Welcome to Week 9

Kia Ora All,

Welcome to week 9. I'm back on deck this week as my wife's back is much improved.

• The rocky shore mini inquiry is under way. Any extra research you do at home is always useful around inquiry topics such as this one. If you're looking at spicing up your home learning programme or daily reading sessions with your child, I'm sure they'd enjoy doing some research with you on the internet. This would tie in with a writing opportunity if you're looking for one. Drawing a diagram of a sea creature and researching facts to include on the diagram would be a potentially neat wee home learning experience.
• I've been continuing to monitor and set new tasks on Maths Buddy. Students have time at school of course, but if you want to include maths in your home learning programme and haven't yet looked at Maths Buddy with your child, I'd encourage you to do so.
• Well done to those of you who managed to locate your child's writing on the blog and leave a comment. If you haven't managed to do so yet, below is a short video about how to go about it. 

Rock on,

Mr M

Welcome To Week 8

Kia Ora All,

Welcome to Week 8. As you may have noticed, we've been working on publishing our camp recounts through the blog. I've managed to post almost everyone's camp recount. Those who aren't posted yet, will be very soon. Great job to those of you who have already read your child's writing and posted a comment. Receiving comments online about work they are celebrating is very motivating for the students. If you're not sure how to comment on the blog, just reading it through with your child and offering praise is worthwhile and motivating.

• This Wednesday we're visiting Paton's Rock as part of a school-wide inquiry topic entitled "The Rocky Shore." I recommend having a chat to your child about tide pools, times you've been to the beach to look for creatures, what lives in these types of environments and other relevant things around the topic. This helps to activate prior knowledge (things they already know about the topic) and builds connections between what we'll be reading about at school and their existing real life experiences. 
• Please keep up with the home reading. Most students I spoke to on Friday had novels on the go and said that they read daily at home, so great job parents! It's getting into that tired point of the term where everyone begins to flag a little bit, so make sure you keep up with the home reading. It all helps.
• I'm going to be away for a few days this week to help out at home as my wife has hurt her back. If you need to contact me, please flick me an email and I'll endeavour to respond. 
• If you haven't filled in our statistics surveys, please click here and have a crack at them. 

Rock on,

Mr M

Teru's Camp Recount

BRIDGE VALLEY

We were pulling up the drive to BRIDGE

VALLEY adventure camp my car was

Going psycho i was so excited my heart was  pounding like a hammer.

I saw the Hydro slide it looked

AWESOME we got told were our

Cabins were our in them i was with

Kahu,Kiyo,Louis, Lochie, Brody, Aonghus. First activity we had was climbing. I made it the highest in my group. Next we had high ropes. It was like all these really strong metal ropes. We are wearing harnesses and clips called carabinas. We also used tweezels to open and close your harnesses. That was a big day, I thought. We had dinner and dessert and saw all the photos of the day.

We had a good sleep and then went in the kayaks. I’m not that good at kayaking but I still loved it. That night we got to go on the hydroslide. I went on it first with Zeb. I was as fast as a zooming rocket. So we did it again and again until I said “Let’s go on the black slide.” That was even faster. We went on the aqua tramp for a few minutes and then we went on the diving board. It was a really high diving board. I was going to do a front flip, but I decided not to. Again we had dinner and another good sleep and we also saw the photos of the day. We had another good sleep.

I was really tired in the morning and it was the most tiring day. The first activity we had was abseiling. I loved abseiling, probably more than high ropes. It was a bit scary, but really extremely fun. We made some damper, it was delicious but smoke got in my eyes, it burnt. My damper cooked really quick. Then we played a game called get fresh.

Then we played a game that was even more fun. It was called Drip, Drip, Drop. It was like Duck, Duck, Goose except you go drip, drip drop. On drip you drip some water on their hear. But if you want to say drop on someone you drop a full bucket of water. And then Logan got a whole bucket of water, and guess who he poured it on? It was me! I got soaked.

It was getting late so we went caving. We found the Gorilla with eyes of glowing red. It looked sick. We had dinner and dessert and then we looked at the photos of the day. They were funny.

