Footsteps Dance Company

On Friday our school was lucky to have the Footsteps Dance Company give us a sample of dance lessons that they provide. We learnt a 'pop' dance in 30 minutes. The year 4-6 children loved it!

Karaka Fun Afternoon

To celebrate a fabulous year, karaka whanau had an afternoon of fun water activities!

karaka Fun Afternoon - slideshows

The Sasa

As a transfer task for Celebration, we had to present a song or dance from another culture to our whanau. Our class has been learning the Sasa, a Samoan dance. Generally the sasa is performed by a large group of people, it is normally performed sitting down, but there are parts of the dance which require the group to stand up. Every Sasa is different, some movements have never changed, however nowadays, more contemporary moves are now being added to the Sasa.
In groups we created our own actions and then as a class we chose some of the best actions from each group. We put these moves together to create a class Sasa.

Surfing

Our surfing lesson took place on a beautiful day in a beautiful setting, Matapouri.
Most of us were able to get up successfully and our water confidence improved immensely.
Look out mums and dads, maybe a surfboard will be on our Christmas wish list!

Surfing - slideshows

Karaka Celebration Assembly

On Friday, karaka Whanau hosted our school assembly. Our theme was Celebration and we chose to share the work we have done so far on chinese dragons.

Our classes have learnt about the Chinese New Year, Diwali, and legends and artwork from the Pacific Islands. Our class shared their tapa artworks and what they have learnt about turtles and how they are valued especially by Samoa.

Adventure Forest

Today the Year 4 classes started their two day outdoor education programme. The classes were split in half. Group A went surfing at Matapouri, and Group B went to the Adventure Forest in Glenbervie. The Adventure Forest involved a lot of courage, determination, problem solving and team work. It is demanding but very rewarding as well.

Adventure Forest - slideshow

Culture Day

As a culmination of our Immersion Week for Celebration, we held a Culture Day. We dressed up in costumes from other countries and held a concert where different groups from our school community performed dances. We also wrote prayers to celebrate our Catholic culture and tied these to balloons.
It was an awesome day organised by karaka whanau. Tumeke!

Celebration

Our concept for Term 4 is Celebration. We are learning that...

Marble Run Finished Products

The process of creating marble runs meant we had to change or modify our designs to ensure they worked and met the criteria. We were judged by our class mates on design and creativity. Jelford and Joshua's fun fair marble run was judged the best by the class.

Marble Runs

For our technology unit we decided to create marble runs for wet day activities. We got our inspiration from Melanie's dad's marble run which he made when he was a child. We googled marble runs and got heaps of ideas from there, we then designed our own marble runs. We decided to use recycled materials and work in teams of 2-4. These are photos of the creating process.

Father's Day

We created these caricatures of our dad's for Father's Day. We followed steps of how to draw a caricature and then coloured them in. We are sure you will agree that they are really cool!

Dad Caricatures - slideshows

NZ Marist Colts

This morning the NZ Marist Colts rugby team visited our school. They are on a tour and came to our school to give us sports equipment for the children to play with. They have the same motto as our school- love, learn, serve. They are serving others by visiting Catholic schools, giving out sports equipment, and being positive role models that boys can aspire to be like.

The boys come from all over NZ and there were two from Sydney and Argentina as well. We feel privileged to have them visit our school.

Voicemail

This widget at the bottom of the screen allows you to leave a voice message for our blog if you find it easier than writing a comment. Click on the link and record a message about what you like about our blog.

Marakihau

We read many Maori myth and legends. Stories were important taonga to Maori. They talked of their history and beliefs. Taniwha are kaitiaki (guardians), they protect areas and people. Some are peaceful but others can be ferocious. We read about marakihau (sea taniwha) who can swallow waka and boats whole. Marakihau are often carved in meeting houses (whare tupuna). We drew our marakihau and took a lot of time and pride in patterning and colouring them in.

Marakihau - slideshows

Marakihau - slideshows

The Great karaka Rescue

We had two concept days in Term 2. Our concept was taonga and Karaka whanau decided to create a taonga that we could treasure. We decided to create books about the Karaka tree to explain why it is a taonga. The children worked in mixed classes. The children were responsible for the artwork and the classes wrote a story as a whole class or in small groups. We have had our books published using snapfish an online photobook site. The books are beautiful and will be treasured by all. This is a quicktime showing you the book that was written in Room 20. This is not the proper book! You will have to go to the classrooms to see the published books. Please wait for the pages to turn.

Innovation video

Here is a video from Sciencelearn.org.nz which helps to explain what Innovation is...

Innovation

Our concept for Term 3 is Innovation. We are learning that....

Innovation Immersion Activity

The teachers gathered examples of household items that have been changed, modified, improved and are examples of innovation over time. Can you see how they have been changed to meet the needs of the users and make life easier.


Innovation over time on PhotoPeach

Times Tables App

At parent interviews one of our children shared an ipad app which she found very useful to help her learn her times tables. It is a free app called my times tables.

Kapa Haka

Here is a short video of our school kapa haka group singing at kapa haka practice one day. Tumeke!!!
We can't wait for them to perform for the school again. Quite a few children from Room 20 belong to the school Kapa Haka group.

We have been learning to sing this song. It is called Paradise and has been written by Waimarie Smith who is from Northland. This song won a song competition for NZ music month. It is a beautiful song and we just love singing it. We will be teaching the school this song at our next assembly. You can listen to it on youtube and learn how to sign while singing the song.

