Term 3, Week 8

Fist of all, huge thanks to those lovely mothers who helped us out with our Junior Masterchef Pizza Challenge last Friday – we all had a fabulous time chopping, grating, designing and eating our tasty treats! We also had a special treat on Thursday when we watched the environmental film (from the Dr Seuss classic!) The Lorax – thanks to Mrs Mansson from Room 4 who shared her DVD with us :) We also began thinking about character as part of our drama focus, exploring voice and movement through descriptive language and through acting out.

Unfortunately our Grasshopper Tennis lesson was rained out last week, but we begin again today ($5 to Miss Driver please if you have not paid already :)) and there will be an additional lesson in the final week of term to ensure that all children get the full four lessons :) 

We will also continue to look at character in combination with our listening focus for music – we’ll explore the ways in which classical composers have used different instruments, rhythms, pitching and expression to convey the characters in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and in Saint Saens’s Carnival of the Animals, as well as to tell a story. We look forward to visiting the Recycling Centre on Thursday morning (if you have kindly volunteered to provided transport, please be at school at 9am as we will orgnanise ourselves then go!) to learn more about what happens to the things we put in our blue recycling bins!

We are excited about working on some calendar art with Mrs Jessop on Wednesday :)

Pizzas with passion

Room 3 would like to thank the wonderful mothers who helped us out today making delicious mini-pizzas :) We enjoyed choosing and arranging our own toppings, working on some tricky pizza maths with fractions and equal sharing, drawing our tasty treats, and - most of all! - eating our yummy masterpieces! Nom nom!

Term 3, Week 7

Once again we had a wonderful start to last week in Room 3 with a special trip to the Nelson Museum to see the Save Our Snails (Powelliphanta) exhibition. Many thanks to the wonderful mothers who provided transport and assisted our learning at the museum – we loved handling the shells, meeting Ferdinand, and learning about predation, trapping and conservation. We have enjoyed thinking about different animal species this week and how they are different from, and exist in balance with each other to make up the amazing biodiversity of the earth. We had a great time on Thursday playing with rakau (short sticks) for te ao kori, brainstorming our mythical characters, and practising skip-counting in twos.

This week we’ll look more closely at character description and definition in our myths, legends, nursery rhymes and fairy tales, begin our tennis lessons with the Grasshopper Tennis programme ($5 to Miss Driver please if you have not paid already :)) and wrap up the week with our Junior Masterchef Pizza Challenge on Friday. If you are available to help us with our Pizza Challenge between 11am and 12.30pm on Friday we would really appreciate your support. We’ll be working in teams in the staffroom kitchen to  design, top and bake some pizzas to share, but we’ll need some tough adult fingers for chopping and grating (and some keen adult eyes for supervision)! Please let Miss Driver know of any food allergies – we will keep the toppings simple, but will not be able to accommodate preferences.

We are excited about finishing off our koru and kowhaiwhai patterns with Mrs Jessop on Wednesday :)

Goodbye Keanu!

Kei te pouri ahau! We were very sad on Friday to say goodbye to Keanu who is leaving Birchwood and relocating to central Nelson.

We made Keanu a special card with all our photos and messages, and we farewelled Keanu in our special sharing time in Room 3, and in our school Assembly. We will all miss Keanu very much, but we know that he will be such an asset to any school and any classroom lucky enough to snap him up! Goodbye Keanu, you will be in our thoughts as you begin school with a new bunch of friends next week :)

Immy's birthday

On Friday it was Immy's birthday and Immy turned ... SIX! Congratulations Immy :) We love birthdays in Room 3, and we had a very special treat this time as Immy's mum brought us all some delicious cupcakes (with sprinkles and m&ms!) and some absolutely gorgeous little teddy racing cars (if you look closely at the pictures you will see that these are made from mini-mars bars). Thank you Immy and family! Yum yum!!

Te ao kori - poi and rakau

In Room 3 we have been enjoying learning about te ao kori, which for us is the fitness and health aspect of tikanga maori. We have been trying out some new techniques and skills using poi and rakau, and putting our new actions to waiata. As we listen to these songs (such as E Papa and Rere Atu) we also learn new words in te reo maori.

