W.a.l.a indian/sri lanka traditional dress

On Friday, Miss Veena's mum visited Great 8 and showed us how to wear a sari. Mrs Te Amo loved wearing the sari.

W.a.l.a other cultures - Sri Lanka

On Monday, Miss Veena's dad visited the Junior team and told us all about the country Miss Veena was born in - Sri Lanka.

We learnt that it is a  island, just like New Zealand.  It is hot there and when it rains, sometimes snakes come out. There are also monkeys and elephants in SL. Women wear a lot of saris or salwahs there.  

We asked lots of interesting questions and Mr Ravindran was very impressed!

W.a.l.t share our culture with others.

On Monday, Latai came to school wearing a traditional Tongan dress.
Around her waist is kiekie. She also showed us a fan called ii and a bag called a kato.
Latai is very proud of her culture and taught our class some Tongan words.
We also read a book about Tonga and learnt lots of interesting facts.

Little 8's Korus

Check out Little 8's Koru Art. Each koru represents a member of our family. The little koru's are kids and the big ones are adults. We created our artworks using dye, crayon and paint.

Athletics at the Massey Track

Over the last few weeks of the this term the children have been focusing on correct ways to run, jump and throw.  As part of this unit of Athletics we join the whole school to participate in activities that show case our skills.

Monday this week was our day for Athletics we had lots of Great 8 parents come to support us.

Thank you Geraldine (Ella's Mum) Sarah (Ollie's Mum) Michael (Finley's Dad) Tukta (Michael's Mum) and all the other wonderful helpers on that day.

Here are some pictures taken by Mahalee (Emile's Mum) to show how we persevered in the wet weather and had a great time from the beginning all the way to the end.

WALA: How you welcome visitors on to The Marae

On Tuesday, the Y0-3's went to the Te Rangimarie Marae.
We were welcomed onto the Marae with a Powhiri.

Whaea Trieste taught the girls a waiata using the Poi - Te Waka. Matua.  Wiremu taught the boys how to use the Tiaha.

The children followed all the protocols with such Mana and respect.  They were very excited to take part in this special cultural experience unique to Aotearoa.



The boys demonstrating their skills with the taiaha.



The girls practicing their poi and waiata.

Discovery

My favourite part was picking the beans. - Macauley
My favourite thing was doing jump jam. - Maia
I liked making my car. - Liam
I was a ninja mouse. - Isidro

Give it a go Cricket

We got to try out some cricket skills. We got to play a tag game to warm up. We practiced our catching skills and hitting skills.

Art: Our Families

In Great 8, we have worked really hard to create our calendar art. We choose to draw our families because they are super important to us. They take care of us in lots of different ways and we love them.

Our goals were to:
- draw our people in proportion (adults the tallest and children shorter).
- remember to add all the important details like hair etc.
- use the right colour in the right places (grass is green, not purple).
- use a variety of bright colours that our families would like.
- stay inside the lines and to leave no white gaps when colouring in.


We hope you enjoy our art work and remember today is the last day to order them, so get in quick!

Inquiry: Our Trip to Te Manawa

On Tuesday, we went on a bus to Te Manawa to see Anne. We went there to learn about Tapa Art. There are 3 different ways to make the patterns on the tapa art. You can do rubbings like in Saoma called Siapo, or free hand drawings called Ngatu from Tonga, or Masi which is stenciling from Fiji. We had a chance to make our own tapa by rubbing, drawing and stenciling and dyeing. We are going use our individual tapa art to make a Great 8 tapa cloth.

We hope you enjoy the some of the photos Miss Veena and Mrs Te Amo took at Te Manawa. We had a great time there.

Our DigiAward Entries

Making Playdoh Animation. 

By Kayden, Maia, Latai, Byron and Emile.

I see you.

 by Antonia

A family of toes.

By Byron

Look into my eyes.

By Henri

Working hands.

By Riley

Three fingers.

By Caspian

Mrs Te Amo and Miss Veena are very proud of the quality of work we created!

Discovery

Take a look at all the amazing things we are doing and learning in Discovery.

PMP

Here are some of our stories that we wrote about PMP today.

Everyday Room 8 does PMP. I like the spots and the balloons and I felt happy. By Emile

I am on PMP throwing the balloon. By Byron

I like playing on the spots and the bridges. We do PMP at school. By Corban

My favourite things are the spots and balloons. We do it in PMP time to get stronger. By Maia

I like to go on the spots and I like to go on the bridges. By Riley

I like the balloons. I can use my hand to hit my balloons. I want to do PMP. We do it in Big 8. By Henri

In PMP I like to play balloons with my friends. I feel happy because only Room 8 does PMP. By Kayden

In the morning I do PMP. My favourite things to do is spots and balloons and threading and we do PMP in Big 8. By Latai

I like to play with the balloons because we like to play these games. We do PMP in Big 8. By Antonia

Inquiry - What is unique to New Zealand?

