Morning Programme 1/4/16 - No fools here though!

And here goes this weeks crazy, water safe, karate crew!!!

First up today was

Payton, who talked to us about how to keep ourselves safe around water.  She showed us how to fit a life jacket properly with the help of her friend Pooh Bear - "It needs to be a nice bright colour and it must fit properly."

Followed by:

Dusty, who gave us a book review about "Playful Puppies." She likes trying tricks from this book with her dog, Astro.

After returning our Library books, we had:

Alia, who spoke to us about a place that is going to be very special to her!  Her new home at Molyneux Estate.  Her family is building a new house there and she is really looking forward to all the new friends she will make and fun activities she'll be able to do.

Followed by:

Jack S, who spoke to us about himself.  Wow, we all learnt something new about Jack that we didn't already know.  What a great detailed description.  Thank goodness there's no snakes slithering round here!

Finally today:

Jelena, who spoke to us about Sensei Kawata who is a famous person in Samurai Karate.  The World Championships in Samurai Karate is called the Kawata Cup after him.  He is 83 years old and still practices and teaches karate.

Library

Hi Everyone

Just a wee reminder that the Library closes this week, so all books MUST BE RETURNED ON FRIDAY or by early next week, for any of those 'tricky-to-find-books!'

Thanks heaps
Adele 

Year 3 & 4 Scripture Reading Eisteddfod

Scripture Reading Challenge 2016

• Your scripture reading can be anything you like, eg. a parable, a psalm, a reading from the Gospels.

• Introduction – Years 3/4: 15-20 seconds, This is a time to use the main ideas or theme of the scripture reading to make up a small speech explaining what the reading means to you, without retelling the reading – ie. ‘What the story of the Last Supper tells/demonstrates/means to me is ...... ‘

• The Reading:  for all of year 3 & 4 should be 1 to 1 and a half minutes long

• Format for scripture reading on the day – students will start with their introduction, then  say “This is a reading from eg. Matthew Chapter 3, Verses 1 -14 ...” then start the reading. At the end, if it is a gospel reading only say, “The Gospel of the Lord” otherwise  say “The Word of the Lord”.

• Timetable – Monday  11^th or Tuesday  12^th April, class Eisteddfods will be heard, with Room 4 as the Eisteddfod cup is for Years 3 & 4.

-       Eisteddfod assembly will be on Thursday 14^th April in the church, names will be in the school newsletter.

• For students to remember

-       When reading from the bible you do not have to look up at your audience all the time

-       Use good expression when you read.

-       Do not read too fast.

-       Pause correctly.

-       You do not have to learn you reading off by heart but you should learn your introduction.

-       Make sure your words and voice are very clear, so that your audience understands.

Week 8 Term 1

Well 2 short weeks coming up. Please remember that we have Good Friday, followed by Easter Monday and Tuesday.  See everyone back at school on Wednesday 30th after a safe break with family, friends and of course after time spent with the church family at the special celebrations of Easter.
Thursday 12:00 in the church the school will be sharing an Easter Paraliturgy.  We hope that you are able to join us as we retell the events from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.

As the time of sniffles is upon us, could you please make sure that you have sent a box of tissues to school.  We have had 5 from 23 students.  I took this item off the stationary list as I felt sure people could access these at a cheaper price.

Reading this week is drama - Tuesday for our paraliturgy, Choral Reading - which is in our poetry books on Wednesday and of course the paraliturgy on Thursday. Many people have library books on the go as well or can choose a text from their browsing boxes. I do expect reading to take place each night and be recorded in homework books.

Spelling should be practised each night. It will be tested next Friday - so work on it Tuesday, Wednesday this week and Wednesday, Thursday next week.

Eisteddfod - Bible Reading needs to be ready to present on Monday 11th April.  I'll post the information sheet separately and will print a hard copy for homework books.

Looking forward to seeing many of you at our Easter celebration on Thursday.

God bless - have a wonderful break.  I'm excited to be heading to Christchurch to spend time with my newest grandsons - lots of cuddles I hope.

