Open Night

Last Thursday we held a very successful open night. The turn out for room 8 was fantastic.  It was great to be able to catch up with parents and grandparents regarding the students learning.  I particularly enjoyed watching as students sat outside with their writing/maths books proudly showing their work to family.  Studies have shown that where a close connection between a students learning and home exists, students do better.  Our students are fortunate to have families who value their learning and who take the time to connect with what they are doing at school.  Well done!

Here are some photos from the night.

More photo's

Here are some more photo's from our sports day

The class in our house colour t-shirts

Jump jamming to warm up

                                                                      Probably best to stick to teaching....

Just waiting for the black caps to call her into the team.

Greta on the bar









Joel and Angus battle it out in the 5yr boys race

and then there are the parents who have time to have fun with photos of the teachers.

Sports Day

What a fantastic time was had by all at our junior sports day.  Students were divided into 10 teams and moved around 10 activities during the morning. The wearing of house colours was made easy with a supply of t shirts from Greta's parents.

Here are the students warming up with a jump jam session to start the day.

 Just before lunch we had our sprint races.  Well done to Faith who is the fastest 5 year old girl and Trent who is the second fastest 5 year old boy. it was great to see students of room 8 cheering on their classmates. By the end of the day some exhausted children were heading home.

Open Night

On Thursday this week 27 November we have our school open night.  For our Flexible learning space we are having a shared meal.  Sausages and bread will be provided.  Bring a plate to share.  It will be great to have you come and share with other families in your child's learning.  We have chosen the time to hopefully make it easier for working parents to join us.
The start time is 5pm and we will be finished by 7pm.

Oral Language

It has been great having the students getting into their oral language.  It is helpful if they can have prepared something at home and practiced how they will present it to the class. We are working on building confidence in standing in front of others and speaking,  This involves needing to be able to maintain eye contact, standing up straight without fidgeting and speaking clearly with good pacing. Here is Joel who dressed up as a policeman to present to the class on what he wants to be when he leaves school.

Big Week

Last week we had some exciting visitors to school.  We had Takoda's dad "Joe the Builder" come and speak to us about being a builder. After showing us many tools he made a table in front of our whole junior assembly.  We now have many students wanting to be builders when they leave school.

We also had a visit from the local fire brigade who reinforced some of our safety messages around getting out of a building if it is on fire.  We know that in the event of a fire we need to get down and get out. Once outside we need to meet at the place we have arranged with our family in the event of a fire or emergency.  The letter box is usually a good idea.

Here are some photo's of the fire brigade visit.

We have also started cricket skills.  Each Friday we will learn basic cricketing skills with coaching from Nelson representative cricket players.  Here are some photos from our first session. Look out the Black Caps.

Don't forget this week we are walking up to the Stoke Library on Thursday. Please have the students Library cards to school by Wednesday ready for our exciting outing.   

Safety/Follow your passions

This term we have been looking at safety. As part of this we have been visited by Kori the penguin who talked about the importance of water safety.  This friday we will have the local fire brigade visit our multi learning space with one of their fire engines.

We have also been looking at the jobs different people do as part of our follow your passions topic.  The students have been considering what they might like to do when they leave school.  Some of the responses are very amusing.  One student said he wants to stay at home and in order to do this he will "need to be nice to his mum." Another student said when he leaves school he wants to "get a job and make lots of money to give to his mum." Below are some photos of the students dressing up at discovery time and contemplating what they might want to be when they leave school.

Discovery Time

Every Monday morning we spend from 9-15am until morning tea with Discovery Time.  This is a hands on focus time where we emphasise one of the key competencies within the NZ curriculum. Today our focus was on thinking.  Encouraging students to think about what they are doing.  Students who are competent thinkers can solve problems and know how to seek and use knowledge.

Here are photo's of the students in their Discovery Time exploration.

These students were creating a town, giving consideration to what might be required in a town, and how the town layout might affect people's lives.

These students were thinking about colour and how they might express themselves .

Here the students are taking turns at teaching. Ella is setting out her requirements for appropriate behaviour on the mat.

With our focus on safety these students were thinking about how they safely move their cars and people around on roads.

These students were comparing the capacity of different containers to hold water.  Does a tall skinny container hold more than a short wide container?

These two were working out a new game, discussing the way it should be played.