Thursday, March 31, 2011

X-Country 2011

Today was the 2011 X-Country. We have been training at school every day for 2 weeks, and lots of the class have been doing extra training after school. Earlier in the week we all set goals for the race. Today we achieved our goals. Everyone put in a top effort and ran their very best race. Room 16 came out with some great results. Chloe is the 2011 Year 2 X-Country champion, and Niamh M came third. Well done Chloe and Niamh for earning a spot on the podium. We also had other fantastic results. Niamh B came in fourth. Te, Jake, Max and Kahn all finished in good positions for the boys, as did Caitlin, Ashley and Emma for the girls. Everybody completed the race and got a free ASB bank drink bottle. Well done!! I was very proud of you all and so were all the family and friends there watching. Here are a few photos of the day. Sorry if you were missed - some of you were just running too fast!


Friday, March 25, 2011

The Ant and the Grasshoppers

This week we read a big book called The Ant and the Grasshoppers. It is a play. Yesterday we got into groups and decided on who would play each part in the play. Next we practised reading the play out loud. Today we had one more practise and then one group got to perform. Here is a video of their efforts.



Next week the other groups will have their turn. Keep an eye out here for their videos. As we do more plays we will work on volume and using expression.

Lynley Dodd Character Descriptions

This week we have been learning to write character descriptions. We had to use describing words to put a picture in the reader's head. First we described ourselves. Then we choose one of our favourite Lynley Dodd characters and wrote a character description about them. We are also learning to start our sentences with different words. Here are some of our stories. See if you can guess which character the description is of.

I am a cat. I am black. My eyes are yellow and my ears are orange. At the end of my tail it is blond. Who am I? By Caitlin

I'm skinny and black. I like to steal stuff at night time and I am mean. Who am I? By Palm.

I am as big as a horse. My coat is brown. I have long legs. Also I have a lot of friends. Who am I? By Emma.

I am yellow. I have orange feet and I have an orange mouth. Who am I? By Te.

I'm low. I am brown. My coat is rough. I have a sausage tummy. My collar is blue. My tag is green. Who am I? By Olivia.

I am a black cat and I am mean. I have sharp claws. Who am I? By Kahn.

My coat is fluffy. Very very fluffy. I have a white coat. It keeps me warm. My fur is scruffy. Who am I? By Bella.

I am yellow and I have yellow feathers and I have orange feet. Who am I? By Swastik.

I am a black dog. I have a long coat and I am a bit naughty. Who am I? By Ashley.

I am strong and tough. I am angry. Who am I? By Finn.

Doubles

We have spent this week working on our doubles song every day during maths time. We are getting much better at knowing doubles to 20 out of order. The circles maths group are learning to use doubles to solve problems. E.g. 6 + 6 = 12 so 6 + 7 = 13. We filmed the song so everyone can practise at home. Thanks to Mrs Ashby and Room 17 for the background music on their blog.


Thursday, March 17, 2011

Spy Week

This crazy week of spy games all started last week, when Miss A told everyone that she was a teacher in the day time and a spy at night time!! She said that she had seen a St Albans teacher creeping around our school at night. So this week we wrote our own spy stories. We had to guess which teacher was creeping around the school, and what they were up to. Then Mrs Simmons came into our room with a note taped to her back that said: "Mrs Simmons is a Spy". Then she accidently dropped her spy notebook in our class!!













Next we collected up all the evidence we had gathered during the day and put it all on the whiteboard.










The Room 16 spies worked out that it was Mrs Simmons who was here at night and she had hidden something under the trap door in her cloak room. So we, (being the super spies that we are) distracted Room 15 and had a look. This is what we found:









It was a package with a note for the Room 15 children. Mrs Simmons had left them a present for having such great ideas in their story writing. It was nothing bad at all!!

On Thursday Miss A told us that she had been at school again the night before, and that there was another teacher who had snuck into our cloakroom and put something under our trapdoor. We wrote stories about what we thought was under there and who we thought had done it. Then we opened it.