Leprechaun Traps

Very exciting, very engaged and using lots of "habits of mind" as we worked on making our creative designs.  We used language like levers, pistons ….. and most of us had to rethink some parts of what we had intended to make.  All in all a great learning activity.. good luck if your trap is out on the grass, may you have a successful catch or is it only the 'luck of the Irish'?

No posed photos here - many people were deep in thought trying to overcome some teething problems with their designs.

Morning Programme 18th March 2016

Today's super organised MP team.  Well done you superstars.

Today...

Greer gave us a book review of the wonderful story, "Fantastic Mr Fox" by Roald Dahl.  We loved hearing her review of the horrible crooks, so different in looks, one fat, one short, one lean, that's Boggis, Bunce and Bean!  Not to mention, the very cunning and cheeky Fantastic Mr Fox.

Lily told us about a famous person who was born 671 years ago.  He was an engineer or an inventor and an artist.  He designed a crossbow and a helicopter.  But he is more well known for his artworks - his sculpture of David, his painting of "The Last Supper" and the most famous painting in the world, "The Mona Lisa."

This famous man is: Leonardo Da Vinci.

Otis talked to us about a place special to him, called Arrowtown where his nanny lives. He told us about bike tracks, the "epic" bike park, the Arrow River and the "scrumptious" lolly shop and ice-cream shop.  The great thing is Arrowtown is only a one hour drive away.

Casey showed us how to knit... finger knit.  It was awesome and we all want to give it a go.  She told us we would need some wool, a pop stick to hold our place, a bag to keep it in and a finger!  Then she explained and demonstrated how to loop the wool around a finger and pull the bottom loop over and off.   

Library Day

Remember Library Day tomorrow - Friday

Also are the Morning Programme people prepared?

Keyboard Climber

Lily Middendorf brought me this as a better site for learning to type on the computer.  It is easier than the BBC Dancemat Typing. Have a go and see what you think.  I'm really keen on learning some  keyboard skills which will make presenting work so much faster as we move through the school. I'm a 'hunt and peck' keyboarder, which is not very efficient, so don't want to see this next group of learners develop a self taught style like this.  Latin has not been much use in this age of technology!!!

Week 7 Term 1

Well done everyone for a tremendous effort at the triathlon today and thank you so much parents for helping us have our biles at school last week and again at the pool today. Thanks also to the parents who assisted as marshals at various spots around the course. If it wasn't for your support we could never run an exciting event like this for our students. Thank you Mrs Waldron for the fantastic photos of us giving 100% to this race. So proud of how you all stepped up for this challenge, especially when it was so hot.  Lost Property: from this event is in a plastic bag in the lost property box.  Lars, I have your blue goggles.
St Patrick's Day = Thursday. Our cultural leaders have some exciting things planned to mark this day.  Please wear green (not necessarily your uniform), and celebrate this Patron Saint of Ireland.  Please bring a gold coin donation to support the CARITAS appeal which will provide support for Cambodia.
Friday will see us making our leprechaun traps which we are designing as part of our poetry this week.  The plans will be in homework books by Wednesday. Make sure that you have collected all the bits you need - we will start making after we have tested our spelling on Friday. There is a very creative bunch in Room 3 so I can't wait to see what your amazing brains come up with.
PTA AGM: the 2 parents who I am aware are representing Room 3 are Loretta Fonseca and Maria Shea - they also have children in other classes where there are not 2 representatives. If you would like to be a Room 3 representative on the PTA please don't hold back - it may mean that either of these mums can represent their other child's class.  Please support this amazing group as they work to change how the PTA works and establish "Friends of the School".
Spelling this week will come home on Tuesday night. We are still to test last week's list and tool our list for this week.  So good to see so many people really polishing their tooling skills and listening carefully to the sounds, then writing them in order.

Homework

• Reading 'the more you read, the more you know'
• Spelling
• Study Ladder
• Eisteddfod - Scripture Reading great to hear that some people have already chosen the story they want to present.

Triathlon - Way to go Room 3 People!

Morning Programme - 11th March 2016

This weeks MP crew with their notes and props.

Another awesome effort this week, well done guys!

First up today:

Amelia  - she spoke to us about herself, her family and her special friend Cindy.  Cindy has a dog that once was a puppy of one of Amelia's dogs.  His name is Tank!  Do you think he might be really big like a tank?   Hmmm, he's not - he's a little black and white Jack Russell!

