End of year assembly & Final Blog post for end of year.

Yesterday we had our final assembly for the year. This assembly recognised our students who really 'Strive to Succeed" with their learning , and those who have had academic success. This year Lydia and Ariana were the recipients of the Room 5 certificates. We also performed our Bright Star song along with the rest of the Junior syndicate and said 'see you later' to Mrs Hunt, we will all miss seeing her around school and hope she comes back to visit us.

As part of the last blog post for Room 5 I would like to congratulate each of the 20 students in Room 5. You have all made a great start to your schooling journey. I have loved seeing the excitement and enthusiasm you all bring to Room 5 each day and am proud to have been a part of your first schooling experiences.

Just a quick note to parents, if you need to check the stationary list for next year, and can't find the one that was sent home, these have now been uploaded to the front page of the school blog.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy break. I am looking forward to spending time with my children and relaxing for a wee bit , until preparations for next year start!

See you all in the New Year.

End of Term antics

Busy Busy Busy!!!

The year is coming to an end , but Room 5 has been busy as ever! Yesterday we had a great time at the Te Rapa Pools and today we have been baking yummy shortbread!

Remember we have our final assembly on Monday at 11.30.

Have a great weekend.

Annual Pool Trip

It's that time! Time for students and teachers at Stanley Avenue to celebrate the end of another successful year at school. Our way of celebrating is by spending a day at the Te Rapa pools.
To make things run smoothly please make sure that students are at school by 8.30am, with togs on underneath uniform. To reduce lost property , please make sure that EVERYTHING is labelled - togs,towel,uniform and underwear.
Can't wait to see you all tomorrow, it will be an exciting and fun day!

Bible in Schools End of year assembly

Each year the students who do Bible in Schools have a special assembly where they perform a song or play. This year the Room 5 students performed an instrumental piece to "The Little Drummer Boy".

Creating with Mrs Prattley

Today Room 5 was busy creating with Mrs Prattley. Mrs Prattley brought in some cool boxes and other materials and then the students got busy! 

Connor made an aeroplane, he told me how he used a toothpaste box and made the wings out of card board rolls.

Reef made a robot using a coffee box for the body.

Jack made a very cool boat. He said that the toothpaste box was the anchor and showed me how it would look when it was floating on the water.

Kayley made a lunch box. She said that she used glue to stick things on and that the red thing on top was a handle.

There were a lot of great creations made, I can't wait to see them all painted !

This week we also welcomed Oceane Opie. Oceane has come to us from Country Kids, so has quickly reacquainted herself with some of her old friends. 

Not long to go now until the end of term , and there is a lot going on! Don't forget to return your permission slips and money for our awesome end of year trip to the pools. It is a great day out and the kids love the trip on the big bus, it would be great to see all of Room 5 students attend. If you have any queries or concerns , please feel free to come and see me and have a chat.

Junior Athletics

This Thursday we are having our Junior Athletics day. There will be lots of events like high jump , long jump and running races.
Here is a video of us training today.
We would love to see lots of whanau on Thursday , so come along and support our junior athletes as they compete.
Students can come dressed in house colours or their uniform. House colours are listed on the cloak bay window if you are not sure what house you are in.

Room 5 is exploring!

Today Room 5 has been exploring! We are in the process of setting up  a bit of a nature table. On the weekend I (Miss Williams) went for a walk and brought back some bits and pieces. Room 5 used magnifying glasses to have an up close look and talked about what they could see. The students in Room 5 all had guesses as to where they thought I had been for my walk - looking at the photos and the table in Room 5, where do you think I went?

Rabbits Rabbits everywhere!

Last week the students in Room 5 were lucky enough to meet a couple of very cute rabbits. These rabbits belong to Kelly from Room 5. Everyone in Room 5 was very excited and loved being able to pat the furry visitors. After the visit Room 5 did some awesome drawings of  rabbits, which we have on display in class. Check out some of the cool photos below.

Room 5 supporting the Make a Wish foundation & Star Writers of the Week!

Today we all supported the Make a Wish foundation by dressing up. The theme was I wish I was.......
Room 5 had some awesome costumes! As you can see Room 5 were very creative. We had doctors, zombies,pirates and many more cool dress ups. Well done and thank you Room 5 for supporting the Make a Wish foundation.
This week we also celebrated our Star Writers. It was too hard to choose just one so we had 3! Congratulations to Connor , Karez and Reef for their efforts during story writing time.

