Award of Merit - Term 2, Week 4

Teno Pai Michelle!

 

 

 

This weeks Award of Merit went to Michelle for her fantastic work in helping to create a video for her inquiry groups presentation. 

Award of Merit - Term 2, Week 3

Ka Rawe Jireh! This weeks Award of Merit went to Jireh for the effort he has put into his narrative to promote the benefits of wearing helmets.

 
Well done to Tailena and Ceyan, who received certificates this week for their participation in soccer this year.

A moment of life and death

Oh no, Jack had a crash! On his bicycle a couple of days ago. Jack is in his 40s and still cycles to work and home 3 days a week a round trip of 28km.

Jack was a semi-professional rugby league player until he was 35 years old, he still trains regularly. Therefore he has a body that has taken much physical abuse over the years but he is quick, fit and strong.

Jack was cycling on a cycle path going downhill and banking to the right at about 50km/h. Jack drifted a little wide on the riding line, and the bike went out from underneath and came into contact with some leaf litter and other rubbish on the cycle path and the bike turned me quickly.

Jack lost most of memory of the crash with the force when his head hit the path. Luckily the cushioning effect the helmet provided meant it was like falling into a pillow.

Jack suffered the usual scrapes to Jack lower leg, upper leg, hip, arm and also the shoulder as well as some trauma to Jacks right shoulder due to the force of it coming into contact with ground.

However if it were not for the helmet Jack has no doubt he would have died.

Jireh has written this story to help promote people to make the right choice and wear their helmets.

Award of Merit

Tino Pai Simon! This weeks Award of Merit went to Simon for showing great sportsmanship, a willingness to have a go and encouraging others around him.

Swimming Sports

On Friday we had Swimming sports, we were very lucky with the weather as we had such a fantastic day.

The day began with our whanau chants, Cooper's chant was pretty impressive and went well with their Hulk theme and the Ngata whanau all looked pretty in pink. It was great to see all of the teachers dressed up ready for the day ahead.

This was then followed by some fun events such as barrel and rope races, before we got into the competitive swimming races.

Well Done Mansfield, the winning whanau and Congratulations to Brittany, Portia and Neil who have been selected for SEZ swimming.

Swimming Sports by Slidely Slideshow

Homework

 



Reading - every night children should be reading for at least 20 minutes,  20 minutes might not seem like a lot but it really does add up. Regular reading helps children to improve their comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, writing as well as general knowledge and questioning skills.
Children should be reading something that interests them and that they enjoy. We spend time in the school library every week where children can check out books to read at home, in the classroom we also have a range of books that relate to our inquiry topic that children are able to borrow to take home with them.

Basic Facts - These should be practised daily at home. Remember math is everywhere, it is when you tell the time to figure out how long you have on the computer or how much longer til your favourite tv show is on, when you are cooking dinner or baking, when you are figuring out directions, deciding how much food to buy and paying for your groceries.
In the classroom we also have activity sheets that students can help themselves to, these relate to what we are doing in class as well as revision. Each child should do at least one of these a week. This website is also great for practicing basic facts http://www.prototec.co.nz/maths.html

Spelling - Each Monday children come home with a new set of spelling words that relate to their inquiry topic for them to practice during the week. We have a spelling test each Friday on their words for the week. The aim for this is to encourage students to begin to use the language of their inquiry topic, so they need to understand what their words mean and how they can use them.

Inquire - Talk about your day at school share your learning and findings with people at home. Continue to research; check the news, articles, internet and as always continue to ask questions. 

Organisation - In Room 19 we are independent and responsible for ourselves, this means that we need to be organised and prepared. This means that each night children need to make sure in their school bag they have everything they need for the day ahead; school diary, PE uniform, swimming gear, books, hat and lunch.

Swimming Sports

Swimming Sports tomorrow! At swimming sports there will be races and fun games so that all children can get involved and have fun.

The students will wear their full uniform to school and then get changed into their PE uniform with their swimming gear underneath. At the end of the day the children will go home in their full uniform as well.

The children are allowed to accessorise their PE gear with Mansfield (our whanau) blue.

We will be spending the whole day outside and it is forecast to be a sunny and hot. So make sure you have sunscreen, water, and a hat. We need to be sun smart.

There are no lunch orders but there will be a sausage sizzle, which will cost $2. The tuckshop will also be coming down to the pool for students to use at morning tea time tomorrow.

Award of Merit

Ka Rawe Vivek, who received this weeks Award of Merit for working well as part of a team and considering consequences of his own actions and the actions of those around him.

Research

In Room 19 we have been putting our research skills into use at the library.

To research we know that we must first plan what we would like to find out about, to do this we have been using a KWHL Chart.

This chart shows what we know, what we want to know, how we found out the information, and what we have learnt. By using this we are able to spend our time researching effectively.

