Tatty Teddy's Easter Adventure

Happy Easter Room 2! Yesterday Tatty Teddy came down to Matakana with us. We visited the Farmer's Market and went for a walk down to the river, where some children were feeding the ducks. There are lots of different stalls at the farmers market. Some of the stalls sell fresh fruit and vegetables, others sell jams, nuts and even crepes! Paul's uncle grows his own garlic and sells it at the market every Saturday morning. He gave us some smoked garlic to take home. Tatty Teddy started to get hungry so we bought him a berry smoothie for lunch. The straw was a bit too big for him so he used Paul's wallet as a cushion to sit on. After the markets we went for a drive out to Leigh, where Goat Island is. Tatty Teddy learnt all about what a marine reserve is and why they are so important. Paul went snorkelling at Goat Island. He saw lots of snapper and even a stingray! We ran out of time to visit the Reptile Park, but will go back one weekend soon. On the way home we stopped at the Honey Centre to show Tatty Teddy how the bees make honey. Tatty Teddy liked watching all the bees behind the glass. He even made friends with a bumble bee. By the time we got back to Waipu it was almost dinner time so we stopped to pick up a pizza from the Pizza Barn. I think Tatty Teddy is going to spend the rest of his weekend eating all of his Easter treats. Enjoy the rest of your long weekend Room 2 and we will see you on Thursday.

From Miss Gentil and Tatty Teddy

Have a look at the maps below so you can see where Tatty Teddy travelled to yesterday. Warkworth is about an hour and fifteen minutes south of Whangarei. Then you turn off at Warkworth to get to Matakana. It takes just over ten minutes to drive from Warkworth to Matakana.

Tatty Teddy's Easter Adventure - slideshow

Easter Egg Hunt

This afternoon we had an Easter egg hunt. We had to find the QR codes hidden around the school and scan them with the ipods to get their next clue. Everyone was so excited. Group three were the first to find the boxes of Easter eggs hidden in the computer cupboard. We were all given a special basket to take our Easter egg home in. Mr Prchal even had a go at scanning the QR codes to find out what we were up to. We gave him a Easter egg too.

Easter Egg Lanterns

Room 2 have been busy making beautiful Easter egg lanterns. First we covered strings of wool in PVA glue and stuck it onto our balloon. We made lots of swirly patterns with our wool. We let the PVA glue dry over night. Then we glued layers of colourful tissue paper onto our balloon. We have done two layers so far, but still have a couple more to do. Here are our Easter eggs so far.

2,105 Blog Views!!

In the last month we have had over 2000 blog views!! Blogging has been a great way for Room 2 to celebrate and share their learning with a wide audience. We have had people commenting from all over NZ, as well as Canada and the UK. We love reading new comments. Please remember to leave us one if you read our blog. Keep up the awesome work Room 2. I am so proud of you.

From Miss Gentil

Look at the curious creatures we found!!

Last weekend Miss Gentil found a giraffe drinking out of her water tank! He was very cheeky and asked for jelly beans for breakfast, but Miss Gentil gave him some healthy celery sticks instead. George the giraffe told Miss Gentil that some of his friends would be coming to visit Morningside School this week. Room 2 found some strange birds in one of the trees, a monkey in the garden, a cat in our classroom rubbish bin and even a curious kangaroo outside Mr Prchal's office! Have a look at our slideshow to see all of the creatures we found hiding around our school.

New Creatures Appear at Morningside - slideshow

Tatty Teddy's Adventure with Stella

Yesterday Tatty Teddy came to my house for the first time. First he drove the car to Mum's house. When we got home I made him a little bed for him to sleep in. I made it out of a basket and lots of blankets. Tatty Teddy played playstation. He was good at Sing Star. He played with the Lego. Then he had a photo with coco and me. Tatty Teddy and I had a great time.

Tatty Teddy's Adventure with Stella - slideshows

Keep Looking When You're Cooking!!

Today we had some special visitors visit Room 2. We have been learning about fire safety and how to make sure we are being safe when we are cooking in the kitchen. We now know what to do if someone is badly burnt and that you never put water on a fat/oil fire. The firefighters also talked to us about the importance of having a special meeting spot outside our house. Next week we are going to work at school and at home on our escape plans. We were also reminded just how important it is to have smoke alarms in the house. Daylight saving ends on the 7th April so remember to change the batteries in your smoke alarms. At the end of the visit the firefighters showed us their fire engine. We were very excited!! We got to see how they controlled the ladder. We thought the ladder would be awesome to do bombs off into the school pool! We even got to sit inside the fire truck. Thank you for coming to teach us about fire safety in the kitchen and reminding us to keep looking when we're cooking.

Keep looking when you're cooking!! - slideshows

Tatty Teddy

In Room 2 we have a new friend. His name is Tatty Teddy. You can click the YouTube link below to hear the story about how Tatty Teddy got grey fur and a blue nose! We are planning on taking Tatty Teddy on lots of adventures and blogging about them. Tonight Stella has taken Tatty Teddy home to meet Cocoa. Tomorrow Stella will upload a slideshow of Tatty Teddy's adventures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXHdHwBH3gQ

A Giraffe in my Backyard!!

This morning I found a giraffe drinking out of our water tank! I wonder where he came from? He told me that his name was George and asked me if I had any jelly beans for breakfast. I told George that jelly beans aren't a healthy breakfast and offered him some celery sticks instead. He swallowed them whole! George also told me that we might find some interesting creatures around school next week. Here is a photo of George.

