2011 ENDS

Thanks to all our supporters in 2011.

We've had a great year in 2011, but it's come to an end and it's time to close our blog.

Watch the Halcombe School website to keep up with our learning in 2012.

CHRISTMAS

Today we used the variations key to brainstorm ways we could annoy our parents on Christmas Day.

Here are our ideas -

• nag all day
• my over excitement in the morning
• wake them up at 2 a.m.
• jump on roof and poor ice cold water on their head when they go outside to feed the dogs
• have a food fight with my ice cream
• hide their Christmas stockings
• have a pillow fight to wake them up early in the morning
• be a chatterbox
• run around the house with a toilet roll
• jump up and down on their bed at 4 a.m.
• go crazy, crazy, crazy
• put toilet paper in the washing machine
• put a frog in their bed

We have many more ideas too, but we won't tell you all our secrets. 

Good luck parents!

Have a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.

CROSS COUNTRY

We've had a very eventful term already.  One of the most exciting days of the year is Cross Country.  We've been busy writing stories about cross country and Mrs Hunter has been very impressed with our improved writing skills.  We'll publish some of our stories soon, but in the meantime - enjoy these photos!

 

PET DAY

Halcombe School held their annual pet day yesterday.  11 students from room 4 brought pets to school.  While they showed and paraded their pets in front of the judges, the rest of us made scarecrow collages. 

School was like a zoo of colourful animals, both big and small - Arizona

Pets and parents crowded the field - Jorja

We worked conscientiously on our scarecrow collages - Isaac J

Tilly relaxed, resting on the grass, while butterflies in my stomach fluttered furiously, as we waited for our turn in front of the judges beady eyes - Victoria

Mum was extremely proud and excited about my scarecrow collage, because I had won 2nd prize - Seth

Rosie relaxed, chewing her cud and I jiggled nervously from foot to foot, as we waited for our turn to perform - Sophie

Suds and I soaked up the sun, while waiting hungrily for the call, "Muffins!" - Cooper

Sitting on the bars, holding Merlin, I waited nervously for the dog judging to begin.  This was my first Halcombe School Pet Day - Ashley

Polly slept, huddled in the corner of her cage, as the judges asked me easy questions about how I care for her - Jade

TERM FOUR BEGINS WITH A BANG!

We've only been back at school for one week and we've already done so much.

We started last week with some very exciting news. Room 3 & 4 are now allowed to play in the pine trees and we can build huts too.  We have some rules, but they're not too hard to follow. Quite simple really.

• Don't climb the trees
• Don't break off the branches
• Share the timber for building huts (no stealing)
• Don't go behind the trees
• Huts must be built on the ground
• Don't get any gum on your hands
• Don't bring stuff from home for your hut

It is really exciting to be building huts in the hedge - Ashley

Romping through the pine trees,we cart wood from one end to the other - Regan

Crawling through the pine trees is like navagating your way through a dark, gloomy cave - Jorja

We work like mini Bob the Builders, building and fixing our tree hut homes - Frazer

We hunt around for sticks and pinecones to repair our holey huts - Jade

We search like campers lost in the woods, gathering sticks and pinecones to touch up our huts - Sophie

Planning our huts takes a lot of careful thought - Seth

Our huts are a royal success - Catherine

Collecting supplies for our huts is like hunting for treasure, just to make our huts a little bit better - Arizona

QUIZ YOUR CLASSMATES

In Room 4 we're always tring new things.

Mrs Hunter has created her first quiz. Before taking the quiz, watch the video and then click on the link below to complete your research.



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARTICLE

TAKE THE QUIZ


Powered by Quiz.biz

CREATIVITY

This week we've been stepping outside our comfort zones and trying new things.  We've had open minds and positive attitudes and we've found out that we've got 'hidden talents'.  

CHALK ART

Kurt Wenner is an artist who is creative with chalk. We watched these YouTube clips called 'Chalk Magic'.





We wanted to create our own 'Chalk Magic'. First we had to practice our drawing skills. We did enlargements, using grid lines to help us with accuracy and this helped a lot. Then we had to wait for some sunny days. We knew our 'Chalk Magic' would take a couple of days to complete and we didn't want rain washing it away before we'd finished.

We used masking tape to turn the two four square courts outside our classroom into drawing grids. We drew our pictures and then started colouring them in.

We not only created 'Chalk Magic', we also created colourful aliens (it's not a good ideas to smother yourself with sunblock when you're hands are covered in chalk dust!)

