Holidays...Why Do Schools Have Them?

A writing focus for our classroom has been writing to explain. Writing to explain has a specific structure which we have had to learn. Over time, with practice and feedback we have all made progress in our writing. We used this success criteria to help us follow the structure and give feedback to ourselves and others. 

As we all love holidays, we had to write to explain why we need them. After completing our writing we chose different ways to present our writing, instead of simply just adding a google docs with our writing. Here is an example of one way we chose to share our writing with others... 

 

Presentation created by Hayley-Room Six-Awahono School

Comment below if you can think of any other reasons why schools have holidays...

Pet Day

This term started out with a couple of highlights early on... Firstly, I had safely returned from overseas (well it was certainly a highlight for me to be back in the classroom and see my wonderful class) and also it was Pet Day, such an exciting day on the school calendar! 

Connecting With Mrs Ealam Overseas!

The world we live in has become more and more digitally driven! A real positive of this world is that no matter where you are or what you are up to, you can always connect with others! This was the case for our classroom when I headed off overseas temporarily leaving Room Six with Mr Heyworth (which they thoroughly enjoyed). 

Although it was tough being away from the classroom and the children for such a long period of time we were still able to connect during this time. The children were able to be apart of my travelling journey, thanks to the wonderful technology at their finger tips! 

We started with a travel blog, only to discover some issues with the connection. Therefore using our adaptable skill set in the digital world, we quickly changed the plan to connect via google documents, in which the children could leave comments and ask questions. 

Below are a few links to some of the documents we shared together during this time... Only a sneak peak into the journey around the world!!

London

Bus Tour 

Paris

Exciting term ahead!

Wow this year is flying by! We are already in Term 3!!

This term is an exciting term for us as we are aiming to be blogging our learning far more often! Over the past couple of terms we have been learning lots of skills to become a smart learner, therefore a smart blogger. We will continue to develop these skills as the year goes by. 

We appreciate you taking the time to look at our classroom and individual blogs!

We are using the Toki Pounamu blog post checklist for each blog post we create! Here is the link if you are interested in finding out more about our blogging goals. 

Cross Country...

Last week all of Awahono year 4-8's participated in the Midland Line cross country in Kumara. On the day of cross country the staff we pleased to see our students show...Resilience when the going got tough students pushed through; Commitment to finishing the race; Respect through encouragement and support for fellow classmates and school members; Responsibility for behaviour out in public representing Awahono School to a high standard! 

It was great to see Awahono students modelling the school 3R's!!!

It was so evident that all of the Awahono parents and teachers were so very pleased the effort and dedication of all of our students on this day! We also very proud of those who have been selected for the West Coast cross country coming up this week. We wish those students all the very best on this day and we know you will make yourselves, your families and our school very proud of you! 

GO AWAHONO!!!!

Time Flys!

Wow! Three weeks have gone by already! Time to get back into regular blogging with everything we have been up to!

What a busy three weeks we have had here in Room Six! Over the past couple of weeks we have been revisiting being safe online. This has become an important focus in our classroom as we are all using our blogs more regularly and interacting with others on a variety of others tools. We have to ensure that we are making good choices online, keeping ourselves safe and interacting positively, thoughtfully and helpfully or not at all! 

Keep an eye out on our individual blogs for our learning related to this as we have been busy making a DLO (Digital Learning Object) to show how we can be safe online. 

Welcome back

Over the course of the term we will be having a variety of sports events including the football tournament,  cross country, west coast cross country and the year five and sixes have a rippa rugby tournament. We also have El Gregoe and Wig Wednesday to support child cancer. Overall it sounds like a very busy term and we can't wait to see what we get up to.

Hello and welcome back to Term 2 of 2016.

Top Team

Wednesday the 6th of April we participated in Top Team at Blaketown School. Here are some photos of our morning...

Up and coming blog users...

We have been learning new skills relating to blogging, some of these include...

• What a blog is used for...
• What information we can post on a blog...
• How to interact on a blog...
• How to post comments- positively, helpfully and thoughtfully...
• What information we share on our blog and what we keep to ourselves...

Here are some examples of the work we have been completing. 

Feel free to ask us some questions.

Learn, Create, Share posters

Here is an image of some of us making some awesome posters!

The posters we were making display the words- learn, create and share.  These words represent the learning journey we each participate in.

Learn... is to learn new content, knowledge and skills.