This is what we found:









It was chocolates, lollies and a note from Secret Spy Agent J!! It could only be June Sutherland, Judy Calder, Julie Worthington or Jeannie. Miss A thinks it's Jeannie because she has been very secretive all week. And also, Jeannie does think that Room 16 children are awesome!! We will try and find out next week.

Thursday was also St Paddy's Day. We had green balloons, made shamrock hats and found out about St Patrick - the Patron Saint of Ireland. Miss A painted shamrocks on our cheeks. What a day! Lucky that we have 3 days to get ready for another great week next week.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Funday Friday

Wow we have had an action packed day of fun today. To start with - it was Bradley's birthday!! Happy birthday Bradley. He bought his new Bay Blade in to show us. Next meanie Miss A made everyone do their spelling tests!! But even after having an earthquake and some days off the results were good. Keep it up. Then we got to finish our pig paintings. They were fun to make and they are super cute. Here is a slide show of us finishing them and of the final products. Check it out.



Next we had singing with Mrs Toohey and Room 15. After that we had discovery time. We got out the playdough, stickers, construction and games. After we had packed up all of that we headed outside for a Funky Monkey's show!! There was singing, dancing, stories and bubbles, bubbles, bubbles! So many bubbles!! It was so cool. There was even a TV camera filming it so keep an eye out for us on TV. Here are some photos of the show.
























After lunch we read our big book - The Gardener's Maze. Then we had a go at all sorts of mazes. We couloured a maze from the book, tried drawing our own mazes on whiteboards, and had a good time making mazes with our construction things. Have a look.





























By 3pm we were all tired out after an exciting funday Friday and were ready for the weekend. See you all again on Monday.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Words of Wisdom

Here are today's words of wisdom from the brilliant minds of Rascal Flatts. I was listening to this song in the car today and thought it seemed appropriate.

You find your faith has been lost and shaken,
You take back what's been taken,
Get on your knees and dig down deep,
You can do what you think is impossible.
Keep on believing, don't give in,
It'll come and make you whole again,
It always will, it always does,
Love is unstoppable.

Keep looking after eachother. Kia Kaha. xx

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Let's get Learning!!

Ok it's time to get those brains working again. Here are some things you could do while school is closed:
Writing
Write something for me - this could be about the things happening at home, a fairy tale, a superhero story, a song, a poem . . . anything. If you can email me your writing I would love to read it. If you want your writing published I can post it here for you.
Reading
I'm sure you are all doing plenty of reading with your family. If you have read a great book recently then you could do a book review about it to share when school starts again. Remember to tell us the name of the book, the author/illustrator, what it is about and why you think we should read it too. If you need some more things to read, try this website http://www.magickeys.com/books/ .
Maths
This website is great for practising your basic facts: http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/mathfact/default.htm . Playing board games at home as also a great way to keep up your maths.
Spelling
You can practise some spelling words using this website http://www.spellingcity.com/ . Just get an adult to enter in some spelling words and you can play games and do activities that use your words.
Other Ideas
You can go to http://www.selwynridge.school.nz/kidszone.html to play the games that we play on our classroom computer. Remember to click on "Small World" or " Busy Bees".
Ask if you can do some cooking or baking and then write some instructions about the things you make.
Check out the newspapers and choose an item to share for current events when school starts back.
Illustrate a story that you have written. Remember that a great illustration will show us things that the story doesn't tell us.
If you have some earthquake photos, or photos of things you are doing at home then email these through to me. I can post them for others to see what you are up to.
You could simply send me an email to say hello and to let me know how you are doing. Try asking some questions and I will email you back to answer them. Reminder - my email is jodi.archbold@stalbans.school.nz

Remember to help out at home where you can. Big hugs to everyone. I am missing you all and hope to see you again soon. Love Miss A.