Check out our photos below:

CREATIVITY

In Room 4 we are producing a play called 'Ffion and Her Foghorn Father'.  We have been very busy rehearsing and recording so that it's perfect on the night.  Ffion is the main character, because she was the only girl in Room 4 that played rugby this year.  "Go Ffion!"  Her foghorn father is Isaac J and her mother is Sophie.  Lucas is enjoying his role as the referee, "Crouch - Touch - Pause - Engage."  And that's all we're telling you for now.  We are all looking forward to our Celebration of the Arts evening.  

SUNSHINE

The sun was shining and the junior classes were away for the day.  Good on you De'Quante!  That was great thinking, "Could room 4 use the adventure playground?" she asked.  "Yes," was the answer and it was enjoyed by many.

Also out enjoying the sunshine was Simba the cat.  Simba moves this weekend, so it was his last lunch with students at Halcombe School.  We'll miss you Simba!

 

And to finish the week off - Will Frazer win Room 4 a treat with his pick of a 35 - 20 score for an All Blacks win over France? 

ARIZONA'S HOSPITAL VISIT

Arizona has recently returned to school after having her tonsils out.  She wrote this story to share the experience with us.

Operation Day

Butterflies swirled in my tummy suddenly, as I began my journey to the hospital.  Waiting quietly in the waiting room I was wondering, "Was my name going to be called next?"  Goose bumps were ready to race up my spine as the nurse put the surgery wrist band on me.  I ran to the changing rooms to put on the hospital PJs.  I walked terrified to the theatre and it wasn't long before they put the gas mask over my face - 10,9,8 ...  I drifted off to sleep.

After my operation I woke up in the recovery room.  I got moved to the children's ward where there were two others - Jayden and Tilly.  The ice cream and jelly was the best part of the day.

By Arizona 

SPECIAL BREAKFAST

At Halcombe School we have our very own chickens and two weeks every term we get to take care of them. We feed them, give them fresh water and we even get to collect the eggs. Mrs Hunter decided that a few students needed a special treat. Ffion, Jorja and De'Quante enjoyed bacon, hashbrowns, eggs and orange juice for breakfast. It was quite a feast and they didn't need to eat for the rest of the day. I wonder which boys will be in for a treat in week 10?

WRITING

We have been learning to write persuasive arguments.  We are getting really good at stating our opinion and then supporting it with significant ideas.  We are beginning to add detail to our ideas too.  Here is some of our best writing -

SMOKING SHOULD BE BANNED

Smoking can make you very sick.  So sick, that your lungs wont work properly, because it puts bad things into your lungs that can kill you.

You should not have started smoking in the first place, if you didn't want to die.  You could have lived a lot longer you know. 

Smoking should be banned in NZ, because too many kiwis are dying too young. 

By Jordan

CELEBRATION OF DANCE

Hello to our new blog buddies at Ashhurst and Russell Street Schools. 

We thought you'd enjoy watching us dance! 

Our teacher thinks we're a great bunch and she thinks we can dance too!

We look forward to seeing your introductions too!

We've been having a few technical issues, so I'm splitting our dance into 3 sections.

Here's the Grand March.

HOW CAN WE DEVELOP AND EXPRESS OUR CREATIVITY?

Room 4 students are learning about the importance of a balanced lifestyle. 

Here are some of the things we've found out. 

- from KIDS HEALTH (click on the link to see what else they have to say)

"The best way to keep stress away is to have a balanced life. That means making good decisions about how to spend your time. If you're only dealing with school stuff and have no time to play, you can get stressed. Make sure you keep your SELF in mind: Sleep, Exercise, Leisure (something fun), and Food.

If you take care of yourself and get enough sleep and food, and if you exercise and leave time for fun stuff, you'll probably be less stressed out!

- and from FAMILY RESOURCE (click on the link to see what else they had to say)

Schooling, as important as it is, should not be the only focus of a child’s daily lifestyle.  Did you know children who have a well-balanced lifestyle, balanced with academic and non-academic activities are more likely to experience school success.  Dance, karate, sports and family time are all meaning full activities.  Sometimes school work can become the primary priority at home, as well as at school! 

All of this information started a very interesting discussion - What are the things that we need to do more of and what should we be doing less of?

We surveyed the students in our classroom and found out that over 80% of them have a game console.  Some have many game consoles!  We then asked those students with consoles whether they thought they spent too much time on them.  50% of students with consoles think they spend too much time on them!

We've written some interesting persuasive arguments.  Parents you might have some ammunition now!

