Our beautiful self portraits

Room 7 has spent the first part of this term creating some very stunning self portraits. We started with our backgrounds, creating patterns inspired by our cultures and the cultures of children in the class. We then took photos of ourselves and used a programme to turn them into a pencil sketch. Finally we decorated our names. We think they look amazing. Come in and have a look for yourself.

Duffy role model assembly

This week we had a really interesting role model into talk to us. His name was Myron Simpson. He is a road and track cyclist who won a silver medal at the Junior Track World Championships in Mexico and represented NZ in the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Myron was really interesting, showing us the different gear he used when racing. Arvin was presented with a Duffy book and certificate for always been an amazing role model for others. Thank you Duffy and Myron for an inspiring assembly.

Trip to Totara Park

Yesterday the whole school went to Totara Park on a trip. The weather was stunning and the kids were amazing. Room 7 had lots of fun swimming. Mark even went to the deepest end. Mr Lyth commented that one of the best swimmers in middle school was Warren! Nice work!

After swimming Room 7 had a play at the big playground then walked to the Botanical Gardens. There were some very tired kids by the end of the day. Thank you to all the parents who came with us or met us at Totara Park. We hoped you had a great day too!

Duffy kid at assembly

Warren got our duffy book at assembly today. He has been working so hard during maths and is focussed and determined to do well. Awesome Warren - what a great attitude!

I can't do it YET!

Room 7 has been doing lots of learning about how we learn and our barriers to learning. We discussed what stops our learning. Sometimes it is other people but sometimes it is ourselves. We decided that when we come to a barrier to our learning we would...

• ask questions
• move away and find a better/quiet place to sit
• tell the teacher
• say "I can't do this yet!"
• keep trying and don't give up

Today we watched an awesome video about the word yet. Watch it and see if it changes your way of thinking about your learning.

We ❤️ Maths!

In Room 7 we adore maths. It is our favourite thing to do. We love the challenges it brings and always try our best. This week the children have been working super hard on addition.

Today the fishes were learning to instantly recall their basic facts to 10. We played some cool games and Mack was the recall king! Learning our 10's fact will help as we learn to solve addition problems by partitioning (making and breaking 10)

  

                               

The dragons had an awesome session today - the boys were super learners who were focused and persevered even when they got some tricky questions. Nice work! The boys were learning to solve addition problems by putting the biggest number in their brain, then count on. Tino Pai boys!

  

Writer of the week!

This week Room 7 were learning how to write an interesting recount of a personal experience or event. We used a cool video about a BBC journalist who gets trapped in his snow mobile by a very hungry polar bear. We watched the video a couple of times and discussed what we saw, heard and felt. The kids had to think about using an interesting hook to grab the readers attention, use WOW words (adjectives) and tell us what happened first, second and third. The kids had to think about their own ending.
The kids had to put themselves in the shoes of the journalist and pretend they were in the snow mobile. We got lots of awesome stories but our author of the week was Sione who wrote an amazing ending for his story. Well done Sione!! What a great writer you are!

Watch our video and then read Sione's great story.

 

 

Up north in the frosty, cold Arctic Circle I could see the polar bears checking out the seals. I wanted to learn more about the polar bears. I was waiting patiently in my truck, waiting for a polar bear to look at me. When I looked at the polar bear one more time, it looked back at me! He came to me and shook my truck. I could hear his claws scratching the window. When he was busy scratching the window, I threw my hotdog outside to distract the bear. I called my friend to come and help me but he never answered. So the big, huge and evil polar bear came stomping back to my truck. When he got to me he smelt the window and then he ate me! I went to heaven and I looked down to see what the polar bear was doing and he was busy eating my bones! I hoped my bones got stuck in his throat to make him die!