Week 2 Term 4 2008

It has been another busy week in room five.

We finished off the kiwi kidpix pictures which display the question we want to investigate – see below

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We have displayed our pencil sketches of the kiwi within our room

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As a class we have gathered information about the kiwi, organising our facts using a Y chart. We have looked at how the parts of the kiwi help it to survive in its environment and showed this new learning using an inspiration document– (Click on the image to enlarge it )see below



Some of us have made our own. (click on the image to enlarge it)
Ciaran


Ebony


Ellisha


George


We have begun to take a photo of our ‘class kiwi’ which we will import into kidpix and label in the next couple of weeks. (see below)

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Students have continued to bring in items to photograph for the blend of the week and the following images have been completed using comic life.
George and Liam


Juwon


Jude


Bill

Week 1 Term 4 2008

It’s great to have everyone back at school for an action packed term of learning.



Our inquiry this term is focused on the ‘A journey of survival’
Why is the kiwi endangered and is it worth saving? We started with sharing want we already knew about the kiwi, and what we wondered about it. Our wonderings formed the bases of our questions that we will investigate throughout the term. We drew a kiwi in his habitat on kidpix and placed our question on it. As we find answers to these questions we will video each student sharing the answer and place the video clip on the kidpix image. Below are some of the kidpix images – more will be on the blog next week.

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We organised our facts using a Y chart on the floor and reflected on what it showed us. We decided that although we did know a lot about the kiwi we didn’t know much about what it ate or where is lived. These will be the areas we will focus on next week. We also decided that written facts were hard to read and that if we added some visual images it would be more appealing – so we got to and drew some images.

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It was great to see students bringing in items related to our topic of study
These items are much appreciated and will be well used by us all.



This week as we walked to our tennis lesson – we stopped to listen to and admire a Tui in our kowhai tree. The next day another Tui was singing in the tree just outside our classroom. It was so exciting that we have decided to find out more about the Tui next week and will organise what we find into a Y chart.



Our class was also interrupted this week during reading on Wednesday by a sparrow that had decided to join in the learning within our room. It stayed for quite some time and left as we headed out to the playground for lunch!



Finally during reading time this week students have brought in things that they found at home that began with the fl blend. Each of the items was photographed and later in the week the student worked in pairs to create the following images. We think they are fantastic.

Tahlia


Ellisha


Class

week 10 Term 3 2008

This week we have been involved in the junior school production. Performing to a audience has certainly been a highlight. We gave our class camera to Jude during the performance to the kindy so she could take some photos backstage.

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We gave the class camera to Shyna during the performance to the school. Shyna has just joined our class so it was a great opportunity for her to get use to using the class camera. She tool over 100 photos and obviously enjoyed this opportunity immensely.

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On Friday we used voice thread to share our favourite part of the production and to share the poems we wrote about the production.






Finally I have included some photos of the ‘city’ a group of students made during the week – look at the detail – the café with the table and chairs, the car park, the helicopter pad and the airport. Delightful. A great deal of fun was had by all which involved a lot of team work and to think it all started when one of the students built a swimming pool!

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Week 9 Term 3 2008

This week we have been busy preparing for the Junior school production of Hansel and Gretel. We have been involved in dress rehearsals and have enjoyed dressing up and being on stage. Today we produced a voice thread to let you know what character we are in the production. We look forward to preforming to an audience on Tuesday and Thursday evening as well as to the local kindy and play centre on Monday and the rest of the school on Wednesday. We hope to see you at one of the performances.





We have also drawn our favourite part of Hansel and Gretel on kidpix.


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Our hot air balloons are nearing completion. As they are being hung within the room each student is proudly taking a photo of their creation.

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At the end of the week we looked once again at the ‘thinkers key' . Both activities encouraged us to think creatively - (click on the image to enlarge it)
The picture key



The brick wall

Week 8 Term 3 2008

With 'meeting the locals' being a focus for conservation week we wrote poems about fantails.
Below is our latest voice thread.




On Friday as a school we set about cleaning up our school grounds. Hayden was our official class photographer and he captured the occasional in the photographs below.

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This week Thomas brought in two large glass balls. He asked for some blue tack and the class camera and began to photograph them in different ways.
His fantastic photos can be seen below.

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We have been working hard on our production of Hansel and Gretel and look froward to presenting it to an audience in week 10. Look out for some photos of this next week.

We have begun to paint our hot air balloons and its pleasing to see them being coloured in a variety of ways.

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While some of us painted our hot air balloons others of us explored making hot air balloons with tissue paper and filled them with hot air. It was a great deal of fun.

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Below is Ethans Venn diagram

Week 7 Term 3 2008

This week we wrote two poems one about a helicopter, the other about a dump truck. On Friday we read them both to a partner and decided which one we liked the most. We then read our favourite poem on to voice thread. Most of us liked the poems we had written about the helicopter.




