Suter Art Gallery

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Adventurous Fun Camp!

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Iron Man

Taniwhas & Ladders

Athletics Day

Student Teachers!

Today Zara & Mairi taught Room 9 how to use Storybird.  The girls taught themselves how to use the Web 2.0 writing tool with only a 'wee' tiny bit of help from me!  I was amazed at their wonderful teaching skills!  They were very confident at standing in front of the class, explained how to do things clearly and confidently answered questions from the class.  Above is one of their stories they have created on Storybird.
The big dream by Zara9 on Storybird

What is flying?

This week we started talking about super heroes that can fly.  So we asked ourselves "What is flying?"  Here are some of our ideas.

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Mermaid Video Clip

We were making part of our movie Neptune's Kingdom.  We are making it with Room 11 at Enner Glynn. The funnest part was moving the mermaids hair and tail.  We were smiling and laughing all the way through.

Swimming with the fishes!

Can you believe it, today we spent 45 minutes making a ten second video clip for our movie project with Enner Glynn School.  We did stop animation to make the fish move.  Then we downloaded the still photos onto iMovie and made a movie.  After that we added a background image of coral and put our movie on top.  This is called green screening.  Watch the clip above to see our hard work!

Heart Central - Life Education

Comprehension Strategies

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Long jump

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Inquiry Learning Term 4 - Heroes

Today we have been learning about heroes.  We brainstormed what heroes were.  We also learnt about explanation texts.  We are going to write our own explanation text about heroes.  Next we learnt how to catergorise.  We put our brainstorm into 3 different categories (groups).

Taniwhas and Ladders

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Kia Kaha - Making Choices

Constable Garland visited our classroom this afternoon to talk to us about making choices.  Here is  a brainstorm about what we discussed.

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Iron Man Art Work

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The Iron Man

The Iron Man by Zara

First we read the first chapter of a book called the Iron Man by Ted Hughes!   Then we drew a robot.  Next we coloured in some parts of the robot!  Then we dyed them.  When we put them on the wall they will look fantastic!  You have to be careful when you dye art because you might get dye on yourself.  The Iron Man is really big!  We love the book so far because it is very exciting with lots of cliffhangers.  The author chooses lots of wow words when describing the plot and characters.

Snakes & Ladders

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We activated our prior knowledge and used multistructural thinking to brainstorm all the rules we knew about snakes and ladders.  Then we put on our green thinking hat and came up with new ideas for games that are based on snakes and ladders.

Activating Prior Knowledge

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Our Filming Project

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Room 9 is making a stop animation movie called Neptune's Kingdom.  Stop animation is where you move a character a tiny little bit, take a photo, then move it again.  You have to this heaps of times! We are learning a lot about green screening, when you drop a different background into a movie.  We have only done it once before as part of the Flick it On film project.   One group has been filming one scene this morning.  Its takes a long time but its worth it.

Storybird

Tomorrow Room 9 are going to start experimenting with a really cool Web 2.0 tool called Storybird.  Students will use the tool to write a story about an unlikely hero.  Watch this space! The Unlikely Hero by EmmaWatts on Storybird

E - Learning walkthrough

Today we are having teachers and principles from schools in Nelson.  Our class are teaching different
visitors the stuff that Miss Watts taught us. We showed other people our learning.  We had to teach others by using heaps of detail and explaining really well, listening to their ideas, being confident, sharing a smile and making their day. We were proud of what we achieved today!      

• how to green screen
• shared our learning in 'Flick It On'
• greeted the visitors
• making choices discussion
• bubbl.us
• Activating prior knowledge through drawing

Inference

Yesterday, Room 9 read a book called 'Big White and Little Red Hen'. Miss Watts asked us to make our own chicken inferences. Inference means looking between the lines and explaining why you think that. You have to get clues from what your read in the book. This is Braedan's inference:

I think Harriet will send Little Red to Tiegal if she continues to make a mess. I think Big White feels happy because Little Red shared her nest.

This is Trent's inference:

I think harriet will send Little Red to Tiegal if she continues to make a mess. I think this because Big White cracked the eggs that Little Red laid but Harriet does not realise this. I think Big White feels happy when Little Red lets Big White share her nest and saves from the fox.  Big White stops being mean to Little Red.

