Hi everyone!  
We are nearly half way through Term 3!

A warm welcome to our newest class member, Edwin!

My cat likes to hide in boxes! 

We have been looking at our Global World for our Term 3 student  inquiry.  We looked at all the cats in this book, found their countries on the map, how each country says 'hello', making connections in our learning.  There were 7 cats in the book, so we added facts about number seven in our foyer display.

In our Global World inquiry we have been looking at countries in the world on our spinning globe.  We have also learned more about New Zealand, the city we live in (Auckland), the North Island and the South Island.

"I live in New Zealand.                  Learning about the hour and minutes hand.

I live in Auckland".

Skip counting in 5's.

How can we communicate? vibrations?

"Hello? hello?" Criston and Oliver chatting through tins and string!

Ramon and Edwin.

Rosie and Zain.

Making our own phone devices!               Phones and walkie-talkies

Liam, Ramon, Oliver (back)

Preston, Paea, William (front)

Our visual learning:

Students have a lot of visual learning support around our classroom to scaffold them where they need it.  We call them 'strategies'!

The literacy trellice helps us remember what we are learning during the week, like looking in depth at the letters 'm', 'r', 's' and focussing on '-ing' for writing and reading.  We are also looking at blends: ch, st, br.

The maths trellice also helps us remember what we are focussing on during the week.  Before and after is a real tough one, but we are all getting better at it!

We have reading strategies that we use to help us.  The student's photo is on the one they are currently working on.  We refer to our reading strategy just before we start our group reading, so we know what we need to work on!

Our ring words are part of the Target Road School 100 high frequency list.  We track ourselves where we are up to and use these words in our reading and writing.

Our word bank is near our writing table.  We know which strategy we are working on with our name peg!  Many students are working on recording every sound they hear, the butterfly alphabet card, and being Small and Neat with their writing.

Making our own computers!

Preston and Ramon with their 'computers'.

Preston and Ramon decided to make their own computers with their own screen game/story.  Preston's made a computer game: "these guys are robbing a bank, they choose their get away car!".  Ramon has drawn a 'movie' about "bad guys being chased by bad guys on the water".  Awesome imaginery play in action!

Year 2 three word challenge!

As we were learning the letter 'P' last week, all students brainstormed all the words they could think of beginning with the sound of 'P'.  They got 32 words!  The Year 2s had a writing challenge of writing a story using three 'P' words off the whiteboard!  Puppy seemed a popular one!

Playbased learning with Teddy Time!

As we had been learning about 'time' and clocks, the family room suddenly became 'Teddy's Room', where students decided what Teddy was doing, and when (what time).  They would change the clock (with a sign underneath) and act out Teddy's day.  8'clock - bed time Teddy!

Kendall and Rosie are putting Teddy to bed (8pm on the clock in the background).  They started making their own signs, and were teacher 'planning' also!

Teddy's Room also became a school!

CONSTRUCTION!

A team effort by William, Preston, Criston, Stanley and Isaac.  Notice the extra details of the screws being placed for "making it look super cool!".  The students love these magnetic building shapes and experiment with what is magnetized in the classroom (and what is not!).

A castle!

Melissa builds a 2-D castle "all in pink!"

Radeesh and Zain design a futuristic house truck

 "where lots of people could live!".

We had been looking at tall buildings around the world. 

Perhaps Zain and Radeesh were inspired by the Shard in London?!

It is really important to be respectful to others during play.  When we get interupted (i.e. lunch time) we have managed a way for people to walk around our unfinished play!  It is working brilliantly!

We are drama lama's!!!

Paea and Robert in an impromptu phone conversation.

Spiderman Isaac and Policeman Abel at the McDonalds drive through!

The Rock Star band! Mia-Leigh, Sana, Liam and Rafaella!

Radeesh and Zain ordering food!

Criston and Stanley talking on the phone.

Math time - matching, halves and quarters

Tanushi and Eva in a competitive game of dominoes.

Maths group learning about halves and quarters.

Isaac completing a halves and quarters assessment.

Tea anyone?

Oliver, Paea and Liam in the family room.

Ramon turned 6 in July!

Still mad about inclined planes!

Ramon and Paea, with Edwin building barracades.

Extra reading after morning tea break = extra reading mileage

Level 2, 3 and 4 with their readers.

Level 12/14 in the library with their readers.

Level 7 in the family room with their readers.

The one thing I truly enjoy being in Room 16 is how the students 'find' the spaces that they want to work in.  It could be the stage, the library, the back table, the purple half moon crescent table, the floor.  Having plenty of spaces for learning - makes learning interesting and fun.

