We are a class of Year 3 & 4 children at Vardon School in Hamilton, NZ. The purpose of this blog is to share what we are learning with others. Click into our individual blogs to see samples of our learning and our reflections. WE LOVE LEARNING!!! We also love commenting, so please leave us a comment!!!



Friday, December 14, 2012

It's the end of 2012

Have a Merry Christmas everyone and a wonderful summer holiday!

See you on the 30th of January 2013!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Room 7 2013

This is Room 7 2013
We are a great bunch of Year 2 and 3 children who will be Year 3 and 4 next year!
We are looking forward to being in Room 7 next year with Mrs Natusch. 

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Christmas around the World




Click here to make this voicethread bigger http://voicethread.com/#q.b3622398.i0.k0

Here is a Global Christmas Project that we have taken part in. Mrs Morgan from Texas created this voicethread.

We hope you enjoy learning about Christmas in other countries! 

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Using twitter in our class


Here are our tweeters for today's #kidsedchatnz session. We had fun connecting with other children around NZ!

Grass heads

Our Grass Heads on PhotoPeach
Made by Makayla :)

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Splish, Splash, Splosh!

This week we are going to Waterworld each day for swimming lessons. On the first day we were assessed and put into groups. Today we were taught lot's of different swimming skills in our groups. Here are some photos and videos of us swimming in the pool today.





Some of the skills we learnt were:

  • gliding
  • freestyle
  • backstroke
  • dolphin diving
  • floating
  • diving
  • breaststroke
  • butterfly

Look at our Grass heads now!

Wow! Look at our grass heads! They are growing lot's of grass (well, most of them are).

We think they need hair cuts now!







What do you like about them?

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Solar eclipse


Today we went out and looked at the sun using special solar glasses. We saw the eclipse.
 It looked like an orange moon and a black sky. It was curved like a banana (Titus). It looked like a giant pac man (Ashton)


Listen and watch our reactions to viewing the eclipse....
 

Thursday, November 8, 2012

100 Word Challenge

The 100 WC challenge this fortnight is...

Grandparents are important because...

Start thinking about what you could write. You can then start writing your new post or use MSword so you can count the number of words you have written.

This prompt needs to be written and entered by 13th of November.

Why do YOU think Grandparents are important? Leave us a comment!

(If you are new to the 100WC check out the link on the left side of our blog)

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Voice Mail Comments




Here are the comments we have received so far via our voicemail widget on our class blog. 

Using twitter to connect with others



This afternoon we tweeted with schools around NZ. We used our teachers twitter account to tweet and soon we may have our own Room 7 twitter account.

We used the hash tag #kidsedchatnz to connect with others.

We enjoyed:

  • I enjoyed finding out what other children's favourite subject at school is (Megan)
  • I enjoyed looking at what twitter was (Debbie)
  • I enjoyed learning about different classes (Loren)
  • I liked learning about what kinds of computers other schools have (Fin)
  • I enjoyed replying to other people we didn't know and having a conversation (Aaron) 
  • I enjoyed talking to others and starting a conversation (Katie)
  • I enjoyed learning new things off other people (Victoria)
  • I enjoyed learning more about other classes (Leah)
Here are some of the tweets:




Did you join in the #kidsedchatnz? 
Did we start a conversation with you? 
Do you want to join us next time?

Grass heads

Last week we made grass heads. We have looked at how cows eat grass and how it is turned into milk so thought we would grow our own grass (in a fun way).

Here are some photos:








What do you like about them?
What do you think will happen?

Wrap Free Wednesday

Each Wednesday at Vardon school we try to be WRAP FREE!

This means we need to think about what to bring to school in our lunch boxes.

Here are some of our WRAP FREE lunches.


 



We think this is good for our environment because it cuts down on wrappers. Around our school there will be less rubbish. ;)

Thursday, November 1, 2012

How do farmers take care of the environment?


This is a photo of an effluent pond at Miss Workman's farm.