We store this together with our new vocabulary for talking about our special places (our maunga, awa, kokori, puke, and moana), our feelings, and taking care of our environment, and hope to build more and more upon our language and understanding every day :)

Term 3, Week 6

What an interesting week it has been once again in Room 3... We started off with our fabulous composting session with Sarah Langhi and learned all about the way in which carbon and nitrogen rich (“browns” and “greens”) waste is broken down by worms and microorganisms to create delicious food to help plants thrive. We had a wonderful time as pirates, sorting out our ideas about measurement in metres for maths week, and we enjoyed meeting Mrs Malcom on Wednesday and learning some rhymes and songs :) We developed our skills using poi, and are getting very good at the actions for rere atu. We learned some new words in te reo maori for the special places around us – our awa, maunga, puke, kokori and moana – and will continue to add to our vocabulary each week as we explore new myths and legends. We also learned two VERY long words – whakaitingia (reduce!) and hangaruatia (recycle!).

This week we look forward to our museum visit to see the Powelliphanta exhibition on Monday afternoon – we are very interested in sustainability, and can’t wait to learn all about these giant snails and what steps we need to take to protect their populations. We’ll continue with our programme in te ao kori, and this week we’ll begin to play with rakau as well as poi. Bible in Schools will take place as usual on Tuesday, with Library day on Wednesday and the COW on Thursday.

We look forward to welcoming back Mrs Jessop on Wednesday and to continuing to create our koru and kowhaiwhai patterns :)

Maths week in Room 3 - our week of piracy

In Room 3 we have been learning about length, and for maths week we have been using hands, feet, metres and centimetres to solve some piratical problems!

We've folded hats, measured out metres with our palms and soles, measured our classroom items, glued one metre string pictures, and finally, today, we drew a pirate ship to scale from Captain Bloods plans. It was six metres long, and had a one metre plank. It had three masts - the mizzen mast was three metres tall, and the fore and aft masts were each two metres tall. We decorated the sails and flew the Jolly Roger!

We even had a pirate sports day - we walked the plank to find out how far we could jump into the deep blue sea (even Miss Driver got pushed!), rolled cannonballs along the deck, and threw our disgusting dinners of mouldy fishheads and seaweed stew! Summer and Keanu jumped the furthest, Deanne and Ella C threw their dinner the furthest, and Summer rolled a cannon ball eight metres!

Composting

In Room 3 we have been learning to reduce (whakaitingia) the amount of landfill waste which we produce, and to recycle (hangaruatia) paper, cardboard, cans, glass and some plastics. Today we learned about an excellent way to reuse our foodscraps - composting! When we make compost, we make a rich, nutrient rich soil - and our food and garden leftovers get used again by the worms and mirco-organisms and turned into plant food, yum yum :)

Our expert, Sarah Langhi, tells us that we have to build up our compost using green (nitrogen rich, wet) and brown (carbon rich, dry) materials (around 10 parts "brown" to one part "green" is best). These provide the nutrients we need. It is important not to pack the heap and to turn it every few weeks to allow air into the soil, and to water occasionally. The decay process for compost usually takes at least 8 to 10 weeks. When the compost is ready it will be dark brown and crumbly with an earthy smell. 

Term 3, Week 5

Thank you once again, this time to those families who came along to help us out with tree planting on Monday. We really put our muscles into this task, and especially enjoyed picking up worms :)

Last week was also a special week for us as we welcomed back Mrs Fleur Jessop, started to practise our kowhaiwhai patterns, and voted for our new school leaders. The speeches were amazing – that will be us in just a few years! We enjoyed finishing off our stream mural, and are loving learning about all sorts of different myths and legends of tikanga maori.

