Term 4, Week 10

Merry Christmas!

Room 8 would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! We hope you all have a fantastic holiday break, have some fun, enjoy family time, get some rest and most importantly stay safe. We have had a wonderful year together!

Thank you Room 8 for being such superstars this year! I am so incredibly proud of all of your hard work and the progress you have made this year - you are all outstanding!

From Miss Smith

Term 4, Week 10

Congratulations!

Congratulations to our three end of year award recipients Greer, Emere and Reeve! These three students have been Striving to Succeed all year and have displayed fantastic focus, dedication and determination towards all learning areas. These students also respond positively to feedback and feedforward so that they can make progress in their learning. 

I am so proud of these Stanley Avenue Learners and of all of my hardworking, kind, caring and focused Room 8 students - you have all been outstanding this year!

Term 4, Week 7

Junior School Hamilton Gardens Trip

On Wednesday the Junior School went to the Hamilton Gardens as part of our 'Growing' inquiry unit. We were very fortunate with the sunny weather and we all had a blast! There were lots of gardens that we were able to explore together. We saw different plants, flowers, birds, colours, fountains and statues. 

Room 8 would love to say a big THANK YOU to our amazing parent helpers who came along on our adventure and helped to keep us safe. We really appreciated your assistance and we hope you enjoyed wandering through the gardens with us too!

Here are some photos of the Junior School explorers...

Term 4, Week 6

Inquiry Artwork

In Room 8 we have been growing our little gardens for our inquiry unit. We have also been learning and practising the skill of observational drawing. Observational drawing is when you draw something exactly as you see it - you don't draw what you think you can see. 

We  looked carefully at our little gardens and took our time to carefully draw what we could see on the plant. We used lots of detail. Then we used pastels to colour in and dye for the backgrounds. 

They will be displayed in Room 8 soon, so keep an eye out.

Take a look!

Term 4, Week 5

In the Garden

Last Friday the eager Room 8 and Room 11 kids joined forces to weed out our planter boxes in the school garden to prepare them for our seedlings.

We started off by going on a scavenger hunt around the garden to see what interesting living things we could spy... Then we had heaps of fun getting our hands dirty! 

Mr Durbin showed us how to dig down to the bottom of the roots of the weeds, lift them up and shake of the excess dirt. Taking out the roots ensures the weeds will not regrow. 

We now have a spot in the school garden that is weed free for us to plant out our New World Little Gardens that we have been growing in class.

Take a look at the Room 8 and 11 "Little Gardeners" in action...

Term 4, Week 4

A Visit From a Rabbit...

This morning we were lucky enough to be visited by a rabbit named Coco. Coco belongs to Nevaeh and she is a young lop-eared rabbit. We had heaps of fun looking at Coco hop around the circle and some of us even got to pat her! We had to be very quiet because she has big ears and doesn't like loud noises. She is very cute! Take a look...

Term 4, Week 2

Growing Inquiry

This week we have continued our growing inquiry by producing some awesome collage artwork that shows the different parts of a flowering plant.

Our plants have roots, a stem, leaves, a flower, petals and some even have seeds in the center of the flower.

We will be presenting our artwork at assembly today!

Take a look!

Term 4, Week 1

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to Term 4, Room 8! We have lots of exciting learning and events planned for this term!
Please remember to bring your hats back to school by week 2. It is very important that we wear our hats everyday while we are outside in the playground. As the weather gets warmer, it is also a good idea to bring a drink bottle to school each day. These may be kept in class on the back bench. 

Growing Inquiry

This week we have started our 'Growing' inquiry unit, by planting our New World 'Little Gardens'. We are going to be keeping an eye on our gardens in class and then we will (hopefully) re-plant them out in the school garden. We can't wait for our 'Little Gardens' to start sprouting!

Here are some photos of our gardens...

Yesterday we also started learning about the life cycle of plants. Miss Smith gave us the challenge of organising a group of pictures in the correct order to show the life cycle of a sun flower plant. At the start some of us put our pictures in a line starting with the seed and then finishing with the dead sun flower. But one group had a different idea... They put their pictures in a circle to show that once the sun flower dies, the seeds in the middle drop out and start growing again! It's an endless chain.

Check out our awesome learning...

Term 3, Week 9

End of Term

Wow! We have come to the end of Term 3 already! We have had a fabulous term filled with lots of learning and fun. We have been focusing on working together as a team, and striving to fill our 'class bucket' with positive behaviours, manners, and kindness. We have been successful in filling our bucket, so today as a class treat, Miss Smith is buying us hot chips for lunch! We are so excited to celebrate our achievements together at lunchtime.

Room 8, I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday! I look forward to seeing you next term on Monday 10th October.

Term 3, Week 8

Olympic Rower Robbie Manson

We were very fortunate to have Robbie Manson come and visit us today. Robbie is an Olympic Rower and competed at the Rio Olympic Games earlier this year. He is also a friend of Mrs Knyvett. We had a fantastic time with Room 10 asking him questions about rowing and the Olympics and we have come away with so much new learning. He showed us two of his rowing medals that he has won recently as well as two different rowing suits that he has worn in past events. 

Next term we will be taking a look at the design/technology process to create a new shirt for Robbie to wear while rowing. We are really looking forward to this!

Here we are having a great time with Robbie!

Term 3, Week 8

Life Education

Last week we were lucky enough to go and visit Mike and Harold at the Life Education truck. We learnt all about social relationships, what makes us who we are and who influences us. 

We learnt about personality and how this influences our choices, likes and dislikes. Mike and Harold taught us a really cool rap about our personality...

Our personality

Controls the way we think,

Controls the way we feel,

Controls the way we act,

and the things we like to do!

We also talked about our circle of influence. This is the circle of people around us who influence the things that we do and how we feel. Everyone is influenced by different people. We also value and think different people or groups of people are important to us. For example lots of people think that their family and friends are really important to them and influence the choices that they make. Others think that sports teams and classmates are really important too. 

We are all different and unique!

Here are some photos of us visiting Mike and Harold!

P.S. Harold the Giraffe told us a joke (it was only kind of funny but we had to pretend to laugh so we didn't hurt his feelings). It was...

"How do you catch a unique rabbit?... You-'nique' up on it!"

Term 3, Week 7

Charlotte's Web

This term Room 8 have been listening to the novel Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. When Miss Smith reads out loud to us, we have to visualise and make pictures in our heads because there are not many pictures in the book. We have practised this by shutting our eyes and listening to the chapters and then talking about the pictures we make in our minds. This is really cool because we all imagine different things!

Charlotte's Web is an awesome novel about a piglet named Wilbur who gets raised by his human friend Fern. Wilbur has many adventures on the farm but when he finds out he might become the Christmas dinner he gets the help of his friend Charlotte to save him. Charlotte, however, happens to be a spider, and Room 8 are about to find out how a small creature like Charlotte the spider can save a big pig like Wilbur.

We used our class novel to inspire our calendar artwork for this year. 

Check it out!

These will be coming home at a later date for families to purchase as a calendar. Until then, please feel free to come and have a closer look at our fantastic artwork in our foyer.

Term 3, Week 5

Jungle Fever Disco

Check out our 'wild' Room 8 kids at the Jungle Fever Disco last night!

Term 3, Week 4

SAS Cross Country

Yesterday Stanley Avenue School children all participated in our annual school cross country, across the road at Boyd Park. 

Room 8 children tried their absolute best in all of their races!

Before going over to Boyd Park, we discussed the reasons why we run in the cross country. Room 8 decided that the cross country is not just about getting fit and trying to come first, but a chance to show house spirit, cheer on our teams, try our best, and Whaia Kia U - Strive to Succeed! Room 8 children showed all of these as they cheered on their school house members and participated in the races the best that they could to achieve their personal goals. 

Miss Smith was so incredibly proud of all of your efforts - congratulations!

A snapshot of our awesome cross country.

Term 3, Week 3

Bruce Potter Illustrator

Today we were privileged to have Mr Bruce Potter come and visit Stanley Avenue to share his amazing doodles with us! Room 8, 11 and 13 all went to the library first thing to meet Mr Potter and he took us on an exciting doodling adventure. We were able to give Mr Potter ideas from our own imaginations to create a hilarious looking creature - with elf ears, a pig nose, a triple chin and even a tutu! 

Take a look at the collage of some of the awesome moments we had creating with Mr Potter. 

We learnt that there are no rules when it comes to doodling as what we draw on the paper comes from our own imaginations. We might have to give this a try ourselves!

 

Term 3, Week 2

Tumbles

During guided reading time, Room 8 children participate in individual literacy tasks in their 'tumble teams', when they are not reading with Miss Smith. There are five teams, each with 4-5 students in them. Each team has a leader and the other team members take turns being in charge of the other responsibilities, such as controlling the team noise levels or making sure everyone gets involved in the activities. Room 8 have heaps of fun developing in literacy during this time. 

Take a look at how focused we are on our tumble rotations!

Term 3, Week 1

Room 8 Loves to Read!

Check out how focused we are in the library!

Welcome back to Term 3. Room 8 are very excited and ready to learn lots this term!  
We have started off with a bang, producing some great writing and art. 
Keep an eye out for photos of our wonderful work on the blog.

Term 2, Week 10

Getting Active at Lunchtime

It has been great to see our Room 8 kids getting active at lunchtimes. 

On Wednesday I saw some awesome soccer skills and great team players out on the field!

Term 2, Week 9

Maui and The Sun Foyer Display

Our sun artwork is up in the Room 8 foyer. Come and check it out!

Term 2, Week 7

Maui and the Sun

Check out our completed Maui and the Sun artwork! 

It will be up in our class foyer shortly.

Term 2, Week 6

Maui and the Sun Artwork

We read the legend of Maui and the Sun as part of our inquiry unit about Myths and Legends. 

Today we finished our artwork that we have created of the sun in the legend. We included Maori patterns in our designs and we used dye over pastel to make them.

Keep an eye out for photos of the completed work or you will be able to see them displayed in our foyer very soon!

Term 2, Week 6

Zero Waste

Over the past two weeks we have had Miss B. from Zero Waste come into Room 8 to teach us all about ways we can reuse items that we might normally throw away. We learnt that old clothes can be handed down to younger siblings or cousins, ripped up for rags or donated to 'op shops' for other people to buy at a cheap cost. Things such as glass bottles can be reused as vases for flowers and you can reuse plastic bags from your shopping to carry your swimming togs or even your lunch! 

We had fun reusing tin cans from home, transforming them into awesome 'Desktop Tidy's" to store our pencils and glue sticks in.

Check out our cool desktop tidy's! There's a robot, a pig, a chick, even a couple of bunny rabbits!

Term 2, Week 3

Scarecrow Finger Puppets

We made scarecrow finger puppets to go with our poem called "Scarecrow" by Alan Bagnall.
We made them out of card and glue.

Term 1, Week 11

Holidays

Dear Room 8,

I have been so impressed with your hard work, enthusiasm and eagerness for learning this term. You have made my first term at Stanley Avenue School the best it could be! I am so lucky to have a lovely class like you.

Make sure you have a fantastic holiday - get lots of rest, have lots of fun, and most importantly stay safe! I look forward to seeing you all ready to go for Term 2 on Monday 2nd May.

See you next term!

From Miss Smith

Term 1, Week 11

ANZAC Day

This week we have been learning about ANZAC Day and why we celebrate it. 

What is Anzac Day?

Anzac Day is on April 25th every year, and is a day for New Zealanders and Australians to remember men and women who have served and lost their lives in war.

April 25th 1915 is the day that New Zealand and Australian soldiers landed at Gallipoli during World War 1. This was a time of great loss for our countries and that is why we commemorate those that lost their lives on this day.

We now remember all of the brave men and women who have served and lost their lives in other wars on this day, too. 

Our Poppies

When Mrs Corrigan was in on Thursday we created our own class acrostic poem about ANZAC Day using the word MEMORIAL. We then made our own poppies to display with our class poem. 

Men in soldier's uniforms,

Enemies,

Memories of lost friends,

Odes written about battles,

Respecting our elders,

Important to remember them, 

ANZAC's fighting,

Lost and loved.

By Room 8

Term 1, Week 10

Cricket

This term we have been lucky enough to have John Muir come into school and share his cricket expertise with us. We have been learning about different cricket techniques by playing some awesome games. In Room 8 we have many talented cricket players!

On Wednesday this week, we learnt about how to bowl the ball in cricket. We learnt that it is important to hold the ball with your fingers and not with the palm of your hand and also to keep a straight arm when bowling. 

Our cricket super stars!

Term 1, Week 10

Word Work

Most mornings in Room 8 we participate in word work. Word work involves practicing our phonics and spelling. We start with word rumble where spelling words come up on our interactive board and we copy them on our own mini whiteboards. Sometimes we have to have very fast hands to write the long words quickly before they disappear! We then chant our alphabet names and sounds as well as our blends and digraphs. Each week we focus on one sound and we brainstorm as many of the words that we can that contain that sound - for example words have the short 'a' vowel sound (cat, mat, apple, and...). 

Word Rumble

Alphabet chart

Blends/digraphs chart

We use what we learn in word work to help us with our writing and reading.

Term 1, Week 9

Ruben the Road Safety Bear

We were lucky enough to be visited by Ruben the Road Safety Bear last Thursday. We had heaps of fun meeting Ruben and learning about how to keep ourselves safe on our roads.

Our Visual Mihi

In Room 8 our inquiry focus for this term has been 'My Voice is Powerful in Te Reo Maori'. We have each written our own mihi which is a greeting that acknowledges where you come from in Maori. After writing our mihi we used pastel on black paper to visually show three parts of our mihi - our maunga (mountain), awa (river), and whanau (family). We are very proud of where we come from and of our wonderful artwork.

Take a look!

Welcome to Room 8

Check out the cool kids of Room 8! We used pastels and crayons to create our beautiful self-portraits.