Five Dancing Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Kids Expo

Rohan O, Sam and Joe were our class representatives at the Kids Expo last month and Viv has finally organised to put the movies they made onto the blog. The task was to interview people and take photos at the expo and create a finished movie, all within one hour. We hope you are impressed!

Clean Streams

We have been learning how to make animated movies and this the first one finished. Look on our personal blogs and you will see them as we finish them.

Clean Streams, Creeks and Ponds

We have been learning about streams and comparing the fearures of clean streams and those which have been affected by external influences. Today Mel McCoglan told us about stream life and she showed a great video about a stream which had some pollution and some clean parts.
After that we played a game where we tried to score points by cleaning up Old Bernie's Pond. Some of us were able to get to the end, score 7 points and win a certificate. There is a link for people from room 5 to have another try to clean the pond. I hope you can remember the username and password. I'll write it up at school in case you need to copy it. Have fun.

Landscapes at the Suter

On Monday we visited the Suter Art Gallery to learn about landscapes with Esther. Landscape can mean the way you place your paper on the side or it can be an art work of an outdoor scene. We learnt about some special techniques thta artists use when they paint landscapes. The use overlapping, angles, making things big in the foreground and small at the back and theyuse fading in the distance.
Esther helped us to make a ladscape.
We were so lucky after that because Sally Burton was there putting together her installation of Hueia Matenga and the wreck of the Delaware. She stopped and told us lots of stories about why she had chosen the different piees of driftwood and how she had used very limited colours for her work. It was very interesting. We will be going to see that exhibition next term.

Field Trip to the Maitai River

Beautiful Bloggers

We had a wonderful Blog Party today to celebrate just over 3000 hits in the last two and a bit terms. The food was wonderful with lots of delicious, healthy treats and a few not so healthy treats.
I wonder how quickly we will get the next thousand hits on our blog?

Weekend fun

Weekend Fun on PhotoPeach



People from Room 5 were out and about having all sorts of fun over the weekend. George went to stay with Thomas so he had fun. There were two birthday parties.
Happy birthday Saffron and Madison.
There was a Light Party, several family get togethers and some children went Trick or Treating.
Viv had her first try at making a pumpkin to welcome them so she could give out treats.
Viv said, "I'll make bigger holes in the pumpkin next year because the candle kept going out."
Amarah said, "I went to a light party at our church."
Grace said, ''I went trick or treating with Maddy. We took Spiky too.''
Harrison said, "No one came to get lollies "
Alex said, "I went trick or treating. I got lots of lollies. "
"Hannah said, ''I went to the light party too. I won a Lone Star Voucher. ''
Tom said, " I had very sporty weekend."
Albie said '' I went trick and treating with Rohan."
Phoenix said, ''I went trick or treating and I got 7 lollies. "
Rohan said, " I went to Albies house for Halloween"
Jonti said, '' I went for two sleep overs.''
Rohan O said, "I dressed up as the Joker."

Teapot Valley Camp Rocks

Teapot Valley Camp

Teapot Valley Camp on PhotoPeach



Last week, Room 5 went to camp at Teapot Valley with Room 14. We had a great time and luckily the weather was so good that we managed to do all of our activities. Our toy George came with us and he had a great time as well. His favourite activities were archery and basketball.
He is hoping that Room 5 will go there again for camp next year.
If you would like to see photographs of Room 5 children at their activities, they will be showing each morning before school for the next week.

Dancing

Kelly Sports

On Thursdays the Kelly Sports people run after school activities and sometimes they come in school time to show us about their programme. Last Tuesday we did Kelly sports. Rohan Sam and Albie were in a group together. Joe was in a group with someone from Room 9. Kelly Sports is all bout having fun while you do sporting activities. Some of the activities we played were soccer, basketball, rugby and cricket relays. We thought basketball was soccer because it looked like a soccer ball. Everyone had a race we won. We had a great time.

