Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2011!  

Thanks to all the visitors and those that left us comments over Term 4.   We had a great time producing this blog and sharing our work with you.  All these fantastic students will be BIG Year 4's next year and they are so ready for it.  They have worked so hard this year and made fabulous progress. I am really proud of them all.  Great work guys!

Please visit my new class blog in February next year when I will have a new class of lovely new Year 3 students. 

The new link is http://room16eps2011.blogspot.com/

Thanks  :)

MOTAT VISIT

Celebrations

We are learning about different celebrations from around the world.  We each researched a different celebration and used Word It Out to display the information we have learnt.  We found out the information from books, internet and our own knowledge.  Here is what we learnt:

LAVA LAMP EXPERIMENT

JW bought an experiment in to school to share with the class this morning.  It was so much fun and really interesting.  There was oil, food colouring, and water mixed together in a bottle.  Next he added an extra ingredient to the concoction. It was a special pill called Alka-Seltzer.  He broke it into 6 bits and added to the bottle.  It made bubbles which caused the food colouring explode into bubbles like lava from a volcano and floats back down like a feather.  Check out the video on this link.  Sorry some of it it sideways!!

http://flickr.com/gp/elmparkschool/9vmxp4

Wacky Hair Day

On Friday it was Mufti Day and Wacky Hair Day. Most of us showed up with really wacky hair. Some were spiky, some were curly, and some were pointy and fluffy. There were lots of different colours - red, orange, yellow, green, pink, blue - all the colours of the rainbow. LG put lego in his hair, he looked like a lego robot. JH had really spiky hair like a punk rockstar. Here are some pictures of our CRAZY hair...

    

Fireworks Acrostic Poems

We have been learning to write an interesting acrostic poem. We talked about using interesting adjectives and action verbs. We also wanted to use some language features like similies, personifcation, alliteration and onamatopeioa. Here are some of the poems we wrote:

Fireworks acrostic poem
By VH

Flaming fireworks, flashing sparks exploding way up high,
Invisible fairies aiming their bombs for the ground then disappearing into the dark and gloomy night.
Roaring rockets breaking into thousands of tiny glittering pieces.
Enormous explosions everywhere I look.
Wishing I could fly with the fireworks but it didn’t work.
Over the tree tops many colous jumping away.
Red, orange, yellow and lots of other colours all shoot up at different times.
KAPOW, kaboom, Crash, bang, boom. Flying sparks everywhere all making a lot of noise.
So much noise makes me scream! That’s the best night I’ve ever seen!


Fireworks acrostic poem
By PS

Flickering fantastic fireworks crackle in the dark.
Interesting smoky fireworks look like lollies coiming out of a colossal colourful pinata.
Rapid rockets zoom into the night time, rumbling like thunder.
Exciting laser guns blasting into the dark night sky.
Woosh! A meteor shooting down at Earth like an enormous fireball.
Out of this world planets shooting down like crazy!
Red waves that are spatting in the dark.
Kapow go shining cascades of fire.
Streamers waving all around.

Fireworks acrostic poem
By LW

Fireworks bursting, CRASH, BANG, BOOM
In the cold sky fireworks get life, WOW!
Racing to the world, fireworks like meteors coming down to Earth.
Earth shakes, watch out, BOOM exploding fireworks.
Working people making fireworks.
Opening the fireworks, they look COOL!
Real crackers on Guy Fawkes night.
Kaboom, fireworks rush up.
Shooting fireworks look like buring fire.

Fireworks acrostic poem
By ET

Fireworks blowing up in the sky like bombs of glitter.
In the dark, a colourful sky starts to begin.
Rockets blowing up as giant as an elephant.
Eating dessert while the fireworks burst in front of you.
Wow! Sparkling colourful, beautiful lights burst over each other making different colours.
Over us the fireworks burst so fast and high, a rocket can't race it.
Rainbow fireworks shining in the dark sky.
Kabam! They fly as high as a kite in the sky.
Sparkly sparks in the colourful sky.

Chopper Challenge Day

I wonder who will win a ride in the Westpac Helicopter?

Over the past few weeks Room 16 and Elm Park School have been training for a fitness test based around the actual regime performed by the Crew of the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helipcopter. We are helping them raise much needed funds to enable the Rescue Helicopter to continue doing the fantastic and very important work they do! The children have been working hard to get sponsors because the ones who raise the most money will get to go for a ride in a helicopter! WOW! Will it be someone from Room 16?

TODAY was the big day that the children participated in and completed the fitness test. They did an amazing job...check out the slide show to see how hard they worked to complete the challenge!

Our visit to the Botanic Gardens

On Friday 5th November, Room 16 and 17 visited the Botanic Gardens in Manurewa. Here is a slideshow of our visit.

Marvellous Mobi!

We have been really lucky to have an interactive tablet called Mobi in our classroom for the last two weeks. It took us a day or two to get used to working Mobi and using the pen but we are all getting really good at working it now!! We have used Mobi to see who is here every morning, practise our handwriting, help us solve maths problems, learn new things (like what the 7 continents and 4 main oceans are), help with writing and lots more. Listen to our vocaroos about what we like best about Mobi!

Amazing Maps

We are learning to create and use simple maps to show position and direction. Maps and plans are an important part of everday life. Yesterday we read the story Hansel and Gretel. We discussed where Hansel and Gretel went, which direction they went, where they started and finished and the objects/obstacles that they met along the way. We then discussed designing the a map to show Hansel and Gretel's journey. We talked about what a map needed and the importance of creating a title for our map and a key to show what the different features represented on the map. The children then created a draft of their maps on some paper and transferred their ideas onto Kidpix. They made some FANTASTIC maps!! Ka pai!

Our Butterfly Shade House Keynote presentation

This is the keynote presentation we presented to our Principal to get permission to build a butterfly shadehouse in our garden outside Room 16. Please take a look...

What is a Sari?

We are learning about different countries in our class this term. The Clown Fish reading group are reading a School Journal article called Wearing a Sari by Asha Patel. We have learnt that saris comes from India. It is a long piece of colourful silk or cotton that women and girls wear. If you are wondering what goes under it, it is a petticoat. SR bought in a Sari from home to show everyone. We lay it on the ground and it looked really, really long. LS wanted to try on the sari so SR showed us how to put it on. And here she is!! Doesn't she look beautiful!

Welcome to Room 16