Kids Need a Balanced Lifestyle, so we need a video gamers' anonymous.  I definitely agree, kids need a Video Gamers' Anonymous right now and I mean it!


Kids spend far too much time on their consoles.  Kids need to think about themselves (SELF), so they need to get off their couch and make sure they get a balance of Sleep, Exercise, Leisure, and Food.  80% of our class have some kind of console and some of them say that they spend far too much time on their consoles.


There are way too many consoles like PS1, PS2, PS3, GameBoy, Wii, Nintendo and Xbox, but it isn't the consoles - it's the violent video games.  Violent video games should not be allowed in shops, because children are getting more aggressive every day.  Violent video games should not be played in front of young kids.  Kids watch out - some games are rated R16 or R18.


And that's why I think we need a Video Gamers' Anonymous. 

By Natalie

MATHS TRAIL

Last week was maths week, so teachers prepared maths trails for the students to participate in on Thursday.  Luckily the weather cleared by lunchtime and all students participated with enthusiasm.  They were fronted with some tricky maths challenges and Mrs Elliot and I were impressed with everyone's attitude to get stuck in  and try.  Give-it-a-go attitudes led some groups to successfully solving set tasks. 

Well done to these two groups who worked well throughout the afternoon with everyone sharing their ideas and helping their groups reach decisions. 

Jorja - Taylah - Daniel - Frazer

Sophie - Lydia - Tyron - Natalie

PARTICIPATING AND CONTRIBUTING

This week we are learning about doing our fair share of the work.

If we are going to be great team members we need to do our fair share of the work.

We are learning about 'dirty work' and 'donkey work' and we know someone has to do it. So we are trying hard to do our fair share of the work when it's classroom clean up and we are also learning to clean up after ourselves.

Last week we learnt about being reliable team members. Here are some of our reflections -

• WALT to be reliable, so I had to change my attitude at dance.  I had to take my hands out of my pockets and be a reliable partner for De'Quante.  Now I have learnt that it's more fun when I participate with the right attitude, so I will keep on doing this. 
• WALT to be reliable, so I helped Mum with gathering up the groceries.
• WALT to be reliable, so I enjoyed dance more because I was doing the right thing.  When I dance properly I like it.  Now I will be a reliable person, by doing dance properly and holding anyone's hand.   
• WALT be reliable, so I know what to do and when to do it at reading time.  I am very reliable.  Now my learning is going really well, so I'm going to keep being reliable by knowing what I am meant to be doing and when I'm meant to be doing it. 
• WALT be reliable, so I know that I need to remember my reading book and KIT book to be a reliable team member in my reading group.  Now I am going to work harder to remember my reading book and KIT book and I must remember to read and write at home too.

We are being great team members!

LITTLE MISS HELPFUL

To show we are reliable team members in Room 4 we know we should be helpful to others.  We all like being helpful, but we have a little bit to learn about this. 

fhunter

Little miss helpful by fhunter | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

We need to learn about being helpful, because we don't want to make the same mistakes as 'Little Miss Helpful'.

TERM 2'S STAR STUDENT

A very difficult decision to make, but here they are:

Ashley and Ffion have shown fantastic attitudes to learning in term 2.  They have both experienced success in spelling, moving up more than one spelling list in the term.  They've achieved this, because they've both worked extremely hard at school and at home.  They are motivated to achieve.  They are a pleasure to work with during writing time, because they're keen to know their next steps and they work hard to make improvements to their writing.  And to top it all off, they're working hard in maths to learn their basic facts too.  Well done Ashley and Ffion, your hard work at home and school is paying off. 

PARTICIPATING AND CONTRIBUTING

Our key competency focus this term is participating and contributing.  This week we are working hard to be valuable team members. 

We brainstormed ideas about how to be valuable team members both in the classroom and around the school.

Who's showing they're reliable team members?  

Mrs Hunter noticed Devon being very reliable during classroom clean up.  Thank you Devon!

  Leave your comments!

OLD SCHOOL DAYS AND WAYS

One of last terms highlights was the visit from Isaac’s Nan Sargent.  She came to talk to us about ‘school in her day’.  Nan Sargent is 85 years old and she went to school in Lavooka, a small rocky island in Fiji. 

We were learning from the past – How and why do things change?  We were also learning about Relating to Others – in particular using our manners.  We had to be sure to say, ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘excuse me’.  We had to listen carefully, know when to speak and when to listen, and we had to wait our turn. 

We learnt a lot about school in the past and what we learnt helped us to reach a decision. 