Create... is to create something that shows understanding of the learning. 

Share... is to share new learning and knowledge with others and get feedback.

Swimming Sports

On Friday of week five our class and room five went to Midland Line swimming. We all did really well and the school was proud off us.  

Then some of us got told that we qualified for West Coast Swimming, we were really excited about it. There were nine of us going: Sarah, Katie, Georgia, Jade, Ashleigh, Blake, Myah, Nicole from our class room which we were proud off. There was one boy from room five, Harrison who did extremely well to get in because he is a year five. We all did extremely well and the school was proud off us.

Room 6 trophies

In Room 6 we have been setting some goals for ourselves and our learning. As part of this, many of us identified that we want to work towards these six trophies that we have displayed on our wall. All of these trophies require leadership, sharing, kind / caring, taking responsibility for your learning, being respectful, making good choices, being a role model, being supportive, making sure everyone is alright, being motivated, 3R's and being friendly. 

The trophies we are working towards the following : 

• The Hahn Family trophy- Outstanding art award
• The Ahaura Community- Outstanding sportsmanship
• Whitmore Contracting- Pets day award
• Ahaura Helicopters-Most outstanding citizen
• Perseverance and effort trophy
• Scheurs Family trophy-Outstanding student achievement

Film Clip Endings...

In writing, we watched a short clip and had to come up with a new ending for how Neko ended up in hospital, badly hurt. We had to ensure we used the description bubbles to add details throughout our ending. You can watch the actual video by clicking on the link (that way, you will know where the bacon wrapped cats fit)... LINK

Here are some examples of our new endings....

Niko went flying through the air towards the white piket fence that was standing infront of him like a old stachue in a muzeum.He was just lying there why the seven cats rapped in baken came towards him.Ready to attack him but the red coloured baken smelt so good that the dog came to chase the baken cats away.His arms and legs were twisted upwids into the shape of an l.

But then a famer came out to milk the cows and he saw that Niko was laying on the musty hard ground so he dragged him along into the farm house to get Niko better.Then the famer called the ambulance so that sore painfull Niko could go to hospital.

But when the vannila white ambulance with red stripes arived to the farmers farm house the tire popped, so they had to find a way to get Niko to the hospital... but what could they use? All of a sudden they realised that they had tire changeing gare in the back of the ambulance. They raced to fix the tire on the ambulance .Ten minutes the tire was fixed and the meial team grabbed the green scoop stretcher to get Niko and put him into the ambulance.

They were driving for twenty minute and he was in so much pain. They finally got him to the green and white hospital.  they got his exrays and his arms and legs broken form that white piket fence. they rushed him into theater. He got casts onto his arms and legs and he was asleep for ages and when he woke up his head was very saw and his body was in so much pain.

By Chris

As Niko landed on a large bump, he moaned in pain with his head on a lump like a pillow,and his shoulder in the middle of two bumps. He could see the red beady eyes as the cat turned it’s head and stared and stared at him.Nico tried to hold back his dog but it kept running.All of a sudden Niko fell over because the dog was running so fast he could’nt keep up with it.Niko started to get dragged along the ground he started to scream for help “Help!”,cried Niko .Nico thought he arrived  at the bacon kitty farm the dog came to a sudden hault and several red  beady eyes appeared in the dark he could see a giant scratching post with cats crawling up and down he started to walk backwards but backed in to the fence  and then they  started to growl at him the dog however  started to bark at the growling  cats. He turned around and started to run  while he was running  he reached for his phone and called the ambulance.Not long after the ambulance found him and his dog on the side of the road. When Nico was  in hospital he was wrapped up in bandages his mind was blank he didn’t remeber anything.

By Noah

Nico’s foot smashed against the cold, stiff ground as he skidded along trying to hault his dog, when he looked up and suddenly…  His dog had ground to a hault and he went flying past letting go on the rough lead of his pet and went flying into a white fence leading to a bacon kitty farm. It all happened so fast! Nico opened one of his pale blue eyes and peering through the fence was hundreds of beedy little eyes looking at him. He tried to move but he was filled with agonising pain. A short time later Nico pushed through the pain and just grabbed his cell phone. In pain, he pushed in three numbers, 111 and said “help,” and that was it. The 111 people tracked his phone and within minutes the ambulance was there and Nico was put in a scoop stretcher and taken to the hospital. Nico awoke in a Hospital bed and his mind was blank and he couldn’t remember ANYTHING.