We went to sleep and in the morning we had breakfast, it was yum. It was the last day. We used the air rifles. I shot 3 targets. We also did archery I hit the target 3 times. It was my 3rd favourite activity.

Then we had iron man race. All the teams versed. It was like first person ran, second person kayaks, third person jumps off the diving board, fourth person ran, fifth person did the obstacle course, sixth person ran, seventh person did the playground, eighth took the basketball shot and got it in, ninth ran, tenth caved, eleventh ran (which was me). We won.

Bridge Valley was so fun!

By Teru

Toby's Camp Recount

     Room 5 camp 2017

I woke up. Another regular old day I said to myself… “Toby!!! I suddenly jumped “ mum  it’s  7.30  in  the  morning’’ I know “then I remembered “it’s room 5 camp”! it took 10 minutes to pack my stuff. Then we zoomed of to school.  It took 2 hours to get to bridge valley camp. The high ropes were awesome. It took half an hour to do the practice course.  Ten minutes later it was my turn on the high ropes.  At the end I went down the flying fox.  It was scary but fun.

By Toby

Emily's Camp Recount

Camp bridge valley .         I Woke up too exited  to speak .I got dressed not a moment to lose . I jumped in the car like a   boomerang.I knew it was going to be awesome !!! We arrived there. No one knew what was going on it was a … raft race. We went to our  teams. When it was my turn my heart was beating like drums with no air .I was so scared  of the eels .Then I got on the raft . Kick and kick ...till I  got Dragged under the raft I was crying I could have died . The day went fast I didn't like the first day of camp .Because I got dragged but the rest was fun I guess. SWIMMING .The diving platform it felt like it was 300m high but it was not .I jumped into the eel eating lake !I went to Aliana and we swam to the little island .We wanted to go on the tramp so we did till Emma’s dad threw us off . It was really fun I hope to go back .

WATER SLIDE.The water slide was so small .I went on it .It’s so fast Mr Cullen pushed me when I was on the slide .I went so fast I hit my head at the bottom  .They were super fast the black one was the Fastest by far .It felt like a flying monkey on a slingshot .I wanted to do more but Mr Cullen said that's for tonight.

I love it so much I hope to go back again!!!!

Statistics Surveys

Kia Ora All,

Room 5 have been working away at learning the ways of the Google Docs. As part of our ICT and statistics programme, we've put together some quick surveys. We'd really appreciate it if you took a couple of minutes to tell us your favourite choices on the below surveys. Videos and graphs of our findings to follow!

Rock on,

Mr M

Welcome To Week 6

Kia Ora All,

It's week 6 already, I can't believe how quickly the term is flying by!

• This week we're starting Add / Sub in maths. This means I'll be taking groups and looking at some strategies for adding and subtracting numbers.
• While home learning is totally optional, it is vital that your child reads at home every day. I spoke to a number of students last week who don't have reading material on the go at home presently. Please have a conversation with your child about what they are reading and make sure they have a novel or similar. Also, reading to your child is highly recommended.
• Only one student actually showed me their homework checklist from last week. It was a bit of a squeeze to get everything done on Friday; if your child did participate in home learning and forgot to show me, get them to show me sometime this week. 
• The below video is a piece of rewindable learning (lessons that can be revisited) around a maths concept we'll be looking at this week. I recommend viewing the video with your child and doing some examples together at home. Apologies for the budget camera work!

Rock on,
Mr M

Week 5

Kia Ora All,

Welcome to week 5. I hope all the students have recovered from camp and are ready to rock 'n' roll for another week.

• This week I'm aiming to set up Reading Eggs. Students can be continuing with Maths Buddy at home and will be using it daily at school as part of our regular maths programme.
• Students need to be reading daily at home. If you want your child to bring home a levelled text for them to read to you, they can grab one out of their book box at school. Otherwise, a novel or similar reading material of interest is ideal.
• Don't forget the Triathlon on Friday!
• Here is a neat writing activity that I did with the students the other day. If you're after something fun to get them writing at home, you could try it out. 

Rock On,

Mr M

Slater Websites

Read 10 Fascinating Facts About Slaters

Roly-Poly Slaters.

