Inquiry Update

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

We've finished working our way through our whale inquiry immersion questions. The students are now either going back and finishing tasks they didn't get completed the first time around and getting them signed off on our sticker chart or, once they've done that, they're starting to make up their own whale questions to research further. They'll choose a method of presentation once they've done some research so keep and eye out for more amazing whale information coming your way very soon. Here's a some pictures of some of the boys in full whale research flight.

Also, here's Scarlett's whale video that she and Carmyn finished off this week.

Rock On, 

Mr M

The Week 8 Update of Greatness

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

We had a huge week last week with triathlon training, general reading writing and maths learning and also cracking on with our inquiry. Speaking of which, the students made some videos of themselves talking about what we learnt about whales this week. The idea was to put together a little sketch with one student pretending to be a reporter and the other pretending to be a whale expert. We used an app called Screencastify on the Chromebooks, which was new to most of the class. We'll be doing more of these as the year progresses. Feel free to leave a comment talking about what you enjoyed about the videos and a suggestion about how we could make them BTB (better than before) next time.

In other news:

• I'm on the lookout for dress ups that the students can use for plays, making videos etc. Anything you have that you could donate to a class dress up box would be much appreciated.
• I'm also on the lookout for old t-shirts that we could cut up. I've got a project in mind that requires t-shirts that are ready to be repurposed, but clean (i.e., not rag-grade). Any donations gratefully received. 
• Triathlon on Friday!

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 7 Update

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

We've been burning through our World of Whales inquiry. Here's a pic of the students beside our inquiry wall. In the background you can see some lift-the-flap toothed whale fact files shaped like orcas. You can also see some colourful fact files about baleen whales on the right hand side.

Here are some whale art pictures we did on Friday. The concept was to cut out a picture of a whale and use it as the basis for an art work with the rest being filled in with paint. The technique we worked on was creating a composition with a foreground, midground and background. 

 --- Also of Interest ---

• Swimming sports is coming up on Wednesday. 
• Training for the triathlon will also be kicking into gear this week to build confidence and endurance in running, biking and swimming. 
• Class camp will be going ahead in Term 2 at this point. I'm looking at a trip to Nelson for a few days to do some activities that enhance next term's inquiry topic.

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 6 update

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Last week felt like a big one - it was only the second 5 day week since school started!

We had Mike Ogle in to talk about Blue Whales last week. He had some great slides, photos and an amazing recording of whale sounds - not to mention his phenomenal knowledge. The students were enthralled for a good hour and would have carried on asking him questions if there had been time. 

During the meet the teacher evening there were some really good questions about how to get the kids writing at home, particularly boys who might be reluctant to write and find reading and maths much more appealing. I'd say go for shorter tasks and give them the opportunity to feel successful early. One thing I like doing is list writing, here's a list of possible topics:

• favourite toys

• parts of a motorbike

• favourite foods

• hated foods

• how to scare mum, dad, sister, brother etc

• scary things

• list of things to do on the ideal weekend

• stuff I'd rather be doing if I didn't have to write a list

Also, making quizzes is a really popular activity. Take this quiz with your child to see if making a quiz is right for you.

Should You Create a Quiz - Quiz Do you like creating crazy questions? Do you like asking people to make choices? Do you like thinking up things for people to make decisions about? Do you like coming up with questions and a variety of answers? Do you like Quizzes? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions you will definitely enjoy creating your own quiz!

Mr M's guide to creating a quiz

Your quiz should have:

• 5 - 10 interesting questions.
• Appropriate format e.g., multiple-choice where you give the quizee several answers to choose from, a straight yes/no quiz or invent a scoring system.
• Your quiz can be as silly or sensible as you like.
• Don’t forget to include a scoring system

Good luck and rock on,

Mr M

Spelling Ideas

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Bored with copying out spelling words over and over again to learn them? Here are some other ideas that you could try. Sometimes using different visual or tactile activities can be effective depending on how your child learns best.

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 5

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Week 5 is upon us already. Here's the heads up.