This is what we know about effluent ponds. Listen to our audioboos. 






listen to ‘Makayla’ on Audioboo

We know that effluent ponds are good for our environment because farmers make fertilizer and spread it on the paddocks to make the grass healthy for the cows to eat.

What did you learn?
What do you know about effluent ponds?

Our Calendar art

Here is our calendar art work. You can also check out our individual blogs for a larger photo.

/Our Calendar Art on PhotoPeach


What did you like about our art work?

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Our Dairy Farm visit is tomorrow!

Miss Workman took some photos to get us thinking and excited about tomorrows visit to her Dairy Farm!
What can you see in these photos? What will it be like? What questions do you have?

Monday, October 29, 2012

Making Butter

Today we watched this video on how to make butter.



Then we made our very own butter!
Watch our animoto! We hope you enjoy it!



This is how we made our butter:

  1. We poured cream into two glass jars for two groups and put the lid on tightly
  2. We sat in two circles and shook the jars for about 5 minutes
  3. We poured out the buttermilk out that had been separated from the butter
  4. Then we rinsed the butter with water
  5. Then we tipped out our butter
  6. Then we spread our butter on bread and ate it!
It was yum and just like real butter! We thought our butter was much more yellow than the man that made in the video above. That's because our cows must have eaten more green grass. Greener grass = yellower butter. 

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Cow Jokes

Here are some cow jokes
  1. What do cows get when they're sick?
  2. What do you call a cow that doesn't give milk?
  3. What did one cow say to the other?
  4. What do you call a grumpy cow?
  5. How do you make a milkshake?
  6. Where does a cow stop to drink?

Try to answer these. Look in the comment box for the answer.

Mathethon


We are busy practicing for the school mathethon next week. We are keeping track of our score each time on a post it note so we can beat our time and get faster and faster!



If you want to practice your math skills visit our page called "Mighty Maths" and you will see the link on there. 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Rosie's World Website


Rosie can teach us lot's about our topic; From Milk to Icecream. She's a pro! ;)


Click on the link, learn from Rosie and then make a comment about what you learnt.

Our Topic: From Milk to Ice-cream

From Grass to Glass


Did you know there are over 11,600 dairy farms in New Zealand and 4.4 million dairy cows being milked?
What did you learn from watching this video?

About Milk


What did you learn about inside a Dairy Factory?

Friday, October 19, 2012

Throwing Practice

Today Dianne from Project Energise came to school to teach us how to throw correctly.
We learnt:

  • to hold the ball correctly (hold it with your fingers not in your palm)
  • not to hold the ball tightly
  • to hold our arm out straight (the ball will go in that direction)
  • draw a circle in the air with your arm that's holding the ball
  • take three steps before you throw it
  • if you look away the ball goes in the wrong direction
  • face sideways when you throw
  • one foot points forward and one foot faces sideways
It was windy and wet so we went to the school hall. We had to use soft throwing toys to throw.










What do you think we did well?

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Our new topic

This terms topic is "From Milk to Ice-cream"

So far we have;

  • started a new title page
  • started a KWL - what we know and what questions we have about the Dairy Industry
  • answered a question "Where do dairy products come from" and written down our ideas
  • we have looked at how milk is made
So far we want to know:
  1. What happens inside a cow when milk is made?
  2. How many bottles of milk are produced in a year?
  3.  How is ice-cream made?
  4. How is milk used to make other dairy products?
  5. What are the different jobs at the Fonterra Milk Factory?
  6. How do the machines at the factory work? 
Please make a comment about what you know about cows, dairy products or the dairy industry.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Our Survey Results

Here are the results of the Survey you all completed last term.
Sorry it's a bit fuzzy. Click here to go to the results page;  

What did you find interesting from the results below?















Our Holidays


Friday, September 28, 2012

End of Term 3

We have had a great Term 3! Here is a video of some of the things we got up to and what we enjoyed.

