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Term 4 is named "LIVE OUT LOUD" Week 5 - Ms Clarks inquiry group have been working on improving their voices to record their story and editing their art ideas to make sure they are telling exactly what is happening to Maui and the brothers and the sun. Mrs Southgates group used "hot seating" and different students pretended to be the main characters in the story and we got some ideas about the emotions each was feeling through the story. We then used this list of emotions to do facial and body movements to show how we were feeling. We looked at scared, frustrated, crazy and sad to name a few. During reflection we discussed that we are having trouble getting our choral speaking together and in time so are thinking we should choose one narrator for each piece like Ms Clarkes group. Watch this space for further updates on how we are going. Week 4 saw our inquiry develop with us choosing to do Maui and the sun as our story to retell without words. We choose this story because of its oral heritage as a Maori myth?legend which has been passed down from generation to generation by mouth long before it was ever written. We have two groups working in two different ways to retell the story. One group is using art and voice over to create their story on the computer and the other group is acting it out through a song. This group this week were working on the costume and making Maori headdresses. Here they are hanging in Room 29. They look beautiful in the window. Week 4 also ended in a fantastic way with the Readathon celebration. The school had raised over $13,000 dollars and to say a big thank you to everyone Sir Readalot organised a banana split for the whole school. The real achievement was in eating and sharing it altogether as a school. The teachers and parents who helped get over 400 servings out and ready in one go were amazing. Here are some of us tucking in! ... Week 3 the exciting part of week three was the visit by PC Watts who came to talk about bike safety. He talked about wearing helmets correctly and checking your tyres and brakes on a regular basis. He created a course fro us to use with our bikes or scooter which was lots of fun. We also created a Marae picture on the wall. Week 2 We went to the Maori Culture exhibition at the Auckland Museum to see how stories are told through carving, weaving, art, and oral language and even had time to read on the domain under a willow tree for the Readathon. Week 1 Room 30 and Room 29 are looking at telling stories without writing. We are focusing on story telling and how Maori culture has a strong emphasis on oral language and telling stories about their heritage and families through stories. We have begun by looking at different ways to telling stories including reading books, listening to CD stories, singing stories, acting stories, watching stories on the computer and looking at Art with a story teller giving the background about why the art work was created and why it has significance. Week 10 We had the most amasing hut day... Week 8 We did it and here are the photos. Our little forest is tiny now but we will watch it grow. Week 7 we are waiting to get planting and wrote home asking our parents to help. Don't forget to bring gumboots, spare clothes and a spade if possible. Week 6 We have realised we need to consider fertilizer, watering and fencing the area for our trees so we can make sure they get the best start. Colin the caretaker is coming to see us on Monday to help us with these problems and give us ideas how to fix them, but we have still been feeding and watching the birds. Did you know we have seen more silvereyes and fantails in school since we started the feeding? They just love the halves of oranges and mandarins that we push onto a twig. This is a really easy way to feed the birds in your garden too. Week 5 We heard from Mr Petrie and we CAN plant the trees at school. Watch this space for more news about where and when this will take place. Week 4 We have been putting up sugar water feeders for the nectar feeding birds at a ratio of 1 cup of sugar per litre of water. We had to be careful carrying them around school. It was tricky gertting them to stay in the trees and everybody laughed when one fell down and covered Mrs Southgate in sticky water!! Here we are sorting the feeders out and putting them up around school. We have also written to Colin the caretaker and Mr P to ask where we can plant the trees that Mr Parker has donated to us to make the sanctuary. Week 3 How our goals for volunteering have changed in a week. We were hoping to run a bird cafe to help the birds through the winter months and encourage the birds into our school and gardens at home, however after Mr Allan Parker visited our lives have changed. Mr Parker volunteers for Sossi and told us about Shakepear park and the reintroduction and improvements they are making for the NATIVE BIRDS in NZ. He has challenged us to create a bird sanctuary here at Gulf Harbour School and help the North - West Wildlink project make a pathway from Shakepear to the west coast for the birds. The birds need safe havens to feed and breed along this pathway and we can be part of it and make a difference! WOW ! So keep an eye on what we are doing. We will be planting trees and shrubs, tracking bird predators and feeding the birds to! Here we are making some pine cone feeders that Matthews Grannie came in and showed how to make. Thanks to her and Mr Parker for their stories about volunteering and