• Great job with homework overall. Fantastic to see some really solid home learning going on. Just a gentle reminder to send your child's homework book to school on Monday as it's a real pain to set them up, check spelling etc if it isn't at school.
• I'm going to be testing essential spelling this week so you'll probably notice a difference in the types of words your student brings home in the next week or 2. Currently they're from inquiry, incorrectly spelt words from their writing or interesting vocabulary from around the classroom.
• We're starting numeracy in Maths this week. For this term in numeracy, we're spending roughly a 5 week block looking at addition and subtraction. Maths Buddy tasks will be set weekly that tie in with this so please make the most of that opportunity if you have the internet at home. If you don't, your child still gets plenty of time at school to complete tasks.
• Meet the teacher evening is this Wednesday. Room 2 is at 6.30 I believe.

Rock on,

Mr M

Welcome to Week 4

Kia ora Koutou Katoa,

Welcome to Week 4. Here is a quick heads up about what's happening.

• Statistics is still on the go. I think the settings on the quizzes that I sent through last week may have been wrong as I had feedback from a parent that they were unable to access them. Could you please click here and give them another crack for us? If you still can't access, please let me know. 
• Guitar and ukulele lessons are go. Had a fun first session last Thursday. If your child is participating, feel free to add that into the the 'Extra Curricula" section of the weekly homework.
• Please send your child's homework book to school every Monday.
• Meet the teacher evening is this Wednesday. Room 2 kicks off at 6.30pm. 
• The whale Inquiry is progressing. I'm looking at booking an expert to come in and give a talk soonish. At this point we're up to publishing a little presentation about Tooth Whales.

Rock On,

Mr M

Room 2's Amazing Questionnaires

Kia Ora All,

We've been learning about statistics by creating surveys and graphing the results. Here are our latest questionnaires which we created using Google Forms. Please vote for your favourites and keep and eye out for the results, which we'll share with you when we're done.

Rock On,

Mr M

Some photos of the first two weeks.

Here are some pictures of the beginning of our writing programme in week 1.

Here we are brainstorming what we already know about the focus questions that we're going to be learning about as part of our World of Whales inquiry.

 Learning how to play the maths game Four In A Row. Hopefully you've played this with your child as part of home learning.

Here we are doing our first piece of publishing: a desk mat displaying interesting information about ourselves. 

Rock On,

Mr M

Welcome to 2018!

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Harere mai and welcome to 2018. It looks like it's going to be a cracker year with a great bunch of kids. 

I had a super holiday break, mostly hanging around the Bay with my family, taking the kids swimming every day and generally enjoying life in paradise. 

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: For 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. 

Inquiry: The Inquiry topic that I have planned for this term is called The World of Whales. To introduce the topic, Mr Cullen came into class the other day to show the students some of the amazing photos he's taken while diving with whales and also some pictures of local whale strandings. I've planned about 5 weeks of worth of different learning activities covering various aspects such as: what whales are, how they live, and why they are becoming endangered. After we complete the first 5 weeks of learning, students will decide on their own questions to research. We'll post some writing and videos of what we're up to on the blog as the term progresses. 

PE: Swimming is the main for focus this term - please send togs along with your child every day. We'll also be working on small ball skills.

Te Reo Maori: We had our first whole school Kapa Haka session on Thursday, the students were really enthusiastic about it and I thought they made a great start. We'll also be learning a basic mihi over the first few weeks. A great home learning task around this would be to talk to your child about a significant river and mountain associated with wherever they are from as this is part of the mihi. For example, those from Takaka will talk about Parapara as their mountain and Parawhakaoho, Takaka or Motupipi as their river. If you don't know the te reo Maori names for the mountain or river, it doesn't matter - we can look them up at school. 

Homework: Those parents who had students in my class last year will notice that I have a more prescribed homework system this year. I've reverted back to a system I used a few years ago before starting a blog for my classes as I hope that it will be more accessible to the parent community out here. I understand that there isn't always time for homework, but I do hope that you all take advantage of the homework I send home regularly. Please send the homework book along to school every Monday. 

Guitar / ukulele lessons: This year I'm going to run guitar and ukulele lessons once a week during a break time. If you'd like to sign your child up for lessons, please send me an email at: tmcarthur@motupipi.school.nz. I'll be in touch when I've got an idea of how much interest there is - if there is a lot of interest then I may have to put some students on a wait list. The lessons will suit beginners and students who have some experience. You will need to have a guitar or ukulele at home to practice on. The lessons are geared towards giving students an introduction to the instrument. The lessons are free, but it is expected that there is a commitment to practicing regularly.

