Term 4, Week 9

Well done Room 3 on another week’s hard work! We are drawing very near the end of term now, and focussing on our end of year performance as well as Christmas crafts and activities. As we are tired from a year of very intense learning there will be no further spelling words to learn this year, and no further reading response questions. This week children will still be bringing home a story to read, however the most important thing is to get plenty of sleep and exercise when the sun is shining :) 

There will be no further homework sheet in the final week of term, so I thank you all now for a fantastic year and wish you all the best for 2014. I will be teaching a lovely year 3-4 class at Westmere School in Auckland next year, but hope to keep in touch with the team at Birchwood – I look forward to hearing about all of your successes in the years to come! Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year :) 

Reminders:

- Come and see us in the Junior/Middle Syndicate show next week!! Please check the newsletter for times and dates.

- Learning Journals go out this week (with reports where appropriate). Information about next year’s rooms and teachers will be included with these. Children will visit their new classrooms and meet their new teachers on the final day of term.

- Library books are due back, if you still have one at home please return it NOW :) 

Term 4, Week 8

A huge thanks to all of the awesome families who came along to watch our performance of Roar at assembly on Friday, Room 3 had a lot of fun preparing this song (even if some of us had a little stage fright!). We certainly have some star talent!

This week we continue to rehearse our tuatara choreography and hope to finish our costumes. We will also begin our Christmas activities, songs and stories today, including sending off our letters to Santa (via the kindly elves at NZ Post).

We welcome back Mrs Clare Corcoran on Wednesday when Miss Driver is tidying up all of our assessment information to share with our new teachers for 2014. Exciting times! We will also have some year 5 helpers in our Room each day this week, as the year 6s have abandoned their classmates to go on camp :) 

Reminders:

- Learning Journals go out at the end of next week – if you have not yet returned yours, please do so :)

- Check today’s newsletter for dates and times for our end of year performance!

- Last week for library books, please bring them back by this Friday :)

Garlic bread and broad bean dip - junior masterchefs run rampant with edible garden produce!

Today our awesome Room 3 team had a go at turning the broad beans and garlic from our edible gardens into some tasty treats!

Making the garlic bread was easy. We sliced the bread, softened some butter and, after carefully peeling our fresh garlic bulbs and stems, crushed and chopped them into the butter. Miss Driver and Maya held the "monster mouths" open in the sliced bread, and we all loaded in the delicious butter mixture. We loved our crispy, golden garlic sticks!

The broad bean dip was a little trickier, as we had to prepare our beans by removing them from their pods, steaming them, removing the chewy skins and finally mashing them up with lemon juice, herbs, spices and a little sour cream. Not all of us were sure about trying this to start with (some of us thought that the cumin, paprika and coriander smelt a little unusual...), but in the end we all had a taste of the dip with crackers and most of us even went back for seconds!

Thank you to Janice who was our "taster" and to Mrs Woolf who also enjoyed the first broad beans she's ever eaten as a grown up! We were able to teach Mrs Woolf about removing the skins to get rid of that bitter flavour she remembers from childhood. Thanks also to our photographer, Jade.

So don't let us fool you - we DO eat garlic, broad beans, coriander, cumin, paprika and lemons!

Room 3's got talent!

Not only is Room 3 full of beautiful and talented young learners, but Mikaela and Sophia have even got the trophies to prove it!

Mikaela won her trophy at the A and P show, riding her pony Bertie.

Sophia won her trophy for consistent effort at ballet.

Congratulations ladies!!

Term 4, Week 7

It’s come so quickly, only a month till Christmas! We’ve been flat out in Room 3, racing through our sprints and athletics sports (it was great to see so many families along, supporting their children), learning a new tuatara choreography and constructing our costumes ready for the show. 

We’ve started on our new spelling lists, and have been brushing up our basic facts to and with 5 and 10, and have even been using what we know about place value to add groups of tens (ty numbers) up to 100! We’re working on speedy recall, but it’s fantastic to see so many children using their fingers to remember fact patterns. Testing with Miss Driver showed that we could all do with a little extra practice counting backwards in 2s (from 20), so we’ll also take another look at that. Do check out the awesome maths website in our links!

This week we continue to practice our tuatara choreography, finish off our costumes (including our claws!), and get ready to Roar at assembly on Friday (see reminder below).

Reminders:

- Room 3 will be sharing one of our favorite songs, Roar, with the rest of the school at assembly this week, and a couple of children will be introducing the song. Come along and join in!

- Just 2 more weeks for library books, be sure to bring yours back!

- We’d love further donations of egg cartons – we need a lot of spines! – and elastic (any thickness and colour is fine) for our tuatara costumes J

- The Home and School family picnic is on THIS Friday 29 November!

Writers' Spot - Love To Write!!

Thank you so much to ALL of the awesome children in Room 3 for the amazing effort put into our writing this year. Unfortunately we were only able to have a small number to share their writing - about writing! - in assembly today, but we have many passionate and talented young authors.

Sharing today (and doing an amazing job of it!) were Sophia, Daniella, Maya, Lucia and Tayla. Ka pai to mahi ladies!! You can see how much we love writing just from looking at those enthusiastic smiles!

Garden harvest and Room 3 distribution centre

Sadly our edible gardens were trashed over the weekend by unknown villains. On Thursday Room 3 and Room 10 salvaged what was left of the broad beans and garlic plants, and on Friday we practised our equal sharing (division!) in maths time and portioned out the produce to each of our eleven classrooms. It's lucky we're such an honest bunch, we were very tempted to keep a larger share for ourselves :)

Next week we'll be creating some delicious garlic bread and broad bean dip to share - mmm!

Creative kids!

We are as creative as ever in Room 3! It looks as though we'll be producing some amazing architects and fashion designers!

Awesome maths website!

We've been working so hard on our addition and subtraction facts in Room 3 this week, as well as our counting sequences. Check out this amazing website for interactive fun with maths from the comfort of your own home!

http://www.coolmath4kids.com/

Term 4, Week 6

Here it is, Room 3, the second half of Term 4, and we’ll be jumping right in with our Athletics Day THIS Tuesday (19 November). Come along and watch us run, jump and throw! 

That won’t be our only fitness for the week, however – we also begin to choreograph and practise our dance routine ready for the end of year show (exciting!!).

As well as keeping ourselves physically active we’ll be working hard to finish off our tuatara masks, and we’ll push on with making our twitchy tuatara tails. 

In maths we’ll be tuning up our basic facts – the solid foundation for easy addition and subtraction, together with our forwards and backwards counting (keep up the practice!). 

We’ll have new spelling lists to work on in class (it’s fantastic to see such rich, topical vocabulary appearing in our story writing too!), and we’ll be sorting out some comprehension skills in reading.  

We welcome Mrs Clare Corcoran to Room 3 on Wednesday as Miss Driver will be working with small groups of children on assessment tasks.

Reminders:

- Athletics Day is THIS Tuesday, 19 November. You are very welcome to come along to watch our sprints and field sports! Junior sprints begin at 11.40am, Field sports at 1.30pm :)

- We’d love further donations of egg cartons – we need a lot of spines! – and elastic (any thickness and colour is fine) for our tuatara costumes :)

- The Home and School family picnic is coming up on the evening of Friday 29 November :)