Devon decided that he’d rather be a student now.  Here is his persuasive argument.

School Days

I would definitely rather go to school now than in the 1930s, because corporal punishment was allowed back then.  You’d even get punished for getting an answer wrong.  Because of that I would have been afraid of the teacher and to put my hand up even if I thought I had the right answer.  I also think no one should be physically punished for getting an answer wrong. 

Now we have computers that make learning easier and we can go onto learning websites that make us want to learn.  It also means that we can publish our writing. 

Now teachers give us credit for what we do well.  In the past they punished us if our best wasn’t good enough.  It’s so much more fun and fair now and that’s why I would rather go to school in the present. 

Devon used the ‘What If’ thinker’s key to plan his writing.  He also used a PMI chart to note ‘plus, minus and interesting’ things about school in the past.   

ANIMATIONS

Last term we decided to get clever with ICT and we started creating our first animations. 

To help us understand about 'relating to others' we decided to read some of Aesop's Fables. 

Danielle, Ffion and Jorja created this animation for 'The Ant and the Chrysalis'.  They chose PowerPoint as their presentation method and unfortunately I am having trouble with adding to our blog.  However, it's too good not to share, so just flick through the pages and hopefully you'll get the idea. 

Make sure you keep watching, because we'll be making more animations soon and we'll be sure to use MovieMaker rather than PowerPoint as our presentation method.

Here is their story - 

Kuyper the Ant

One day Kuyper the ant was scurrying about in search of food.  Up above he saw something hanging from the leaf of a tree.  Kuyper did not know it was a chrysalis.  "Oh!  Your poor thing," exclaimed Kuyper.  "What a sad fate you have.  I have run anywhere I wish.  I can even climb mountains."  A few days later Kuyper came back that way again hoping to find more food.  Suddenly a cloud seemed to come over him and he felt a soft breeze.  What did he see this time?  One of the most beautiful butterflies he had ever seen.  His most pitied friend flew off in the breeze. 

The Ant and Chrysalis

View more presentations from fhunterhalcombeschool

KEY COMPETENCIES

RELATING TO OTHERS

We are learning to be kind and caring.

What random acts of kindness can you indulge in during the holidays?

Why not start today - practice makes perfect!

Create a calendar and diary random acts that will display your kind and caring character traits to others. 


Leave a comment, sharing how others have shown random acts of kindness.

THUNDERSTORMS

WEATHER WIZ KIDS is another great site that's helping us to answer our questions about weather.

Room 4 students think they know this about weather - 'thunder comes before lightning and clouds crashing together make thunder'.

Mrs Hunter has used Weather Wiz Kids as the main website to help her write an explanation about 'Thunderstorms'.

She hopes it helps you to understand how they work. Your job is to now draw a diagram the aids this explanation.

Thunderstorms

Wild weather of thunder and lightning, gusty winds and heavy rain is called a thunderstorm. Cumulonimbus clouds cause thunderstorms, but not by crashing together - crashing clouds are not the cause of thunderstorms.

Have you ever noticed that you see a flicker of lightning before you hear the sound of thunder? Lightning travels all the way from the cumulonimbus cloud to the ground and as it does a channel of air is formed. As the lightning bolt leaves the channel the air collapses back and a sound wave is created – that’s thunder.

What causes the lightning then? Frozen raindrops dance around inside the cumulonimbus cloud and as they bump into each other they create an electrical charge. Soon the cloud is full of electrical charges and when the charge gets too strong, lightning strikes.  The thunder and lightning actually happen at the same time, but the sound of thunder is slower than the speed of light.

Did you know that lightning kills and injures more people a year than hurricanes and tornadoes. If the thunder and lightning seem to happen at the same time, then the lightning is very close to you, and dangerous. Check out the weather forecast by visiting http://www.metservice.com/national/index to ensure you don’t caught out in that wet and wild, crazy weather of winter.

Check out Arizona's diagram below -

Good job Arizona. 

WEATHER

We're learning about 'WEATHER'. 

There are four seasons.  Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter and each season has distinguising features, such as: the height of the sun in the sky, day length, daily and nightly temperatures. 

Watch this video - it explains 'What Causes the Seasons?' 



We are writing explanations about what causes seasons and we are using a diagram as a visual aid to help.

Read more about New Zealand's climate, weather, temperatures and seasons here - NEW ZEALAND TOURISM GUIDE

TREE HOUSE WEATHER KIDS provides basic information on weather topics such as winds, moisture, air pressure, seasons and storms.