Communication: As always, we have an open door policy here at Motupipi. Please feel free to pop in and say hi. If you have questions, concerns or similar you can email me, ring me at school or pop in to see me. There is also a parent / teacher communication section on the homework sheets, which I'll try to make sure I read weekly. 

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 5

Kia Ora All,

Week 5 looks to be a big one. Here's the heads up.

• One of the main aims of the mighty Ruma Rima at present is production. It's coming together slowly but surely. Please have a chat to your child about costumes. We'll be working on headbands for Kapa Haka costumes in class, but their character costumes are mostly up to students to sort out. If special props are needed, some of it can be taken care of at school if you can't do it at home. Please let me know if you need any support or have any questions around your child's costume.
• Re: Kapa Haka costumes - each boy will need black shorts and if they have any appropriate necklaces e.g., bone, pounamu that would be a nice addition. Girls will need a black or dark coloured top with thin straps. We'll be looking at the rest of the girl's costumes in class.
• We've got our second tennis session on Thursday. I was impressed with the quality of the coaching and with the students' ability during the last session. 
• Camp notices went home on Friday. Please ask your child for them if you haven't seen them yet and send them back ASAP.

Rock On,

Mr M

Kapa Haka

Tena Koutou Katoa,

We've been chipping away at our concert item. One part that we've been working on is the Kapa Haka section. We're beginning our performance with a welcoming haka followed by a waiata. The students have been working hard every morning, supported immensely by Alice who has been coming in to help us fine tune our performance. Here is a picture of the mighty Ruma Rima in full flight.

Rock On,
Mr M

Tremaine - Holiday Recount

MY AWESOME HOLIDAYS

This is my astounding mind blowing happy holiday. On the first amazing day of week one Sonny came over to my house. After a while we went to the movies we watched the amazing lego ninjago movie. My favourite part was when Lloyd lost his arm, it was amazingly weird and mind blowingly grose.

After 1 hour 30 minutes we went home and had fish and chips for dinner.

The next day I went riding up at Travis's motor X track with my amazing cousins Indy and lucu. I was going over the roll over jumps so that dad could get an awesome picture of me riding my motorbike but then something breathtaking happened. I went a bit too fast and I did an amazing jump I got so freaked out.

And that was my amazing mind blowing holiday.

Yours sincerely

Tremaine

Louis - Holiday Recount

   My awesome holiday not!

My holiday was finally here. At 5:00am I was woken by Aonghus screaming into my ear.  “Wake up we need to have a pillow fight with Mav.”  By the way, I was having the sleepover of stunning greatness at Aonghus’s house with Mav. I jumped out of bed like a ninja and whacked Mav so hard he nearly went unconscious. Then Mav whacked me jaw droppingly hard.  My eyes popped out of my head.

Now it’s time to get to the boring part of my holiday.  So boring you might even put down the book and stop reading.  Well here I go.  I sat super still for about a week.  It’s true, all I did was look at the fire burning.  

My holiday was a stunning, jaw dropping, eye opening, breathtaking mind blowingly dull holiday!

Aurora - Worst Day Ever

MY WORST DAYS EVER!!!

“ Hello?  Well hello there friends, I'm lucy Eronson-KIT and I’m 14 years old. I'm normally one of happiest people alive but the last two days were my

WORST DAYS EVER!!!

First my little brother Tama dropped his icecream all over my drawings for school. When I came back with a damp tissue he was smudging it trying it get off . I was filled with RAGE, I had to restart now :< After school I had to explain why I had no drawings. Then I went home. When I got home Sittles and  Lilly < there my budgies > were loose!! Mum told me that Skyler my little 2 year old sister had let them out. It took me and Tama hours. In the end Nanna had to come, then it two 2 hours. I was exhausted after that.

Then mum gave skyler a bottle juice.

She somehow opened it and spilt it all over my new clothes. When I went to get some new ones my draws were empty. Then it was dinner.

