Daffodil Day Dilemma

Today is Daffodil Day!

August 28th 2015 is the day we show our support for the Cancer Society and we buy a daffodil to donate money to help doctors research to find a cure for cancer. Cancer affects lots of people in New Zealand and around the world.

We made some daffodils using a Youtube video on Thursday afternoon but unfortunately the origami daffodil was a lot trickier than it looked! We struggled and persevered but in the end we didn't think they were good enough... So we tried again! 

Miss Walters looked on the internet to see what else we could make using our origami skills. We found some cool pictures of Daffodil Pinwheels. We made some changes to the instructions when we made ours, so we wrote our blog readers some new ones.

Here are some instructions written by Room 6!

How To Make A Daffodil Pinwheel.

You will need:
- Yellow paper in a square,
- Pencil or pen,
- Ruler,
- Scissors,
- Hole punch,
- Split pin,
- Gold glittery paint,
- Paint brush,
- Green straw.

Method:
1. Fold your paper into a triangle by putting two opposite corners together.
2. Open it out and then fold the other two opposite corners together to make a cross.
3. Measure 2cm from the middle of the cross down each of the four lines and make a small mark.
4. Cut down the lines of the cross from the corner to the small mark you made.
5. Choose one corner and gently loop it into the middle and hold it there.
6. Do the same to every second corner.
7. Ask an adult to punch a hole in every looped corner.
8. Put a split pin into one of the holes and thread each other hole behind it.
9. Push the split pin with the corners attached through the middle of the cross inside.
10. Split the two sides of the pin on the back to hold it down.
11. Put your initials or name on the back of your daffodil.
12. Paint some gold glittery paint in the middle of the flower.
13. Leave it to dry at the back of the classroom.
14. Slide one stalk of the split pin into the top of a green straw.

We decided that it would be even better to video ourselves to make a tutorial and show everyone, so we all took a part in narrating, video and making the daffodil! Dora and Guinevere were our lovely folding models, Peni and Limiteti were our camera people and everyone else had a part in narrating our tutorial.

Check out our video and see if you can make a daffodil pinwheel to celebrate Daffodil Day!

Better Than Before!

A few weeks back the Giraffes were practicing a play from their reading group and we filmed them - they were practicing reading with awesome expression and now they've done another to compare them!

We think they are better than before - what do you think?

Skoolbo Stars!

Have you tried out Skoolbo?

Skoolbo is an online website and programme that helps us practice our word work and our maths! You each have a log in and a password and the computer takes you to games that you can play to practice your skills.

Make sure you check it out at www.skoolbo.co.nz and put in your user name and password! You can get better than before if you can practice your learning every day, especially in the holidays!

There might even be a Skoolbo Leaderboard for our classroom and the winner at the end of the term gets bragging rights!

Reading Rejiggle

This term our reading has really taken off - we have become more confident using reading strategies and now we can do more than just decode the words!

We can skim to find information, sound out tricky words, use excellent expression, use our prior knowledge to help us understand a text, summarise AND more! Now that we can use so many different skills, we've had a change around in our reading groups. We've kept the same names of the groups (Elephants, Leopards, Lions and Giraffes) but the some of the people and level of reading has changed!

A HUGE well done to everyone who has worked hard, read their book every night at home and practiced at school - you have all improved and become better than before!

Here's a list of the new reading groups :)

Elephants - Level 21 reading Gold - Tyra and Jazer.

Leopards - Level 22 reading Gold- Frank, Anthony, Limiteti and Alicia.

Lions - Level 23 reading Silver - Peni, Guinevere, Agueer, Nowar, Tristan and Kotipi.

Giraffes - Level 25 reading Emerald - Taniela, Riiana, Jessica, Leanah and Dora.

Maori Menu!

Last Friday we looked at our Maori language and focused on the food words we knew. We each chose a meal to put into Room 6's Maori Menu!

First we wrote our name and the meal then we listed what was in the meal in English. Then we wrote the ingredients in Maori underneath.

Miss Walters cut them out and stuck them onto coloured paper. She made our work into a book that we have hung up on our Maori wall in our classroom.

If you're ever in Room 6, have a look and see what you would like to try from our menu!

We Started With South Africa...

Our Inquiry topic for the next few weeks is all about a country... We are learning about South Africa!

We started off listing all the things we already knew about South Africa.... We used our prior knowledge to list everything we thought could be correct about the country and people in South Africa.

Then we made a big list of questions for things that we wanted to find out - is one of your questions on our list?

Next we're going to research and find out the answers to some of these questions as a class and record our learning in our Inquiry modelling book, then we can share our knowledge with our Junior syndicate on Thursday! 

Keep your eyes peeled for new facts about South Africa! Perhaps you could tell us some things you know about South Africa?

Remember, Remember, Remember...!

Remember to bring your notebook and reading book bag and book back to school everyday! If you forget your notebook then it's hard to remember what you're supposed to be reading at home!


