Ziggy's trip to Lochmara

It's hard to believe we will be farewelling Ziggy on Friday, we will be saying goodbye to an amazing classmate and friend.  Here are some of the pictures Ziggy's mum took of their trip to Lochmara Lodge that their family won during Writer's Week.

Harold and Life Education Session 1

Today we visited Harold in the Life Education truck, WOW, what an amazing time we had.  We were learning about our reputation, how it is formed and what we can do to make sure we have a good reputation.

We also looked at looking at other people's body language to understand how they are feeling.  We talked about what a good friend is, and how we should expect our friends to treat us with kindness and respect too.

The value of what Life Education and Genevieve do, and of course lets not forget Harold!

Capacity and volume

This week we have spent our maths time with Room 16 learning and experimenting with Capacity and Volume.  We have had a great time with our neighbours using practical activities to extend our learning.  Encourage your children to talk with you about what they have done, get them to estimate the volumes of bottles and containers you have at home, this will cement their learning from in the class.

Here are some photos of two activities we did, estimating and measuring volumes of different sized cups, and, estimating and measuring the volumes of paper baskets we had made.

Wednesday Walk

We took advantage of the beautiful day to take a stroll amongst the beautiful blossom in Harling Park.  Ruruka explained that these trees are Japanese Blossoms and are called  桜 or 櫻; さくら.

Ruruka's Calendar

Ruruka has been working with our amazing ESOL teacher, Angela four morning a week improving her english and grammar.  She has made incredible progress this year. Ruruka loves reading Billie B. Brown books and decided she would create the world's first Billie B. Brown Calendar!

Ruruka and Angela presented the calendar to the class along with a author review, Ruruka has read over 20 Billie B. Brown books, so she knows her stuff!

Well done Ruruka, you are a talented illustrator and reader.

Visual Art - Sculpture

We have been learning about an incredible visual artist named Romero Britto, a Brazilian born, United States raised artist who loves bold and bright colour.  Romero creates fine art prints, portraits and sculpture and is completely self taught!  Here are some of his pieces that have sparked our imaginations:

   

                    

We have decided that we we create out own colourful sculpture, here's our progress so far.  We are hoping to have them finished in time for the Witherlea's Art Exhibition in Week 4.  Put in in your calendar!

Congratulation's Oscar - Award Winning Author

Last week was Writer's Week in the Marlborough Region.  All the local school entered pieces of writing into the competition in a number of different categories.  There were two prizes for each of the categories.  Witherlea School was lucky enough to have one winner awarded a prize for their school.  It brought tears to my eyes to let Room 17 know that our amazing Oscar Tupouto'a was the winner of the only prize for writing at Witherlea School.
He was selected the winner for the Marlborough Region in the category of
"A sentence to describe why I hate writing".

As a class we discussed how this topic is one that we disagreed with.  Hate is a very strong and negative word, one that we don't use.  And for this reason we though we would enter this category but with a twist!

Firstly, we came up with some reasons why we love writing, and then tried to twist these into reasons that could make it bad.   For example... writing takes us to far away imaginary places meaning we have to return to reality with a thump!  Some of us used sarcasm, I hate writing as it is totally, utterly, incredibly boring, NOT!

This was Oscar's entry:

"I despise writing because the teacher always offers me stickers.  Aren't I getting too old for stickers!"

Well done Oscar, I am so incredibly proud of you.   And I can tell by your smile, and the smiles of your classmates, that they are too.    Mālie, Oscar - Well done and wonderful (Tongan)

Writer's Week!

What an amazing few weeks we have had leading up to Writer's Week.  Every member of the class entered at least two different pieces of writing into the Marlborough wide competition.  We were also lucky enough to have Ziggy and Joe's writing displayed in the windows of Michael Hill Jewellers in town.    Well done everyone for your hard work!

Instructions in te reo māori

Room 16 & 17 spent the afternoon together today learning how to give instruction in te reo māori... here are a few videos to show you some of them!

Follow this link to check out Room 16's blog and the video...

Harry came home!!

Bella shared the most wonderful news with the class.... Harry her cat, who has been missing for over 7 weeks was found!  We are all so happy for the Strong Family... especially Harry!

Bella said that Harry had lost some mass since he has been gone.  She has showed how much she has learned from our Weight/Mass unit!  Ask you child what the difference is between Mass and weight... they may be able to tell you!  Otherwise check out this cute little video called Nigel & Martin.

Calendar Art

Check out our colourful calendar art for 2017.  We have been experimenting with colour mixing and making blends and tints this term.  Here is what we have been building up to... very impressive Room 17!  Feel free to come in to class and have a close up look of your children's work as the photos really don't do it justice!
Order form will go out soon for you to purchase cards, diaries and calendars featuring your child's work.  They make fabulous Christmas presents and all profits go back to the school.

(There are a few missing as we have had some kids off ill, 

I will have them posted as soon as their art is finished.)