Tama had tipped his water all over me. So I had to sleep in soaking clothes, when I  woke up, I jumped out of bed and ran to the laundry. I picked out some clothes and realized that they were my big brother Sam's clothes. I just put them on because I was soaking. I feed my birds and eat breakfast, it was only after I finished I realized that I was eating bird food. Maybe that’s why the last two days were so bad…

I'M LOSING MY MIND!!!   

YOURS SURELY AURORA:8

Holiday Recount - Aliana

MY EPIC HOLIDAY

Just saying it's a little fiction.

My holiday was the most legitimate holiday ever it was out of this world.

It started like all other days ‘ahhhhhhhh’ screamed my younger brother Quinn

  ‘ohh thats it I’m going to kill you!’ screamed my other younger bro Saxon.

  I walked out and started to make my breakfast, then all of a sudden my dad comes out and says ‘OK GANG LET'S GO FISHING’

My dad says in a SUPER loud voice.  The boys all shout ‘YAAAAAAAY’

‘’But I just got up’ I said.

 ‘Too bad get dressed and then we're leaving’ he said annoyed.

I decided to do what he said. I got dressed and jumped right into the car to go. We got the rods done with bait and a hook and casted them out too sea.

One hour later we had seven cockabully, three spotties, and I caught a big fat sharky thing. Then my rod started to sink. I started to wind it in. while I was winding I thought of what could it be. I got it up to the surface and it was the awesome, amazing, the spectacular, eye - opening

seaweed!!!

The next week we had a baby sitter called Briley. She is also my stunningly awesome horse riding teacher and also, come to think of it, very heroic because she teaches like seven kids to ride nearly everyday. And she is very nice! Most days we have with her we go for walks to the school shop, which is out of this world because other baby sitters would just sit down for the day, and then when they go back to their house, they sit down for the rest of the day.

We got ready for the walk. We went for the majestic walk listening too the birds tweeting, watching the lambs and calves frolicing with their tails wagging as they drink their milk. It's just so adorable watching. SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was like walking through an oasis. It was so blissful.

A few weeks later my Mum mentions… it’s my birthday in a couple of weeks, can you go get me a gift… So dad rounds us up and we get in the tooth white car and go zooming into town to get a prezzie/ present/ gift.  ‘I know what she really wants’ I said to everybody. So they all followed me to the
Pohutukawa gallery and bought her a candle.

It looked a little like this

<3

This is a little messy because of the computer

By Aliana

Mav - Holiday Recount

                         My holiday

My alarm went off then I saw it the tree of greatness I had to climb it. When I got up the tree I played there for a while. I got bored but I was about to come down. But then the rope untied and I fell. My lip was bleeding because it cracked and I couldn’t walk because my back was sore and my head was sore.                              

It was horrible! But later on a ambulance came to help and a later doctor came to help. A rescue helicopter was going to come but it couldn't come because  somebody had a heart attack. Well it must be time to rest. Bye.

By Mav

Toby - Worst Day Ever

             This is bad.

Hi I’m Rob and I'm 16... and someone's just robbed me!

Great. Well anyway hi. I'll be back, I just need to see what

stuff has got stolen. At least I can call the cops.

Wait I can’t because my phone got stolen. At least

It can’t get any worse. 5 hours later… Awww come on….

The power’s not working. I’ll go get some breakfast.

Aha there's the candles.  One minute later: that’s the last one, Jeez I’m hungry. Bffaa!!!?!... Owa? Clang! Smash! Bang!? Crash! Pow! Splash?... Tinkle. I think I broke something… fwolf. It was just a carrot. Anyway… the 6th and 7th stairs are broken and the left chair leg and the table leg are broken and the wine cellar is going to blow up and the fireplace has 3 bricks gone now… and that’s it.

3 days later. Yay the power is back on… No wait.  That’s not the light… it’s a fire.  Where’s my phone, where’s my phone, where’s my phone?  Oh no I remember it got st...stolen. Then if my phone is not here I’ll have to use water. Ok I think this is water. Ok I’m next to the fire, here goes nothing… BBfffffff. Ok I have a confession to make.  The water wasn’t water, it was whiskey. And the worse part about this is that my parents are over in Christchurch for a few days.

And they also said when they left for Christchurch for me to look after the house or die. I think you get the point of it. Nice knowing you…

By Toby