Fire Safety

This week we will be looking at fire safety. Tonight students from Room 5 will be taking home a Fire Escape Plan. Students will work with their family to draw a map of their house and work out a plan to get out of their house in case there is a fire. Below there are a few resources to look at and learn about fire safety.

Fire Wise Kids : Has games and videos to look at around fire safety.

http://www.firewisekids.co.nz/

Tamati and Sam get firewise - online book

http://www.getfirewise.org.nz/resources/Tamati_and_Sam_Get_Firewise_Story.pdf

Week 1 learning in Room 5

Welcome to Term 4. Each week we want to show you what we do in Room 5. Below are a couple of pictures from our reading tumble.

While I read with a group, the rest of the class is working as a group on an assigned activity.  

In the first photos the group are completing the ABC train. They then had to match an alphabet card with a picture that started with that letter - for example matching A with the picture of an apple. Ariana had an idea and suggested that they line the cards up with the train.

The third photo shows a group during our maths lesson. We are learning to count on from any number. Each student was given a caterpillar that had a number (under 10) at the start. Once they had their caterpillar they had to complete the number line by finding the numbers that came next.

Room 5 are ready to be sun safe in Term 4.

With these lovely sunny days we have been having I thought it was time to give you all a friendly reminder that in Term 4, our sunhat policy comes in to action. This means that all students must wear a school issue,wide brimmed hat when playing outside. If your child does not have a school hat, these can be purchased from the school office for $11 (cash only ).
If you have any questions about this,please come and see me.
Here are some Room 5 students modelling the school sunhats. We can't wait to have more of these lovely sunny days.

What do you think of our blog?

Room 5 loves our blog, we use it everyday to sing our phonics song and have fun with the moving and grooving songs too.
We think it could be better though. What would you like to see on our blog? Is there something you would like to see more of or know more about?
Parents, feel free to sit down and talk to your children and see what they think too.

Here is Room 5 with their thinking caps on.

Welcome to Room 5 Trilese.

And the smiles keep on coming! Room 5 would like to introduce you to their newest class member - Trilese. Trilese comes to us from Country Kids, and turned the big 5 last week. Trilese is a familiar face to some of us at Stanley Ave, as she has 3 older brothers at school.
Trilese has had a great first day in Room 5. She liked playing on the ipads and played with Ariana and Charlotte during break time.
If you see any of our new students around make sure you give them a friendly Stanley Ave welcome.

Welcome Karez.

How lucky is Room 5? We have had another smiley face join us! Karez had a great first week in Room 5 and has quickly settled in to our classroom. Karez came to us from ABC in Te Aroha ,and instantly recognised a few friendly faces.
Karez loves to play on the back field with his friends Blake and Reef. His favourite thing in class to do is use the ipads.

Odd Shoe Day. Stanley Ave Supports Camp Quality.

Today is Odd Shoe Day at Stanley Avenue. Students and teachers could come to school wearing odd shoes, or in mufti clothes, for a gold coin donation. This donation is going to a great cause, Camp Quality. "Camp Quality is a volunteer,non-profit,charitable trust dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for children with cancer" (Camp Quality,2015).
Check out the funky shoes that turned up in Room 5 today! Thanks to all of the families who participated in this great fundraiser.

dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for

Children living with cancer

Our new play ground is open!!!

This week our beautiful new playground was finally signed off and we watched the builder take down the orange fence.
Room 5 and 6 were the very first people to have a play ! It was so exciting to get on and try out the new equipment. There are bridges to walk over, new slides - plus some awesome climbing things! Even Miss Williams and Mrs Trebes jumped on and tested out the new slide (see if you can spot the photo).

Reading Together Workshop

This term I have been lucky enough to co-ordinate and run the Reading Together Programme with Carmel Trebes (Room 6).We have a great group who are attending and feedback thus far has been very positive. This week we got to see our group members reading with the students (from Room 5 & 6). It was lovely to see the relationships between adult and child ,and the implementation of some strategies we have discussed so far. Our next workshop is next Friday, the 4th of September, where we put the adults in the students shoes,and discuss what it is like to learn to read.
We will be running another series of Reading Together workshops in the near future, so keep an eye out in our school newsletters and blog. If you would like to register your interest (though dates are yet to be set) ,feel free to pop in and let myself or Carmel in Room 6 know.
Check out some of the lovely moments we caught during workshop 2.