Time Games

I've been looking for some good maths games for you to play. Next term for Maths, we will be learning about telling the time, months, seasons, reading calendars and solving problems about time. I found a very easy game where you make the time on a clock face. It's a bit noisy because the little creature keeps shouting, "Yes," whenever you get the correct answer. Your families will be able to hear how clever you are!
Click on this link to BBC Games and have a try.
Another fun site is Johnnie's Math Page. You can time yourself while you match digital and analogue clocks. You can also practise the skills you learnt in Measurement last term.
I hope you have fun with these games.

Children's Rights Speeches

We havebeen looking at the Save the Children wish list site and thinking about what we would like to buy to help children's rights become a reality for some of the children who Save the Children works with. Listen to our speeches and perhaps you might like to help. Click on the link to go to the wish list to see why a yak is useful and how plumpynut can save a child's life.
Thanks to Save the Children for allowing us to use their photographs for this topic.

Holiday Fun

I have found a fun website for people who love looking at art and making art works. It's the Washington Art Gallery in USA. Click on the link and Have fun exploring. There are lots of fun things to make and do on NGAkids.

Another fun site with activities is National Geographic Kids.

John Bevan-Ford

Yesterday we went to the John Bevan-Ford exhibtion at the Suter Art Gallery. We looked at his workand we used some of his ideas to make patterns in the middle of an outline of a bird. Birds are special to John Bevan-Ford because he used them like people who moved to and from countries. At the end of our session we made a giant floor puzzle of one of his paintings.

Habitats for our Birds

Last month we to the Suter Gallery to see Bing Dawe's exhibition, "Vagrants, Stragglers and the Unloved." We made clay models of threatened and endangered birds and Esther fired them for us. We have been painting them and today we made a big habitat for them. Some are water birds and some are forest birds so we have a forest, a lake and a river that runs down to the sea. It looks great.

Spelling Fun

For our homework last week we had some fun with our spelling words. We wrote funny stories using some of the words. Some people recorded their stories when we shared them on Friday.

Gymnastics

Every Thursday morning we go to the hall for gymnastics. Recently we have been learning about rotation and spring. Last week our focus was spring so we used beat boards and the mini tramp.
Year 4's were tested on beam passes where they did a routine on the low beam. Each week we choose a group to demonstrate the lesson for the next class. It's fun and we love it.

Mathletics

We all had great fun with Mathletics last week. That has finished for now so I have found a little maths game that we can play to help us remember our multiplication facts. Click on the link to play Fleebur and Spinky.

Our School Values

We have been talking out the values which are important to us at Nelson Central School. We wrote what those values mean to us and drew pictures to illustrate our ideas.

Doing our best.
Doing our best sounds like hard working children and looks like serious children thinking hard.
Madison

Getting along with others.
This means making friends, including people and being friendly to others. At school I try to include others and be kind. I find this easy because I like getting along with others.
Hattie
It means picking fair teams in soccer and playing fair with no cheating.
Jonti
Getting along with others means playing a good game and having a good time.
Hannah

Making good choices.
Making good choices means being a good role model. I say, "Be quiet," on the mat when we're supposed to be listening to the teacher. It means sitting at my desk quietly and getting on with my work.
Maya
At Nelson Central School I always try to follow the school rules properly. I think before I act and I act sensibly. These actions help me to always make good choices.
Joe

Looking after the world.
My ideas are to pick up rubbish, don't pollute our school and recycle your paper, put your scraps in the compost bin and to plant more trees. I would like people to do this because it is good for the planet.
Hazel
Looking after our world means picking up rubbish to keep our world clean.
Jonti

Christchurch Symphony Outreach Ensemble

The ensemble came to play for us in the hall. There were two trumpets,one drum set,a French horn,a trombone and a tuba. Some of the players had other instruments like a piccollo trumpet, a postman's horn and a hunting horn. The music was fantastic and we had a great time.

Our Fun Syndicate Assembly

We had a great Syndicate time today. We usually have our Syndicate assembly every second Monday. Today our assembly was very different. We tested out the new Tug -of-War rope on the front field. Sue made up the teams in age groups. Choi and Helen were the anchors at each end. Every one pulled their hardest. When everyone had had a turn we sang our Syndicate sone and had an early lunch. Some people said it was the best assembly we have had all year.