We are also writing and recording our own weather reports.  Tamati Coffey is a roving weather reporter and we watched this short video clip to help us with writing our own report.

GARDEN BARREL

We've got a garden barrel outside our classroom and we can't wait till the plants start to flower.

Ffion, TeRangi and Arizona helped Mrs to plant it and Ffion has made a PhotoStory to explain the process of 'Barrel Planting'.

RED NOSE DAY

MATHS

We have started learning about 'Statistics'.

We started by collecting some data. We had to think of a question to ask our classmates, something we wanted to find out. We had to give them choices for their answers and we had to have an 'other' section incase they didn't like the available choices.

We recorded our data with tally charts. Tally charts make counting easy, because you skip count in fives.

Jack is in year 3. He wanted to know what kind of movies we all liked best and he gave us 5 choices. He then put his data into a 'chart maker' at mathswarehouse.com .

Here is his finished graph, it is a bar graph:

What questions can be answered from the information provided on the graph?

Which movie type collected the most votes? (LW)
Which movie type is the least liked? (VS)
Which movie type is the second favourite? (SW)
Which movie type is the second least liked? (NL)
Which movie type did six people in our class like? (FM)
How many people in total were surveyed? (JW)
How many people liked horror movies? (JA)
Did we all like the choices provided? (JH)
How many more people liked horror movies than action movies? (TM)
How many people didn't choose horror as their favourite movie? (JG)

We started with the easy questions first and then we found out there were so many more questions we could answer. We used many maths strategies to answer the questions and our most favourite way to solve maths problems is by making 'tidy ty' numbers.

Lydia is another year 3 student who visits us for maths. Here is her finished graph, it is a pie graph:

What questions can be answered from this graph and what are the answers? Leave your comments!

MANAGING SELF

We have been reflecting on our managing self goals.

Catherine, Destiny, Jordan, Devon, Sophie, De'Quante, Ffion and Ashley

Our goal was to make sure our desks were always tidy.  It is much easier to find what we need, when we need it, if our desk is tidy!

How did we do?

Someone has a very tidy desk, but where are their tools for school? 

Desks

RHYTHM INTERACTIVE

Last week Rhythm Interactive visited Halcombe School. 

We have been writing about the show.  We had to work hard to make our writing interesting. 

This was our success criteria:

• no waffling (say our sentence in our head before we write)
• share honest feelings
• use onomatopoeia and one other language feature
• use interesting words (we have banned words - went, cool, said)
• Try to use new beginnings for sentences (don't start all of your sentences with I, We, He, She) 
• Use WOW words

We think we've written some fabulous stories.  Here is Daniel's story and we will publish more.  We're also creating some movies and picture collages, so keep watching and reading.

Anton never talked throughout the show until the end.  He pulled the funniest faces.  He had googly eyes and he looked like a cross eyed cat.  My hands were as red as strawberries.  Anton made awesome sounds on his drums.  BOOM – BOOM – BANG - BANG.  I got bored, so I played around on it.  Anton told us to dance while the others played their drums.  I really wanted to do the moon walk.  The thing I liked about the drums is that they can make different sounds.  I tried to do the same sounds as Anton.  It was hard at first, but eventually it got easier and easier.  That’s when he talked for the first time.  The first thing that came out of this mouth was, “Good Morning!”  We all bellowed back, “Good Morning!”  He introduced Lucy his helping hand and then we got into it one last time. 

By Daniel.          

WRITING

In room 4 we are learning to be great writers. Great writers try to make their writing as interesting as possible. There are many tricks to making your writing great! Here are some of the tricks:

• Language Features - inlcuding similes, onomatopoeia, metaphors and alliteration
• Using interesting words to begin sentences instead of using: The, I, We, She, He, When, 
• Don't waffle - get to the point, record you ideas clearly and be honest and sincere with your thoughts, feelings and ideas
• Organise your ideas into some kind of order
• Use a thesaurus to get WOW words
• Use different sentence lengths (simple, compound, complex)
• Your writing must make sense!
• Try to use a little humour (if it's appropriate)
• Not too much speech
• Focus on one idea and add detail to it
• We often write better about things we know a little about, but we also like to use our imagination

We'd like to share some of our great writing.