some great ideas.Ellie and Nicole put on the gloves while Mrs Southgate ties a string onto a pine cone to make a hanging loop. Scott and Luca T dip their hand into the jam to spread on the cone. Amy spreads her jam over the cone and Brodie rolls the cone the wild bird seed. Luca M.H goes outside and finds a tree to hang the feeder in. We have seen sparrows, chaffinches and silvereyes feeding from the cones and blackbirds pecking at the seeds that have dropped to the ground. Week 2 We decided we would like to volunteer to look after animals and the animals we have at school are birds. We thought we could feed them during the winter days when they haven't got as much food as in the summertime.We thought we could have a bird cafe. First we are doing a survey to see which birds we have at school and at home. To watch them we made a bird hide for school and went around school finding places to watch from. It was very hard for us to keep quiet and still! Now we know what birds are about we are having 2 experts to speak to us next week to tell us what the different birds like to eat. Week 1 We have been looking at the values, attributes and definition of a volunteer who gives but receives nothing material in return. We have started making a Peacock image in the class that represents when we match these values or attributes. Pop in a see how we are going. If you are a volunteer or know someone who is we would love to hear from you. Well here are the four games we made. We are very proud of them and are looking forward to using them in class and sharing them with other classes. Week 8 has seen us start to make the TARGET GAMES. we have some kind mums making beanbags for us to fill. We will update you with some pictures of how it is going next week. Week 7 saw us celebrate our great work this term so far. We decided to have an animal arts day because we had filled up our marble jar. We made animal biscuits in the food tech room using our weighing skills to measure the ingredients. Then we decorated them and ATE them! next we made alligator rolling toys and finally we got to make animal huts and homes for the soft toy animals we had brought to school for the day. __**This is us using our organisers to think the problem through.**__ Week 6 was a busy inquiry week. We looked at weight and used standard and none standard weights to compare how heavy something was. We used balance scales, kitchen scales and bathroom scales as well as our hands, elastic and our own balances. We used this experience to look at possible fillings for our bean bags making decisions about whether the fillings we were looking at were a good weight for a beanbag and would throw well and safely for the user. Week 5 was about measuring in cm and metres. The students used metres to measure how far they felt they should stand away from their target game to make it a challenge but not too hard so that they didn't have some success. The problem solving concerning how to measure the distances in the first place was interesting and some students took up the leadership and problem solving particular well. The most important part of the visit was the question the educationalist raised about "What are the toys made of and how does this effect their durability". We need to consider this for our target games and beanbags and what we make them out. So how is our investigation going? - well we have looked at different target games with balls, quoits and bean bags. Room 29 were challenged to create a target games with bean bags. So we have looked at bean bags games around the world. Made a drawing of our initial ideas for a target game and have started to consider the aerodynamics of flying objects to consider how we should design a beanbag for the best throwing results. **Hello and welcome back to Term 2** We hope you enjoyed the Art Festival on Friday. The children's art work sparkled beautifully in the disco lights. This Term we are investigating target games and designing games we could use at playtimes for ourselves and other classes. Ellie says she has enjoyed our Eric Carle work and the collage we did this week of a dragon. Nicole says we have had an excellent week doing art around dragons. Everyone has become great authors this week says Liam and Mrs Southgate has had to sharpen the pencils nearly every day !!! Vaughn and Luca M say we have learnt to count with 5 on the fly flips. Hi Again, Take a look at the side panel and the maths and literacy games sites. Hopefully you can access these easily and do some learning at home. Have Fun!!! **Hello and Welcome to Room 29 and 2012** **Have a look at some of the amazing children in the class.**
 * This Term we are using "Iam, We are" as our theme. We will be looking at the arts and in Room 29 We are focusing on the visual arts. The children are lucky enough to be having specialist music and dance lessons this term and have already been looking at "routine and unison" in dance" and "beat' in music. After a terrific trip to the Auckland Art Gallery we have been inspired to become artists. One of my favourite authors and illustrators is Eric Carle and we have been looking at his unique style of illustrations.We are currently trialing different media that we think Eric may have used in his art work. We have tried marble art, sponging, mark making with sticks and brushes, bubble wrap and objects that could print. Shortly we will trial tissue collage and will hopefully create a work of art based on our favourite colour, animal and number. Watch this space for photos.**