Camp Update 13/2/17

Welcome to Week 3

Kia Ora All,

It's week 3 already and the mighty Room 5 is plowing on like a giant unstoppable learning juggernaut.

• It was great to see so many students and parents at the BBQ on Friday, don't forget meet the teacher evening is on Tuesday. If you'd like to pop along to get a rundown about the class programme, it'd be great to see you there. 
• Maths Buddy has been up and running for a couple of weeks now. The students all have logins. I've noticed that many of them haven't logged in at home yet. If you participate in home learning, I recommend getting them to bring home their login and checking it out. You can find a short instructional video that I made here on the learning site.
• If your child isn't able to swim or do fitness due to injury or similar, could you please send along a note or send me an email to let me know that they need to be excused from the fitness programme.
• Last week I helped the students create a password for their school Google accounts (we're still in the process of signing everyone in). I showed them the below video about the importance of having a strong password and how to create one. I strongly feel that keeping ourselves safe online is an essential skill in this day and age. Viewing this video with your child and having a conversation about what sites they enter passwords into and games they've created profiles for online may be something you'd like to consider.

Rock On,

Mr M

Welcome to week 2

Kia Ora All,

Welcome to week two, I hope everyone has had a great long weekend and the students are reading to rock 'n' roll for another week. Here is a heads up for the coming week.

• The school BBQ is Friday evening, it would be great to meet/see you there if you can make it.
• If you haven't returned your child's camp permission slip to me, could you please do so this week. 
• I'll be kicking into more of my reading programme this week. An important part of becoming an excellent reader is having enjoyable reading material on the go at all times. Please ask your child what novel they are reading at present. If they don't have one on the go, I'd encourage you to help them choose one at the town library, school library or similar. I did a quick whip around during Get Lost (silent reading time, meaning: get lost in a book) - only about half the class had a novel on the go so it would be great if you could check in with them to see what they're reading.
• We'll be continuing our inquiry about slaters. This week we'll hopefully be setting up a slater habitat. Wish us (and the slaters) luck!
• We've started using Maths Buddy in class, below is a short video I made about how to use it. I'll be adding more videos throughout the year. You can find these under the Rewindable Learning tab on the learning site.

Rock On,

Mr M

Room 5 Term One Newsletter

Kia Ora All,

Welcome to the start of the school year. For those of you who don't know me I'm the new year 4/5 teacher here at Motupipi School. My family and I moved here in early January from Greymouth, where I've been teaching for the last three years. We're stoked to be living in Golden Bay and have been enjoying all the area has to offer!

Class Programme

Maths: We're starting off the year with a statistics unit. We'll be surveying the class and school community about various favourite things, organising the results, graphing them and interpreting the graphs. If you're looking for home learning to fit in with this you could create a survey with your child, record the results on a tally chart and create a bar graph showing the results.

Reading: For the first two to three weeks I'll be doing some group work with the students and also the usual testing to see where they're at so that I can determine what their learning needs are. I aim to set the scene for a positive year of reading and actively model the enjoyment of books. 

Writing: The first few weeks of the writing programme I have some fun and engaging writing activities planned as well as some activities that will help me determine student needs. As with reading, the first few weeks are about getting to know the students as writers and setting the tone for a fun year of writing. 

Communication

One feature of my teaching is that I share a lot of my planning through my learning site. You can visit here to see many of the activities we're doing in class and to check out what I have planned. You'll also find the weekly overview, which is useful for knowing what we're up to in class. I also have a resources page, which I'll add to throughout the year. As the year progresses I'll continue to send out more information and activity ideas for home learning via the site. 

If you want to get in touch with me, email is the best point of contact. Alternatively, you're welcome to ring me at school. I also have an open door policy for my classroom, so please feel welcome to pop in to say hi or talk to me about any concerns that have arisen. 

Extra curricula

• There will be a school BBQ on Friday the 10th - more details to follow in the newsletter.
• Information evening / meet the teacher is on Tuesday the 14th.
• Camp is in week four. We're heading off to Bridge Valley. I'm super excited about this one; I've been to Bridge Valley with a class before and it was one of the best camps I've been on. If you haven't received a newsletter from your student, and they can't find it, you can find a digital copy here on my learning site. 