Meet Zara 

Zara’s the name of my four legged friend and she’s full of mischief.  She’s very mischievous when she nibbles on my fingers.  Zara used to be a white Arab, but now she’s grey and as fluffy as a fluff ball, because she’s got her winter coat.  She’s got a wiry mane that droops down her speckled neck.  Zara has thumping strong legs that help her gallop like the wind.  She’s got a warm cuddly feeling.  I know because a shiver of love runs down my spine and heats me up when I cuddle her.  When I give Zara a hug her mischievous nature encourages her to nibble on my hair.  Zara loves to sleep stand in the blackness of the night sky.  She also loves to play a game called runaway - when I go to get her she gallops off.  Zara loves to eat up apples and carrots.  If I had one she’d gobble it up.   By Sophie

Meet Sting

Meet Sting, Dad’s furry, friendly, lazy, four legged, slit eyed cat.  Even though he’s friendly he hunts hares, frogs, and other twitching things.  Now, let’s get on with where he lives.  Sting lives in a two-story house.  His favourite place is the sun room sofa.  That is where he snoozes all day.  Sting’s fur is black.  He’s sixteen cat years old.  He sits in the rain when it’s pouring cats and dogs.  I call it a cat wash.  I have to dry him afterwards, which is the downside.  He’s a happy cat.  Sting’s claws are as sharp as steak knives.  I suppose most of his character comes from being a farm cat.  We have a farm you know.  All five of us love him, but especially Dad.  We still have him and he’s going to live for a few more years yet!   By Cooper

OLD SCHOOL DAYS AND WAYS

Last week Room 4 visited TeManawa. We learnt a lot about the olden days. Here are some of the things we found interesting:

In the olden days they hadn’t invented pop up toasters yet. We cooked our toast in a very old toaster and our bread was easily burnt.

We had to be very polite. Good manners were always very important in the olden days.

In the olden days the dinner table was always set and everyone had jobs to do to help get prepared before and after meal times. You never put the jam or margarine container on the table; it was put onto saucer before going to the table. We had to wear napkins at the table.

The olden days’ washing machine was very different to the one we have now. All clothes had to go through a wringer to get out the excess water and they came out very flat. Now our washing machines just spin all of the extra water out.

The clothes were very different in the olden days. The children looked quite posh. The boys wore shorts, jackets and boots and the girls wore pinafores.

In the Old School House

The teacher was very strict and mean. The teacher did a nail check and some of us got told to get out a scrubbing bush, because our nails were too dirty.

In the olden days, children were to be seen and not heard. We had to write this for our handwriting.

You had to stand up when you were answering a question and when you’d finished answering you had to say Miss – “10 Miss”.

We practiced good breathing techniques.

We had to use ink pens and they made lots of blobs on our paper. They also made lots of blobs on our hands and our clothes.

We had to link our letters and it was very hard to do. We had to concentrate and do our very best.

There were not any left handers in the olden days, because they had to write with their right hand or get ‘6 of the best’.

Here are our photos:

Thanks to all the parents who provided transport.

ROOM 10 WAIRAKEI SCHOOL

Our 'cyber' friends have received their t-shirts and they thought they were "very cool."

They made us this "very cool" video to say thanks. We think you are very clever Room 10 and you look very smart in your fancy new t-shirts.

BASKETBALL BOUNCERS

We have been learning to add impact to our writing and today was a great opportunity to put our new learning into practice.

After a visit from some very tall, talented basketball bouncers today, we wrote a story and have published it using PhotoStory.

Enjoy reading and watching 'Basketball Bouncers' -

WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?

Our T-Shirt Designs

Earlier this year we began following with interest another class blog - Room 10, Wairakei School, Christchurch. This is a class of year 1 students and their teacher is Miss O'Neill. The children from Room 10 were 'SUPERKIDS' on February 22nd, getting themselves to their safe place when the Christchurch Earthquake struck. With the help of Odyssey T-Shirts and one of our generous parents we designed and had printed a set of T-Shirts for our special 'cyber' friends. We added our own colour to the T-shirts and that was quite tricky. Now they're all ready for sending to our friends. We hope they enjoy them and that they brighten their day.

LEARNING FROM THE PAST - HOW AND WHY DO THINGS CHANGE

During the next two weeks we will be learning about the 'Old School Days and Ways'.

The 'big idea' is that this will help instil the value of respect in the children. We will make connections to the key competency 'Managing Self' and having self control - something that was definately needed in the 'Old School Days'. Children will be successful with this learning when they:

- choose right from wrong
- consider the consequences of their actions
- follow the rules
- own up and be truthful
- think before they speak and act

I'm sure some room 4 students have grandparents out there with a few stories to share. We'd love to hear the stories. Please either leave a comment or better still ring the school and ask for Mrs Hunter to make a time to come and visit the children to share your stories.