At home Ethan had been on the computer and found this diagram of a hot air balloon and had brought it into school to share with us.



Below are some more of our Venn diagrams showing the difference between parachutes and hot air balloons. (click on each of the images to enlarge them.)

Ebony


YouSeok


Juwon


Lata


This week our shared book was ‘I want to be the fox’ It was a story about a boy who was taking part in a school production just like us. He was chosen to be a rabbit but he really wanted to be the fox. As a class we did a PMI chart to explore the advantages and disadvantages on taking part in a production.

On Thursday YouSeok brought in a copy of Hansel and Gretel written in Korean and read it to us. It was great to listen to a story read in Korean.



On Friday we made paper helicopters, which was a lot of fun. Some of us tried to take photos of our helicopters as they spun down towards us as we lay down on the ground. Below are the photos we took.

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Below are the latest I spy movies made by Elly and George

Elly's movie


George's movie

Week 6 Term 3 2008

This week we produced our first voice thread. It was so exciting as we pretended that our classroom was a recording studio and we were as quiet as we could be as everyone took a turn to read their personal recount of flying their parachute.

We have explored the differences between parachutes and hot air balloons and as a class organised our thoughts using a Venn diagram. (click on the image below to enlarge it)

To show our developing understanding of the differences between parachutes and hot air balloons we drew them on kidpix. BubbleShare: Share photos - Create and Share Crafts

Next week we will complete a Venn diagram by ourselves using a template on the computer. Look at Jude and Ciaran’s work below.(click on the image to enlarge it) Ciaran



Jude



We are all gaining confidence in using the class camera – with most of us being able to turn it on and off as well as zoom in and out. This week we took a photo of a dump truck which Dylan kindly got for us from room 4.

As a result of reading our shared book ‘The bus ride’ we have begun to explore the use of simple animations using kidpix. While on the bus Grandpa and Tom play a game of eye spy we decided to try out our ever increasing skills on kidpix by building up a picture based on a letter of the alphabet. We hope to do some more of these next week. So look out for them on next weeks blog.

On Tuesday we took part in the schools mini Olympics which was a lot of fun. Juwon was our official photographer. She captured the images below as we watched the opening ceremony and took part in the games

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Week 5 Term 3 2008

This week has been another busy week in room 5. We have continued to explore our inquiry journeys near and far by looking at why people might want to go to watch the Olympics. We recording our ideas on a mind map (click on image below to enlarge it)



Then we discussed how we could improve this mind map with images. All but one came from the symbols within the inspiration programme with only one being dragged from google images. We were happy with the final product below. ( click on the image to enlarge it)



More individual class members have begun to independently use the inspiration programme to share their knowledge of bikes. It's exciting to watch 6 and 7 year old children use this programme for the very first time. (click on the images below to enlarge them)

Ashley


Ciaran


Ellisha


Elly


Hayden


Liam


We explored one of the thinker’s keys this week and were delighted with the number of things we thought you could do with an old car tyre. Once again we discussed how we could make our work more eye catching which saw us look at google images.(click on the image to enlarge it)




As we explored google images – we were fascinated in the ways people are actually using old tyres from retaining walls, to jandals,to a sculpture of a horse

This week we wrote about flying our parachutes last Friday and these are on display in our room. We collected facts on hot air balloons and organised these using a y chart, we then used our y charts to write an information report on hot air balloons. We continue to make our own paper Mache hot air balloons which involves our hands getting rather messy.





We completed our art work using the close up photos we each took with the class camera.

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This week we all used the class camera to take a photo of a toy helicopter. This image will be used next week as we write poems about helicopters.

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Week 4 Term 3 2008

This week was ‘maths week’ and as a class we participated in a range of maths related activities run within the school. Daily we took part in an estimation challenge that everyone in the school took part in. On Tuesday we had to estimate how far a bean bag could be thrown. ‘Mike’ the man who was putting up the new classroom blinds listened with interest as we discussed our estimations. We took the opportunity to talk to him about how he used ‘maths’ in his work. He told us he uses maths everyday as he measures the length of the windows and works out where to place the blinds. He asked us to estimate the length of our new blind. Thanks Mike for taking an interest in our estimation challenge and sharing your knowledge with us.



On Friday when our buddy class visited we played maths games together.


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Our shared book this week was called ‘Parachuting’. This led us to explore the advantages and disadvantages of parachuting.(click on the image to enlarge it)



On Friday we made parachutes using plastic bags. We worked in pairs – working and supporting each other. When there was a break in the weather we took our parachutes out into the playground and flew them which was great fun.

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It is pleasing to see some of our class members using the programme inspiration to share their knowledge of bikes. (click on the image to enlarge it.)






We have used the close up photos we took as motivation for this weeks art. Below is Ellisha’s work – Look out for everybody’s work which will be posted on the blog next week

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We have also looked at some sites about hot air balloons and found this great video.



Click on the link to watch a video from HowStuffWorks that explains how Hot air balloons work