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?

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.

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

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.

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. 

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"

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. ;)

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 :)

Fairy Tales

We have been studying fairy tales in class.

What is your favourite fairy tale and why?

Reminders

Ladybug Note Generator    

Ladybug Note Generator

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?

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"

Week 7 Reminders

Lady Bug Note Generators   Do you like the new gadget I found? You can have your very own if you click on the link above. Make sure you link your messgaes to your learning and then you can embed them on your own blog. Have fun!

Room 7's blog is on the Blog Dipping website!

We are so proud to have our Room 7 class blog featured on the Blog Dipping website!

We hope everyone around the world enjoys reading our post on asking questions and also checks out the rest of our blog!

Cross Country

The year 1-4 children had their cross country today. This is a photpeach that Loren made.

In our class the 7 year olds ran two laps of the school field. 8 and 9 year olds ran 2 1/2 laps of the field.

We had hay bales to jump over and a course to run around to make it more fun!

 

What did you enjoy about our cross country and why?

 

If you are visiting from another school what is your cross country like?

Cross country 2012 on PhotoPeach

Asking questions

We are learning to ask questions before, during and after reading.

We read this big book called The Lion and the Mouse. We asked questions about this book.

These are the types of questions we are learning about:

1. Right there questions (Literal)
The answer is right there in the story

2. Search and think questions (Inferential)
You need to search for clues in the story and think about your answer.

3. On my own questions (Evaluative) 
The answer won't be in the story. You need to find the answer in your head. Think "I have to answer the question on my own".

 Here are our questions. Can you guess what type of question each of us asked?

listen to ‘Aaron’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Ashton’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Christian’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Courtney’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Dakota’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Fin’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Katherine’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘katie’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Leah’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Loren’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Makayla’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Megan’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Toby’ on Audioboo
listen to ‘Tukotahi’ on Audioboo

Feelings

How are these athletes feeling and why?

Spring is coming!

This morning we discussed this photo for oral language. Listen to our descriptions.....

What do you think of when you see this photo?

NZ has 100 medals!

We found this video clip on another class blog and think it's pretty cool!
We are proud of our country NZ because we have 100 medals in total.

When were YOU most proud to be a New Zealander?

Maths week

This week is Maths week. Click on the link below, sign in and have fun practicing your maths skills!

We LOVE Learning!

This week we created posters to show how we LOVE learning. 

 Our learning goal was to use MS Publisher to show the different ways we love to learn.

We were successful when we could;

• choose a background style
• choose photos saved in our folders or take new photos to show different ways of learning
• add a title and words to describe what we were doing in the photos 
• make our posters easy to read by thinking about the lay-out

We entered our posters in this competition - http://www.ilovelearning.org.nz/
Search for Vardon School to see our entries. You can even show you "like" them by clicking the like button!

We LOVE Learning! on PhotoPeach

Do you think we achieved our goal?

Maths week 2012

Next week is maths week in NZ.

Here is a snapshot from the 100 word Challenge website that some of us used for writing. We can't wait until this is up and running again in September!

Below the picture are some maths problems to solve.

 Make a comment with your thinking and your answers to these problems.  Remember to number your answers.

1. How many posts altogether were made for both the 100 WC and the 5 SC?

2. There were visitors from 50 countries. If 25 more countries joined in September, how many countries would that be altogether?

3. There are actually 196 countries in the world. How many countries did not visit the 100 word challenge blog?

4. 68, 000 visits were made to class blogs. What is 100 more than this number? What is 1000 more?

EXTRA - make up your own problem using these numbers for someone to reply to.

Have fun solving these problems! We can't wait to read your comments!

Retelling a Maori Legend

The Takahe and Kiwi reading groups retold a maori legend for Maori Language week. First we read the legend and also watched a video clip. Then we each chose a part to retell. We drew a picture to show our retell and then recorded our voice.

What did you enjoy about our retelling?

Olympics

Wow! What a weekend of sport!

The Waikato Chiefs bet the Sharks in the final game of Super 15 Rugby. :)

We watched lots of sports in the Olympics over the weekend. We are proud of all our NZ athletes who did their best.

NZ now has 3 gold medals and 4 bronze medals which equals 7 altogether! YAY!

What have you enjoyed watching at the 2012 Olympics and why?

Our NZ medals at the 2012 Olympics

This is our equestrian team who won a bronze medal.
Megan "I felt surprised when they got the bronze medal because for horse-riding it's really hard and I'm proud of them because they tried their best"

Toby "I felt excited  because it's good to get a medal"

In this photo we think these rowers are.....

Loren "They are feeling really tired and puffed"

Katie "I think they are very happy and proud and they are trying their best"

They are being resilient and trying their best.

Dakota "When they get the gold medal they would be really proud of themselves for getting NZ's first gold medal"

Fin "I think they are feeling really happy and proud of themselves"

Christian "These rowers are happy and proud because they are holding their bronze medal"

Over the Rainbow

Taku Mihi

One thing we have done this week to celebrate Maori Language week is to record our mihis that we wrote last term.

