Look what we did when we were "hanging out" at school today!

Our year

This is a wordle of what we did this year!!!!!

We have done a lot this year like :

Artsplash, Production, Christmas liturgy, Monet paintings, TePapa, Capital E and lots more

First we had to brainstrom what we had done this year.

Then we went on wordle.com and typed up our wordle.

Isn't it a awesome wordle!!!!!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

OUR FLOWER SHOW

Well hello! We've had an amazing day today. We've been learning about plants so today we had a flower show. We each entered two exhibits - we could choose from a miniature garden, a sand tray, a fruit or vegetable person or a vase arrangement.

We had spent the last few days planning what our exhibits would look like - then we searched in our gardens at home to find things we could use to create the picture we had made in our mind. Finally, we put it all together at school today - and our families came to celebrate our work at school this afternoon.

So take a look at our photostory videos - and share in our wonderful designs and creations!

OUR VISIT TO ZEALANDIA

We heard kaka, tuis, saddlebacks and some weka. Today Room 7 and Room 4 went in a bus to Zealandia. Jenny took us for a look around. She talked to us about the bush and how the wildlife sanctuary works.

At Zealandia there's kiwi, bellbirds, tuatara and more. There are lots of birds because of the trees and there are lots of trees because of the birds. The birds eat the seeds off the trees, then they fly and poop somewhere else so the seeds drop to the ground and get into the soil - so another big tree can grow.

Insects also help pollinate the trees. They eat the pollen on the flowers and carry it over to other flowers. The little insects are eaten by bigger insects or flies. We saw a green geko eating flies. The tuatara eat insects too - so they all need one another to keep the food chain going.

"I think that it's really good that people from New Zealand are helping animals and trees that might become extinct." SHIRLEY
"I think my education about plants and animals has gone up a level". ANTON
"I think native birds and trees are a lot more interesting now." KELLER

Our Trees

Hi, everyone! Today we have been learning about our trees. We made poems. We would like to share some of them to you:

Barky, sharp, crackly
Brown as a chocolate milkshake
Holey as holey cheese

Reminds me of a windstorm

The tree is like a banana being peeled.

Spikey, bumpy, round

Brown as a piece of cardboard.

Bumpy as the bottom of shoes

Reminds me of a small piece of bark.

The trunk is still as a waterfall flowing down.

Hi there everyone.

We haven't put a blog up for a few weeks because there's been so much going on in Room 7. So... here goes......
We've been

• working on our school production....
• painting pictures......
• doing lots of basic fact practise
• lots of skipping - getting ready for the "jump off" tomorrow.....
• the field is really muddy and the boys have been getting really messy at lunchtime.....
• talking about where we feel close to God.....
• sharing about our treasures.......
• we painted pictures of our family treasures...
• writing recounts about our school production......

.... so you can see that we've all been working really hard.....

We would like to share our art work with you.
We were talking about sacraments. A sacrament is an experience of God in our life. Five students in our class participated in the Parish sacramental programme this year. Matt, Ciara, Caitlin, Brian, Toby, Josh, Anya, Cameron and Daniel made their First Holy Communion a couple of weeks ago. They had worked really hard to prepare for this and it was a pretty special occasion for their families.

Anyway, our pictures show the special places we feel the presence of God - and if you click on the link you can watch our powerpoint.

Please give us some feedback by clicking on the comment link.









Here's the link to our powerpoint presentation. If you click on the link you will be able to see all the paintings and captions up close. Tell us what you think of them!
THIS LINK ISN'T WORKING AT PRESENT..... SO WE'LL TRY TO FIX IT TOMORROW

file:\\server\teachers$\annemarie\My Music\Easi Speak\Swimming Comments

I'm experimenting with voice files .... We took the little yellow microphone to the pool and talked about what we had experienced in their lesson that day. listen to our comments!

We've been doing Green Homework this term. Each week we choose one special thing to do with a member of our family. It's fun to do different things for homework - some people have learned to cook, play a new sport or just have fun at the park together.