Botanic Gardens

Botanic Gardens 21/02/2014 by Slidely Slideshow

Goodbye to our Korean Students

At the start of the year we had a few homestays come from Korea to learn more about our culture.
There were approximately 35 homestays in our school, about 3 or 4 split in each class. In our classroom we had 4 their names were Tom, Han-bin, Louis and Simon, we were very impressed with how well they spoke English. They were in New Zealand for a month but were at our school for only 3 weeks. They were very nice and loved spending time with us Kiwi's. They talked about their lifes back in Korea very often. They became good friends to us and to see them go left a tear on our faces :'(
On the last day they were here they left us all a nice little fold up note in our desk which described how they felt about us :)

by: Portia and Lara.

Award of Merit - Week Four

This week Room 19 won Best Class because last week we earned the most Red Cards.

Congratulations to Alicia who received this weeks Award of Merit for her helpful nature where she uses her initiative to go above and beyond to help others both in and out of the classroom.

Tino Pai Alicia and Room 19!

Botanic Gardens

On Friday Rooms 18 and 19 had a fantastic day at the Botanic Gardens. We were very lucky to have amazing weather on the day so that meant we could  really enjoy each of the activities we tried out.

This week we are focusing on recount writing and we will update you about our trip later in the week.

 

A big thank you from Room 19 to our parent helpers Lottie and Tracey who spent the day tramping, cooking and orienteering with us.

Two Letter Mystery

To help us get ready for our trip on Friday to the Botanic Gardens we were given a compass, a roll of string, 9 pegs and a sheet of instructions that we had to follow to make two letters!
We were taught how to use a compass and the right direction to point it in. Then we got into groups and headed off to a spot in the field and began making our letters using the compass, string and pegs.
Every time we finished a distance we turned back to north and started a new distance. We did this until we completed the task. The letters spelled out N.Z which stood for New Zealand! Our class had a lot of fun with this new experience!

By Paige, Codey and Shreya

Swimming

This term Room 19 is swimming on Monday and Wednesday mornings with Room 18.

We are aiming to be more confident in the water as well as improving our swimming skills.

We Are Learning To: develop endurance in freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke swimming with increasingly accurate techniques and to increase water safety awareness including safe dives.

Before we head out for a swim we set our own personal swimming goals in our Hauora log that we work towards achieving.

We are also getting ready for Swimming Sports which is coming up later this term.

 

Trying out a Mexican Wave of backflips.

Botanical Gardens Outdoor Challenge

This Friday (21st of February) we are visiting the Botanical Gardens with Room 18. At the Botanical Gardens we are going to be learning about keeping safe in the outdoors.

We will have a go at pitching tents, making stretchers and cooking sausages. As well as getting the low-down on tramping, packing and what to do when things go wrong.

Permission slips need to be signed and returned by Wednesday as well as the student health forms. We are also still looking for parent helpers to join us, without you we cannot make the trip happen. If you would like to come along please let me know.

Award of Merit - Week Three

Today at Assembly Room 19 received a certificate from Mrs Watson for 'including the food technology taster photos and their enthusiasm on the Class Blog!!'

Jasraj also received a certificate for his positive attitude and willingness to help others around him.

Ka Rawe Room 19!

Share the Love

For Physical Education this term we are focusing on striking games.
So this afternoon we headed outside for a game of softball with Room 18. We played class versus class and forgot to keep score. I think we'll have to have a rematch. It was great to have both classes out there together for a game and it was lots of fun.

 

As today is Valentines Day I made shortbread cookies for the class as a way to say well done for a great start to the year.

Hard Materials Taster and Cricket

This afternoon our new students had the last of the tasters, they spent the afternoon with Mr Coaton in the Hard Materials room. The students were very proud of their rulers and they look fantastic. They started with a piece of metal that they had to trim and polish. They then etched their names and ruler markings onto their rulers.

While the Year 7's spent time with Mr Coaton the Year 8's headed outside for a game of cricket. We had lots of fun and Miss Brownsey joined in too.

 

 

Meet the Teacher Evening

It was great to see so many parents at the Meet the Teacher Evening last night. For those of you that were unable to make it we talked about:

- School Diary - It is important that students remember to bring these both to school and home everyday. It is fantastic if parents are able to check in these regularly as this is one way of keeping the lines of communication between home and school open.

- Absences - If your child is away for any reason it is important that you phone or email me as soon as possible in the morning to let us know, you are able to leave a voicemail message when calling the school to explain the reason for the students absence.
Office Number- (09) 534 3922

- Uniform - It is really important that the students follow our school uniform code, we have discussed this and have pictures in the classroom to refer to. If students do not have the correct uniform this means that they lose a green card, which unfortunately means they will not be able to receive their gold card for the next week. This loss of the Gold card means that they lose privileges such as using the swimming pool at lunch, using the tuck shop at morning tea at lunch time (they can still order lunches through the lunch order system).

We need our swimming gear at school every Monday and Wednesday and our PE gear at school every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this term. This is a part of our school uniform and must be worn correctly.

-  Classroom Rules - These have been discussed with students and letters have been sent home to parents for you to look through as well. If you need an extra copy just let me know.


If you have any questions please email me at paigeb@howickint.school.nz