ICT within the class programme

I've signed the class up to Reading Eggs and Maths Buddy. I'll be showing the students how to use the programs over the first few weeks at school. We'll be using both of these programs on a daily basis in the class, and I highly recommend them as a part of your home learning programme. Below is a short information sheet about Maths Buddy. Please click the arrow button on the top right of the page to enlarge it.

Homework

I don't have a hard and fast rule regarding homework. I will send out a homework checklist on Friday (due back on Friday). If you decide not to participate in home learning your child will not be penalised in any way. If you want to know what I think a solid home learning programme looks like here are my suggestions:

• I highly recommend 20-30 minutes a day of reading time.
• Reading to your child daily - a novel or similar.
• Spending some time on Maths Buddy or Reading Eggs weekly as suits.
• If you want more than that, the homework checklist will give some other options. 
• I also do spelling on Fridays so they will have a list on the go sometime in the first few weeks as I get tests done them.

I aim for all of my newsletter-style communication to be through my blog. I find that it's the easiest, fastest and most reliable method of getting information out to whanau. Please leave a comment below or email me to let me know that the email address I have for you is current. 

Rock on,

Mr M

Room 5's Statistics Survey

Room 5 are currently undertaking a statistics unit in maths. Please help us out by filling in your answer and clicking 'submit'. 

Rock on,
Mr M

The Paroa School Anthem

Kia Ora All,

Here is the finished Paroa School Anthem. Mr Sinton-White did an amazing job with the video, we're looking forward to debuting the song with the live band at assembly sometime in term 4!



Rock On,
Mr M

Haruru Ana

Kia Ora All,

Haruru Ana is a song that some of the students are finding quite challenging to sing. Here is a quick version sung by some R6 girls, if you're not sure about how to sing it check it out. These guys nailed it.

Official Paroa School Anthem

Kia Ora All,

Here is the Official Paroa School Anthem. The school band is ready to unleash this bad boy in assembly in week 5. Mr Sinton White will be doing some filming from week 9 onwards. We'll use the footage to create the ultimate music video. We're super excited about this one! Make sure you learn the song so that you can sing along in assembly and in the music video.

Rock On,

Mr M

The finished Paroa School anthem lyrics

Titanium - School Band

Kia Ora All,

Here is the link to the chords and lyrics for Titanium. We'll be looking at performing this in assembly soon. If you're in the school band, do guitar/ukulele lessons or are part of choir this resource will help you learn the song.

Rock on, 

Mr M

Introducing the Paroa School Lyric Writing Competition!

Two years ago we had an epic school song that fitted in with our school values at the time. Unfortunately, when the values changed at the start of last year the song was no longer relevant. Over the holidays I booked some time in Lydia St Studios and recorded a backing track for a new school song. I recorded myself singing an idea of some lyrics, but I think it would be much better if the lyrics were written by you guys so I'm going to run the Paroa School Lyric Writing Competition.

The rules are simple:

1. The lyrics must be about Paroa School and reflect the positive nature of the school and unique environment here. 
2. The lyrics must include the school values - The Four C's: Caring, Confident, Connected, Creative.
3. The lyrics should include other things such as BTB and generally paint a picture about how awesome this school is.
4. You must be happy for your lyrics to be used in the school song if you win. 
5. You may have to be prepared for suggestions about to make your lyrics BTB before we record if you win. 
6. They must be submitted to me by Friday the 3rd of June 2016 by 2.48pm.

Mr M's Tips for songwriters:

1. Check out my lyrics. You are welcome to keep any parts that you really like if you wish. Personally I can't see how you can make the chorus do a better job of making it clear that the song is about Paroa School so personally I would consider keeping this in your version. It's up to you though. 
2. Sing along with the backing track as you write your lyrics. Your lyrics must fit in with the melody of the song. See me if you don't understand what I mean by that.
3. Have fun, music is awesome

What will we do with your lyrics you may ask? Well, I plan to record some of the talented singers at the school singing it and we'll put it over the backing track. In term three we'll make a music video that includes the whole school and share it with the world. 

Here is the Anthem demo with my lyrics

Here is the Anthem backing track for you to sing along with