Taonga

Some of us brought our precious taonga to school to share with the class. We explained why it was taonga to us and our families. Some taonga were very old and had been handed down through our families, they are a link to our past.

Making Compost with Anna

Our world is a gift from God. It is a taonga which we all need to respect, honour and cherish. We are all kaitiaki for our world. Anna from Eco Solutions worked with us in Term 2. We learnt to make compost, to reduce our rubbish, recycle and make something useful out of our food scraps. Compost is food for plants, and we learnt how easy it is to make. Watch out parents we all want to make some for our gardens.

Soccer Skills

We were very fortunate to have 5 weeks of soccer skills with Owen. We enjoyed this immensely and will have more in Term 3. We learnt to kick, dribble, pass, and trap the ball.

Did You Ever

We talked about how there can be living treasures are friends are people we respect and cherish. We wrote a simple poem about our friends called Did You Ever.


Di d You ever on PhotoPeach

Taonga Immersion

Our Concept for Term 2 was Taonga. For our Immersion activity we had a series of close up photos. We had to search all around the school to find the taonga that these photos were taken of. It was harder than we thought.

Catholic Schools Day

On Catholic Schools Day we worked in our whanau groups. In Room 20 we had children from Rooms 18, 19, 20 and 21.

Kiwi Favs

I was in my bed and then I was shocked with surprise because my mum told me that my family had won. I said "what did we win?" and my mum said "the Kiwi favs competition" I froze like an ice block. Then my mum said "get up we need to go to Auckland". When we were in Auckland we got lost but luckily my dad had a map of Auckland.So we followed the map and we got there just in time to We had to have make-up on us, so we don't shine at the camera. I was so nervous but when I got on there I was confident and the best part was when I got to eat the cheese. When it was over it was 9 o'clock so we went back to the hotel. The next week it was on TV. We were so excited we jumped up and down. Here is the Kiwi Favs ad we made.

Melanie's Taonga

Hi this is my Taonga It has gems on it.It has gold around it and it has a humongous dark blue bit in the middle and it has three tassles. I got it when I was five, my nana gave it to me before she died. My nana gave it to me because we have handed it down through the generations.It's a taonga to me because my nana was really special to me and she had a sweet tooth because she gave Blake and I sweets. She died four years ago.

Karaka whanau song

This is a snippet of our whanau song that children from room 18 composed (lyrics and tune) Tumeke Karaka whanau

Tri Kids Grand Final

On Wednesday 10.4.13 we went to the tri kids grand final at Whangarei Primary School. Angus came 2nd in all of the year 4 boys. Melanie came 2nd in all of the year 4 girls.The hard bit was the swimming because every one pushed in. Over all we came 3rd. I hope next time we win the trophy. It was an exciting and fun day.
By Angus and Melanie

Summer Sports

We were fortunate to participate in the Summer Sports Tournament. We could choose to play v ball (netball), Turbo Touch, League Tag, Fuzball (indoor soccer) or baseball. It was a beautiful day, and as the day went on our teams got better and more skilled. Fun was had by all and we look forward to the Winter Tournament.

Summer Sports - slideshows

Tri Kids

As part of Hauora we were lucky to have Mr Healey in our school to introduce us to the world of Triathlon. We had to go on a slippery slide(swimming component), bike and run. We raced each other and had a terrific time!

Tri Kids - slideshows

karaka Whanau Sports

On Friday we had a tabloid sports afternoon. Karaka whanau sports were organised by our wonderful whanau leaders- Tori, Kanoa, Amelia and Lucy. They were exciting games and fun was had by all.
Tumeke, Karaka whanau!

Karaka Whanau Sports - slideshow

Gala Day

Swimming Champs

Today Emma G, Florry and Angus represented SFX Year 4's at the Whangarei Schools swimming champs. Emma and Angus were part of the Year 4 relay team which came 3rd, Angus also came 3rd in the Year 4 boys breast stroke. Well done guys. Tumeke!!!

Hauora

What has been happening in our whanau so far.....

Our Pepeha

We read a book Child of Aotearoa and talked about how important it is to Maori to know where they come from. They do this through their pepeha where they identify the mountain, river, waka marae tribe whanau from their local area. We have our class pepeha that we want to share with you.

Keeping Ourselves Safe

We are involved in the Keeping Ourselves safe programme with Constable Jasmine. We have been talking about what situations make us feel safe and what can make us feel unsafe, confused or worried. We will be looking at ways we can deal with situations where we feel uncomfortable.

Buddy Reading

On Fridays we have buddy reading with another class from our whanau. Room 20 has buddy reading with Room 19,  a Year 2 class. Room 19 children read one of their home readers to us then we share a picture book we have got out from the library. We are encouraging a tuakana teina relationship with other children in our whanau- older children look after and awhi (help) the younger children.

Family Picnic

On Thursday we had a family picnic and children were able to show their classroom to their parents and meet the teacher. It was a lovely relaxing afternoon for all. Thank you for coming.

Shrove Tuesday

The day before Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) is called Shrove Tuesday. Traditionally people would clean out their cupboards of fat, butter and eggs. They would make pancakes, pies or pastries.
We decided to make pancakes. Yum!

Kia ora! Nau mai, Haere mai. Welcome to our new blog for Room 20 2013.
We are part of Karaka whanau who are Mrs Cash- Room 18, Mrs Nicholls- Room 19 Mrs Alison- Room 21 and ourselves (Mrs Wendt- Room 20). We look forward to working closely together this year and building a sense of belonging and community within our whanau. No reira keep checking our blog where we will share some of the wonderful work we do with you all.