End of year celebrations!

The countdown to Christmas and the holidays is definitely on and Rm. 13 has been busy, busy, busy wrapping up the end of the year!

On Friday 11th we had a our Christmas concert and every single child was an absolute superstar! Miss Rooke is so proud of all the hard work and effort that went into the performance.

Here are some photos of us in our Christmas-themed outfits for the show.

Then on Monday 14th we were lucky enough to make some bread with Whaea Paea - how cool to cook in the staffroom! It tasted delicious with butter and jam and we got to eat outside in the sunshine. Ki ora Whaea Paea!

2015 has been an incredible year for Rm. 13 and everyone has shared in some wonderful learning. We hope all of our families have a safe, happy and relaxing holiday break.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Celebration station!

In Rm. 13 we are learning about festivals and celebrations during Term 4. On Wednesday 11th November it was Diwali and we were treated to a Bollywood style dance-off in the school hall. Congratulations to Avani, Priya and Baani who gave a wonderful performance. Here are a few snapshots we'd like to share:

 Some children have recently celebrated White Sunday and we have done some reading to find out more information! After reading about White Sunday and discussing it's customs, Rm. 13 presented some frozen scenes to each other depicting moments during White Sunday. Can you guess what they are?

 This group is showing an adult serving children food.

 This group is showing the children reading their verses.

 This group is showing the children lining up to walk in singing.

 This group is showing the children picking ferns for decoration.

 This group is showing the church being decorated.

 This group is showing food being prepared in the umu.

This group is showing the family coming together to celebrate.

Buddy Reading

On Thursday Rm. 13 took advantage of the beautiful, spring weather to do some buddy reading outside with Rm. 3.

We had a great time reading to each other and sharing our books. Miss Rooke and Miss Barratt were blown away by each others' talented and enthusiastic readers.

Here are some photos of us enjoying reading together:

Shake, rattle and roll!

In Rm. 13 we've been learning all about natural disasters for our topic. We've been looking at different types of natural disasters, learning the warning signs, finding out what to do to keep safe and checking who we can rely on to keep us safe or help us afterwards.

Last week we used our drama skills to share advice with our classmates on what to do if disaster strikes.

One group shows a family on skiing holiday when the mountain starts to erupt. Another shows a family waking up during an earthquake and finding they've got no power.
One group shows some children at school when a nearby river starts to flood. Another shows a class that gets caught in an unexpected tornado.
One group shows some friends listening to the radio when a tsunami warning is broadcast. Can you work out which group is which and what their advice is?

Whizz kid writers

Room 13 is full of amazingly talented writers! So far this year we've learned how to write recounts, information reports, descriptions and instructions. Now we're working on writing explanations for how or why things happen.

Great things happen when we work collaboratively and pool our ideas. Here we are brainstorming some success criteria for 'everyday writing' and 'explanation writing.'

With this horrible, wet weather outside we've been doing some Just Dance for fitness. Have a sneaky peek at us practicing the YMCA dance!

The busiest little class in the universe!

Room 13 has been hard at work for Term 2 and now we're well settled into Term 3. Here are some snapshots of what we've been doing and learning... 

In Term 2 we visited the Auckland Museum to learn more about WWII, the Anzacs, and New Zealand. 

During our ICT time we've been learning all about how to publish our work on Pages. Rm. 13 have some beautiful publishing folders now! 

Every Friday we do an hour of problem solving during maths. Here we're using materials to help us work out the pattern for how many trips the pirates need to make with their treasure.

Don't forget to pop in and see our wonderful artwork in the classroom too! Rm. 13 have just finished writing our name in hieroglyphs using crayon and dye. We shared them at assembly too; alongside our Ancient Egyptian ostinato.

SPCA Mufti Day

Last Friday Room 13 helped raise money for the SPCA by dressing up on mufti day. Thank you also to those families that donated old blankets and towels or food. Room 13 knew this was especially close to Miss Rooke's heart as we've all talked about my rescue dog, Daisy.

And last but not least a very special congratulations to the children who received Ka Pai awards this week:

Ngaia and Sovian.

Our first four weeks

In Room 13 we have been hard at work establishing our class routines and rules so that we can all feel safe, happy and ready to learn! You can see here that during week 1 we brainstormed our ideas for class rules and turned them into a treaty, complete with our signed handprints. 

Our focus has been on the PCS values - being polite, considerate and sensible. We're lucky that Room 13 is a whole class of kind, well mannered students! 

Here are some snapshots of what we've been learning about in our curriculum areas: 

Reading - Identifying the beginning, middle and end of a story, summarising and finding adjectives. 

Writing - Recounts and information reports.

Handwriting - Writing tidy letters that sit on the line. 

Topic - Fijian culture, geography and history. 

P.E. - Small ball skills. 

Maori - Tikanga and talking about ourselves. 

Here's a photo of Room 13 working with whae Paea on the flags that they have been designing. This ties in with their work on the Treaty of Waitangi which has also been reflected in our class treaty. 

In maths we have been learning about addition and subtraction. On Tuesdays we do statistics and have been learning about how gather data to make graphs, as well as how to read and interpret the data shown on different types of graphs. 

Don't our bar graphs look great? 

On Fridays we do problem solving for maths. Room 13 has been looking at how to decode word problems to find the maths that needs solving. Below you can see us hard at work trying to work out how to buy the most items with our 30 counters. 

And a special congratulations to those children who have been awarded Ka Pai awards so far this term: 

Week 3: Leaam and Nayleigh. 

Week 4: Noah and Shreya. 

Week 5: Raul and Amanda.