Here are some of them. Please visit our individual blogs to hear the rest of them.

listen to ‘Loren’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Christian’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Victoria’ on Audioboo

Olympics discussion

For Oral Language this morning we discussed this photo.

What is happening?
How is the person holding the Olympic torch feeling and why?
What is the crowd doing?
How would we feel if this were us?

2012 Olympic Mascots

Today we watched this video clip on the 2012 Olympic mascots.
We also learnt some information about them.

Here are the mascots;


Hi. My name is Mandeville.

• My name comes from Stoke Mandeville where a doctor had an idea to help his patients recover from back injuries. He set up a wheelchair Basketball competition and this is how the Paralympics began.
• My eye is a camera lens so I can record everything I see
• I always want to be faster
• I wear a watch so I can beat my speed every time
• I was created from the last two drops of British steel used to make the 2012 Olympic stadium

My name is Wenlock.

• My name comes from the town of Much Wenlock in Shropshire
• My eye is a camera lens so I can record everything I see
• I love all Olympic sports
• I wear friendship bracelets and they are the colours of the Olympic rings
• I love making new friends
• The light on my head is inspired from the London famous black taxis

Circuits

Victoria used the ipod today to take photos of us doing circuits. She then created a video using the splice app on the ipod. This is our first time using the splice app.

Circuits are a fun fitness activity. We are doing circuits to get fit and ready for our cross country. 

Writing in room 7

Today we used a movie animation from The Literacy Shed. We watched the animation and brainstormed adjectives, nouns, verbs and adverbs.

This is a screenshot of the ending of the animation. We wrote an ending on our blogs. Visit our blogs to see our writing.

Pablo Picasso

We are learning about different artists.

One of the artists we looked at is Pablo Picasso. Here are some of his paintings. Can you guess which one is NOT a Picasso painting?

Make a comment and tell us which one you think is NOT by Picasso?

http://www.artsology.com/pablo_picasso_gallery.php

(This is the website where you can see more of his paintings)

Maths

This is our new graffiti wall for maths.  At the end of a maths lesson we can graffiti something we learnt or found interesting.

This is our number of the day wall. Each day the person who writes the most interesting way to make the number gets to choose a number for the next day.

Here's your number of the day ... 58.

How can you make 58?

Make a comment with your way to make 58.

Holidays

Happy Holidays!

WOW! Term 2 went by so quickly!

Have a safe, relaxing and fun-filled holiday everyone!

See you all back on Monday the 16th of July.

From room 7 and Mrs Natusch ;)

Sound

We have finished our topic on "Exploring Sound". Let us know what you learnt.

Our Assembly

This is a movie about our assembly. We hope you enjoy it!

Please leave us a comment about what you enjoyed!

The Seven stars of Matariki

This is the legend of The Seven Stars of Matariki.

What did you learn?

What did you find interesting?

What questions do you have?

Matariki

Information on Matariki

This week, on the 21st June, New Zealand will celebrate Matariki.

What is Matariki?
Matariki is the Māori name for the star cluster known as the Pleiades.
Traditionally for Māori, when it appeared just before dawn in late May or early June, it signalled the start of the Māori New Year. For some tribes, the rising of Puanga (Rigel in Orion) signals the start of the New Year.

When is Matariki?
Different tribes celebrated Matariki at different times. For some it was when Matariki rose in May/June. For others it was celebrated at the first new moon, or full moon, following the rising of Matariki. In the 21st century it is the new moon following the rising of Matariki that signals the New Year.

sourced from http://www.kiwikidsnews.co.nz/moduleid-418

Read our previous post... our voicethread about what we learnt about matatriki.

What did you learn?

What questions do you have?

Digital Citizenship

This is a poster that Toby and Loren made.

What do you know about fractions?

Make a comment about what you know about fractions. If you have a question about fractions then you could even ask that as well.

I look forward to seeing all your comments by the end of the week! Mrs N ;)

Our School Logo

Each week our school councillors discuss parts of our school logo; what it represents and what this means for students at Vardon School.

Creating a Soundscape

Mrs D wrote a story for us and we drew a soundscape picture of what it sounded like. Then we created a piece of music to tell the story.

Here are our pieces of music.

What did you enjoy about our soundscapes?

Skyping with 3G

Today we skyped a school in London. We had to come to school at 7am which is extra early for us!
We skyped 3G at St Augustine's Junior school and they had to stay at school until 8pm to skype with us!

From our skype we learnt....

• Big Ben is really tall and big.
• 3G wrote to the Queen and invited her to a picnic. The class received a letter back from the Queen on special thick paper. She was too busy to go!
• They were really excited about the Olympics coming to their city.
• Their flag has the same colours as our flag.
• They have 24 children in their class.
• They have 7 teachers and 193 students.
• They have 2 goldfish just like us!
• 3G starts school at 8:50am and finish 3:20pm.
• They have 3 breaks in their school day - the first one is at 10am, second break at 12pm and the third break is in the afternoon.