Our School Science Fair

We had a Science Fair at school today. Our class did an investigation about which duvets were the warmest. We did the investigation last term. We used conical flasks containing hot water. We wrapped the flasks with different sorts of duvets. The feather and down ones kept the water warmest. The best one was 95% down and 5% feathers.

Rohan decided to do his own investigation called "Vitamin C What's in it For Me?" He tested different fruits and juices to find out which contained the most vitamin C. He is explaining his results to Maya and Saffron. We hope Rohan is selected to take his investigation to the Cawthron Science Fair.

Over the last few weeks we have been reflecting on the things we learnt last term. We wrote notes and practiced using the voice recorder to tell you about our learning. It's quite a long Voice Thread but if you don't have time to listen to all of the comments, you can just click on the ones you want. There is a title page and you navigate through the pages by using the arrows at the bottom. At the moment we are unable to display all of the children so if you would like a better view click on this link. Voice Thread. We hope you listening to us.

George's Sleepover

On the weekend George went to Joe's house. They had lots of fun during the days but the best bit was at bedtime. Joe read some of "Point Blanc" to George and George was trying to read the book too.

N Z Fossils DEAD PRECIOUS

We had a fantastic class trip to the museum. Thanks Nikki and all of the adults who came along to help us learn about fossils.
Here is a link to a dinosaur site you might like to try.

Kelly Sports

Last week the Kelly Sports people came to teach us some new games.
We learnt:
Basketball,
Soccer,
Ball throwing,
Ball collecting,
And the bonus one was sprint walking.
It was really fun for all of Room 5.

Me and George

Hayden made this presentation about our class toy George when George went for a sleepover for the weekend. It shows some of the adventures that they had. Well done Hayden.

We Love Te Reo

Kiaora koutou.

It's Maori language week this week and we have a few exciting things planned. We have a game to revise colour names, Elmars is visiting us today to read a story in te reo, we are going to learn new vocabulary about taku hoa - my friend, and best of all we will be watching episode 1 of the toku maori podcasts. Click on the link and it will take you to the website. You will be able to choose your own episode and learn te reo at home.

This is a great week to make your talking Dinosaur because we are going to the museum to see "Digging up the Past." I think we might even see a dinosaur bone. If you want to have a go at this activity the
User Name is nelson-cen
Click on this link to make a talking dinosaur.
You will need to ask me for the password and I will tell you at school.
Have fun!

1500 Visits to our Blog

In the first week of term we had a shared lunch. It was DELICIOUS and HEALTHY! We usually celebrate every 500 hits on our blog but we had been a bit busy at the end of last term. Suddenly our blog became popular and when we looked next, we had 1500 hits. It was definitely time for a party. We think our next party should celebrate 2000 hits and then well celebrate every thousand. We wonder how many we will get this year. Keep looking at our work and commenting because we love those comments from you.

Holidays

We brainstormed our holiday vocabulary and Viv used a special programme to make a fun Wordle picture.

Plus Minus and Interesting

Marama, the teacher of the Wockets left us a thinking challenge so we decided to learn about doing a PMI to organise our thnking. Just look at our ideas after 5 minutes thinking. Thanks for the idea Marama.
What if children, not adults were in charge of Children's Rights?
Plus
Children could do anything they liked.
If children were smart they would stay healthy.
Children could organise lots of fun things to do with others.
Minus
Children might not get an education because they might not go to school.
Children might not be ableto keep themselves safe because there would be no boundaries.
Children would pollute the air for everyone because they would want to go to too many places.
Children wouldn't be able to get out of fires because they wouldn't have adults to help.
Children could get hurt playing with matches and lighters.
Children might not care and they might get spoiled and unhealthy because of junk food.
Children might not be able to get out of the pool before they drowned.
Children would not know how to keep healthy because there would be no doctors.
Children wouldn't have the money for medicine.

Interesting
Adults should be in charge because they earn the money.
How would children build a safe place to live in?
A child could be the Prime Minister or President.
The Prime Minister would not be smart enough to make the right choices if he or she was a child.
You might not be able to understand what the Prime Minister is saying.
Children might tell adults what to do.