This term we are learning about pirates and treasure. There was lots of information about pirates on the internet and you tube. Caitlin has learned that they did some pretty horrible things to people. We found out that they ate biscuits with worms in them and Robert did some research about why people got scurvy. We've found out lots about the different types of guns and swords they used: like a cutless or a blunderbuss. Josh has learned that there are pirates still alive today.



Today is New Zealand Poetry Day so we decided we would all find or write poems about pirates and share them with you on our blog.

• Teah's poem


• Johniel's poem


• Ana's poem


• Robert's poem


• Sabina's poem


• Jasmine's poem


• Keller's poem


• Cameron's poem


• Brian's poem


• Caitlin's poem


• Daniel's poem


• Ciara's poem


• Shirley's poem


• Maddy's poem


• Anton's poem


• Josh's poem


• Christian's poem


• James F's poem


• Anya's poem


• Shannen's poem

Our teacher has to find out how to link to the poems and then we'll be able to share them with you!

Our School Art Exhibition

On the Wednesday 1st of July, St Francis Xavier School is going to have an art exhibition for you to see our artwork. It'll be on from 4 PM - 6 PM. Room 7 will be doing Camborne Walkway, Kakahu Cloaks and Monet paintings. Some people in the school will be selling the artwork. There will be pizza, music and more...

We made our cloaks on Term 1. We cut out feather shapes, made a plait and made a border of a Maori pattern. We started Term 2 with Outdoor Education Week. We went to the Camborne Walkway. We sketched some things that we might have wanted to paint and we learned how to sketch a reflection on water. We learned how to do brush strokes and mix colours. We went to the Monet and Impressionists exhibition at Te Papa. We looked at some of Monet's paintings and some by other artists. Later that week, we worked on a canvas that shows a Camborne Walkway or one of the Monet's or the other impressionists painting. We did a bridge painting by Monet. We painted the background then ripped up tiny pieces to make a mosaic collage bridge. We gave our pictures titles that described the paintings. I named my cloak Mountains to Sea because it had colours like mountains and sea. I named my canvas The Two Boat Houses and my bridge Blue Bridge.


At "I See Red", an exhibition from Pataka, we saw a lot of red paintings. We found out that there are many names for red, paintings tell us a story, red was a very expensive colour and it can make people hungry. After that, we created frames for our paintings by shaping pieces of paper, scrunching, twisting, bending and folding paper along the cardboard. All of our frames were shiny and gold like the ones we saw at Te Papa. We spray painted them with metallic gold and bronze. They looked like the frames were actually made out of metal and we think they look awesome.

You should come here to see our wonderful artwork. You should buy a painting to help us fundraise to get technology, school supplies and more learning equipment. You will be entertained there and you can have fun too.

Book Week at St Francis Xavier School

This week for Book Week we have special people coming to our school. They were coming to read to us. We have met some people from Parliament some authors some school principals and Anton's grandma!

Hon Peter Dunne snuggled into his chair and read "The house at Pooh Corner", to us. He brought the same book he used to read when he was a little boy. He got us to do the "tiddly pom" bit.
Queen Betty (Anton's grandma) put lots of expression into her reading. It looked like she thought it was really interesting. She has lots of books at home and she told us we were really good readers!
Hon Phil Goff read the Little Yellow Digger and the Whale. It sounded like he was picturing it in his mind and he was trying to get us to picture it in our minds too. He looked pretty nervous but he concentrated really hard on the words.
Hon Annette King had a wicked sense of humour. She used funny books and interesting voices.
Mr Aitken wore a tie with Winnie the Pooh on it.
Hon Winnie Laban said that her favourite author was AA Milne and when she was a little girl her friends used to call her Winnie the Pooh!
Mr Lucas had a scratchy voice but he read us a book about bats in the library. It was kind of spooky.

