Thursday 6th April

Mandarin

Today we had another Mandarin lesson. Our new Mandarin teacher this year is called Amy. In today's session we were making lanterns. We had a piece of red paper and we drew half the pattern on the edge of the folded red paper. When we cut the paper it made the full symmetrical lantern shape. They look very cool and are hanging on our classroom walls for everyone to see.

Last time Amy visited, we played a game of ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf’. We had to sneak up behind the ‘wolf’ and say “What’s the time Mr Wolf” in Mandarin. When it was dinner time, the wolf would turn around and try catch someone. It was a really fun game and helped us with our time.

Thursday 14th April

We had a very busy day on Thursday. In the morning, we had Rachel come and teach us Mandarin. We were learning many things including numbers up to 10 and days of the week. Our favourite activity was a game we played outside where someone was 'in' and had to tag the rest of the class who were connected in a line. It was a great game for teamwork!
We have also been doing some tasks and activities around ANZAC day this week. We made a wreath made from our handprints and added poppies. We also were lucky enough to have Hamish McCallum come in and talk to us about ANZAC day and New Zealand's involvement in World War 1. We then created a field of remembrance which included soldiers that went to World War 1 from the Waiwera South district and across New Zealand.

Rachel teaching us Mandarin.

Georgia trying to tag the class. Great fun!

Our wreath we made.

The whole school standing with the crosses.

Everybody helping each other with the crosses.

Putting in the crosses.

Thursday August 27th

Busy Middle Room!

We have had a busy few days in the Middle Room. We have been working really hard on our speeches that we will be presenting next Thursday. Morning Programme this term has helped us a lot with our preparation for our speeches. Having a good pace, loud clear voices and eye contact are a few things we have been focusing on. In the Middle Room we are really great at giving feedback to our classmates about what we have done well and also things we can improve on. Today we had two visitors from the Rotary club who came to present the Year 4 and 5's with dictionaries. They have already proven to be very useful and we are looking forward to improving our dictionary skills.
We have also been busy with the Keeping Ourselves Safe Programme. Constable Rochelle Gordon has visited us several times to help us learn some important lessons. We have talked about different situations we may find ourselves in and how to say no if we are feeling uncomfortable. To help us with this we learnt 3 special rules:

Squawk- Say No! Stop that, I don't like that! Use a strong voice
Walk- Walk away from the situation quickly and staunchly.
Talk- Find an adult you trust to tell them what has happened.

For art we have been focusing on drawing. We first looked at observational drawing and now we have started looking into cartoon drawings. We found that the easiest way to draw our cartoons was to use step by step instructions. That means that we are only adding a small section of our drawings at a time. They are starting to come together nicely.

Check out some photos of a few things we have been up to in the Middle Room this week.

Julienne presenting her Morning Programme.

Taylor sharing her speech to the class.

Courtney sharing her Morning Programme.

Nic sharing his speech to the class.

Looking great in mufti raising money for Daffodil Day!

Working hard on our cartoon drawings.

Iara and George working through step by step with their drawings.

Nic getting ideas from the laptop for his cartoon character.

The Year 4's with their new dictionaries from Rotary.

George learning Mandarin with Ella.

Taylor, Chloe and Courtney helping Ella with a Mandarin song.

Wednesday May 6th 2015

Reminders!
A couple of reminders:
- Rippa Rugby forms need to come back to school for the middle and senior room if your parents can help out on the day by supplying transport or managing a team.

- assembly is on Friday at 2.30pm in the church.

- Mandarin tomorrow with Ella at 2.30pm.

- homework is due on Friday!