Comments on Room 4 Blog

Dear Parents,
The aim for Term 2 is to have both you and the students comment on our blog. We will be practicing how to add a constructive, positive comment on someones work, be it a picture, a piece of writing or a slide within a PowerPoint presentation. All comments are emailed to me first before being published, this ensures all comments are in the best interests for the students! (As I'm sure they would be)
1. Click on the "Add Comment" button
2. Look at someone's work, and this could also be a joint effort of 2 or more students, then make a comment.
3. Comments should be positive and constructive and easy to read for the students, as we will be using the comments as part of our literacy programme.
4. When students are typing their comment, they will need to be reminded of spelling and punctuation before their comment is submitted.
5. In class we will be using sentence starters to practice how to write a positive comment. A rubric will be coming home in the children's home learning books for you and them to refer to. Sentence starters will be along the lines of . . ." I like your slide because  . . ." or "Your picture is great because you . . . . " etc.

All of the above will be modeled by me in class and during our ICT suite sessions which are on a Tuesday and Friday afternoon from 2-2.50 pm.

Thank you for supporting the children's learning, they have all worked so hard and enthusiastically during Term 1 so here's to another great Term coming up.
 Enjoy the Easter holidays.
Kind Regards
Susan Bridgman

PhotoStoryRoom 4 Learning

PhotoStoryRoom 4 Learning

Robber Fox Talking Book.

Room 4 had great fun creating this Robber Fox talking Book.

Room 4 have a visit to the computer suite (Room 20) every Tuesday afternoon. If any parents are free and would like to help from 2 -3pm that would be terrific. Some children are finding it difficult to log on etc and are still familiarizing themselves with a computer keyboard - to be expected so any help greatly appreciated!
Some pic's from last week. . . .

Children are looking at the new Windows 8 start screen, they can clearly see the big red tiles "Mathletics". 
Next week we will be exploring Paint, so keep watching for some fabulous pictures.

What has been happening in Room 4?

Dear Parents,

Welcome to Room 4's blog.

We have had a busy start to the year with water safety lessons, visits to the library and to the computer suite. We are working out what we know and what we don't know and what we need to learn next. Soon we will have some well established routines and are looking forward to sharing our learning with you.

We have been exploring our school environment and some children have been busy making nests in trees outside Room 4.

The girls decided to write a story together about their activities.
They "planned" their story . . . 

And this is what they wrote . . . 

My Bird's Nest.

Written by Maya, Charlotte and Jacqui

A few days ago we made a nest in a tree in the rock gardens. We used dry grass, twigs, stones, feathers and squished bugs. One bird actually ate a bug. We decided that we wanted to learn how birds make their nests. We found a book which had some pictures of nests in it. The book was helpful for us to learn more about what bird's use to make their nests. Our friends watched us and then they also joined in and helped us at playtime. We hope you like our photo's.

Charlotte was especially interested in this activity and wrote a wonderful story which we read aloud to the class.

 Here it is . . . My Fairy Tree by Charlotte

Don't forget that you can add a comment if you would like to . . .

Our Arataki Trip

We recently went to Arataki Visitors centre in the Waitakeres.

 

When we got there we had to spray our shoes to protect the Kauri trees from disease.

 

We split into groups and one group went on the nature trail first. We heard lots of birds but we didn't see many. Long ago it used to be a potato farm before it was a forest.

We saw Rimu trees and years ago, the leaves were used as hair combs.

 

Birds eat the berries and then poop out the seeds which then grow into more trees. "I think its very good because when trees get broken down they get replaced with a new tree". (Ella M)

 

"If the seeds that the birds poop out, if they are on top of eachother the seed on the bottom will push the other one out." (Ida)

 

We made a forest with our bodies. "Canopy is the top trees and it blocks some sun." (Ella R)  

The sub canopy is made of plants like ferns.

"Plants need light to grow so they need space." (Josh)  

Then comes the shrubs and ground cover.

 

The giant Kauri is the king of the forest. The biggest Kauri tree there is 600 years old but they can live for 2000 years!

 

"We learnt how old a baby tree is. A baby Kauri is 15-20 years old." (Lily).

 

"When Nikau palms are babies they look like grass but they're not." (George)

 

One tree we stopped to look at was the Tea Tree, known as Manuka. Captain Cook used to make tea out of the leaves when he came here.

 

There were a lot of spider webs in the forest and some were made by sheet spiders. Their webs were flat like a sheet of paper.

 

We learnt about when the trees die bugs and insects eat into them and make air gaps. The wood gets crumbly (decomposes) and ends up on the forest floor, becoming part of the soil.   This soil feeds the new trees growing so it is recycled.