We LOVE Reading!!

We love reading in Room 2. During reading time we participate in lots of different activities that help to support our reading. We are exploring different reading activities at the moment. Some of the activities include reading and commenting on other class blogs, the reading app of the week on the iPads (this week it was Monkey Word), independent reading, posting tweets on our classroom Twitter board and practising our spelling words on Spelling City. We also read with Miss Gentil or with a buddy every day.

 

Your child can access their spelling list at home on www.spellingcity.com. Once you are on the website click 'find a list', then type Simone Gentil into the search bar (make sure you have the option of 'teacher's name' selected). From there your child is able to find their spelling list. On Spelling City you can listen to your words and play lots of different games. This helps us to learn our spelling words in a fun way.

 

 

 

 

Our Patch in the School Garden

Every Thursday at morning tea Ms Higgins runs a garden club. Today some of the Room 2 children planted the magic seedlings into the school garden. The magic seeds have been growing in our classroom since we planted them during Adventure Learning. Ms Higgins was very kind and even gave Room 2 their very own special patch in the garden. Thank you Ms Higgins!

 

 

 

 

Tweeting with other Kiwi kids

If you have visited Room 2 recently you will have seen our class Twitter board. We have been learning what Twitter is, how to tweet, what things are appropriate to tweet about and how Twitter can support our learning. We have been practising by tweeting on paper and posting our tweets onto our class Twitter board. Today was the first day that we posted tweets online and connected with other classrooms around NZ. We tweeted about what we have been learning about, how we learn best and what learning looks like, sounds like and feels like. We also asked questions about what other classes have been learning about. Today we learnt how to reply to a comment, connect with other schools and how to use hash tags. We also learnt where Motat is and what you can do there.

Here is a photo of our classroom Twitter board and an example of one of our Twitter conversations today. It should say is, not id! :)

 

 

 

 

 

My Pirate Tale

Once upon a time on a tropical island there was a pirate. He was a very poor pirate. He didn't have a golden telescope, he had a paper towel roll instead. One day the pirate was out on his raft when he saw a big wave coming. After the wave stopped heaps of sharks came out. The pirate yelled "help, help! It's a shark attack!" He made it back to the island safely. When he was walking along the island he saw a flash of gold go by. It was his parrot. The parrot had an eye patch. The pirate told the parrot of how he used to have a golden telescope and lots of treasure.

One day the pirate and parrot were walking along the island. They found a x and a spade. The pirate picked up the spade up and started digging. The spade hit something hard. The pirate put the spade down and pulled out a big treasure chest. He opened it and to his surprise in it was his golden telescope and all his treasure. The pirate and parrot started to sing "hip, hip, hooray! We found the captin's treasure." They all lived happliy ever after.

By Stella

The Stranded Boat

This is pirate Jack. He only has one arm and one leg. Pirate Jack uses his cannonball to shoot other ships. Pirate Jack is going to find treasure. Pirate Jack found a ship broken in half and washed up on the shore. Pirate Jack found Pirate William next to the ship. Pirate Jack took Pirate William back and made Pirate Willim his laundry guy.   


By William

Hut Building for Adventure Learning!!

Room 2 have worked very hard to develop their ability to work as part of a team and to plan effectively together. Today they finally got to put their plans into action and build their huts. After they had built their huts and spent some time playing in them, we sat down together and reflected on our learning. Here is what Room 2 came up with...

What we learnt

We learnt to share our ideas with each other and work together. We had to think creatively and problem solve when we didn't agree. We designed our huts and then when we were building them we had to check that they looked like our plans.

What we found challenging

We found building the hut to look like our plan challenging. Finding the things that we needed and moving some of the furniture was also hard. It was hard when people were thinking of their own little plan and not working together. Getting the sheets to stay over the furniture was also tricky!

What we enjoyed

We enjoyed designing our huts and building our huts. We also liked playing in them. It was fun to work with lots of other people and to take photos. Some people also liked making there huts look like a pirate ship.

What we would do differently next time

We would find a way to make the inside of our hut darker and maybe not have it by the windows next time. Some children also said they would make their hut smaller so that the sheet would fit over the top better and not fall off so easily. Other children decided that next time they would make a bigger hut so that more of their friends could fit inside. Some groups said that they would work better as a team, share more and try to remember to talk nicely to each other when they don't agree on the same idea.

I am so proud of everything that you have achieved during our Adventure Learning time Room 2. You are learning how to work together, plan effectively and how to reflect on your learning. It won't be long before you will be ready to start your own projects. Keep up the awesome work.

 

 

 

 

Adventure Learning hut plans

Tomorrow our group challenge is to build a hut using our classroom furniture, sheets and pegs. Today we designed our huts in small groups. We are learning how to work together in a group, plan and reflect on our learning Here are the final copies of our plans. We are very excited to build our huts! We will share some of the photos with you tomorrow.

Room 2 Triathletes

We were very lucky to have Abby, Murray and Tim come to school and help us train for the triathlon last week. We spent Monday and Tuesday training for the triathlon. On Thursday we participated in a triathlon with Room 1. First we went for a swim, then rode our bike around the flags two times and finally ran one lap around the cones. We had an awesome morning cheering each other on and participating in the triathlon. At the end of the triathlon we were all presented with a certificate.

Congratulations on becoming triathletes Room 2. I was so proud of all of you!