Also remember to bring your homework book to school with your homework completed every THURSDAY and put it in the box, and to take your poem folder home on a Friday after Mr Meyer gives you your poem, and bring it back on Monday!


Spelling and reading need to be done and signed off by someone at home every night so that you keep getting BETTER THAN BEFORE! We want you to be the best students you can be!

Magical Music

This term we have been focusing on pitch and the different types of instruments. We have looked at using percussion instruments and tuned instruments.

Tuned instruments have lots of different notes and can have a low or a high pitch sound. They are instruments like the piano, a xylophone or our marimbas.


Percussion instruments have only one note that they play and these instruments might be a drum, maraca, cymbol or a triangle. We have used percussion instruments to keep the beat in our music lessons.


Over the next few weeks we are going to practice playing a song on the xylophone and marimba... Watch the video below and find out what the song is!




Perhaps at the end of the term we can video a mini concert to put on our blog and share with our viewers!

Positive Pants

This week we are learning to be positive and think about others in Room 6.

We created a class display that we've called our Positive Pants! One side tells us what to say instead of the negative comments that sometimes people use. 

We're learning to say 'What am I missing?' instead of saying 'I'm not good at this!' or saying 'is it my best work?' instead of giving up and saying 'ugh, it's good enough..'

We're practicing being POSITIVE this week by saying 'Plan A didn't work, but there's 25 other letters in the alphabet to try!' instead just saying 'Plan A didn't work!'

Turn that frown upside down!!

Money Making!

Today in maths we have been practicing counting coins. Last week we were able to count coins to find out how much we have altogether but we used the same coins. We skip counted in 10c, 20c and 50c to find out how much we had. 


This week we have been counting different amounts. Today we had a pile of coins, some of them were different and we had to find out how many dollars and how many cents we had.  We learnt to find how many dollars and cents there were and count different types of coins. 


We used our knowledge of counting in 2s, 5s and 10s from last week to help us. We also know that we have to write the dollar sign every time we have a whole dollar, and the cents sign if there were just cents and no whole dollars.

Do you think that you could remember everything we needed to do? See if these coins look familiar to you!

Meowing Folding Madness

Last week for our art we made origami flowers - this week we're trying out some origami cats! It looked pretty simple to fold and then we decorated their faces with our jovi crayons.

If you want to try it at home, check out this video from Youtube...




Miss Walters found a good Youtube channel with lots of great tutorials for beginners origami - have a look at this link and see what interesting origami projects you can find!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC72vqH6I2YBbpngYLeBtYcQ


Or you could become an outstanding origami observer and check out Jo Nakashima's channel where he designs his own projects, including dinosaurs!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ICcukYYeSn26KlCRnhOhA

Ronald McDonald Rolled into Ruapotaka!

Ronald McDonald came from McDonalds with a play all about keeping ourselves safe crossing the road.

First he woke up and he hung out his socks on the washing line, but it was windy so one sock blew away. He decided to look for it but he couldn't find it at home so he walked to Ruapotaka School and taught us how to walk safely on the footpath and how to cross the road properly.


He sang a song called Make It Click which was all about safety in the car and how we need to use a seat belt every time you ride in the car. Here is a video with the song on Youtube.
 

After we sang we learnt about sneaky driveways - "You have to stop, look and listen for car engines" said Limiteti. We also need to look for cars turning into the drive way!

Ronald McDonald taught us how to use a pedestrian crossing correctly. We need to use the patrols if they are around but if not we have to STOP, LOOK and LISTEN before you USE YOUR FEET!

Ronald McDonald looked for his sock along the way, it was a "red and white, super striped, made to measure.... SOCK!" shouted Peni! It turned out it was on his back all along!! His friend Kate helped him get it off his back and we found that it was a sock puppet!


We were really lucky because Ronald McDonald gave Miss Walters his special sock to look after while he was gone,  because she was an actress for the show and did lots of reading.

Written collaboratively by Room 6 

Maori Language

This week for Maori language we had a look at the inquiry topic key words! Miss Walters made a lot of colourful words with the English and Maori names of food and we put them into their groups on the food pyramid.

On the bottom we had fruit and vegetables because they are the foods we should be eating lots of!

In the middle we had lots of foods - dairy products, carbohydrates and proteins. We should eat some of these every day.

On the top of the pyramid was the treat foods that we shouldn't eat very much of because they're full of sugar, fat and oils which are unhealthy for our bodies.

Your challenge is to be able to list everything you ate for dinner last night using the Maori words!

Folding Frenzy!

This week for our Art lesson we're practicing Japanese Origami!

Miss Walters bought some proper origami paper so it was perfectly cut into squares and then we practiced making a fancy flower!

We found a video link and put the video up on the projector to learn how to make a four petal lotus flower. Have a look at how to make it here:



Have a look at our finished pieces! :)

Jessica with her lotus...

Guinevere with her yellow lotus...

Tristan posing with his red lotus!