Secondly:

Charlotte - who gave us a book review of a non-fiction book called "Amazing Armoured Animals."  This book was about how animals armour can protect them from the predators who want to eat them.  Charlotte showed us a mouse who has hidden spikes in his hair to protect it from cats and dogs.  Wow that's a clever piece of armour!

Next up today was:

Jack - who told us how to make chocolate chippie biscuits.  And you guessed it... he brought some along for us to try.  They were melt-in-your-mouth-delicious.  And... what was really neat is Jack gave everyone a copy of the recipe, so that they can try them at home.

After our nibble, we had:

Hayvin - who showed us on a huge map of New Zealand where to find Oamaru.  It's on the coast which means it's by the sea.  Oamaru is a special place for Hayvin because he has some cousins there who run a motel.

Next was:

Mason - on current events who reported about high winds causing havoc yesterday.  He told us about some of the "havoc" or problems the super strong winds caused, like roofs being blown off houses, camper vans blown off the road, trees blown over, trampolines going flying and scrub fires getting out of control, which is really dangerous.  In Invercargill the winds were up to 120 kilometres which is faster than a car on the open road.  That's strong and fast!

And finally today:

Sophie - who told us about a famous person.  An author and illustrator whose stories we have been reading lots of in Room 3.   An author who was born 150 years ago and whose 28 books about animals we still love today.  Yes, that famous author is Beatrix Potter!  Did you know, her first name was actually Helen!

Keep up the good work team.

Next Friday sees us back to the first group ready to start round two.  Please check the timetable in homework books or look it up on here so you and your child can prepare for their next topic.

PTA AGM

Wednesday 16th March 7:30pm in the staffroom.  I forgot to ask at our Meet The Teacher whether we have 2 parents from Room 3 willing to be part of this group for 2016.  I'm pretty sure that we have several people who are on the PTA at present. Please support this group as they do so much to support your children's learning amongst all the other things they do to make our school family such a supportive one.

Sports Shirts - Uniform Shop

The school uniform shop was open after school today for anyone who needs to buy sports T-shirts. Kate will also have this open again from 8:45 - 9:15  on Friday morning. If you need to make contact for uniform items the email address is: stgerardsuniforms@gmail.com or Kate Donaldson 0276229226

Library Reminder

Room 3 Library day is Friday

We only have a few Fridays left before the library will close to be transformed into a classroom.  So please help your child remember to return their books so they can issue new ones for the remaining few weeks.

Unleavened Bread

Taste test

More tasting

Writing about unleavened bread

Yesterday as part of our Inquiry about "Where Our Food Comes From" the children got the opportunity to make some unleavened bread.

We were very lucky to have the lovely Regina come and help us.  She showed us some barley straight from her garden and other grains that she uses.  She also showed us how to grind grains into flour.  Regina has a manual grinder and an electric one too - the electric one was so much faster!  

We used the wholemeal flour that we ground in Regina's grinder to make our bread.  

Our bread was ready just in time for us to try it at the very end of the day.

A HUGE "Thank you" to Regina for helping out.  You were amazing.

Today we tried some more that Mrs Waldron made last night.  Because it had cooled it was harder and crunchier.  We talked about yesterdays process of making the bread and described using our senses what the warm and cool bread were like.

Here are some samples of our unfinished writing so far...

Interviews

The first of our anniversary reports are in the pipeline at the moment. As Mrs Waldron only works mornings, except every 2nd Wednesday when I am not back at school until about 4pm,  we will choose one afternoon after school where we will both be here.  At this stage it looks like it will be a Tuesday when there is not a Syndicate Meeting - hard to believe how difficult this has been.  Will advertise which Tuesday on here.  Remember that if you have any worries you do not need to wait until it is reporting time to discuss these.

