Merry Christmas Everyone!

Thank you to everyone for an amazing year. Your support for your children, me and the school has been invaluable. 

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday. 

End Of Year Awards

Rain, rain and more rain. It was definitely a squeeze in the hall for our final assembly. Thank you to the parents who came along to support their children, and thank you to the parents who would have liked to join us but stayed away to provide room for the family of the award recipients.

Congratulations to Julius and Thomas who received the Class Awards,  keep up the great work.

Summertime Reading Club

Want to become a reading whizz and maybe win an iPod Touch? Then check out the Summertime Reading Club run by the Christchurch City Libraries. Click on the link below or on the picture at the side of this blog. Their blog has some great ideas for books you might like to read over the holidays too.

http://www.christchurchcitylibraries.com/Kids/SummertimeReading/

Year 3 & 4 Celebration Gathering

Today the Year Three and Four classes went to Christ's College to sing for family and friends. The singing was beautiful. Thomas and Niamh did a great job reading out our verse of A Kiwi Jingle Bells, Thank you to everyone who helped us on the trip and to our audience for coming to listen to us.

Book Characters

Today we all dressed up as a character from a book. 

We told the class about the plot and our character and now we have some more ideas about what we might like to read over the holidays. 

Don't forget our book fair in Room 1.

Jellie Park Trip

What a fabulous day - the weather could have been better but everyone had a great time in the pools and on the hydroslides. I was very impressed with the way everyone behaved and your great manners. You did yourselves and the school proud. Well done! Thank you to all our parent helpers, Jane, Kristi, Michael, Scott and Sharon. You did a great job in the pool and on the slides!

Here are some extracts from our writing that show "pizzaz!'

The bus was bursting with excitement - Beth


I emerged shivering from the water - Sam


I felt like a torpedo being fired out of a cannon - Thomas


I went racing around the corners and finally SPLASHED into a warm shallow pool - Samantha


It was hard to breathe because water was splurting into your face - Niamh


It was so cold I felt like an ice cube - Grace


We were excited but scared - Anastasia


I was shivering from top to bottom - Julius

Jellie Park

Our trip today is still on, please make sure you wear warm uniform. You might even like to wear your swim wetsuit if you have one. Make sure you still bring ALL your clothes, togs, lunch, drinks, sunblock etc. We are looking at returning to school by 1.00pm instead of 2.00pm.

Jandal Day

On Friday it was Jandal Day. We wore jandals and mufti and brought along a gold coin to donate to Surf Lifesaving. In the morning we did Jump Jam - this was very tricky in jandals! If you want to find out more about this great organisation, check out the link below.

http://www.slsnz.org.nz/Front/Front.aspx?ID=2587

Assembly Certificates 2nd December 2011

The Year 3 Assembly this week was held in Room 17. We really enjoyed the welcome and the singing, thank you for organising it.

The Achievement certificate was awarded to Willow and the Heart of Achievement was awarded to Ziggy.
The Room 19 Calendar Art Prize went to Samantha and Julius received a Highly Commended.

Orana Park Animal Adoption

Last week Toby from Orana Park sent us an email thanking us for our donation to the park. The children were very excited to learn that the money could be used to adopt an animal. But how could we choose which one? Everyone had to write a letter to persuade me to choose a particular animal. It was a very difficult choice and there were some great reasons.  I had to pick one and letter selected was written by Grace. Well done Grace.


Dear Mrs D


There are many animals at Orana Wildlife Park that deserve our help. 


In my opinion we should adopt the kiwi. The most important reason is that they are endangered and nearly extinct. Kiwi are one of the most precious native birds in New Zealand.


This is why I believe we should support the kiwi.


From 


Grace

Gift from Southwest Arm Academy

THANK YOU!

On Monday 14th November, Willow's mum Kristi came to see us. She had a letter explaining that a school in Canada been learning about the earthquakes in Christchurch. Willow's Grandmother has an online friend who knows a teacher at Southwest Arm Academy in New Foundland. Her name is Sandra Laite and  she teaches a Grade One class. There are 7 students in the class and it was their idea to do something to help us. The whole school has only 95 students and they decided that they would donate their recess money to us instead of spending it. They raised $200 to help a community on the other side of the world. Check out these maps which show where their school is.

We thought that was a great effort and really thoughtful of them. We wanted to do something really special with the money. We think we have come up with the perfect idea. At St Albans School we are creating a Memory Garden outside the Oakleaf Cafe. This will be a spot where we can go to remember the hard times we have gone through and to celebrate the way we are working together to rebuild our homes and communities. We hope to start work on this soon and will put up photos of the finished garden as soon as we can.

Harry's Hair

We have been learning how to persuade people. Last week we read the book Harry's Hair by Jane Buxton and we wrote letters to Harry to persuade him to cut his hair or not to cut his hair. Here are some of the reasons we used to try and persuade Harry to listen to our opinions.


