Blog Challenge 2

This challenge relates to our D2P topic.
How well do you know bridges? How well do you know Hutt City? Wellington? The Lower North Island? Over the next month.... (yep, it may take a while) take your digital camera out and about with you. Take a photo some different bridges you pass over or under. Bring your bridge pics to school or e-mail them to ksmith@maungaraki.school.nz. Let's see how many others in the class recognise the bridges you snap.

Make sure you write down the name of each bridge, and where it is. We will also identify the type of bridge it is, so have a think about that too.

New classroom

Last term rooms 1, 2 and 3 were done up. There was new carpet and new covering on the walls. Now in the morning the classroom is hot but by the afternoon it is cold. The colours of the class are blue and white. The cool thing is, we have 3 computers and a large area to play on wet days. Our classroom is cool. There are lots of gadgets, like shelves and coat-hangers and cool lights. In the classroom there is also a big white board. It's realy cool and fun in our new classroom. By Harrison

Skool Stars

In term 2 Skool Stars came to our school. Every class had a different song. Our class did Blame it on the Boogie by the Jackson 5. We practiced our singing with Mrs Coyle. Then we made up moves. It was hard remembering all the moves and words. Next we got put into 3 groups. Each group had to dance to a different part of the song. Every day we practiced singing and dancing. Group 3 had to work on timing for their solo parts. When rooms 2 and 3 were out we went into their classrooms and used the stage and music to practice. In week 5 Skool Stars came to record our singing and film our dancing. We squeezed in lots of practice before filming. Each group went up and danced in front of a big green screen. We were nervous. If we wore green we would not show up in the final copy. We could still dress up. Some people wore afro wigs. It was lots of fun.

Myanmar's cyclone.

Myanmar had a cyclone, room 1 wants to help. First we discussed what World Vison could do, then discussed what we could do.
World Vison got the BIG jobs like; clean all the corpses [dead people] out of the rivers and build new bridges, etc. Mrs Jennings
knows a lady whose husband is in Myanmar building a STRONG school! Well done to him! Maybe he helped make our class who
knows?! we have no idea!!and us? well WE decided that we could give LOT'S and LOT'S of MONEY! in that way we can help them!
WE NEED YOU! PLEASE HELP! just think you are pretty rich so be a little more helpful....save a live I would give ya a medal if I
knew ya.
By Emily age nine! P.S put a comment on the blog and tell us were you come from! and what your name is.

Blame it on the Boogie

Just a few more days until the Skool Stars team come in to record us performing Blame it on the Boogie. Remember to dress in your 70s outfits on Thursdays (but don't wear green - 'cos you won't be seen!).
from Mrs Smith

Swimming

This term we have been swimming for school, to be safe for when were older. We have been learning to swim for nearly 2 weeks now. We have been learning how to swim for life. Some of us have been learning to do freestyle, floating on your back and front and rocket arms. On Friday we are having the fun activities and even more fun afterwards. We get to do the activities first like flutter boards, pajama race and other things.
Now all about the fun stuff. We can do any thing we want sometimes and we can play on the air balloons. That is all for now.
by Shania

How You Start A Sailling Race

My mum works in the start box for Lowry Bay Yacht Club. This is how you start a sailing race. First you put up the class flag, to say what division is starting. Then the blue peter goes up one minute later. Two minuets later, the blue peter goes down and one minute after that, the class flag goes down too. If any boats go over the line before the hoot, she has to do an extra hoot, if lots of boats go over she has to start the race again.
by Cole

The Cross Country

This term Rooms 1, 2, 3 and 9 just had a cross country to choose who would go to the cross country. There were 4 lists, one for each year, the top 10 were putting thier names on the lists. This is the year 4 route. Start at room 1, run towards the weather station, run in front of the weather station, run in behind one of the rugby posts, run behind the brick wall, run behind the playground, run across the crossing, run up the driveway to the car park, run through the car park, run behind Bob's shed and rooms 6, 7, 8 and 9, run in behind rooms 4 and 5 and the pe shed,then do the same thing until you reach the crossing, then run back to the start. Years 5, 6, 7 and 8 did same, but they ran down Barberry Grove. It was great fun.
by Thomas

Soccer

On Tusday, room1 and 2 went to a soccer tournement. My team lost the first game and won the rest. It was cool because we beat older kids than us. Then we faced Maunga Phoenix, they were easy. Then we versed Kelson they were good. We lost aganst Normandale Reds they were hard. Maunga Magic were hard too, but we nearly beat them. The day was good and we had lots of fun at soccer.
by Liam & Zack

Maungaraki Basketball

On Thursday Maungaraki basketball team won against Boulcott basketball team. The first ten minutes we did'nt get any points at all and Boulcott already had seven points.
But on the second half we got five and ended up with ten points and we got two more and got twelve,and the over team got eleven so won.

PEOPLE IN THE TEAM:
Tiaan B
Kayleigh F
Sam G
Elijah M
Macauly R
Cole P
Kayla VB
Sam WB

Rm 1's daily writing

In rm 1 every morning we do daily writing. Daily writing is when all of room 1's students do either, imaginary or true stories.When room 1 starts daily writing they start it with the date and goals. Some of our goals are specific nouns and verbs, similes, commas, adjectives, capital letters, interesting words,detail and speech marks.


EVERYONE IN ROOM 1 SAYS DAILY WRITING IS FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Farewell to Keiko & Kohei

On the second of April room 1 had a fare well lunch
for Keiko and Kohei.

Before the lunch we had a class photo with Keiko and Kohei. Mrs Smith put us into groups of five and we all got to do our jobs.

After that Anishka said a little good bye speech, to thank Keiko and Kohei and presented a farewell card that she'd made and we'd all signed. Keiko tought us a Japaneese prayer before we ate.

