was no right or wrong answer as long as we could give a reason for our answer.

Next step was choose the eight most important qualities for our class. This was a bit more difficult. Lots of people disagreed with each other! This meant we had to give reasons and convince our other group members. 

Next step; it was down to four! This made it really hard. Some groups got stuck - Mr McIntosh wouldn't help us or choose for us....we had to figure out how to choose our top four qualities by ourselves. Lots of groups decided to hold votes, one of the groups had a 'leader', and another had to compromise. 

Maths game of the week

This week's maths game is all about speed. Answer the questions correctly and quickly to make your racer run faster!

Brain Racer

Spelling

This weeks sound/pattern is 'ea'. We've all chosen words from a list that can be found here

Some of the children didn't bring their notebooks in today but they have all been given their slips of paper containing the words and maths numbers.

Don't forget library tomorrow and Capital E on Thursday!

Literacy game

This game requires quick thinking and a good vocabulary. Similar to tetris, the letters fall down and land on top each other - don't let them reach the top! Get rid of letters by making words.

Word Drop

Maths game of the week

Here's our maths game that we'll be playing this week.

It's a quick fire addition game where the children have to quickly work out the answer before the bees reach the house. Really easy to play, but hard to master.

Battle Maths Game

Weekly Reminders

Here are some reminders for next week...

Monday

All the spelling notebooks will need to be back as we'll be copying in our new words and maths for the week.

Tuesday

Library books need to be back today.

Mr Mcintosh will out this afternoon taking football trials.

Wednesday

Thursday

Capital E trip. Please make sure your child has appropriate footwear, lunch, drink bottle and jacket incase the weather turns bad.

Thank you for all those parents who offered to help. Unfortunately we are only able to take two parents along. The parents who are coming along have been notified by email already. I've just picked these two names randomly but will make sure that other parents who'd like to come along to trips can help out next time.

We will take lots of photos so be sure to check the blog at the end of next week to see what we did!

Friday

Singing and kapa haka.

Basic facts and spelling test. All of the children have basic facts goals (just addition and subtraction) - most of them have reached their goals already so have set new ones. This is an excellent start! 

Keep checking our blog throughout the week - we'll be updating it throughout the week with some of the things we've been up to :)

Yesterday Room 12 met their buddy class for the first time. We took them outside and read stories to them.

Mr McIntosh was extremely impressed by the maturity and responsibility that all the children showed. They were all fantastic role models.

For the birds

This week we're continuing with our Kia Kaha unit and looking at the concepts of friendship and inclusion as well as touching on bullying.

We're going to use this video as inspiration and focus some of our learning around it. We'd love you to have a watch and comment below.

(if the link doesn't work - have a quick search on youtube "for the birds")

Although the video is funny, it does bring up some talking points as well. Perhaps you could talk with your family about:

- What do you think the birds are saying throughout the video?

- Is there a moral to this story? What might it be?

- Why wasn't the bird accepted by the small ones?

- How does this relate to us at KNS?

Maths game of the week

Last week we were playing games that focused on time (they can be found here and here)

This weeks game has more of a problem solving / addition focus. Click here to have a go

Move the numbers into the circles to make all the lines add up to the power line number. Level up and continue through the levels.

Spelling & Maths homework

Maths

This week to make things a bit easier we are going to use sheets help us with our maths work.

We are looking at addition and subtraction this term for homework. In particular, we are exploring the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction (although we don't tend to use that language with the children - it can get confusing).

Here's what today's numbers might look like....

Too easy? Too hard?

Have a go with more smaller or larger numbers to change the difficulty.

Spelling

Spelling this week is focusing on the 'ay' pattern which makes the long 'a' sound.

The list of words (incase you want to learn anymore) can be found here

The long 'a' / ay spelling pattern explained (from a youtube video) can be found here

Group of the week

Check out our group of the week! Last week they showed all the KNS values; respect, responsibility, integrity, empathy, excellence. Well done!

Andy Warhol Art

As part of our Kia Kaha unit we've been looking at the idea of being the same but different. This means we realise that we are similar to others in our class, community and the world. It also recognises that we are unique, talented and special in our own ways too.

We've also looked at a famous artist called Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol often used colours, repetition and everyday symbols to make statements and artwork.

There were lots of steps to creating these...

First we had to trace carefully round our hands.

Next we chose different colours and painted the inside of one hand and the outside of another.

After that, it was time to get messy! We painted our hands black (it felt really strange) and printed our hands on the paper making sure you could see the colour underneath.

We think they turned out really well!