You have too many animals in your hair. It is getting out of control. (Aidan)


I think you should get a haircut, make a zoo and put the animals in it. (Henry)


You don't want more animals in your hair because they will lay eggs and go to the toilet down your neck. (Riley)



I think you should get a haircut but keep the pets. It would feel so much better. You would smell nicer and it’s not a very good place to keep pets. (Grace)

In my opinion if you keep the animals your hair will smell bad. If you comb your hair you’ll be a normal kid. (James)

You must have a shower so you don’t smell bad with poop down your neck. You need to comb your hair down every day. (Hannah)

I believe you should get a haircut but keep the animals in your hair. Brush your hair and wash your hair so it doesn’t get smelly. (Jacob)

The chinchillas might bite and the birds are laying eggs. Please just brush or comb your hair! (Willow)

You should wash your hair once a week and take the animals out and then put them back in. (Sam)

Your hair is driving the citizens of the city mad. In my opinion you need to put your “pets” in a zoo. Listen to your Mum! She told you to get a hair cut – so get a haircut! (Thomas)

Even smelling you has made five people faint already. In my opinion you should get a haircut. (Niamh)

In my opinion you should keep the animals in there. My suggestions are get the animals potty trained; get them perfume and deodorant; give them cubby holes in your hair; store some food for them and get them shade. (Maiya)

The animals damage your hair. I think it would be best to shampoo your hair and brush it a lot. You should keep it clean. (Laila)

In my opinion you should get a haircut. The animals are making you smell really stinky. If you cut your hair people won’t crowd around you and it’s a bad place to keep animals. (Beth)

I believe that soon you’ll want to be a normal kid again! Otherwise people will point and laugh at you. I think it would be best if you let the animals out of your hair. (Samantha)

I think that you should get rid of them. If you don’t the animals might get crazy and rough. (Julius)






We recommend you read this book and then tell us what YOU think Harry should do.

Market Day

What an awesome day! 

The weather was lovely and lots of people came along to the school market day. The children had made some great pen toppers to sell and the cola sherbet was particularly popular. We made a profit of $81.90 which we are sending to Orana Wildlife Park to help support the animal communities there. Thank you to everyone who purchased one of our pen toppers or sherbet bags and thank you to the parents who came along and helped us to make the items or supervise the stall.

Assembly Certificates 4 November 2011

Congratulations to Julius, Ziggy and Hannah who were awarded certificates at our assembly on Friday. You have all worked hard and demonstrated our school and class values. Well done!

Thank you to our assembly presenters, Anastasia and Hannah, who stepped into the role on very short notice.

Athletics Day

What an awesome day! The weather was great and everyone threw themselves into the events.  I am very proud of you all for the hard work you have put in over the last few weeks. Huge thanks to the seniors for setting out the equipment and packing it away. Thank you to Mr McKenzie, Ms Woods and Ms Archbold for all their hard work in organising the event.

Well done to Grace, Sam, Aidan and Julius who were the top scorers in our class.

Room 19 Reflections

Today I found out that:

Sometimes the things you think will be easy aren't. (Sam)

If you think tall, it helps you jump higher. (Grace)


When you are a bit taller it helps you jump higher. (Maiya)


If you believe you can do it, it helps a lot. (Thomas)


Even though we didn't win the relays, we were still great because we tried our best. (Hannah)


You can be surprised by what you can achieve. (Samantha)

Persuade Me!

We have been looking at persuasive writing this week. We had a debate on the topic 'School holidays should be longer'. Here are some of the reasons we came up with to support this statement.


I think it is important that school holidays are longer because some people's families live overseas and when you go to see them it takes a while for you to get used to them. (Beth)


I think it is important that school holidays are longer because  then if your older brother is in a different country then you have more time to visit. (Laila)


I think it is important that school holidays are longer because we get to see out family more often and have no homework. It would be fun. (Jacob)


I think it is important that school holidays are longer because ...
1. You can wear your pjs outside when it's warm.
2. You can catch up with friends.
3. You can sleep in late.
4. You can secretly turn on your lamp and read.
(Maiya)


I think it is important that school holidays are longer because you need time to recharge after all the hard work we've had to do. (Thomas)


I think it is important that school holidays should be longer because you can have a break off school and you can sleep in. You can go to places overseas so you can see some old friends that you haven't seen for a long time. I hope I succeeded in convincing you that we should have a long holiday. (Hannah)

Folk Dancing

During the second half of term 3 Room 19 were learning different folk dances.  Have a look at us folk dancing in our video.  We had lots of fun!  

Tī Rākau

During term 3 Room 19 were learning the tī rākau actions to E Papa Waiari.  Have a look at our video! 

Market Day

Market Day in Term 4


You will be aware that next term the PTA is running a Market Day on Saturday the 5th of November. As a follow-up to our Term 3 Inquiry on Community Roles & Responsibilities, our class will be having a stall to sell items to raise funds for a community organisation. 


At a class discussion on Friday the children decided they would like to donate the funds raised on our stall to Orana Park to provide some enrichment toys for the animals. On the side of this Blog you will find a new link to a linoit wall where you can add some ideas of what we could have for sale. We will be working to a tight time frame, so the items will need to be popular sellers, cheap to make and easy to put together.  I have put up a couple of ideas to start the ball rolling - and I know Mrs Warren would like the fudge and I think the "I Spy Jar" is a really cool idea.


So, get your thinking hats on, you might even like to start making things over the holidays. Keep me updated via the linoit wall.

Our Big Day Out at Orana Park

Here is a slideshow of our Orana Park trip. Read all about our learning adventure in the Our Stories tab.

Big Day Out - Orana Park Trip

Rain or shine, our trip to Orana Park is on tomorrow. Bring your raincoat, bring your gumboots, don't forget to bring your lunch and make sure you are at school by 8.45! 

Rugby World Cup Day with our Buddies

Everyone was very disappointed that the weather prevented the planned activities for the Top Town Rugby World Cup Day. Instead we had a fun day with our buddy class. We had a team quiz based on South Africa and the Rugby World Cup (It was a very close result), then did Jump Jam in the Hall with the teams from Australia, England and Argentina and taught them The Jambo Song.

At the end of the day we had a secret vote on who had the best costume. Beth was the winner of the Room 19 SpringBlock Trophy! Well done Beth.