Writing, reading and maths all in one

One activity the students particularly love, is practising their ring words.  Here we roll the dice, write the word, until one column is full, where we have a brain break and colour the picutre of the column in.

Melissa is also practising her pencil grip - great work Melissa!

Rosie decided to do her work on the stage - a multi-purpose platform!

The boys chose a table down the back of the classroom.

Ramon, Zain and Radeesh.  (Oliver, Robert and William in background).

Outside fun with the parachute

We lift the parachute up and down, and then run under it to swap places with our partner.   We have lots of fun with this parachute.  We play with it, have picnics on it and use it as a giant blanket!

Get Wise - ASB kick start our financial capability block early

- it's coming up in week 7

Coming up in week 7 we will be learning about financial capability, where children will have a greater understanding about money.  Jinny from ASB Get Wise came to our classroom to get us starting to think about money, how to save it, and what choices we make when spending it.

Get Wise Jinny, discussing how we shop (with Sana).

Looking at the different values of money.

Looking at the coins.

Looking at safe places and not so safe places to save our money 

(treasure box with Mia-Leigh, sock with Preston!)

Friday's are fun, food days!

Friday's, after lunch, we relax and have some food and extra fun.

We usually have popcorn Friday's, but this time we had toast with jam!  Yummy!

The many dramas we have during our weeks!

Under the sea, fish school story.

The King and the Queen making dinner! (Kendall and Riana).

The Cowgirl show!  Riding their trusty horses.

Mia-Leigh, Melissa (back), Rosie and Sana (front).

Ramon, Paea, Abel and Edwin preparing a drama meal.

The girls dressed up as Pokemons! - Riana, Mia-leigh and Rafaella.

Ramon and Sana about to put on a show.

Musical, talking cowgirl show!

Tanushi, Rafaella, Mia-leigh and Sana.

There are a lot of opportunities for performing on stage in our classroom. We have impromptu plays and planned plays.  We are learning how to plan for a play and that we need to have a beginning, middle and an end.  We are also learning about how to use props like telephones, steering wheels, knocking on the wood, making happy meal boxes, using dress ups to convey characters.

Special congratulations to our certificate people!
50 readers Reading Awards!

Rafaella (50), Tanushi (50), Stanley (50), Zain (50) and Kendall (50).

Radeesh (50), Rafaella (50), Tanushi (School Award for TRS 100 words), Criston (50, plus 50 walks to school!), Oliver (100 reads!), Robert (50) and Ramon (School award for writing), Preston (50).  Well done everybody!

We are all teachers!

Each morning we have a new calendar teacher.

Here is Melissa helping us with the day's date.

Due to a senior class being split last week, we had two seniors for the day - there were so helpful - we really liked talking to them - they were like big brothers!   The boys did their own school work, and had break time fun with us!  Here are our senior boys JP and Seijei chatting with us at the play dough table.  Seiji was making pizza and snowmen!

So long! farewell - we're off to Room 12 and 14 !

Stanley, Sana, Tanushia, Criston, Iris, Preston, Isaac, Kendall, Riana are moving on to new classrooms as of next week.  We had a pyjama party, yummy food, cartoons, and games to celebrate their successes!

Wow Isaac! what an enormous cake!  Thank you!

Enjoying the cake, and working out where to start slicing it!

We did our best to eat it all!

Mmmmmm  cake and chocolate fudge ice-cream!

The best pyjama party ever!

The Year 1's made farewell cards for our friends - they had to sign 9 cards each!  What a great job!  Criston was unwell and Tanushi is overseas, so they haven't received their cards yet.

We are so ready!

Last pic with Mrs Taylor!

(Great camera work Paea!)

We then took our friends to their new classroom for the last block of the day.

And then there were 15...

After we dropped off our friends we then came back to Room 16 and made some sheet tents and played musical chairs!

Ramon, Abel, Robert and Paea's tent.

Edwin, Oliver and Liam's tent.

A tardis!  Rosie, Rafaella, Melissa, Eva (front tent).
Radeesh, William (blue tent).

Paea, Abel and Ramon.

Rosie and Melissa.

Edwin peeping out of his tent.


Musical chairs!

Oliver and Ramon - last chance!

It's very exciting! our classroom will be growing and evolving during the rest of the year - currently we are 15!

I hope you have enjoyed the 5 weeks of updates for this term! Do feel free to make a comment at the end of this blog - it's always great to get feedback - we are all learners for life!

Feel free to share your child's learning with extended family and friends.  They can simply go to the Target Road School website, and click on 'Classroom Blogs' and choose 'Room 16'.

Ka kite everyone!


Mrs Taylor