Tapa Cloth

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First we folded the paper into 16 parts. Then we looked at different designs and use the ideas to do our own designs. We did this in pencil.

Our Green Screen Problem Solving!

We had a few problems with the green screening! We had to fix the problems.

1. We had a green tuatara and it blended in with the green screen
2. We couldn't use any yellow objects on the green screen

We didn't give up! Miss Watts helped us solve the problems. She played around with the photos and background for us.

Next time we green screen we will need to use different colours for the characters (except yellow!) When we make stop animation we will need to make small movies and then add them to the background of the green screen.

Flick It On

Our class has been learning to green screen for a project called Flick It On. First we made a story about heroes. Then we turned it into a storyboard. After that we took pictures and imported them into iMovie. Finally we edited it and made it into a movie. We learnt how to be camera people and animators. Animators move the models a little bit and the camera people took the pictures. We had to take hundreds of pictures!

Listen To Our Stories!

Watch this space! This week we will record some of our adventure stories. We hope you enjoy listening to them!

Writing Exciting Adventure Stories

In Room 9 we have been writing stories.  First we read lots of stories and had lots of discussion about what was in each story and what made them great!  Then we had a go at writing stories with Miss Watts' help.  Today we brainstormed all the things we needed to make a great story!

Story Structure:

1. Title - a short bit of information about the story
2. Orientation - describe who, when, where and why (don't give too much away)
3. Complication - describe the problem, ask a question to create a climax
4. Resolution - solve the problem, describe a happy or a sad ending 

WOW words

1. Onomatopoeia 
2. Alliteration
3. Exciting verbs
4. Adverbs - describe how, when or where the verbs happen
5. Adjectives - describe what nouns (things/objects or people) look, feel or sound like

Use punctuation

1. Ellipsis... to create a pause make it exciting and create tension
2. Exclamation marks  - to make it exciting 
3. Full stops & capital letters

Type of sentences

1. Choose different words to start sentences
2. Short sentences to create excitement and tension
3. Long sentences to describe characters, setting, action, emotions, feeling (can be short)

Our School Holidays

Junior School Production

We are very excited because our mums and dads are coming to watch our production tonight. So far we have done a dress rehearsal and two performances.  It was cold outside when we had to wait our turn to go on stage!   Zara and I are chickens.  We have yellow rubber gloves on our feet and we are pretending that they are chicken feet.  It looks very funny and feels a bit uncomfortable to wear!  I am one of the main characters, Farmer Mac!  I thought my face paint looked funny but actually it looks awesome!  It was kind of hard and kind of easy remembering my lines.  I have LOTS of lines!  We are both having so much fun!  Take a look at our video.

Junior Production Rehearsals

Now we are at the piont in the production when we do a lot of rehearsals.  We are lucky to be main characters because there were a lot of people orditioning for a one person character.  My name is Connor, I am Farmer Black. I am a mean farmer.  My name is Jonti, I am the cow and I can walk on two legs.  Our production is called The Farm At The End Of The Road.  A lot of our class our main characters.  Some are in the choir singing beautifully and the others have created an awesome possum dance called Possum Bossum.

Film Premiere

On Saturday night we went to the premiere of the Kids Can Film Festival.  We walked down a red carpet because we had made the movies!  The winners got to ride to the premiere in a fancy car. We felt proud of ourselves as we walked into the cinema.    We were a little nervous about watching our own films on the big screen but when we watched them they were amazing.  It reminded us of how much fun we had at the Kid Can Film Festival making them.  We felt really famous going down the red carpet.

Film Festival Fun

We have been learning to take different shots and we were having allot of fun. In this class there are three special kids who got chosen for the film festival and their names were Tyler, Madison and Charlotte.  We  were doing lots of fun stuff ! We were put in to different teams.  Madison and Tyler were in Hot Shots and Charlotte was in the Temeku Tuatara. Our theme to make a movie was change because we started off as normal kids and changed into film makers. Each team had to think of a different type of change to make a movie about. There were a lot of other studetns from other schools that we have made friends with.  When  Mrs. McRobert (Kellie) ask us what our favourite thing at the Film Festival, Tyler said making  new friends, making movies and having lots and lots of FUN! 