Discovery - Week 1

On Friday, we had Discovery. In discovery, we explore and try new and different things. 

This week some of us did dancing, gardening, and building in the sanding pit and with blocks/other materials. We also made paper chain dolls and self portraits. Some of us choose to practice for Athletics and challenged ourselves with the high jump.

Phonics - W.a.l.t. recognise the middle sound 'a' in CVC words.

In Big 8*, we are learning about CVC words in phonics. This week we are focusing on the middle sound 'a'. 

Our poem of the week is called Pat the Fat Rat.

Did you know cat, mat, fat, rat, pat, sat, and hat rhymed?

*We are called Big 8 because we have the longer/bigger classroom.

Welcome back to School

Kia Ora, Bula, Namaste, Bonjour, Sawadee, Nihao and Malolelei

Welcome back to school for the final term of the year.  The year has zoomed by and this term will be no different.
The fourth term always brings lots of exciting events, the warmer weather a lead up to our Junior Liturgy, Athletics Day at the Massey track and of course the summer holidays.

We welcome two new friends to our room Ella Clear and Isidro Reidel we are very excited to have them join our Room 8 family.  Also we have grown in classroom space too.  We now have the luxury of two learning areas and an extra teacher - Miss Veena who has been working in our Room throughout the year.

Reminders:

Please bring PE gear into school every Monday, Thursday and Friday.
Library books returned every Wednesday.
Make sure Mums and Dads sign up to the school newsletter alerts so you do not miss out on any school information.
Summer uniform which means sandals and school green hat please as of Week 2 we will be checking these are worn correctly.

We look forward to sharing our learning with you over the weeks, so make sure to add your comments!


Posted by
Mrs Te Amo

Flick the Fire Engine

WALT:  work together to perform a sound scape of the story Flick the Fire Engine.

Room 8 have been working this term with Ms Buchanan in Drama and learning to tell the story of Flick the Fire engine through various drama techniques.  We were so proud to share this with all the Junior school today.

W.a.l.t: divide shapes in half.

Powhiri

Our class, along with our families were welcomed into the St James whanau through a powhiri, which is a Maori welcoming ceremony. Maia's mum called us into the hall and Mr Durston spoke for us. The kapa haka group sang a waiata for us and we sang one too. We did a hongi with the teachers.

Here is a photosnack with some photos Mrs Edwards took at the Powhiri.

Learning with Harold

What we learnt with Harold on PhotoPeach
 

WALA: how to keep a beat using our bodies and instruments

Rhythm and Finding the Beat with Mrs Cawood


On Friday mornings Mrs Cawood will be coming in to teach us about music.  We have been using our bodies to make a beat.  We have used the maracas to do this as well!  Lots of us got up to sing so she could listen to our voices.

Discovery

As part of our inquiry, we have been learning about how our body makes energy. So we decided to use our energy this discovery with lots of active learning. We did dancing, climbing, digging, hitting, catching, building, twirling, running, jumping and lots more moving and groovying. Hope you enjoy looking at some of our photos.

Going Further in our Inquiry about the Body

To help us go further in our inquiry about our body we got to meet Harold. He shared with us more information about the Respiratory system and ways to look after our bodies.

Here are some facts.

Food + Oxygen = Energy

We breathe in Oxygen

We breathe out Carbon Dioxide.

Plants take in Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen.

Our body needs lots of things including shelter, exercise, water, sleep (moe), love (aroha), protection, to be kept clean, food (kai) and oxygen.

We are learning about the skeletal system.

JONTY helps us to identify where the bones would be in our body.

This song helped us learn some of the proper names for our bones.

WALT: share our talents in discovery time.

 During this weeks Discovery we had lots of fun outside. We got to dig in the sand pit, create obstacle courses which we tried to make it through without falling over, bean bag toss, balancing boards (very tricky without holding onto something). We got to take photos of each other using the macro button, which lets us take 'EXTREME' close up pictures.  We also did some building in Room 10.

Cooking broccolini with Patti

Latai, Corban and some lucky friends from Room 9 and 10 got to make a yummy mexican dish using broccolini with the help of Paulina's mother, Patti. The broccolini came from our school garden which we have been helping Mrs Edwards take care of during Discovery Time

 Thank you Patti for sharing your culture and cooking talent with us. It was very yummy! 

A Visit from Bishop Charles

Last week on Friday morning we had a special visitor to our classes.  Bishop Charles came to talk with the junior classes about his special role in the church and find out about what we have been learning as well.
There were some great questions asked by all the children and the one that he had to really think about was "What is your favourite colour?

Room 8 children showed great respect by listening attentively and enjoyed the experience of a special person visit from the church.  In class we have been learning about groups we belong to such as family, class, school and parish.  We are all part of Gods family.

Friday Mass

 On Friday, our class went to mass on the bus. 

We ate our lunch at church and we got to have juice as a treat.