Reading Together Workshop 2

Pattern making

In Room 5 we have been looking at different types of art and other ways that we can create patterns. This week we tried using marbles to create a pattern.
First thing we did was put a piece of white paper in the tray. Then we chose which colour we wanted to use. We had to use a spoon to get the marble out of the paint. After that we had to move the tray around to make the marble wiggle and create a paint trail. Here are some photos of us creating our works of art!

More Smiley faces for Room 5!

This week we were lucky to have not one,not two, but THREE lovely new smiley faces join us in Room 5!! We have welcomed Maddison, Kayley and Jackson. All three have settled very well into our class and have already been hard at work learning and showing us their moves with our Go Noodle breaks. Make sure you say hi to them if you happen to see them out and about in the school.

Don't forget next week we have Cross Country on Thursday - come dressed in your house colours or school uniform (parents/caregivers - always a good idea to pack a spare set of clothes for this day,especially with the wet weather we have been having).

We also have school photos next Friday. If you would like to order these please make sure you get your money in as soon as you can next week as orders will not be accepted on the day.

Enjoy your weekend!

New smiley faces of Room 5

Welcome to Room 5 Lydia!!

Room 5 has welcomed another smiley face! This week we had Lydia join our class. Lydia came to us from Te Aroha Kindergarten.

Lydia is joining her big sister ,Chloe , at Stanley ave.

Lydia has had a very busy first week! She has started taking home reading books, learning how to form her letters and has already been to Junior Syndicate singing, where everyone sung her happy birthday!

If you see Lydia around make sure you say hi and welcome her to our awesome school. 

Next week we will have 3 new faces joining our class, so stay tuned to meet some more Stanley Ave students!

Week One, Term 3.

Week 1 of Term 3 is over! Didn't it go quickly? Room 5 has been busy getting back into their learning routine and starting a little art project.

We talked about Winter and what we all like about this time of year. With our Art we each designed our own beanie. Students were given a template along with blue and white pastels. They decided on the design and how they would decorate it, and then we painted over the pastel with blue dye. It was good fun to see the white pastel show up so well with the dye over the top. To create the pom pom for the hat, each student was given a selection of coloured paper. The next step was to roll it into little balls and then stick it on the pom pom part of the template. They are looking great so far. Keep an eye out for pictures of the finished product!

Have a great weekend!

Mid Year Superstars!!

At the end of Term 2 we congratulated Cooper and Kyrone for their achievements and superb efforts at school. It was great to see students throughout the school recognised for their academic achievements and striving to succeed with their school work and attitude towards learning.
A big thank you to all the parents who made it to the final assembly.

I hope you are enjoying the holidays and managing to get out a little bit - this weather isn't helping! Remember if you are stuck inside, pop over to our moving and grooving tab and check out some of the songs there to get rid of those wiggles and jiggles!

Have fun with the rest of your time away from school, I look forward to seeing all of your smiley faces next week.

School holiday fun.

If you haven't already ,check out the other pages on our blog. We have alphabet, phonics songs and counting songs, as well as some great tunes just to dance to.
There is also a link for study ladder - a maths activity for your child with set activities. All they have to do is click on their name and they're in.
If there is something you think we could put on our blog, please feel free to leave us a comment.
One more day and we are in holidays.This term has gone so fast and Room 5 has been busy as bees! The students loved learning new and exciting things about bees and have shown great progress with their ball skills. Stay tuned for our Term 3 focus, I'm very excited about it and I'm sure Room 5 will be too.
 I hope you enjoy your time away from school, stay safe and well,we will see  you in term 3.

Fun with Mrs Prattley and Room 6.

Last week Room 5 & 6 had great fun during their make and create day. There were some amazing creations made out of various materials. The students were lucky enough to make some yummy honey bubbles too, they were yum! Above are some photos from our fun day.

Welcome Connor!

This week Room 5 welcomed another new student - Connor. Yesterday was his first day at school. Connor had a great day as you can see from the pictures! At news time he told us about his new baby sister , he explored the books in our class library and in the afternoon had some fun during our ball skills time. If you see Connor around, make sure you say a big hello and welcome him to Stanley Avenue.

Welcome Charlotte and Blake.

