Our swan plants!

Last week we got back in to our garden plot. First we had to weed out the old plants that were dead. Miss Williams had brought in some swan plants from her house and we each took turns at planting one or two plants. Some are big, some are small. One plant even has a seed pod on it with fluffy seeds inside. Kelly helped us to plant some of the seeds and we will see if we can grow some plants from scratch.

Today we looked at the cycle of a Monarch butterfly. We listened to a cool song about the butterfly and the stages it goes through, and then we started colouring in a picture of the different stages. Our new word we have learnt is chrysalis - which is where the caterpillar changes into a butterfly.

Keep an eye on our blog for more updates ! Hopefully we will have some caterpillars on our plants soon!

All about me....

Over the first few weeks Room 5 has been learning some Te Reo Maori. As a class the students have been focussing on how to respond when asked "Ko wai to ingoa?" which is " what is your name?". Students are getting better at responding to this  where they say "Ko............... taku ingoa".  Another response they have been learning is how to respond to "Kei hea to kainga?" which translates to "where is your home". We are all getting better at saying "Kei Te Aroha taku kainga"  ,meaning "my home is in Te Aroha".  It has been a lot of fun for both myself and Room 5o to learn this and I have especially loved how students are giving it a go and taking a risk trying something new and unknown to them.
We tied this learning in to a poster that the students filled out about themselves. The poster includes the responses they have learn't as well as information about their whanau and themselves. If you pop into Room 5 check out these cool pieces of work on our back wall.

Tuakana Teina

Check out how we spent the afternoon today! We were lucky enough to have visitors from Room 13 come and spend some time with us. This was part of our Tuakana Teina time that we do each term at Stanley Ave. Our buddy class is Room 13. The time is for us to get to know our buddy class and to learn from each other.
Here are a few pictures from our time with the people who visited us from Room 13.

Fonterra Milk in Schools

Today we had a lovely visitor from Fonterra. She told us all about what happens to our recycled milk containers, and even showed us how to fold them. It is a little tricky for little fingers, but Jayden did a great job when called up to demonstrate .
Room 5 found out that when the milk containers are recycled, they get turned into roof tiles and school books! We thought that was pretty cool.

Week 2 !

With these short weeks, the days are flying by! This week we worked more on our routines. We have started our reading and homework programme and also our writing.
Our first writing we based around a book we had been reading in class , called "Smarty Pants" by Joy Cowley. It is all about what the clown can do in the book - flying a plane, swimming and swinging! We all sat around and had a talk about why we are a smarty pants. We talked about what kind of things we can do now, that we may not have been able to do when we were smaller.
I wrote the sentence into the students book and then they had a go at copying underneath. It was great to see such concentration during the lesson and everyone trying really hard to copy the words.

Here is a little collage of the students hard at work.

Junior School Welcome

On Friday morning the whole junior syndicate met in Mrs Finucane's Room 7. This was a chance for us to greet all of our new smiley faces that have joined the Stanley Avenue whanau. It was also a good time for everyone to meet the teachers in our syndicate and to discuss a few things about what we do at school, our behaviour and expectations of when we are at school too.
The teachers in our syndicate are :

Mrs Trebes - Room 6
Mrs Finucane - Room 7
Miss Smith - Room 8
Mrs Valencia - Room 11

In other news , Room 5 have their display up in the office foyer! We have been listening to the story of The Crayon box that talked. It is all about a box of crayons who do not get along and do not like each other. Then a little girls bus the packet and makes an awesome picture and the crayons see how awesome each other are, and the great things they can do when they work together.
I will put a picture up next week, in the meantime, pop in to the office and see our smiley little crayons on display. This will be up for the month of February.

I hope you all had a great first week. We were very busy and the time went so fast! Next week we will be getting into our routine of Reading , Writing and Maths . Homework will also be sent home next week so please keep an eye in your child's notebook for details.

We are swimming next week in the afternoons, everyday, so please remember named togs and towels.

Enjoy the long weekend with your whanau , I will see you all next week.

Miss Williams

Hello Term 1!

Wow what an awesome start to the year! Lovely to meet new smiley faces in Room 5.
Yesterday we learnt about what happens at school when the bell goes, what we can do at play time and routines for our day.

Today we have been working on saying 'my name is....' in Te Reo.  If someone says to us " Ko wai to ingoa" we reply "Ko ..... taku ingoa"  It is taking a bit of practice but we are all giving it a go and learning together.

Here are some photos of Room 5 working on tumble activities. The first week is all about what we do at school and in class. Making a safe and comfortable learning environment for the students is very important. It sets them up to take risks and learn in their own time. We look at things like working together as a team, supporting each other and respecting each other.

There are so many aspects to the first week! But most of all it is about making learning fun. A lot of the learning students are doing is integrated through art projects, tumble activities and whole class work.