Thinking About Children's Rights

We started our new Inquiry topic by using the Questioners Key from Thinking Keys to help us think about Children's Rights. These are some of the questions we designed.

1. Why don’t children in other countries have the right to live in peace?
2. Why don’t children in other countries have rights in the same way as we do?
3. What if children had to go to war?
4. What would happen if children didn’t have enough food?
5. How does Nelson Central School provide clean water for children?
6. How do poor children get an education in other countries?
7. Why do some children have to work when they should be going to school?
8. What might happen if children were not respected?
9. Why don’t children in other countries have clean air like us?
10. What if children didn’t have the right to clean water?
11. Why don’t children in other countries have the right to a safe and healthy shelter?
12. How does Nelson Central School help children have the right to an education?
13. Why can’t some children in other countries have the freedom to say their ideas?

We will be researching these and over questions over the next few weeks so we will show you more of our work then.

Matariki

After doing all the hard work with our research and choir practice it was finally time to have some Matariki celebrations. The Magical Stars evening on Tuesday was great! It started with all of the choir and their families sharing tea in the hall. This was followed by a truly magical night where the choir entertained us in the church. They sang songs composed by New Zealanders and some of the composers were there to hear their work. Cliff Fell even sang his song and played with the choir. After that there were fireworks to keep the night sparkling.
On Wednesday we gave our buddies star badges to say Happy New Year. Later our Syndicate ate together and had lovely Matariki cakes as a treat to finish off.
What a wonderful celebration we had!

Story making

I found this activity on a blog by the Wockets of Palmerston North. Have a try at writing your own stories. You might even be clever enough to save them as a comment so we can all read them. I'll find out more about that from Marama, the Wockets' teacher,if you have trouble. Enjoy! Thanks Wockets!

Our Inquiry Learning Research for Matariki

Our Inquiry topic for the last two weeks was Matariki so we have been researching Maori traditions by using the Te Papa website. We needed to draw our own pictures because the photos of the artefacts on the website are copyright. We tried to write our information in our own words and that was a big challenge for us.
Our eLearning skill was to insert photographs into a word document and to remember to
SAVE OUR WORK.
Read our research documents and send us a comment to tell us what you think of our work.
Matariki Combined Research

Questionaut

I was looking at some other blogs and I found a game that you might like to play. It's a very gentle game where you wave the mouse over parts of the picture until you find the questioner. Next you answer some english and maths questions. The questions can be quite tricky so you might need an adult to help you with the answers. It's called Questionaut. Click on the link or the picture. I hope you like it.

Drama in Space

Every Tuesday we go to drama classes in the Hall. Jo, our drama teacher has been teaching us how to create a story set in a space ship. We have been working on it for a few weeks now and every week we make another scene in the story. We make up our own actions and speaking parts and we work in groups of four. This week we were in our mother ship and we had some bad news. There were two problems; the ship engine broke down and couldn't be mended, and there were only three places in the capsule back to earth. We had to act that part out and we needed to persuade the people back on Earth that we deserved to have one of the seats. Viv made a video of one group. Who do you think deserves to go in the capsule?

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our School Cross Country Event

Last Wednesday we held our school Cross Country event. On Saturday some people from our class competed in the Interschool event at Saxtons Field too.
We have been writing recounts about the Cross Country and we will be blogging them over the next weeks so keep checking on our personal blogs to see them.
It was a great afternoon!

Nelson Girls College Music Group

We went to a wonderful concert in the hall this morning. A music group from Nelson Girls College performed for us. They sang in small groups and in a large choir. There was a guitar group as well and a girl playng a green clarinet. Christine said we were a wonderful audience and that we could look forward to performing music when we go to college.

We have been trying to reduce the amount of plastic we use so we copied an idea from Room 6 for our homework this week. We made posters about lunch wrappers that are good for our environment. Look at our fantastic posters. Thanks for the idea Choi!

We had two wonderful speakers last week. First Leigh Stevens told us bout the different habitats for New Zealand native creatures. Leigh told us about how the worst thing for our creatures was the way we have been destroying habitats for our roads, houses and farms. He showed us some photos of healthy habitats .