We really enjoyed skyping because we really wanted to meet one of our quad blog classes. We enjoyed learning lots of information about them. We got to see them on video!

It was our first time skyping. The connection wasn't that great because they were on the other side of the world. But we really didn't care because we loved meeting them!

After our skype we had hot milos, pikelets, muffins, cookies and toast for breakfast.

Courtney first asked if they knew about her bear. She got it at a famous train station in London. They said it was called the Beef Eater bear. Courtney knew that this was a person in the palace who tested the food the Queen was going to eat to check if it was poisoned or not. 

This is a photo of us listening hard!

Christian asked what their favourite subject at school was.

Katie was asking if they were excited about the Olympics and they shouted "YES!"

Loren asked what type of fish they had in their class. 

Jade asked how many classrooms they have - 7.

Fin is explaining his favourite subject at school.

Matariki

Our musical stories about a storm

Our task was to create a musical story about a storm. We were only allowed to use our bodies to create sound.
We had to think about soft and loud sounds and what parts of our bodies would make each sound.

What did you enjoy about our musical stories? 

A really cool song about sound!

Sounds – Lyrics

Well now sounds are made, when objects vibrate
It’s not something you can always see
But air vibrates so make no mistake
That’s the sounds you hear, solid, liquid and through air
And it’s entering your ear, come on I know I’ve made myself clear

The pitch of the sound, how high or how low it goes
A short string gives a higher pitch sound
A tighter skin makes a higher sound on the drum
Now come on! Come on!

Well now sounds are made, when objects vibrate
It’s not something you can always see
But it is something that will always be
I know I’m not but if I was
An astronaut in space I couldn’t hear anything
It’s a vacuum the sound has no trace x2
Come on! Come on!

The sound has no trace
Now sounds are made, when objects vibrate
It’s not something you can always see
But air vibrates so make no mistake
That’s the sounds you hear, solid, liquid and through air
And it’s entering your ear, come on I know I’ve made myself clear

Well now sounds are made (I know I’m not but if I was)
When objects vibrate (An astronaut in space)
Well now sounds are made (I wouldn’t hear any thing)
When objects vibrate (It’s a vacuum the sound has no trace)

Our new ipod touch!

We are so lucky to have an ipod touch in our classroom.
Here are some of the ways we have used the ipod....

• We have listened to our reading books
• played maths, reading and spelling games
• we have used the crosswords apps
• we have taken photos of our speeches

We want to try...

• taking videos
• explore how to use it for writing
• use it to show our thinking in maths (example writing fractions and showing others)
• use the Internet to find information\
• to put learning on our blogs

We are looking forward to using the ipod to help us with our learning! 

What we have learnt about sound so far...

Victoria meant to say on the voice that the person at the back of the field can still hear the sound but after the closer person.

Sound can travel through water, air and solids.

We have just watched a video on sound (see our science tab on our class blog above) and have also learnt....

• Sound travels as vibrating waves called sound waves (Courtney)
• Some older people can't hear high sounds because they have damaged their hearing over time (Megan)
• Sound can be high and low (Makayla)
• Light travels faster than sound (Ashton)
• The longer the tube the lower the sound (Fin)

Katherine's 100 word challenge

A walk through the jungle ...

Tim and Moby were walking through a mysterious scary jungle. “Shhhh!” whispers Tim. “I can hear a creepy lion coming” “Oh no!”says Moby. “Oh no the creepy lion is getting closer. The lion can smell us! Stay still.” Then the lion came. “I’m scared” shivered Tim. “Hey what are you guys screaming for?” “ Oh! Are you the creepy lion? Creepy lion? Well. I heard that a mysterious lion coming from behind that bush. Moby says “You must be crazy Tim. Can you take us out of here please?” “ I sure can take you out, only if you give me some meat.” “Okay” says Tim. “Yay! We’re out!”
by Katherine
Year 4

Courtney's 100 word challenge

The rubies of Moshville

 “Wow!” I yelled in Moby’s ear. “I never knew moshi monsters were real!” Just then I heard a monster roar that I had to do a quest for her. “Hey Moby” I said. “We have to find the lost rubies of Moshville. They are hidden under puzzle palace”. “But how do we get there?” Moby asked me. “We go through Sludge street and then we are there.” “I meant how do we get underground?” asked Moby. “Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine” I exclaimed. As we approached the palace I took out my shovel and mining hat...

Loren's 100 word challenge

“Ooh it’s cold! Can we go back?” Moby complained to Tim. “No” Tim answered. It was a tropical evening and the crickets were louder then ever. Why are we here? Moby kept thinking to himself. Do you think we’re ever going to get out of here, it’s like a giant, cold, noisy, smelly maze! Moby wondered to himself. Tim and Moby were about to give up for the night when they heard a strange noise that sounded like a roaring, scary lion! They walked through a big gap made by some trees and then saw some wrinkly elephants rolling around in the squishy mud!

by LorenYear 4