Triathlon Training - Run to Bike Transition

Thank you so much to the parents who have arranged for bikes to be at school.  We started our learning by looking at the parts of the bike that we needed to check to make sure that it was safe to ride - especially knowing which are the front and back brakes.  Thank you to those of you who have had bikes checked as all looked to be safe with no broken pedals, worn out hand grips and most people had their seats adjusted so well.  That was the bike safety part - then we moved on to our safety about what to wear - shoes and a correctly fitted helmet.
Then we were ready for the fun part.  We layed out a transition area and set our bikes up, ready to practise how to run in, put on our gear and push our bikes out to the cone before we got on to ride.  We then had to remember to get off our bikes again at the cone and run/walk and push our bikes back into the area before running ready for the swim.  A couple of injured classmates watched how we went and gave us feedback at the end of our session.  Well done Room 3 - you are budding triathletes.
Some photos below show us in action.  Apologies that there is a gender imbalance - I was helping one of our girls while the boys whirred into action.

Pushing out of the transition area to the cone before getting on to ride.

We all feel that we know exactly what we will need to do on the day, as only marshals will be allowed inside the transition area to help us.
We talked a bit about 'gears' as last year I noticed some younger students riding really hard but not going very far.  Please talk to you child about which gear/s will be the best for this activity.

Go Year 3

Week 6 Term 2

It was great to hear that so many people from our room attended the Saturday night picnic, games and Mass.  Thank you to David and Adam who helped Room 4 with their presentation and I believe Lars took up the offering.  Lovely to see you stepping up as part of our church family.  Thank you also to the parents who supported this venture.

Triathlon: please see the school newsletter for full details of race times. This will be held next Monday 14th with the first race starting at 12:40 - the Year 5 - 8 competitive race. We will compete with year 4. The order of activities is run, bike then swim.  There is a cup for the winners of this event. To be competitive for the cup the swim leg must be done as 2 lengths of the main pool.  There is also the choice to complete 4 lengths of the therapeutic pool as part of the year 3/4 race. I will have the names of those swimming in the main pool for Mrs Flannery by Friday. If you have any concerns, please contact me.  On the day of the triathlon we will travel to the pool by bus - parents will need to arrange for bikes to be delivered there and collected again at the end of the event. There will be no bus back to school and any children not taken home by parents will walk back to school with teachers. Please let me know before you take your child home, so that we can account for everyone.  I will be marshalling at the bike transition.

Triathlon Training: will be our PE/fitness focus again this week.  To allow for learning how to manage in the transition between running and biking it would be great if everyone could have a bike at school Tuesday - Thursday.  Bikes need to be parked at the bike stands and helmets hung on the hooks outside the classroom.  No bikes are to be ridden at playtime or lunchtime. Bikes can be stored in the classroom overnight,

Mass this Friday at 12:00 - Room 6 to lead. Assembly at 2:10 led by Rooms 1 & 2.

Scripture Reading Eisteddfod: It's time to start thinking about a favourite text from the Bible that your child enjoys and can talk about. The reading needs to be read from a Bible and I think everyone in Room 3 will have received the gift of a Bible from the PTA when they started at St Gerards, so it should be easy.  I will put up on the Blog the exact expectations once I have confirmed them with Mrs Ward, as we will need to present these together this year.  All year 3 & 4 students are in the running for the eisteddfod cup. Some people may find it easy to read a longer text, but this is not the expectation as some stories are very long.  Choose a few verses from your favourite story - the ones most important to you, and read them well - you do not need to memorise them. This is Scripture Reading.  These will be heard on Monday 11th April. Plenty of prior warning here.  If anyone needs help to choose a text please see me.

Next week we will be working on a little technology as we have a bit of fun with all things Irish and design some leprechaun traps, which we will make on Friday. Any items of recycling that would be useful for this activity could be saved up and brought to school at the end of next week.

HELP: Some poetry and homework books are somewhere at home. As we use these every day at school they need to be here.  Monday is the day we set up for the week and it's hard if you are playing catch up.

St Gerards School Computer and Internet Use:
Still a few people to return these signed up by parents.  Please check with me if you are not sure.

Homework:

1. Reading 
2. Spelling
3. Morning Programme preparation
4. Maths - Study Ladder
5. Dance Mat Typing - who has had a go at this?

Monday Morning Catchup

Belated Morning Programme with David and Lily

Well, today was David, Take 2...
Unfortunately, luck and Keynote updates were not on our side! However, David and his trusty Mum were prepared with a hardcopy also.  Brilliant backup!