The next day Bruce Thomas talked to us about getting rid of the rats on New Zealand Islands. He told us that at first no one believed it would ever be possible to do that and how New Zealanders were the first in the world to manage it. Bruce was in the team that got rid of all the rats on Breaksea Island and that was the WORLD FIRST! He showed us some of his traps that people are using to create inland Islands.

Viv's First Monet Painting

We have been reading about a famous painter called Claude Monet. He liked to get his ideas for his paintings from nature. We took our own photos around the school then we used a programme at te papa to turn them into paintings just like Monet would have done. Viv did the one on this posting from one of our photos. Look on our blogs to see our Monets. if you would like to make a Monet of your own just follow this link to Te Papa museum.

Eye Spy at the Suter

We went to the Eye Spy exhibition at the Suter Gallery this afternoon. The works on display are all part of the gallery's permanent collection. Julie Catchpole, has written messages for each work and they are arranged alphabetically. Our job today was to make our own alphabetical messages and make a quiz. For the second part we swapped quiz sheets and tried to work out the tricky, riddle messages. Once we found the work to match the message, we skertched the work. It was great fun!

See if you can find the answers to these riddles in the photos.

Rocking, riding, person on a lean.
Rectangular, radical, random,roller, rainbow.
Fragile frog with a furious face.
Hypnotised, having fun on a holiday.

Blogging RULES in Room 5

We looked at some blogs which are already underway by room 5 people and found that Daniel and Jonti already had comments on their personal blogs. We decided to make our blogging rules so we could all be sure how to leave a comment and what sort of things we could say. Take a look at our rules and you can leave us a comment if you would like to. We love reading them.

Room 5 Blogging Rules

· Never leave your personal details on a blog, only your first name,
· No swearing or rude comments,
· Never make negative statements or put downs in a posting or comment,
· Always leave your first name when you comment on a blog,
· Always ask if it’s OK to use a photo of someone else on your blog.

George's New Top

Last weekend Maddy took George to her home for a sleep over. George told Maddy how cold it is in Room 5 at night time after the heaters have been turned off so Maddy decided to make George a new top to keep him warm. He won’t lose it because his name is sewn on the front. We took some photos of George playing outside in his new top. He looks pretty pleased with it. Thanks Maddy!

What if...?

We have started our Inquiry topic on Endangered New Zealand species now so we did a thinking skills activity today in our Inquiry groups. We scored our ideas on fluency (how many ideas), elaborate (detailed) and original. Then we added our scores together for a total. The highest score today was 10.
What if there was no-one to look after the kiwi?
1. Kiwi eggs would be eaten by stoats.
2. Kiwis will be extinct.
3. Kiwis could walk into the wrong place.
4. Kiwis would have no-one to protect them from predators.
5. Kiwi predators would come and attack them.
6. Kiwis would get eaten.
7. New Zealander might not get called “Kiwis” because there would be none left.
8. They won’t have enough food.
9. They will have no home.
10. They will be hunted.
11. They could be caught in a trap.
12. Dogs could eat them because there would be no fence.
13. Kiwis would be killed by other animals.
14. Kiwis will need some help because they will be dying out.
15. Baby eggs might get stepped on and killed.
16. Kiwis would become critically endangered.
18. We might not have the kiwi as a national emblem.19. Kiwis might get caught and die.

Our new blogs

Yesterday in our Buzz groups we discussed the great things we had seen on blogs and we came up with a list of ideas.
We liked:
· Our virtual pets,
· Looking at our earlier work and remembering it,
· Our cartoon portrait photos,
· Our Vokis,
· Our Teapot Valley Camp presentations,
· Slide shows
· Photos
· Reading what other people have been doing
At eLearning in the afternoon we needed to make a new class blog so Viv could get in and create new postings with us. Luckily Tim helped us and he transferred the postings we had done with Sarah. We wouldn’t want to lose them!
Those of us who already had our own personal blogs from last year had them linked to our new class blog and the rest of us set up new personal blogs with Tim. It might take us a little time to get our postings started but we’ll let you know when we get the first ones on.

Suter Centre Part 2!