Everyone had a lovely time, we all knew that Kohei's
favourite was the chocolate cake with whipped cream!

By Tiaan B and Kayleigh F

Learning Japanese

In the past weeks Kohei and Mrs Tuji have been teaching us Japanese.
In the first week, we learnt a game called Jan Kin, in New Zealand we call it Paper, Scissors, Rock.
We learnt about the Doll Festival which was on March 3. In the second week we learnt about origami and chop-sticks. In the third week we learnt about and we played sumo wrestling and wrote our names in Japanese with ink and a brush. The ink smelt like coral and dead fish. This work was called calligraphy. On the secound to last lesson we dressed up in Yukatas and looked at Japanese moeny, which is called Yen. On the last week we played with Japanese toys like blow up balloons, hacky sacks, helicopters and spinning tops. Everybody liked having Kohe here and he has been a good friend. It has been fun having Kohe to play with at lunch and morning tea. Good-bye Kohei and Mrs Tsuji.
by Matthew C. and Harry
photos by Zane

"It was really nice learning about Japan." Kayla
"It was fun teaching him English because if he didn't understand we acted it out." Victoria
"It's really nice have a Japanese guest because we can learn about a different culture." Alexandra
"He learnt about New Zealand and English and we learnt about Japan." Lillian
"It was better than a video or a script." Mallory
"Because Kohei was in our class we had more opportunities to ask questions." Anishka
"It was cool taking him out to show him what things were because I learnt the Japanese words." Matthew C

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Hats Off to Room 1 Milliners

In the first part of this term Room 1 made hats. These were
paraded in a mini hat fashion show at assembly. The learning
involved in making and showing off these hats was considerable....
firstly, in making the hats, children worked through a design process. They had to use their imagination, creativity and problem solving skills to actually turn their ideas into a wearable hat (hats off to all the parents that gave a hand here).

When it came time to prepare for the hat parade in assembly children had to write a short commentary and also make an invitation. These writing tasks provided the class with genuine contexts to construct two very different pieces of text. The class discussed the specific purpose of each and considered the needs of the audience for each piece of writing - a lot of thought went in to what to say, as well as how to say it.

The actual parade came after some very intense rehearsals. I was very proud of the students for the way they read aloud the commentary of a classmate. We all know how nerve-wracking it can be to speak in front of a large audience! Yet everyone spoke clearly and with good expression into the microphone. (This experience was great preparation for delivering speeches later in the year.) Cat walk modeling styles varied, reflecting not just the personalities of the hat-makers, but also the hats. Dancing hats
danced, frog hats jumped, scary hats stalked and a hat inspired by Star Wars moved in a Star Wars kind of way. It was very clear that the children had put a lot of thought into what they were doing. Well done to the class for their superb efforts.
Thank-you to all the parents who came to the assembly - you were a patient and appreciative audience. Your presence made the hat parade a special event for the whole class.
Mrs Smith

Easter Holidays

During our Easter break we had a great time. These are some of the things that we did;
Jack = Climbed to Belmont trig; Alex, Chris, Kohei, Jack, Zane = went to H20 Extreme; Lillian = went to Bryana's house to see her baby guinea pigs; Tiaan = went to Petone beach & went swimming while her dad collected cockles; Vaughan = went to Levin to see the Balloon show where he saw Mrs Jennings; Sam = went to Upper Hutt marae and the park next door; Matthew C & Harry spent time at each other's places; Kayla = went shopping at the Warehouse and bought shoes; Anishka = had 2 special farewell dinners to say good-bye to her cousin; Thomas = went for a sleep over at his friends and practiced high jumping; Mallory = got sunburnt at Paraparaumu and came too close to a jellyfish; Bryana = went to Tauranga to see her grandparents and went on the luge AND patted a lion cub; Kayleigh, Emily, Jack, Joel, Zane, Shania and Liam = all did an Easter egg hunt; Matt H = got new shoes and went swimming; Cole = played cricket; Zach = went to visit his auntie in Tauranga and went fishing at Ocean Beach; James = walked to the lighthouse, it was very windy there; Emily went to El Rancho - again!; Odin = played Star Wars with both of his brothers; Priya = vacumed the house; Joel went to Taupo and stayed for 3 nights. He got to drive a boat AND got a certificate for doing it so well; Nicole & Victoria were not here today, so we are not sure what they did.

Yummy Morning Tea Muffins

Thanks Mallory for bringing in those yummy muffins for the staff to eat at morning tea. The chocolate ones were my favourites.

A few weeks back Kayleigh made some valentine biscuits and shared them with the whole class. They were yummy too.

Matthew C makes tea for his family every Friday night. I wonder how many other room 1 students are helping out in the kitchen at home? We are currently working on our measurement unit in class. All the kitchen activity at home will be making a real difference for students learning the relationships between grams and kilo-grams, millilitres and litres and how to measure accurately. So well done Mums & Dads for being involved in your children's learning - keep up the good work.
Mrs Smith

Bike Day

Hi Everyone
We had a great time on Friday afternoon riding bikes around the field. Students firstly participated in the slow race. This is much harder than it sounds and quite a few children had to put a foot down well before they had reached the finish line.
We followed this up with some circuits around the perimeter of the field, practicing turning and stopping signals. In the high winds that were blowing on the day, this was quite a tiring event. Students were able to rest up while they waited their turn through the slalom course. By cycling slowly with full control, all children were able to 'shimmy' through successfully. We finished up with a 'figure 8' exercise that required students to look left and give way to others if they needed to.
There were heaps of prizes handed out for all manner of behaviours - most went for good cycling.
Well done everyone! Great cycling!

Parents.... do bring your children down to school at the weekend to practice their safe cycling skills 'off road'.
Mrs Smith