Dwarf Sunflower

Dwarf Sunflower animation - By Ryan and Tauryn



Skyping Charlotte in the UK

On Thursday last week Room 4 Skyped Charlotte in the UK. It was fun skyping Charlotte. We talked to her on the computer.

Her school is called Swallow Dell. The whole class asked Charlotte questions about her life in the UK.

By Ryan & Caleb

We are getting paid for coming to school!

Room 4 is getting paid money every day if we came to school. The money is special “Room 4 money”.

If you don’t come to school we will not get paid. We get paid$2 to come to school. Then we have to pay Rachel for rental of our chair and desk.

Room 4 gets to buy these things with their money.
· have a pillow for the whole day $3
· first choice of job responsibilities $4
· sit on a chair instead of sitting on the mat $5
· 5 minutes early to morning tea $6
· 5 minutes early to lunch $7
· 5 minutes of stencils in class time $7
· make a fancy desk sign $7
· first choice of sports gear for the day $8
· 5 minutes on computer in class time $8
· run the morning programme (roll, absences, calendar etc.) $9
· 5 minutes free choice games in class time (with bubby) $6
· choose activities for group on task board (reading) $11
· 10 minutes on the computer

Rachel pays us extra money if we are good. We can get money for working hard, being star of the day or being spotted by a learning detective or being helpful.
Here is a photo of our Room 4 shop and what we can buy.


By Ryan and Natasha

Arts Alive Performance

On Monday the 20th of September, Syndicate 2 did an Arts Alive performance.

First Room 6 did an interesting dance all about magic playdough. When the kids were not looking it would jump off the big table.

Then room 5 went and did a cool play about The Three Little Pigs.

Last was our class, Room 4, we did two ribbon dances. Our first dance was not that good. Our next dance was really good, it looked amazing. We did lots of circles and moving with our ribbons and bodies.

By Waima and Laura

Earthquake Fundraising: Room 4's Bake Sale

Today Room 4 had a Bake Sale to raise money for the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

We baked some food last night to bring to school to sell. At school we had to get organised. We made signs that said 20c, 50c and $1. We cleaned our tables so everything was clean for the food. Then we had to decide how much the food would cost.

Here are some photos of JUST SOME of the delicious food we had on sale:

"I felt really glad because we had so much people coming. I thought we
wouldn't sell much food" - Waima

" I felt really busy because I had to give stamps to everyone who had paid"
- Lexie

" I felt really nervous because I didn't think we had enough food to feed
the long line of people" - Ryan

"It felt really fun because I had to ask people what they wanted and then I
had to give it to them. I liked being the cashier" - Cory

"I felt excited. I had to go really fast because there was so many people
that were trying to buy things at the same time" - Campbell

" I felt nervous when I saw the long line of people coming to buy some
food" - Caleb

"I felt really, really excited, when I came back from a job I saw a giant
line and a whole lot of people in our classroom" - Emily

" I felt cool because I got to stamp everybody's hand who paid" -
Luke

WE RAISED JUST UNDER $150!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much to all the children from Waiuku Primary who came and spent their pocket money.

An email to Gil

Today we read an email Gil sent to us. He has left Waiuku and moved all the way to Israel.

We wrote him back an email, this is what it said:

Dear Gil,

We got your message. We heard it is really hot in Israel.
We fixed it so that you can go back into Mathletics. We can see how many points you get!
We also heard that you cannot understand the language in Israel. Maybe you could learn a few words to make it easier.

Here are some messages from Room 4:

• We miss you - from Emily
• You had better remember me, I'm one of your best friends - From Cory
• I hope you enjoy living in Israel - From Waima
• Do you think it is cool in Israel? - From Ryan
• What is it like in Israel? What do they eat? - From Tauryn
• Is it fun in Israel? - From Caleb
• How is your school in Israel? - From Nick
• What is your class' name? - From Natasha
• We have been missing you for weeks - from Luke

Bye!

From Room 4 & Rachel

Kidpix by Nick

We hope we get a reply soon!

Ka Kite Winter

Ka Kite (Goodbye) Winter!

Ka Kite warm hot chocolate (Laura)
Ka Kite cold weather (Jaidyn)
Ka Kite bad storms (Caleb)
And freezing dangerous wind (Waima)

Haere Ra fun playing inside (Ryan)
Haere Ra mud all around (Cory)
Haere ra hot fires (Natasha)
And fun cool games (Tauryn)

Kia Ora tweeting, singing birds (Emily)
Kia Ora beautiful butterflies (Campbell)
Kia Ora baby lambs and bugs (Selena)
And buzzing bees (Jack B)

Haere Mai bright leaves (Shardia)
Haere Mai extraordinary, happy flowers (Aidan)
Haere Mai growing grass (James)
And blossom trees starting to grow (Emily)

WALT use adjectives in our poetry to make it interesting.


We decided upon the following success criteria as a class. If we do these things it will make sure our poems are interesting.

• use one adjective to describe the 'thing' per line of poem
• don't use the same adjective twice.
  
