File Sharing and Collaboration

Tauranga Libraries Summer Reading Programme

Tauranga Library Website

Be in quick as there are limited spaces. Great way to keep up the children's reading over the long summer break.

Reading

Hi Room 8 families,

I have been doing some reading myself lately and came across this nice website from the  National Library of New Zealand.  Being a competent reading is the door to the rest of the curriculum for our learners. I found a section on 'Reading at home' and thought I would give you the opportunity to have a look at the information available.

Our focus in reading at present is decoding, fluency & expression and then deeper understanding. It is important that with so much reading material and information available to our children now, that they develop 'information fluency'. This basically means they not only read text, but also critique the information and then apply what they have learned.

Above all, we want our children to enjoy their reading.

Dinosaur Poems

We did shape poems based on our study of dinosaurs. We used an adjective, then a noun, followed by a  verb. We used the iPads to research the dinosaur names and then brainstormed the adjectives and verbs. We published the shape poems on paper first, then we used the iPad to make a movie of an alternative form of publication.

Doodle Buddy - We drew our dinosaur
Tellagami - We typed or read our poem so our avatar presents our poem with our drawing in the background
Typedrawing - We typed our poem into the app and then drew our poem around the outside of our drawing.

We then used iMovie to collate our finished product.  This is our first attempt at using Tellagami, so some of the typing may be a little inaccurate, but we did this on our own or with peer tutors. It was a lot of fun.

Click here to view our presentations

Operation Christmas Child

Click here to view the website

Room 8 is taking part in Operation Christmas Child.  The aim is for our children to bring along a small contribution towards filling a shoebox for two children. One boy and one girl in the 5 - 9 year age range.  Below is a list of suggestion. It does not have to be expensive, just a contribution would be great.  We need to hand the shoeboxes back by Monday.

We are finalists in the MADE Awards

Room 8 entered our Magnificent Masks documentary into the 2013 MADE Awards. We are listed as finalists. You can see a list of finalists in all the different categories and details about attending the awards ceremony.

Well done us :-)

This week we made the Bay of Plenty Times. An explanation of the project as well as a lovely photo of 3 of our classmates with their masks.

Magnificent Masks

We have had a wonderful time with our Art Project, lead by our student teacher Karen Reed. We have been enjoying being able to play in paste, paint and all that terrific goo.

We put together an iMovie presentation documenting our journey. This was completed entirely on the iPad. Enjoy

Click here to watch the movie

The Three Little Pigs.... or is it?

We are familiar with the story of the three little pigs. For homework this week we posed the question: Write and tell us how would the story change if there was a 4th little pig and what would he have used to build his house?

Lacey came back with:

Four Little Pigs

The 4th little pig made his house out of cake and candy.

The Big Bad Wolf ate his house and was too full to eat the piggies.

Pukeko Magic

"What will they come up with next?" I hear you ask.

Bringing the colouring-in to life.

Today while we were waiting for everyone to finish the calendar art, some of us got to put together a movie about how we are able to make our pictures come alive.

It was all created on the iPad, except for the movie of the pukeko moving. We had to do a screen capture on the laptop using AirServer and then transfer the movies onto the iPad through iPhoto.

Enjoy our movie.

Click here to view our movie

App Smashing

On the iPads you are able to use a variety of apps to create content.  Sharing mostly revolves around the camera roll which stores both photos and movies.  Here are some examples we have been using in the classroom

Click here to view the movie

Book Creator - iPad App

One of the creative apps we have been using is Book Creator. It is on the list of basic apps for 2014 BYOD (iPads).

This is a screencast of how this app works. It can be used to create all sorts of books including a project, travel journal, retell, narrative and much more.

Have fun with it.

Click here to view Screencast

Factions

We have been dividing objects and groups of objects using half and quarters. We have been using the iPads to demonstrate our understandings and explain our thinking.

Click here to view our movie

Maths - Working with Halves

Today we worked on the iPad again using Explain Everything.  The children recorded their explanations of how they halve objects and groups. This is one of the recordings.

Click here to view our recording

Maths - Fractions

We have been having fun presenting our understanding of basic fractions by creating these on the iPads. We showed whole and half using POW Strip Design

Funky Fun

The children of Tui Whānāu had an amazing day at the Baypark Tech Arena participating in the Funky Fun Day. They did a rotation of 5 different sports, touch rugby, soccer, miniball (basketball), hockey and relay races.
Thank you so much to the parents who volunteered to be team managers and/or transported our children to and from the venue. It was also lovely to have other parents drop in to support our teams during the day. The children gave 100% on the courts and we saw some talent shining through as well.

Here is a small movie of the day.

Click here to view our movie

Tauranga Library Storytime Visit

Click Here to View our Movie

We had a wonderful visit from the lovely ladies (Clare and Penny) who work in the children's section of the Tauranga Library. The children got to listen to 3 excellent stories and dramatised two of them. One of them was 'The Musicians of Bremen' which we captured on the iPad. As you can see, even the audience is fully involved. We have some talented little actors.



The Tauranga Libraries also run programmes in the school holidays.  Keep an eye on their website.

Term 2 Art

Sometimes................ all I need is the air that I breathe

The inspiration for our Art project this term using pastels and words.  These are our finished pieces.

Little Red Riding Hood

Today we had some more special children using Puppet Pals to present a play. This week it was Ryan, Kempton,, Kaitlyn, Miyah and Ella.

They had three backgrounds to juggle as well as their characters. They did a great job.

Click here to view our presentation

Yummy Sticker Promotion!

2012 was such a success we are doing it again!  Collect your Yummy Stickers and get free sports gear for our school!

Collect your Yummy Stickers or cut out labels from the bags of Yummy apples and place them on the Sticker Collection Sheets in your classroom. Yummy Sticker fruit will be found at PaknSave, New World and 4 Square. Your collection of Yummy stickers will be converted  into a winning share of a sports equipment prize pool.  

This will be running for the rest of term 2 & 3.

Why do we have to clean our teeth twice daily?

Click here for more facts about cleaning our teeth

We have to brush our teeth to take the plaque off. Plaque is the yucky stuff that sticks to our teeth. It has germs that make holes in our teeth. We brush to keep our teeth clean.
We have to eat healthy food. Food with sugar makes holes.                     By Ryan

Bacteria in our mouth eat food stuck on our teeth.
Eating the food makes acid. That makes holes in our teeth. So we need to brush twice a day to stop this.
By Zac

..............Because if we don't brush our teeth, then they'll get holes in them from a little bug. By Francis

...............Because they go yellow. By Danni

We brush our teeth twice a day because we don't get dirty teeth. We need to brush our teeth every night so we don't get dirty gums and we eat healthy food so we don't get dirty teeth. By Kempton

We need to brush our teeth every day because if we don't our teeth will get dirty and get holes in them.
They might even fall out!   By Samantha

................You must brush your teeth to remove the bacteria.   By Mitchell

................ So your teeth do not go rotten and your breath smells nice.   By Regan

View information about how to effectively brush your teeth