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WE LOVE SCIENCE!

Ivy was really keen to do MORE SCIENCE experiments.  We wanted to link it to our inquiry 'Against All Odds'.  So we watched a leopard seal swimming to give us some ideas.  We watched the leopard seal swim and glide through the water.  It floated and dived under the water.



Here are some our questions we would like to test...

Global Classroom

The Global Classroom now has a wiki space!  We will be making contributions to the our wiki page over the next 3 weeks:

https://globalclassroom2011.wikispaces.com/Room+9+in+Nelson+NZ

Check out our page and other school's pages from around the world!  

What can you find out about other schools?  Read the pages from other schools and post a comment to this blog post to tell me 3 facts you have learnt about another country!

Weaving with my aunty Nicole

On Sunday I went to my aunty Nicole, Bill and their little baby Leon`s house.  We did weaving with flax.  At first it was almost easy but at the end it was fun.  My brother Ben made a little cup, and Ben can put water in it so he can drink out of it.  My other brother Luke made a fish.  Luke put beads on it for eyes. My aunty Nicole  has a book of  all the things that you can do with flax. The book is the same as Mrs Paurini's.

Caving - Against All Odds

Imagine you are going on a caving expedition.  Plan your trip!

First we need to ask ourselves questions to help us take responsible risk so we can survive against all the odds!  Here are our questions:

We watched a National Geographic Video to gives us ideas about what questions to ask:

Flax Weaving

First we had to fold paper and cut lines in it.  Next we used strips of paper to make weaving patterns.  This was a practice.   Then we will weave with flax.  We also read a book about flax bushes.  Mrs Paurini said we will make a Voicethread to share our learning! Keep checkin our blog please!

Reading Strategy - Synthesising

Miss Watts taught us a new reading strategy - it was a hard one!  It was called synthesising!  What does this mean? Well...synthesising means making new ideas.  We had to read a story.  Then we had to activate our prior knowledge.  Next we looked for ideas and information.  Then we had to create new ideas about the character's feelings.

Junior Production

We have been making up a dance for our school play "The Farm at the End of the Road".  We are possums!  We were singing the song.  The actions were hard because the music was fast.  We are looking forward to perform.

Scatter Ball

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Our class often plays scatter ball against Room 11!  You have to throw 3 balls as hard as you can high and far.  If someone catches the ball you are out. Once you have thrown the ball run around the 4 cones heaps of time.  Each time you run round the cones you get points for your team.  It is an amazing game!

The Mousehole Cat

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We have been reading the 'Mousehole Cat' by Antonia Barber. We have been inspired to create our own   Mousehole Cat art.

1. First we drew the cats step by step
2. Then we put wax on the chin, tale, tummy and the chest of the cat
3. Next we dyed the cat black with indian ink
4. After that we made swirls with wax on the backgroud
5. Finally we dyed the background blue

What does Against All Odds Mean?

Binary opposites are words that are the opposite of each other.  Our inquiry is Against All Odds.  Miss Watts gave us some opposites; responsible/unresponsible, hot/cold, win/lose, succeed/fail, against/for and survive/die.  We had to write down ideas about these opposites and link it to our inquiry.

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Skip Counting With The Koura Team

We have been learning to skip count in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, and 10s.  Skip counting is your times tables.  We have been using arrays to help us.  We wrote on our whiteboards 4 rows of 3 equals 12.  Then we swapped it around and did 3 rows of 4 equals 12.  We discovered it was the same answer!  Wow!



Exploring Our Inquiry Outside of School

My mum thought it would be a good idea to make my birthday party link to our inquiry!  I asked her to make Mt. Everest cake!  My dad booked my party at Vertical Limits.  It is a climbing wall place for you to practice climbing.  In fact I am related to Ernest Shackleton...that is awesome!

Hot Water Bottles!

What happens to a hot water bottle after it has been filled up?

AND

Where does the heat go?

Here are our ideas so far....

When you fill a water bottle it is very hot. You don't want to touch it. After a while it goes cold.  I think the heat goes in to the air.  By Ollie

When you fill the hot water bottle it feels hot and after a while it cools down to warm.  When you take it to bed the heat goes into your bed to make it warm.If you are cold and you put the hot water bottle in your bed then it will get warmer.  By Madison.