We are back in two weeks time. We begin Term 4 on Monday 15th of October.






Thursday, September 20, 2012

What is your favourite subject at school?

Hello to our quadblogging buddies.

 Let us know your favourite subject at school and why?
You can sign in and make a voice comment, type it or use a webcam.

We look forward to finding out what your favourite subjects are!


Keeping NZ Beautiful Jokes


Here are some jokes for Keeping NZ Beautiful around animals and our environment;

What did the raindrop say to the other?
Where do bees go to the toilet?
Why did the tree smell?
Why is the letter ‘t’ important to a stick insect?

Have a go at guessing what the answers may be. 
The answers will be displayed in a comment below for you to check. 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Our School Production

This is a video Toby made on Animoto about our school production called "Colour my World".




What did you enjoy?

What questions do you have?

Keeping NZ Beautiful


This week is "Keep NZ Beautiful" Week.

To help our school stay BEAUTIFUL we picked up rubbish around our school and cleaned up.

This is how we are going to keep NZ beautiful:

  • Megan "I'm going to clean up at lunchtime"
  • Loren "Each Wednesday at home or at school I'm going to pick up rubbish"
  • Victoria "Remind people to put their rubbish in the bin" 
  • Courtney "Try not to eat junk food in wrappers"
  • Aaron "Not litter - put my rubbish in the bin"
  • Toby "I am going to recycle all my paper, plastic bottles and cardboard at home"
  • Christian "Each day I am going to clean up rubbish at home and school"
  • Fin "Pick up rubbish each morning if I see it"
  • Jade "When I walk past rubbish I am going to pick up rubbish"
  • Katie "I am going to start by not using plastic wraps on my food and recycle"
  • Makayla "I am going to remind people to put their rubbish in the bin"
  • Dakota "When I go for walks I will pick up rubbish"
  • Debbie "I'm going to start picking up rubbish" 
  • Kasiti "I'm going to pick up rubbish when I walk past it"


Sunday, September 16, 2012

Quadblogging



Birthday Card Maker
Welcome to our quadblogging classes who are visiting our blog this week.
We hope you enjoy looking around our class blog. You can also visit our student blogs which are located on the right hand side of our class blog. ;)
Room 7 - We are also commenting on http://st-lukes.primaryblog.net/blog/class-blogs/2285.html so make sure you visit this blog each day and make a good quality comment. 

100WC

Check out our blogs on the right hand side of our class blog.

We have written come great stories for the 100WC. The prompt was ... looking behind me, I saw....

We would love you to comment on them. ;)

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Our School Production

This is a 'snapshot' of our up-and-coming production. We have three shows altogether and are very excited!
Our Production is called "Colour my World".



What did you enjoy?

We will upload more photos soon so watch this space :)

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Fairy Tales

We have been studying fairy tales in class.
What is your favourite fairy tale and why?

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Quadblogging


We are quadblogging again! Yay!
We are taking part in two quads this time!
Here are the class bogs we will be visiting; (click on the picture to go to their blog)







What do you enjoy about quadblogging?

What do you want to learn from our quadblogging buddies?




Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Student Led Conferences

We are practising for our Student Led Conferences which are today and on Thursday.

Student Led Conferences are where we share some of our learning with our families in our learning logs and on our blogs.









We are looking forward to...

Megan "Sharing all our amazing work"
Loren "Sharing my learning with my Mum and dad"
Dakota "Showing my Mum and Dad my maths"
Makayla "Showing my Mum and Dad my blog"
Aaron "Sharing my goals that I have achieved"
Debbie "Sharing my reading with my Mum and Dad"
Kasiti "I am looking forward to sharing my writing with my Mum"
Jade "Sharing my hard work with Mum and Dad"
Toby "Sharing some of the things that I have learnt this year"
Ashton "Sharing some things on my blog to my parents"
Katie "I really excited to share some learning with my parents"
Leah "Showing what I have learnt"
Fin "I am looking forward to sharing my results with my family"