EMAIL FROM MISS CROASDALE

Hello Mrs Hunter and Room 4 Lovelies!

I hope you all had nice holidays and are excited to be back at school. Have you all managed yourselves well and brought all the equipment that you need for school? I'm sure you have! :) It was my first day back at University today, so I had to make sure I was organised as well!

I'm going to be a student teacher at another school in two weeks time. I'll be at Hokowhitu School in Palmerston North, in a class with New Entrant/Year 1 students. I had a look on their school website and found that they have a class blog as well. I've put a link in this email in case you are interested and would like to have a look :)

Speaking of blogs, I tried to leave a comment on yours about your sharing evening, but I think I might have done it wrong - whoops! Anyway, I wanted to congratulate you all; from the pictures it looks like you did a great job and I'm sorry I couldn't make it to see your presentation. I'm sure you would have made me very proud.

All the best for this school term! I will keep checking your blog to see what learning you have been doing :)

Arohanui

Miss Croasdale

A link to Room 1's blog at Hokowhitu School:

http://misstsblog.edublogs.org/

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Hi everyone

I hope you're having HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

It's not long before school starts back now!

I hope you've been uisng your initiative at home. Click on the link below if you need reminding about the ways you can use your initiative -

VARIATIONS KEY - USING INITIATIVE

Don't forget to bring all your tools for school -

2 blue pens
1 red pen
1 green pen
2 HB pencils
1 pencil sharpener
1 eraser
1 glue stick
1 vivid
1 highlighter pen
1 ruler
1 correction tape
1 colour pencils (set of 12)

See you all on Monday!



Oh - and one more thing. If you've got a photo of a special pet, please bring it to school. If you need to email it - send to fhunter@halcombe.school.nz

Here is Mrs Hunter's special pet/pets, snuggling up to the warm fire last winter!

WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?

We learnt how to make photo collages in Picasa. Picasa is a programme used to create photo collages and short movies. Sophie was our expert. She taught us how to make photo collaages. She said the best things about helping others were that she got to share her knowledge and she also got to see other people learning new and exciting things. Here are some of our collages from the 'Fun Swimming Sports' and 'Paua Fritter Making' -

Picasa

More PowerPoint presentations from Fiona Hunter

STAR STUDENT

Term 1's STAR STUDENT is ...

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Room 4 students agree that Destiny:

- reads every night
- has gone up one spelling level (she does KIT book spelling regularly)
- strives hard to achieve (gives 100% effort in everything she does)
- listens carefully (knows what she is meant to be doing and when she is meant to be doing it)
- always smiles
- DESERVES TO BE ROOM 4'S STAR STUDENT FOR TERM 1

WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?

Sophie's Learning

WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?

Now that our 'Celebration of Learning' night is over, we can start to share some more of the exciting things we've been doing. We've been saving up!

Paua Fritters

We made paua fritters with our buddy class, room 1. Paua needs to be minced first to made fritters. Then you need to add flour, baking powder, salt and eggs, onion and milk. We fried our fritters and then ate them in Nature's Fresh bread, buttered with Mainland butter. We smothered them with Wattie's tomato sauce and then ate them. YUMMY!

Watch our video about making paua fritters -

Here are some pictures of our performance on Wednesday night. Mrs Hunter was very proud of us. She thinks we're all STARS.

MATHS

Mrs Simpson has a maths survey for us to complete.

Click on the link below to take her survey:

MATHS SURVEY

SHARING OUR LEARNING

Congratuations to the students and families who shared learning at our 3-way conferences last week. Term 1 is quickly drawing to an end. While the holidays are a time for 'cruising and snoozing' don't forget about your goals, keep working towards achieving to your absolute best, and be ready for Term 2 'full steam ahead'.
Wednesday night is another opportunity for sharing our learning. All children are expected to attend and they're looking forward to sharing with you, 'WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?' Kick off is 6 p.m. See your newsletter for further details.

CRUISING AND SNOOZING



FULL STEAM AHEAD

Miss Croasdale was our student teacher. She spent four weeks with us and we enjoyed working with her. We think she enjoyed working with us too and she left us with something very special ...

A Poem

The Room 4 Lovelies

Arizona recently turned nine, didn't you know?
Danielle got a labrador puppy not long ago.
Seth's t-shirt design was just so cool,
Jade's a polite young lady, always ready for school.

Victoria has a zoo of animals at her home,
Logan loves to silent read, he gets in the zone.
TeRangi is great at showing people the ropes,
Heath and Lucas - my, they're friendly blokes!