When you fill a hot water bottel with hot water it feels warm.  After a while it goes cold.  I think the heat escapes out the bottom.  When you hop in to bed it is cold but when you put it in your bed it feels warm.  When the heat touches your skin it touches your bed.  By  Trent

Listen to our Voicethread to hear more explanations:

We will do further research to develop our ideas!

Phonics and Silly Sentences

After minute maths we do phonics. Phonics is when Miss Watts holds up these cards that have words on.  Then we have to stretch the words out, like stretchy snake.  Then we write silly sentences.   They are really funny and you would want to laugh!  We only do two silly sentences.  Here is a example "The jug will not spill if you sit still."

Global Classroom

We are taking part with Miss Fraiser and her class in an exciting Voicethread project.   Room 9 is enjoying listening to other students from everywhere in the world.  We liked it because Miss Fraiser's class are trying to communicate with other people and see the  WOW  in our world.!  We hope they have fun making  it!  We think it's fantastic.  We love it so much we will also add more ideas.

Kiwis Against All Odds!

I found a book in the library called "Tahi, One Lucky Kiwi".  It told us about a kiwi who had his leg stuck in a trap.  His leg had to be amputated.  He survived against all the odds.  It is difficult being a kiwi because humans chop down their habitats to build houses and roads.  There are predators who kill kiwis and their babies and eggs.  Stoats are really cute looking but they are really bad for our native creatures.

Commenting on Blogs

Today we revised how to make an academic comment on a post.  This is what we decided:

1. Say hello!
2. Explain why you like their blog post
3. Ask them a question
4. Write your name to say who the comment is from!

What is a good digital citizen?

A digital citizen is a confident and capable user of ICT

What does this mean to Room 9?

A confident and capable user of ICT means you feel comfortable using the computer.  Capable means you can do it easily!  Our class is good at blogging, using Skype, PhotoStory3 and Windows Movie Maker.  We also love using the iPad.  We can use our IWB and our class camera.  We are also getting good at sharing our learning on Voicethread with the world.

Skyping Room 11 @ E.G.S

Today we Skyped Room 11 at Enner Gylnn School.  We like skyping Room 11 because we share ideas.  Both classes made posters with our names, faces and our favourite things to do, so today we played a sort of guess who.   It was really awesome.  We shared what we had been learning.  Mairi, Charlotte and Tyler shared our drawings of Mowzer from the story 'The Mousehole Cat'.  Trent and Ollie shared their thinking about the result of our science experiment. We think skyping is excitingly cool.

Key Competency: Participating and Contributing

Science Experiment

On Wednesday last week Room 9 did an experiment about warm and cold.  We put a bag in another bag and put cotton wool in betwen the bags. We also did it with butter.  Then we put water and ice in an ice cream tub.  First we put the cotton wool one and an empty bag in the water and ice.We all took turns to put our hands inside the bags.  Then we had to tick our sheets to explain which one kept our hands the warmest.  (Caleb and Mairi)

Watch the movie that Nikita and Zoe made to share our learning.

Watch our voicethread to listen to our predictions and explanations about what we have learnt.  We tried to use extended abstract thinking to link our experiment with the real world.  We wanted to find our how animals survive against all the odds in a cold environment. (Tyler and Miss Watts)

Key Competency: Thinking

Against All Odds - Inquiry Learning

As part of our inquiry we have been finding out about human explorers and adventurers, and animals that live in extreme places like Antarctica.  We decided to carry out an experiment to find out how animals keep warm.

Solo taxonomy science

View more presentations from Emma Watts.

Key Competency: Thinking

Duck Shooting!

This morning we saw a sign on the swimming pool's construction fence. It said "Duck Shooting!"  Someone had also put rubber ducks and decoy ducks in the muddy water!  This reminded us of the key competency relating to others because it is important to have a laugh with each other.  It also reminded us of our fish philosophy where we have to play and have fun.  As well as our school value getting along.  Further more it reminded us of the habit of mind finding humar. We think the suspects are Mrs. Climo because her husband Mr. Climo is a hunter, Mr. Barnett because he has an excellent sense of humour, or Mr. Drummond!  Or maybe it was YOU!