Collecting Pooh Sticks!

We went to the beach to collect pieces of driftwood to use as our Pooh Sticks (from Winnie-the-Pooh). 

2015 started with a blast

We are now heading into Week 4 of the school year - and we've started with a blast. We are working on setting up routines and coming to a shared understanding of how we work in Room 10.

In Maths we have been brushing up on our Place Value knowledge and learning some different games along the way.

We have also been looking at reading and have worked on a reading goal for everyone. This is the goal we will work on over the next few weeks in our own reading time.

 We have had our first team assembly and kapa haka session as well. Taiaha for boys has started on Wednesday afternoons with Matiu te Huki.

Our Planet

This week we looked at a very cool image from NASA of Earth from space and wrote about what we could see. Here are some of our stories.

I can see the clouds blocking some of the sea;

North, South, and Central America;

The green countries are very big;

The clouds are like white pale snow;

The sea is baby blue colour;

The clouds are swaying;

The planet is a multi colour world.
By Abe

Well, Earth, let me see. The clouds are like crows circling their prey. Land is scattered all over the Earth. Space, that's where Earth lives. There are lot of planets, but Earth is special, because we have life. Space surrounds the Earth, like it’s waiting to attack. Earth is in the shape of a ball. Antarctica lives at the bottom of the Earth as it spins around. The white puffy clouds make shapes in your mind like dancing dinosaurs and singing goldfish. And that is what Earth looks like to me.

by Ellie

This is the little marble shaped planet we live on; Earth.

The thin white clouds drift in swirls over the dark blue ocean,which covers most of this beautiful planet. The green and yellow countries look like little squiggly shapes that a child has drawn. Antarctica sits proudly on top of Earth with the Arctic hanging on tight at the bottom. Both of them are lovely snow covered countries. The surroundings of Earth is black, nothing but scary dark black.

By Nina

First day 2014

Time for 'Listen to Reading'

Friday SODA - 5 word sentence

Today for our SODA (Start of Day Activity) we had to look at a picture and write a 5-word sentence about it. Here is the picture and our sentences.

• There's an old rocky temple.
• Rocky cliff beside a forest.
• An incredibly old castle pillar.
• It's a pile of rocks.
• A fun rock tower party.
• Made by ages of old.
• Piles of rocks stand strong.
• It is covered with snow.
• Old stone outpost long abandoned.
• Do not cross these rocks.
• Ancient ruins of crumbling history.
• An unfinished little rock house.
• It's absolutely solid as rock.
• Stacks of flat grey rocks.
• Cool old crumbling rock structure.
• Ancient ruins of crumbling stone.
• Do not climb these rocks.
• A really big rocky mountain.
• Please don't walk on rocks.
• Old, grey, crumbling, broken Stonehenge.
• Block by block standing proud.
• It is Stonehenge's big brother.
• Forbidden access to rocky landmark.

The Lorax Part Two

Today (Tuesday) we looked at the Once-ler

What kind of person is the Once-ler?

• Greedy; wanting more of everything; loves money; selfish; disrespectful to nature; ignorant; careless; self-centred; bully;
• Greedy; selfish; disrespectful
• Rude, selfish, greedy, stupid, stubborn
• Mean, horrible, cruel, vicious
• Mean and selfish,
• Greedy man who will do anything for money; selfish, silly man with a ‘stupid’ idea

Why won't he listen to the Lorax? 

• He’s ignorant; didn’t think what the Lorax had to say mattered; forgot what you need to live
• Thinks his business is better than the environment; he wants to be famous
• Because he is stubborn
• Because he wants money; wants to make his company bigger; he is selfish and only cares about what he wants
• He thinks money is better than nature; he thinks everybody needs Thneeds; if he doesn’t listen to the Lorax he will be rich; he wants more money;
• Because he wants a lot of money and won’t stop until he gets it

The Lorax says to the Once-ler, "You are crazy with greed." Why does the Lorax say that?

• Because he wants heaps of money, heaps of Thneeds, and wouldn’t listen
• Because he wants everything his way
• He said everyone needs a Thneed before he had even sold one
• Maybe because he was crazy for cutting the trees down; for not listening and cutting down the trees when he was told not to;
• Because he’s greedy; he’s chopping all the trees down to get rich;
• Because it’s more important to look after the environment than neglecting it for ‘pieces of paper’; the Lorax knows what will happen;

Do you agree or disagree?

• Agree: the place was a paradise; he ruined it
• Disagree: he wasn’t crazy with greed; he became crazy with greed - no one tried hard enough to stop him, it wasn’t just the Once-lers fault
• Disagree: he’s greedy not crazy

What do you think?

The Lorax Part One

Today in class we looked at the Lorax - we will be talking about various issues that arise in the book - and discussing our response to them.

What was the land of the Lorax like before the Once-ler arrived?

• beautiful, peaceful, relaxing, lovely, happy
• beautiful, clean, populated, smog-less, exquisite, fresh, pure, nature-filled, fruity, fishy
• beautiful, paradise
• colourful, peaceful, loads of animals, sunny, heaps of trees, lots of fun
• beautiful and romantic; perfect; colourful trees; lots of growth

Did it seem like someplace you'd like to live?

• yes - wildlife, safe environment
• yes - because it was clean and fresh, and it seemed cleaner than 100% pure NZ
• yes definitely - because it’s a beautiful place
• yes - nice and peaceful and lovely; lots of things to do; trees look fun to climb
• yes - the trees are pretty and colourful and silky
• yes - really beautiful singing fish and environment
• yes - it looks cool and has trees and singing fish
• no - because of the singing fish every morning

What parts of your own environment would you be sad to see go?

• the park on Simpson Cres, our wildlife, our mountains, the beach
• grass, trees - they provide oxygen, entertainment, and shelter, Kapiti Island - it provides an area for native birds
• the trees
• Kapiti Island - nature reserve filled with birds; Otaihanga reserve; the clear sea at Pukerua Bay; Reikorangi animal park; Matthews Park
• Pohutukawa trees, kiwi, Kapiti Island
• rivers and seas - places to swim
• Pukeko