By Katie

Juggling with Mandarins

We are taking part in NZ Read Aloud. Over the past couple of weeks we have been reading 'Juggling with Mandarins', by V.M.Jones aloud as a class. We are completing activities and having discussions with other schools around New Zealand who are also reading this text aloud in their classrooms. So far, we have had to make predictions and create character profiles of the characters in the text. Here are some examples of what we think the book is about. We look forward to reading the text and seeing if any of our predictions are accurate.

Sarah's Prediction

I think this book is about a boy who loves Mandarins and he has a dream about juggling them. So then he tries to to juggle mandarins in real live but it all goes wrong.

Noah's Prediction

I think Juggling With Mandarins is about a boy, who gets bullied and he wants to join a circus, to show that he not just a kid, he can juggle mandarins.

Ashleigh's Prediction

I think that the book will be about a boy who is trying to make his way in the world by juggling mandarins.

Click on the link to find out what other people in the class and around New Zealand think this text might be about...  

PREDICTION ACTIVITY

Parfitt Kids

Last week we had someone come to talk to us about breaking a Guinness World Record, raising money for Parfitt Kids. Parfitt Kids supply basically every child admitted to Grey Base Hospital with a gift pack. Each gift pack is age appropriate and is aimed to help reduce stress and anxiety for children undergoing treatments out of their familiar environments. So on Friday the 26th of February we are joining with many others to attempt to break the Guinness World Record of high fives. We need to beat the current record of 1649 people performing a chain reaction of high fives. 

Year Six Waitangi Day DLO's

Nicole's Waitangi Day DLO Noah's Waitangi Day DLO Andrew's Waitangi Day DLO Max's Waitangi Day DLO Ben's Waitangi Day DLO Mia's Waitangi Day DLO Ebony's Waitangi Day DLO Jacob's Waitangi Day DLO

Waitangi Day

Waitangi Day is an important part of New Zealand's history. It was first celebrated in 1934 , and it has been a public holiday since. In Room Six we have been learning all about the Treaty and why we have it. Alongside this learning we have been learning about 'DLO's'. DLO's are Digital Learning Objects which show what we have learned. Everyone has created a DLO about their learning of the Treaty of Waitangi. Watch this space as our Year 6 children learn how to post their DLO to the classroom blog.

Exciting Times!

This first week has seen all of Room Six learning how to use and care for their chromebooks. Everyone knows the expectations and is continuing to work hard to show how they can successfully work towards taking their chromebooks home. Keep up the great work Room Six!

The presentation below is on our wall in the classroom to help remind us of our responsibility with our chromebooks. 

What an exciting first day!

Today Room Six and all of Awahono were welcomed back to school for the new year with an assembly held by Mrs Wallace. It sounds like everyone had a great holiday!

Going back to class, the children had many jobs to complete and friends to make with so many new children in Room Six this year. It was a lot of fun!

The children all participated in some class bonding with a very challenging activity (See photos below). They were learning to communicate in appropriate ways while making relationships with our new class mates. There was also the challenge of not giving up and remaining determined to gain success. Mrs Ealam thought they followed through with this, very well!

Our CHROMEBOOKS! The children were all very exciting to receive their box. Each child got to open and explore their chromebook while beginning to learn how to care for their chromebook through aspects of the 'Kawa of Care' programme. This 'Kawa of Care' programme will continue to be a major focus over the next few weeks and beyond. 
You will find more information about the 'Kawa of Care' programme on our class website!

Room Six, thank you for such a terrific first day. I am exciting about the year ahead of us and look forward to working alongside each and everyone of you!  

Welcome Back to 2016!

Morena! Welcome Back!

Tēnā koutou katoa,

Ko Puketapu te maunga

Ko Vivienne tōku whāea

Ko Trevor tōku matua

Ko Samantha raua ko Leone tūakana

Ko Quentin raua ko Vincent tungāne

Ko Awahono School tōku kura

Ko Annabelle tōku ingoa

Nō Ahaura ahau

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa

I hope you have all had a wonderful break over the holidays. I welcome each and every one of you back for an exciting year ahead. A special welcome our year 7 and 6's who have come up from Mrs Idle's classroom this year. Also to Blake and Luke who are new to our school. I hope you enjoy your time at Awahono and I am sure you will feel very welcome!