Week 4 Summary

This week has been as busy as always. I am finding it hard to keep updating this blog so am handing the job over to my PA! One of our classroom jobs each week is PA. They take the absence book over each morning, answer the phone and do any other notices that I may need them to do. Now their job will include a blog update in the form of a summary of the week's happenings in Room 24. This one for week 4 will give them all an idea of what I would like......

Our Reading focus has been non fiction and the written focus is report writing so we havechosen a mammal each and are presently researching information to complete a written report on this mammal. They kids have spent time on the laptops this week and are getting much better at note taking and transferring this in to their own words. We had to have discussions on plagiarism!

Once the written reports are completed we will be making imovies with voice overs and video documentaries on our mammals as part of our ICT programme and oral language.

Heke, Josh and Josh hard at work

We can't all have a laptop all the time - amazing what you can find

out from books too!

We have been making great progress with our papier mache penguins. All a little sick of it now actually and ready to paint! After 4 layers of newspaper we were able to cut out and attach cardboard feet, flippers and a beak. Then a final layer of newsprint was added to make the paint application easier.

Thanks for drinking all that fizzy! The first layers go on....

Layers 3 and 4.....

beak, feet and flippers attached - Bridget's ready

to paint on Monday

With Friday's sport cancelled it was time to start on our Annual Calendars for the PTA. These make wonderful Christmas gifts and this year diaries and greeting cards will also be on sale. We had a class discussion on the 'theme' for this year. Hmmm... very mixed ideas - so we came up with quite a 'mixed' design! You can look forward to viewing your child's masterpiece in a few weeks time! Here is a little selection of the first step - taking photos.......

Our Inquiry into Antarctica is coming along. It has been fascinating tracking the temperature at the South Pole compared with Christchurch and viewing a couple of video clips of the the researchers down in Antarctica coping in the extreme weather. We have looked at the early explorers and the hardships they faced. Next week we will discover more closely NZ's link to the area and the role we play there. After exploring the different jobs people from NZ do in Antarctica I will be asking the kids to apply for a position. Should be interesting...

The girls completing a timeline of early explorers with a little help from Google