We have had two new class members join Room 5, a big Stanley Avenue welcome to Charlotte and Blake! Charlotte said that her favourite thing to do at school is play on the playground with her friends. Blake is enjoying playing with his new friends that he has made at school. Great to hear guys! Nearly the end of term and Room 5 is still busy as bees. We are focusing on our handwriting and story writing at the moment, it is great to see the progress that the students are making. 

Remember that next week is Parent,Child and Teacher conferences - the 1st and 2nd of July. If you haven't already booked in a time and would like to ,please pop into the office or come and see me and we will book you in.

Learning at home.

As we all know , learning happens everywhere - not just in the classroom. Below is an interesting article that has some great ideas as to how you can help your child at home with their learning. It covers the primary school years, but the site also as some great links for pre-school and secondary school too.

Learning at home



What did you think of the suggestions?

Go Noodle

Earlier in our blog we had mentioned that Room 5 had found a great site called Go Noodle. When the weather is a bit yuk outside we use this as a way to get rid of the wriggles and jiggles in between learning. Here is a short video of us dancing and singing to one of the songs on the site.

Zero Waste Education

On Thursday and Friday we were lucky to have a visit from Colleen, from Zero Waste. She taught us about re-using and recycling. The students in Room 5 had a great time looking at the different toys that were made out of old cans and formula tins. When Colleen came back on Friday we learnt about composting. We had a look at what food can be put in the compost and found out that the best worms to have in your compost are Tiger worms!

Room 5 learning about Recycling and Reusing.

Buzzing Bees in Room 5.

Last Friday we were lucky enough to have Christine - an apiarist, come and talk to Room 5 and 6 about bees. We have started our unit on bees and were very excited to learn more interesting facts.

Christine brought in some frames from a beehive to look at, and the best part was, these frames had honey! We were allowed to take turns and poke our finger into the comb and taste the honey! Did you know that the girl bees do all the work? And in winter , the boy bees get kicked out of the hive?

We can't wait to learn more about bees and how they work, stay tuned to learn more fun bee facts!

Check out the photos below of our visit from Christine.

Room 5 performs at assembly.

Last Friday it was our turn to present an assembly item. We have been practicing a dance from our Go Noodle website.It was great to see some of the parents from Room 5 at the assembly. Here is a video of our performance in case you missed it.

Happy Mothers Day to the mums of Room 5.

Room 5 has been working on a secret present for their mums. We all wrote what we loved about our mum and then drew a picture of us with our mum and stuck it on the back. 

We also included a picture of us blowing a kiss to our mums for mothers day.

We hope you all enjoyed the present and had a relaxing day yesterday.

Go Noodle in Room 5!

We have found a great website called Go Noodle! We use this when we need to get moving, get rid of our wriggles and for times when we need to calm down and focus.
You can sign up for a free account at home, or you can use the one we have started for Room 5. Each time you complete an activity, your little friend (ours is called Mc Pufferson) grows a little bigger.
Have a look at www.gonoodle.com.

Junior Syndicate Wetlands Walk

Yesterday Rooms 5,6,7 and 8 were lucky enough to go on a walk around the wetlands. This was a part of our unit that we are currently working on, and something that the syndicate tries to do each year.

The students had a great time looking at all of the different colours on the trees and plants , and were lucky enough to even spot some bird life along the way.

Room 5 is currently working on an Autumn unit in class. We are looking at which trees loose their leaves and the lovely colours that we see at this time of year.

Here are some of the photos taken on our walk yesterday. The students loved getting out and about in our area and for some it was a first time. We are very lucky to have such a great resource on our back door step.

Busy start to Term 2.

Room 5 has been very busy during our first week back at school. 

This week we have welcomed 3 new students to our class - Tyler , Kayla and Jack. They have brought lovely smiley faces (check out their photos below) to our class and are settling in extremely well, great start guys!

This week we have spent some time working with Room 6  and also had a visit from Mr Moody.

Mr Moody came to us to show us some exciting maths and see how clever we all are, it was a lot of fun.

Check out our new class photo below! We now have 16 students in Room 5.