  

Check out this video to learn more about adjectives:

• An adjective can make our poems interesting - Jack B.
• An adjective is a describing word - Ryan
• An adjective describes a thing "noun" - Laura & Tauryn
• Using adjectives adds more detail - Cory

Arts Alive Inquiry: The Musician

On Monday a musician named Steve came to our school. He came because we are learning about The Arts and he knows lots about music.

Steve played a song for us on his guitar and harmonica. He came after lunch for us to interview him. We wanted to learn about music and why he likes music. We wrote some questions to ask him. Here are some of them:

• What is it like being a musician?
• How many times a week do you practice your music?
• Who writes the lyrics to your songs?
• What is fun that you like about music?
• What type of music do you like the best?
• When did you start playing music?

Steve said he like the blues the best. The blues are songs that people wrote saying how they felt - Campbell & Lexie

Steve also said he practiced on the guitar every day - Laura

Steve thought it was fun being a musician. The hard part about being a musician was when he missed home - Ryan & Aidan

Sometimes his friends write some lyrics and sometimes Steve writes them by himself - Tauryn

Sometimes Steve gets music off the computer to practise with - Cory

It was fun when he played the guitar - James


I liked when he played the guitar because I want to get a guitar - Jack B.


Listen in the below video to Steve singing one of Room 4's favourite songs - Shadow Dance

Inquiry: Interviewing the Printmaker

IToday John from the Auckland Print Studio came to our school.

He came to show us prints and teach us about printmaking. He does lots of prints of extinct birds on rocks. This is called lithography. He likes doing printing because drawing and with printing he can can make lots of pictures.

We wrote some questions to ask John. Here are some of the answers:

How do you make your printings better and do you make mistakes?

John does make mistakes. When he makes a mistake he keeps on going and tries to get it finished. Each time he makes a mistake he thinks about how to make it better - Aidan and Tauryn

When did you start printing and what is your favourite type of printing?

John was 18 when he first started printing. His favourite type of printing is lithography - Ryan and Selena

When do you do your art?

John mainly does his art at night time because he is working with other people during the day. During the day he is teaching at university - Luke and Jaidyn

Where do you do your printing and who do you it with?

John does his printing his studio. He does it with another person called his assistant. Sometimes he also helps classes or other people to print - Emily and Cory

What do you use to do your printing?

• a roller - Shardia
• some rocks from different countries like Germany and America - Campbell
• a machine to put pressure on his art - Ryan
• ink for the colour - Jaidyn
• paper - Waima

What is the size of the biggest print you have ever done?
John's biggest print is 1.2metres long! - Caleb

We thought John's artwork looked cool. He sometimes makes up his own pretend birds from two different birds. It sometimes takes him a long time to do his prints. John can mix together colours to make lots of new colours.

Here is a video you can watch to learn about the process of lithography:

Cross Country Running!

Last Tuesday we had the School Cross Country.
We have been training a lot and trying to run really fast.

First we sat in lines in our year groups. There was a year 2 girls and a year 2 boys line. The Year 0/1 girls ran first, then the boys. Next it was our turn... some of us had our hearts pumping really fast. Some of us were really nervous.

The year 2 girls ran first. Room 4 got some great placings:

• 2nd - Natasha
• 3rd - Laura
• 4th - Lexie
• 5th - Waima

Then the year 2 boys raced. Here are some of our best results:

• 3rd - Ryan
• 6th - Jack D
• 7th - Aidan
• 8th - Gil
• 10th - Jaidyn

After the race we felt proud of ourselves but we were really puffed. It was so great to have lots of our parents and aunties come and watch us. We were very happy!

Shared writing by Room 4

Amazing Space Artwork

Room 4 have finally finished their amazing space artwork that we've all been working on for weeks and weeks!

To complete our artwork we:

• researched in space books
• planned our artwork in our sketching books
• sketched our artwork in pencil
• coloured in pastel - checking we were using the correct colours
• outlined in white pastel
• added glitter
• posed for digital photos
• glued on our digital photos

Check out the amazing results below...

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Good questions about Mars

We have been learning to ask good questions.
The questions are going to help us learn more about our Inquiry topic "There's no Place like Home"
Today we looked at this picture from Mars.

First we asked:
"What is that?"

"Why is that there?"

"What colour is that?"

We tried to find the answer using these questions BUT we couldn't.
We didn't have the words "face" or "Mars".

To ask a good question you have to have a Seven Servant question starter + a keyword.

The Seven Servant question starters are:

• How
• Where
• Why
• When
• Who
• Which
• What

Then we changed our questions to:
"What is the face on Mars made out of?"
"Why is the face on Mars?"
"What colour is the face on Mars?"

Answers we found out are:

• The face on Mars is made out of rock/stone (Tauryn)
• The face is on Mars because it made itself - it happened naturally (Lexie)
• The face on Mars is goldish redish and orangeish. (Jaidyn)
• The face is black and white in the photos because the satelite took the photo in black and white (Ryan)

Space Poems

We are learning how to present space poems.

At the end of the term we are having a poem recital. We have been learning different space poems and working hard to recite them with expression and to read them clearly. We don't want it to sound like we are robots reading!

Take a listen to us reading the poem "Space" and let us know what you think of our presentation!