Rainbow Jelly and Final Week

Kia Ora All,

Here are some pictures of the outcome of our measurement unit designing and making rainbow jellies. Some good learning went on with a delicious outcome. Here are a few other things to look out for next week.

• Parent / teacher interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday. Book a time through Jane at your convenience. 
• Reports went home Friday, if you haven't seen your child's report yet please ask them for it.
• End of term BTB points auction: Small items donated for the kids to bid on with their points can be brought to school ready for Wednesday or Thursday.
• We didn't get to film speeches this week. Cue cards for next week would be excellent please.
• Homework tasks have been a bit thin on the ground the last 3-4 weeks! There have been a lot of things on and I haven't managed to squeeze it in sorry. We're in the process of creating a lift the flap style ancient Egypt fact file as part of our Inquiry. If you're after a home learning task then finding some facts about ancient Egypt and helping your child to write them in their own words would fit in nicely. 
• Helping your child draw a scale floor plan of their bedroom or similar would fit in nicely with this coming week's maths unit on maps. 

Rock On,

Mr M

What's Been Happening?

Kia Ora All,

Last week we (finally) started our maths unit about measurement. This week we'll be designing and making rainbow jellies. Here are some pictures of the students in action doing their first plan on Friday. There were many challenges along the way, but most students managed to finish their plan. This coming week we'll be doing a plan for a glass of choice and actually making that jelly.

In other news:

• I thought all the students wrote great speeches and presented them well in class. We'll film them over the next week or so and aim to get them all up on the blog by the end of the term.
• Parent / Teacher interviews will be on the 2nd and the 3rd of July. A booking form will be available closer to the time.
• Apologies for the lack of Homework going home over the last couple of weeks. I'll try to get back into it next week.

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 7

Kia Ora All,

We are starting to get closer to the end of the term now, and as usual it's looking pretty packed.

• Next week I'm aiming to do the in-class speech presentation. Please check in with your child to see where they are at with their speech. I would suggest asking them to read their speech to you and giving them some feedback. I try to emphasise the fun factor with speeches and making an attempt to entertain their audience. If a child has researched facts online or in a book, I always try to help them reword the fact so that they understand what they have written. You don't have to do it all at home of course, but writing a speech is a great opportunity to work as a partnership between home and school to get the best possible work out of the child. We want the students to feel proud and successful of their speeches.
• We will be learning about measurement in maths over the next week or so by making some rainbow jellies. If you have spare measuring cups or spoons that show millilitres on them, it would be useful for you to send these along for your child to use. Also, if you have a cup they can use to make their jellies in, please send that along too. If the cup is a weird shape that would be a bonus. Glasses are best as you can actually see the jelly.

Rock on,

Mr M

Ancient Egypt Inquiry

1. In your word study book head up Ancient Egypt Facts. Make yourself a tic tac note-taking chart
2. Click on the below links, have a read through 4 articles. If you decide to watch the video, make sure you have headphones on. Make 2 -3 notes about each article as you go.
3. Once you have found some cool facts, write your top ones out and show Mr M. 
4. Present your facts as a flip fact file. You might like to give it a hieroglyphics title. 

• An Introduction to Ancient Egypt
• What Remains of Ancient Egypt?
• What Happened to the Ancient Egyptians?
• What Was Life Like for the Ancient Egyptians?
• Why Was Farming Important to the Ancient Egyptians? 
• What Games Did The Ancient Egyptians Play?
• Who Was Tutankhamun? 
• What Were Egyptian Hieroglyphics?  
• What Did The Ancient Egyptians Believe In?
• Take The Ancient Egypt Quiz! (you will need to have read the articles really well to nail this one)

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 6 update

Tena Koutou Katoa,

I hope you all had a great long weekend and are feeling relaxed and ready for the second half of the term. Here's a few things to look out for.

• I know I emailed about prepping your child with a special person to write about a week or so back, but I've had to put that on the back burner as speeches made a surprise attack on me. Could you please chat to your child about a speech topic they might like to write about? It should be something they are interested in and could do some research on. I prefer if students write about a topic they haven't used in previous years as it's a bit more fun for them to try out different topics.
• I have days out of the classroom booked on Wednesday and Thursday to get some testing done and Mr Cullen will be in the driving seat. I've asked him to make a start on speeches, so it would be great if you and your child could have decided on a topic by Wednesday. 
• Please make sure your child has shoes at school daily. The students really value their morning fitness sessions and recently I've had some students standing off to the side because they don't have appropriate footwear for cooler mornings. Shoes or gumboots are fine. We have also been doing cross country training and shoes are necessary for that too.

Rock on,

Mr M