We have lots more books to read so we'll update you later in the week.
Bye for now...
Room 7

Outdoor Education Week in the Middle Syndicate

The Year 3 and 4 children have been mixed together into new groups this week to do lots of Outdoor Education activities.

On Monday we learned how to read a compass and map so we could do orienteering. A boy on youtube showed us how it's done. We learned about north, south, east and west directions. You have to line your map up with North on the compass, then you can start finding things. We've been doing lots of mapping activities are are getting pretty good at this. Today we learned to use a piece of string to measure a path on a map, then use the scale on the map to convert our measurement into kilometres.

We have also been learning about painting. First we looked at some paintings by Impressionist painters. They did lots of their paintings outdoors. We had to experiment with making different brush strokes, using brushes, ice block sticks and our fingertips. Then we tried doing painting in this style. Our art works are really exciting. We'll be able to display them in our own school art exhibition.

It's been raining lots and our trip to the Cambourne walkway on Wednesday was postponed due to stormy weather. We are hoping that the weather will be fine tomorrow so we can talk a walk around Pahatanui inlet - there are lots of interesting things to paint there. Next week we will be visiting an exhibition of Impressionist paintings at Te Papa. We can compare our art works with theirs!

This afternoon we've been putting up tents. The people at the sides had to hold the edges really tightly so the wind didn't blow the tent away. It took a while to work pout where to put the poles but in the end we got the tent up. We went inside to see what it would feel like.

There's lots to do outdoors and our Outdoor Education week has been lots of fun.

Outdoor Education Week.

Did you know that Week 1 of Term 2 will be Outdoor Education for The Year 3 and 4 children at St Francis Xavier School.

We will be doing lots of activities outside so this would be a really good time to wear our Sports Uniform. Don't forget that if you have a sports uniform you are allowed to wear it to school every day that week. If you don't have a sports uniform, just wear your school uniform.

Have a great Easter break ....and remember to take care of your family!

OUR KAKAHU

Room 7 are making a kakahu. A kakahu is a cloak that has feathers from a bird.

First we had to design a kakahu and then we made the cloak . We also had to cut 218 feathers. It was alot of hard work to do. After we had made 218 feathers we put feathers on the cloak .

Then we had to learn how to make a plait out of wool. We had to practice before we did the plait that we were going to use. We got brown paper to stick on to the cloak. We did a type of pattern for the border and then we coloured the pattern that we had made. Then we stapled the plait to the brown paper and the kakahu was on.

We have put our kakahu on the wall. You can see them if you come and visit our classroom. We all have differnt types of patterns and colours. One kakahu is pink, black, red, purple and blue . Another kakahu is pink, purple, green, black and white.

Making our kakahu was a lot of hard work but we think they look great!

DO ONLY ANGELS PLAY HARPS?





Carolyn Mills from NZSO came to school today. She brought her harp and played for us. A harp is a musical instrument that has lots of strings. You can play it by plucking, running your fingers up and down the strings, using the pedals, running a key across the strings or tapping the side of the instrument.

Carolyn played a tango from Argentina, a jig from Ireland and a flamenco from Spain. Then Carolyn helped the children compose pieces of music which she played for them.

Here's what the Room 7 children thought about the show.
"It was awesome that she could make noise just by pressing the pedals".
"It was interesting that she could play it with the harp key".
"She could play it off by heart".
"She could make lots of different noises with just one string"."We could see by the look of her fingers that she did lots of practice".
"It was really exciting that was the first time I had seen anybody play a harp"
"Her music was soothing".
"I liked hearing Carolyn play the music I had made".

Hi Room 7

We're almost at the end of the first term. Here are just a few things for you to think about this week:

Tuesday:
Carolyn Mills, the harpist from NZSO (that's New Zealand's Symphony Orchestra) will be visiting school to play for us at 1pm. This is pretty special as you probably haven't seen a harp up close before. See what you can find out about harps before we meet her... you will be able to ask questions so get thinking! We will have an early lunchtime on Tuesday.
Oh and check whether Mum or Dad ....or any other members of your family would like to come to see Carolyn play. They will be most welcome.