Phew!!!

So... David's topic was "Our Place" and he spoke to us about Akaroa, on the Banks Peninsula.  He said it is the only place in New Zealand that was settled by French people.  David had a great camping holiday in Akaroa.  He described lots of fun activities to do there, like boating, snorkelling, kayaking and swimming - sounds like a good place to take your swimming togs and towel! 

Lily gave us a Book Review of a book called "Princess, Save Yourself"  Lily told us it is about a princess, called Adrienne and a dragon, called Sparky who have a big adventure together.  It is a sort of comic story.

Well done again today team.  Now we're looking forward to Amelia K, Charlotte O,  Jack O, Hayvin, Mason and Sophie this Friday...

Morning Programme - 4th March 2016

This weeks Morning Programme Crew.  Archie with the amazing Pretzels he made with his mum.

First up today:  

Archie.  He described to us "How to make Pretzels"  He shared the recipe and explained how important it is to use warm water so that the yeast can work properly and make the dough grow!  If it's too hot the yeast will die if it's too cold it won't activate. Luckily Archie and his mum got this just right and we got to try one and they were scrum-diddly-umptious!

Next:

Dusty.  Dusty was away last week, so today, she told us all about herself.  Did you know that she used to live in Dunedin?

Following on was:

Amelia.  She also told us about herself and her family. Amelia likes gymnastics and climbing a rope she has at home - she likes climbing trees too, I think she's a bit of a monkey!

Next up:

Adam.  He told us some facts about Nelson, which is right up the top of the South Island.  Adam went to the Colgate Games in Nelson and he did really well.

Afterwards was:

Lars.  Lars told us about some very large pinecones that can be found in Queensland, Australia.  These pinecones can be as big as canon balls and weigh up to 10kgs!  Goodness best we don't linger under one of those trees!!!

Finally:

David.  Unfortunately David was not able to present today, due to technical difficulties...  However, we have since tracked down the appropriate information so he will present about "Our Place" on Monday.

I think everybody is doing a fantastic job of Morning Programme so far. Everybody is working really hard to speak clearly, confidently and with the right volume.  A big thank you to Mum's and Dad's for helping your children to prepare.  Keep up the great work.

(PS.  Room 3 people, can you identify what genre or style of writing I have used to write in the Blog today?)

 

Lost Property

Today's pile picked up from the hat bin and outside the classroom.

This is becoming a problem with the cooler mornings. The rule is - if you take off a jersey/polar fleece it goes into your bag at the next break. I can only imagine the problem at home each morning when all the warm uniform items are at school in the 'hat box'.  Please reinforce this at home, will make it easier both ways.  We are right into self management in Room 3, and this is a biggie at the moment.  We are super duper at our reading folders and homework books though. Keep this up!!

Our School Garden

At the Community Garden we learned to identify 20 different plants - well that is how many names we shared with Mrs Brydges today.  We went into our school garden and explored the plants there - amazing Mrs Brydges could find 22 or 23 different plants and we were pretty smart at naming them too. We even recognised plants that were seeding so that we can use their seeds next year and had a taste of beans that have grown from seeds that we planted with Mr Hogue last year.  A great afternoon of learning.

 Weeding the Room 3 garden patch, before adding compost to get the soil ready for planting.

 What are these plants? Look at how many seeds 1 plant can produce.

 What are these plants? Small capsicums and carrots.

 Is our carrot as big as Mr Seymour's? Not quite but it is an interesting shape.

 What are we tasting? Apricots, yellow plums - no 'heritage tomatoes' that are yellow in colour. Yum!

 Working in the 'compost area' with Regina.

 

 Counting the plants that have grown from the senior school's experiment. 100 seeds sown in a seed tray and 100 sprinkled in the garden.  We could count more than 100 seedlings in the tray but only 4 or 5 in the garden plot.

 Bagging up compost for our part of the garden.

 Look at the size of this worm that is in the compost we are putting into our garden patch.

Thank you Sue, Regina and your helper for a great afternoon of learning. We will be the "Guardians of the Garden".