I've enjoyed listening to Tehanna read,
And Devon too - they know expression's what you need!
Catherine is such a helpful child,
Isaac K - what a lovely smile.

Cooper is our Mr FixIt,
Sophie takes spectacular pictures.
Jordan's our amn if you want to know about ferns,
Destiny's always smiling and happy to learn.

Madison and Jorja were great peg hunters for Kauri,
At our fun swimming sports they searched quickly, not slowly.
I love that Isaac J and Ashley are so enthusiastic,
Their positive energy really is fantastic.

Regan told me about his kitten named Ella,
Hey, how about that Frazer? He's a delightful fella!
Riki showed me that he is a skipping legend,
Natalie helped me check for eggs in the hen pen.

De'Quante always has a hand raised, so keen to answer,
Ffion excels at gynastics, I think she'd be a good dancer.
Daniel was a champ and gave the swimming sports a go,
WOW Room 4! You've been great to get to know!

But I think I might be forgetting someone important in Room 4 ...
She's helped you be your best today, and she will for many days more.
I've been very lucky to have her helping me out too,
I think Mrs Hunter is a primo teacher - what about you?

So thank you room 4, for having me to stay,
It's time to say goodbye now, as it's my very last day.
Work hard for the rest of the year, do the best that you can do,
Prove that Halcombe kids are awesome (I already know it's true).

Thank you Miss Croasdale, we love the poem and we can't wait to hear what you're up to, so keep in touch won't you!

WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?

We have been learning about 'kiwiana'.

We have found out that 'items of kiwiana are generally unique to, or particularly common to New Zealand' (Wikipedia, 2011) and they may also be 'quirky things that contribute to a sense of New Zealand's nationhood (TeAra, 2009).

We have been creating graphic designs. Our graphic designs combine pictures and text to convey a clear message. Here are some of our finished designs:
(click on the picture for a larger view).



These graphic designs belong to Frazer, Arizona, Jordan and Victoria.

We would like to thank Frazer. He is our graphic design 'expert'.

Click on the link below to view more of our graphic designs:

GRAPIC DESIGNS

WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?

We are trying to improve our writing, so we've been writing captions for a variety of NZ photographs. We are working on using more descriptive verbs to describe what we've been up to. We are eliminating 'went' from our writing - it is now a banned word.

fhunter

NZ Captions by fhunter | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

FUN SWIMMING SPORTS

By Catherine

WOW! I couldn't believe it. It was fun swimming sports day. Yahoo! My first race was the lemon race. You swim with a lemon in your mouth. The lemon was yuck like grass. My next race was the piggy back race. I was Emily's piggy and she went as fast as the speed of light. We won! Next is was the crocodile race. I thought you all had to go under the water and all flick your feet together, left - right and left - right, like soldiers. But that wasn't right. There were four people in each team and you had to join together, by holding the ankles of the person in front of you and then you just had to swim. Then my last race was the boogie board race. I was so fast, it was like I was swimming humongous waves in the ocean. It was a fun day.

Watch Catherine's Movie Below:

GALA DAY PREPARATIONS

Did you know our Gala Day is fast approaching?
Following yesterday's learning we decided to investigate what it means to be a Halcombe Kid. We found out there's not many differences between 'being Kiwi' and 'being Halcombe'.
Halcombe kids are proud of their school - kiwis are proud of their country.
So today we 'mucked in' getting ready to show off our amazing school on Saturday. We all worked hard, we were pretty good behind the brush and shovel!




Even our amazing student teacher, Miss Croasdale. Thanks Miss Croasdale, we look forward to dunking you on Saturday (did we say that?)
Our camera skills are improving too. These photos were taken by Daniel.

WHAT MAKES NZ UNIQUE?

A key understanding of our Inquiry Unit is 'We have our own unique identity as New Zealanders'.

Yesterday we investigated the question 'what does it mean to be kiwi?' We created a short movie to answer this question.

Click below to go to our 'Inquiry Learning' page to see our work.

'BEING KIWI'

FUN SWIMMING SPORTS

On Friday Year 4 - 8 students at Halcombe School competed in our annual 'Fun Swimming Sports' and fun it was.

View the house chants below and then keep watching this space to view movies and stories about the fun swimming sports as they are posted.

RIMU



TOTARA



KAURI

MATAI

PORTRAIT PHOTOS

We are getting better at taking photos. We have learnt about the 'rule of thirds'. Sophie took many of these photos. Isn't she a great photographer!



View more great photos below: