Hello readers!

Here in Room 1, we have been reading many fairy tales.  Lucky us, Ms Werder is a bit 'old school', and has brought in her record player and her fairy tales on vinyl from the seventies!  We listened to The Snow Queen, and drew as we listened.  The music and story telling is quite funny to hear - very different to what the children watch on DVD now.

We will be testing our knowledge of fairy tales and nursery rhymes on Thursday and Friday this week.  Please continue to gain sponsorship, as the Literature-athon is a major fundraiser for the year.

Jump Jam started today for fitness... the smiles on the children's faces said it all.

This Wednesday is a conferencing day for many students.  Please check you have booked your time to come and talk about your child's development and experiences this year.  It is a great opportunity to speak with the student, teacher and parents.

Below is a sneak preview of the greetings mural.  Many students from Room 1 come on Fridays during lunch time to paint.  These murals will be displayed on the new building when it is completed.

 

Until next time, take care and enjoy the sunshine.

Ms Werder.

Happy holidays!

Hello everyone, I hope your holidays are going nicely. 

As mentioned in the last post, I would look at mathletics in the break, and move some children in to the next curriculum level next term. 

I have decided not to wait, and have moved some children who are working at that level into that group today.  All points and credits stay with the children, and they will continue to accumulate skills the more they practice.

Enjoy reading and learning about the nursery rhymes and the fairy tales the children took home on the last day of school.

See you next term!
Gretchen Werder.

maths and art...

Hello everyone!

Room 1 was lucky to be one of three classes who met last week with Brendan, the Australian Regional Manager of Mathletics.  We had a great lesson, ensuring we were getting the most out of the programme and that we were on track with our goals.  As a result, I have altered the programme that Room 1 children were on, and opened up all the available activities and experiences for the New Zealand Level 1 Curriculum.  There is a greater range covering many number and strand topics.  Please have a look during the holidays, and I will monitor and see how everyone is going. 

The way each activity works is quite involved, as it turns out.  Each activity has three levels of difficulty within it.  If you get answers incorrect, the programme automatically changes to the easier level.  If you get all questions correct the first time, you are doing well at that level.  If the questions are tricky at number 7 or 8, you have moved in to the most difficult level of that topic.  When the topic is repeated, the aim is to improve on your last score.  You get credits for improvement, which can be spent on upgrading your hair style...  You get points for completing tasks, which go toward gaining a certificate.

I will move some children in to the New Zealand Level 2 Curriculum programme in the beginning of term 4.  Remember, if it is tricky to click on the question mark on the left of the screen, which will provide teaching strategies to solve the problem.  Good luck and happy maths to you all!

On another note, the clay tiles the children made earlier based on the koru motif have been fired and tinted with red iron oxide.  They look awesome, and I endeavour to get photos of these up shortly.  There is great debate on whether the children should take them home, or gift to the school as a permanent art work.   Have a look in class.

Have a lovely holiday with your families, and I look forward to one more term of investigation and learning - fairy tales is our next focus, so explore the local library or your bookshelves at home for them!

Thanks, Gretchen Werder.

Hello everyone!
The kids have been doing many interesting things and learning many new facts, despite the fact that none of them have gone on this blog!
We have been learning Te Reo and Tikanga Maori, and in the process have been to Orakei Marae, had lessons with Whaea Celes, and studied Maori symbols.  Our art for the symbols we chose have been displayed in the library, and look fantastic. 

The children also made their own pounamu taonga of their chosen symbol...  This was made from Dukit, a modelling clay that is heat set. 

These have been worn with pride at school, and some families have followed this up by making items at home with Dukit.  Lots of fun, and great for fine motor skill development, and moving from 2D to 3D art.

Each Friday our buddy class tests spelling, often giving time for reading and maths as well.  The children enjoy spending time with the older students, and worked well together recently when they made thank you cards for volunteer assistants who helped the Olympic day on the Queen Victoria site.

Museum trip tomorrow, it will be fabulous to by guided through the journey the Maori took to arrive in Aotearoa, and to look at the other galleries.  We are so lucky to have such an internationally acclaimed resource in our 'backyard'.

Until next time, which hopefully won't be too far away...
Gretchen Werder and Room 1.









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What happened when Mr Jones came to visit?

We have been studying statistics in maths, and we had a strange visitor...Mr Jones (who sometimes wears Ms Werder's clothes) is in charge of a big cereal factory.  He was looking for a new cereal, and asked Room 1 to help him with his research.  He asked the children what they usually ate for breakfast, and we have learned how to show our findings on graphs and tally charts.  We have also learned how to use a table, and we understand that they help us to see patterns easily.  It has been fun inventing THE BEST EVER CEREAL IN THE WORLD!  We still need to design a container for it, and maybe let Mr Jones sample the product.  We are sure he will like it, as we certainly did!

'Today at school we are working out how we care going to make the Best Ever Cereal in the World.  We have to decide which ones we are not allergic to.' - Maha

'We made a table of what wea re going to put in the Best ever cereal in the world!' - Cullen

'Today we made the best cereal in the world.  We used: cocoa pops, ricies and cornflakes.  We had to mix the ingredients in.  It was quite hard because it sometimes came out.' - Ethan

'On the top I put dry strawberries and chocolate raisins, and then we ate it outside and I loved it.  It was really the best cereal ever.' - Gemma

Caterpillars moving in

We have monarch caterpillars in our class, because wasps are coming to Ms Werder's house and killing them.  Some of them are crawling on the ceiling and making chrysalis's there.  Some of the caterpillars have crawled all the way over the carpet to the reading box!  One accidentally sat on the mat, and then got sat on, on the mat.  Kennedy, Molly and Zania have been reading them stories.  We need to really look after them, because they keep on falling off the plant and wandering about.  They do a lot of poos, but their poos are only made out of leaves.  The chrysalis will turn black when the butterfly is ready to come out.  We have learned about life cycles, and that the caterpillars have 6 normal legs and 10 extra sucky ones.

We'll keep you updated on how they are going.  We have several chrysalis now in interesting places in the classroom, and we will be happy when we can release them.