This week is a special week too because it is MATHS WEEK (watch out for the problems to solve in our school newsletter!). We are learning about length in Room 3, so we’re going to form ourselves into a pirate crew to carry out all sorts of adventures – crafting hats from recycled materials, tracking treasure, designing ships, pirate sports … We’re also going be writing some of our own pirate poems on Thursday, so do have a go at the weekly challenge to think of words for describing pirates! Sarah Langhi will return on Monday to teach us about composting, Bible in Schools will take place as usual on Tuesday, with Library day on Wednesday and the COW on Thursday.

Here’s to another great week in Room 3 :)

Museum visit - Powelliphanta exhibition

Hello all!

Our next exciting class trip will be to visit the Powelliphanta (Save Our Snails) exhibition at the Nelson museum. This will tie in with our class focus on Change, Sustainability and the Living World.

We are scheduled to visit at 1.15pm on Monday, 20th August. In order for our visit to go ahead, we will need some assistance with transport (meeting at Room 3, Birchwood School at 12.45pm) and supervision, as well as a returned permission slip for each child. Please help us to make this trip possible for every child :)

A notice will be sent home this afternoon (look in book bags :)) and it would be hugely appreciated if the attached permission (and transport) slip could be returned to Room 3 as soon as possible.

Many thanks

Miss Driver and the Room 3 Team

http://www.museumnp.org.nz/exhibitions/current.htm

Tree planting

Once again, huge thanks to those who helped us out yesterday with tree planting :) Mrs T and Room 3 had a fabulous time planting, and were able to teach Miss Driver all about the steps in planting a tree to be sure that it has healthy roots and can thrive and grow!

Term 3, Week 4

Thank you very much to those families who made it along to our Poormans Stream visit last Friday (in spite of the weather and the changing plans!). We loved learning about stream management and ecology - what a fun, hands on way to aquire new knowledge! We are also very excited about another outing – tree planting on Monday 6 August at 11am, all welcome :)

Also last week we really enjoyed meeting the visiting Chinese teachers (and using our Chinese greetings and introductions!), and we were so impressed by the Recycling Circus show. What great acrobatics, and what important lessons about sustainability!

This week, as well as tree planting, we will keep ourselves busy with reading, writing, maths, Bible in Schools and our weekly trip to the library (now back on Wednesdays as usuaul). We look forward to working with the COW on Thursday, and to continuing our focus on te reo and on tikanga maori, including myths and legends. We’re very enthusiastic about acting, and hope to create some of our own plays which will use some of our te reo phrases and be based around these myths and legends. If all goes well, we’ll be sharing these plays with the junior syndicate a few weeks from now.

We welcome back Mrs Fleur Jessop who will be with us on Wednesday . We are so thrilled to be getting back into our regular art program, and this term our focus will be on creating kowhaiwhai patterns. We also welcome back Mrs Desiree Thiart who will be with us on Monday while Miss Driver is on leave. We LOVE Mrs Thiart’s special magnet stories! 

Poormans Stream

Room 3 had a wonderful time at Poormans Stream last Friday. Thanks Mel for teaching us about water purity and about the creatures who live in our local stream - some of us even caught some may flies! A huge thanks to all of the families who came along to help out (and who kept us from becoming EVEN wetter and muddier :)).

We're having a great time in Room 3 working on our recycled art as we complete our stream mural. Did you see the typing which we did ourselves?? We will finish our ika and our eels this Friday, using goos paper (good on one side paper), newspaper, paper scraps and rubbish (our 3D eels and fish take lots of 'feeding'), old stockings (!) and plastic waste. Here we are painting our stuffed eels ...

Sarah's birthday

Happy Birthday (21st birthday ;)) to Sarah our fabulous Room 3 helper. Sarah's birthday is on Sunday, but yesterday she brought us a special treat - some delicious popcorn and a favourite story book of hers. Thank you Sarah for all your help, we hope you have a wonderful birthday!!

Recycling circus

Room 3 had a wonderful time at the Recycling Circus on Wednesday. We learned about how important it is to separate plastic, glass, paper and cans (because they are recycled in different ways), and about how we can use "rubbish" in lots of fun ways. It was a wonderful show!