Our Foyer Display

Room 5 has been working very hard on our foyer display. We experimented with different styles of painting and enjoyed using pastels.
We had fun blowing the paint through straws and seeing what happens when the colours mix , then we folded the paper over and saw the patterns that we had made -  these became our butterflies.
 To make the patterns on our eggs we dipped our fingers in the paint and decorated them with our fingerprints. Our other egg pattern was created by marbles in paint! We had to scoop the marbles out of the paint and put them in a tray where our paper was. The tricky part was rolling the marbles around with out them falling out of the tray!
Each student decorated their own daffodil using orange and yellow - the pattern and style was up to them.
I think that Room 5 has done an amazing job, we hope you can pop in and see it !
Don't forget the last day of school is this Thursday.
We hope you all have a safe and happy holiday break , I look forward to seeing all of the smiley Room 5 faces in Term 2.

A very busy term!

Wow week 9 already! This term has flown by! It is great to see what the students in Room 5 have learnt throughout the term. We have had swimming, reading from Room 2 students, our tadpoles turning into frogs, learning about each others families and plenty more!
Term 2 is going to be just as exciting!

Stanley Avenue Singing Assembly

On Friday the 20th the whole of Stanley avenue school attended the weekly assembly.

The difference this week was that everyone was performing! All three syndicates, Junior ,Middle and Senior performed as well as the Kapa Haka group and the choir!

It was great to see everyone up there!

Here is a little clip of the Junior Syndicate singing "Wonderful Day".

Reading time with Josh and Gene.

This week we have started having students from Room 2 come to read to us in Room 5. Our first readers we Josh and Gene. They read a book called  Rosie to the rescue. Amberlee liked when Rosie slipped in the puddle, Jonathan liked the kite. Room 5 were great listeners and can't wait for their next reading time.

Room 5 has grown! This week we had Cooper and Lily join us. Lily liked decorating her flag in class , Cooper likes playing on the playground. If you see them around, give them a big Stanley Ave welcome.

Room 5 is getting bigger.

This week Room 5 had the lovely Amberlee join us. Amberlee has only been at school since Monday, but has already settled in very well to the Room 5 routines and way of life at Stanley Ave. She loves swimming and singing her A,B,C's.

In Room 5 we have been talking about who we are , what we look like and the people in our lives. To show visitors the people that are special to us and whom we live with, we have made buntings. On one side is a picture of a Room 5 student which has also been decorated by the student, and on the other side are pictures that the students have taken with our class camera phone. The pictures show who lives with the student. We have some great pictures of mums,dads,nanas,brothers, sisters and even a few cute pets! If you would like to learn more about the students of Room 5 come in and have a look at our buntings and the great photos on display.

A big welcome to Amberlee.

Tadpoles!

This week Ella brought in three tadpoles for us to look after in Room 5. We have had great fun watching them swim around their bowl. One of the tadpoles has started to grow backlogs already. 

We found out that when a tadpole gets its backlegs it is called a froglet. We can't wait for them to grow some more. Now we have to think of some names - do you have any suggestions?

A big thank you to Ella and her family for giving us such a great learning tool.

Busy start to the term!

Room 5 has had a very busy start to the term, week 2 is nearly over already! We have started swimming with Room 6 in the afternoons. At the moment we are learning to get into the pool safely We start by sitting on the edge of the pool and then slowly turn around and slide in. We are also learning how to put our heads under the water and blow bubbles and kick holding onto a flutter board.

Something new we have started is buddy reading with Room 6. Each afternoon after swimming we all get our book boxes and buddy up with someone from Room 6. It has been fun getting to know the Room 6 students and listening to their reading too.

Room 5's busy start to Term 1

Smiley Faces of Te Ruma Rima

Yesterday we took photos of all of the smiley faces in Room 5. We even had class photo taken for the local paper , so keep an eye out! In Room 5 we have 12 lovely students , have a look at their lovely photos below.

Our first day at school

Today was our first day back at school, and for most of Room 5 it was their first ever day at school! We had a lot of students turn 5 during the holidays :) During the holidays Room 5 had a special delivery - bright , new furniture!! We have lovely green tables and bright blue chairs. We even have some comfy new seats in our library corner. Today was all about getting to know each other and learning about our class and school. We went for a walk around to see where the junior play ground, toilets and swimming pool were. In class we had fun exploring our literacy and maths resources , there are lots of puzzles and games to play with. In class we planted some seeds - zucchini and watermelon - we can't wait to see the changes ! As a class we also chose a pet to put on our blog, this week we have a puppy - check him out, you can feed him snacks or throw him a ball. Tomorrow we start swimming in the afternoons with Room 6, which we will continue until the end of the term, so don't forget to pack togs ,towels and a plastic bag.