Goal sheets:
I was most impressed by the confident way you shared your learning goals with your families this week.
The goal sheets have been sent home for you to complete with your families. For those people who have an e-mail address there may be a little delay as some of your messages got stuck in my outbox and I'll need to send them again, once the blockage is cleared.
Meanwhile you can write on the hard copy we put in homework books. remember to bring these back to school before Thursday please!

Art
Our Cloaks are coming together nicely. We will be using PVA glue to stick the "feathers" in place so make sure you have your Art shirt with you..... as we don't want to get the glue on uniforms.

PE Uniform:
Those of you who have a PE uniform can bring it to school on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as you wil be able to change before doing Physical Education.

Easter Liturgy:
We will be finishing our preparations this week - make sure you invite your famly to school on Thursday afternoon.

God bless
Mrs B

St Francis Xavier School
Main Rd
Tawa.
30 March 2009


Dear Parents and Caregivers

Our syndicate is going to Monet and the Impressionists, an art exhibition currently on show at te Papa, on 4 May (rooms 4 & 7) and 6 May (Rooms 5 & 6). This visit is to support the children’s learning in our current visual arts unit of study. Our visit will be guided by the Te Papa educators.

We will travel to and from Te Papa by bus, leaving school at 9.15am and returning to school by 1pm. We would appreciate your help with this trip.

As we will be at Te Papa from 10am to 12.45 pm, the children will need lunch, a drink and a warm jacket. The children will wear school uniform. As usual, they will not be purchasing food, drinks or souvenirs.

If you can help by coming on our trip, please complete the slip below and return this to your child’s teacher as soon as possible. We are looking forward to a fun, day and hope you can join us!

God bless



_______________________________________________________________________
I can come to Te Papa on (please tick the appropriate box)
□ Monday 4 May (Rooms 4 & 7)

□ Wednesday 6 May (Rooms 5&6)

My child’s name___________________ Room _______________

My name________________________ Phone __________________

Read about our upcoming events and class outings.

St Francis Xavier School
Main Rd
Tawa.
30 March 2009


Dear Parents and Caregivers

We are planning an Outdoor Education Week with the Year 3 and 4 children while the older children are away at camp in the first week of next term.

The children will be participating in activities involving development of physical skills as well as team work and an awareness of rich environment in which we live. During the week, the children will also consider ways of protecting our local environment as well as managing the risks involved when we use this environment for sport or recreation. We are planning activities such as tent pitching, basic first aid, orienteering, map reading as well as an excursion out of school grounds.

We would like to invite you to come with us, to walk the Cambourne Walkway at Pahatanui Inlet. We will travel to and from Paramata by train: the walking track runs from Paremata beach (by the bridge) to the park at the eastern end of Grays Road, Plimmerton (about 30 minutes walking). We will eat a picnic lunch at the park and return along the same track. This is a pretty walkway and walking by the boatsheds offers the added bonus of stopping to sketch the inlet with its variety of scenes. This will be a wonderful introduction to the types of scenes painted by the Impressionist painters which we will view at Te Papa the following week.

We will travel out on the 10.13am train and return on the 2.04pm train, arriving back at school about 2.30pm. The children will be in small groups and be under the supervision of adults at all times.

As the children will be walking, they will need sneakers, jackets, sun hats, a packed lunch and drink bottles. The children will be permitted to wear mufti clothes to school that day. There will be no opportunity to purchase food on the day. .

If you can help by coming on our trip, please complete the slip below and return this to your child’s teacher as soon as possible. We are looking forward to a fun day and we hope you can join us!

God bless



_______________________________________________________________________

I would like to come on the Cambourne Walk on Wednesday 29 April 2009

My child’s name___________________ Room _______________

My name________________________ Phone __________________

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