ART ATTACK

In room 21 we have been exploring the reasons why people wear adornments such as jewellery in different cultures. We have found out that there are a range of reasons why people wear jewellery, and in particular necklaces. Some wear them to enhance how they look, while others believe that the jewels and precious metals help keep them safe, and yet others wear necklaces to tell a story.

We decided that we would have a go at making necklaces to put into the Art Attack as a fundraiser for the school.

Below are some photos of the process we went through as we made beads and then designed our necklaces.

Photos of the completed necklaces are below as well.

DESIGNING LUNCHTIME GAMES!

Room 21 writers have been busy learning about instructional (procedure) writing and to show case their skills, they decided it would be great to design some lunchtime games for year 1 and 2 children to play at school.

They got into groups and brainstormed some ideas, then raided the PE shed to test their ideas out. Here are some photos of them testing their games.










The next step will be for each group to write a procedure and take photos so that the Year one and two children can learn and use the games they created to play at lunchtime. At Red Beach School, we call this 'Making a Difference'!

Postcards from Space

In Room 21, we have been exploring facts about the solar system. We pretended we had travelled to different planets and we sent postcards back home to share our experiences with our family and friends.



Dear Kaiya,
I finally reached Pluto. It is cold here. It's 230 degrees. Pluto is dark. It is a dwarf planet. We played hide and seek. I nearly froze on Pluto. Pluto is dark purple like a grape.
Love from Kaisee

Dear Mum and Dad,
I have visited Venus. Venus is the hottest planet in the Universe. Venus would burn me if I was on it so I have to stay in a special suit.
Love from Megan

Dear Megoo,
I've just flown through the asteroid belt. That made me feel sick and dizzy. At least, I landed on the icy planet Neptune. You'd love it there Megoo because you can float about. Here's some facts I found out about Nepture. 1. On Neptune there is lots of gas that gives Nepture its blue colour. 2. One day on Neptune is 16 Earth hours. I really miss you. See you in two days.
Love you lots, from Katie G

Dear Ms McPhail,
I've just reached Pluto. It is really dark and cold on Pluto but the good thing is that we might be able to play spot light tonight when its dark. The next morning me and my buddies played Jump It. Jump It is a game that you jump to one rock then the next rock. Ms McPhail if you ever want to go to Pluto you will need bed equipment, space equipment, warm clothes and food.
Kind regards
Hayley

Dear Ms McPhail,
We have arrived at Pluto! But don't worry about the cold and the dark because Hayley and I have five heaters on which run on batteries and most of our clothes on. For light, we have a torch each. Hayley and I dug a crater wider to sleep in, with a heater on plus all our blankets on. We had to share a bed because we could not dig that crater big enough. We also saw a comet far away. It made a loud banging sound as it hit Uranus.
Love from Charlotte

Dear Family,
Did you know that I needed to fly through the astroid belt? Here on Uranus it is very very cold because Uranus is an ice planet. Uranus takes eighty four Earth years to orbit the sun. Do you know it takes you one hundred and fifty nine billion years to travel to Uranus. Did you know it takes one hundred and twenty seven days for Uranus to rotate.
Love from Bailey

Dear Tino,
I went to Uranus but an asteroid flew past. Uranus is best know as the seventh planet closest to the sun. Uranus is blue. It is surrounded with rings.
By Tana

Dear Dad,
I just arrived on Saturn. I could see the spectacular rings around it. But wait a minute! Dad, you should see how many moons Saturn has. Dad did you know that it takes Saturn 29.46 years to orbit the Sun.
Love Hamish

Dear Jared,
I went to Pluto today. It was 2300kms across! It's very very, very, very cold and there are 1,000,000 rocks on Pluto! There are aliens! Run for your lives. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Love from Hamy

Dear Mum and Dad,
On Mars there are large volcanoes and it takes Mars 687 Earth days to go around the sun and Mars is the fourth planet in the galaxy.
Love Wian

Dear Nana,
At last we're on Pluto. Pluto is the coldest planet in our solar system. When we left Pluto we went to its moon, Charon. Charon was as cold as Pluto. Pluto is not a planet any more because it is too small. So it's called a dwarf planet. See you in five light years.
From Marshall

Dear Mum,
We have just landed on Saturn. The rings are so big. It was very hard to get through the asteriod belt. It has moons. More moons than Earth!
Love from Ashly

Dear Mum and Dad,
I have landed on Venus. From Venus, Earth looks like a star. There are clouds surrounding Venus. Venus is the slowest to turn around to make a day.
From Vaughan

Dear Mum,
I found the postcard you sent me. I just got back from Venus and now I'm on the very hot Mercury. I've discovered that Venus is hotter than Mercury. It took ages for me to work out why and the answer was because Venus has a big cloud around it that Mercury doesn't have. I just got a new rocket because my other one burned down on Venus. This one did the same. I may not be getting home for a while.
From Emily

Dear Benjamin,
I've just landed on Pluto. It is very, very dark. Me and Olivia T and Tana played spotlight and it was so so fun. Bye for now.
From Jayden

Dear Mum,
It is so hot at Mars. I couldn't breathe. I nearly fainted! I would never sleep.
From Hunter


Dear Mum,
I just landed on Jupiter this morning. Jupiter is so big you don't know where you are. Jupiter is made out of hydrogen gas so I hope I don't fall through it. The food we have in the space craft is so yucky it tastes like pulp. Guess how long it takes Jupiter to orbit the Sun? Twelve years! I'll be 18 when I get back to Earth! We now have landed our space craft and are coming back home.
From Maddie

Dear Mum and Nana,
We have just arrived on Pluto. It is very dark and cold. We can not see anything. We think we should go to another place because it is too dark and cold. Tomorrow we are going to go to the Moon because it is better.
Love from Charlee

Dear Family,
I have just landed on Pluto. Pluto is dark and cold. I had to get my warm coat on. It takes 248 years for Pluto to go round the sun! Pluto is 5,900,000,000km away from the sun. Also, Pluto is the smallest planet.
Love Alannah
P.S. I miss your company

Dear William,
I have just blasted off. I am going to the hottest planet Venus. When I got there I didn't want to land on Venus because its atmosphere is 27% carbon dioxide and nitrogen and it will melt my space bus! When I flew back to Earth I saw an asteroid. I had to put a parachute on to land safely
From Benjamin

Dear Mum and Dad,
In Earth down where the people live we can see half of the moon. The moon is very very white. The moon is a big, big, big ball.
Love from Katie B

Dear Jayden,
I've just left the moon. I am excited because we are going to Pluto now in a spaceship rocket. Pluto is very dark and it is cold. I was shivering because I was cold. You can go home now I said to Mum.
Love from Olivia T

Explosions....Bright Lights...Science

Black Holes!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A monster black hole shredded a Sun-like star, producing a strangely long-lasting flash of gamma rays that probably won't be seen again in a million years, astronomers reported on Thursday.

That is definitely not the norm for gamma ray bursts, energetic blasts that typically flare up and end in a matter of seconds or milliseconds, often the sign of the death throes of a collapsing star.

"This is truly different from any explosive event we have seen before," said Joshua Bloom of the University of California-Berkeley, a co-author of research on the blast published in the journal Science.

Initially spied on March 28 by NASA's Swift spacecraft, which is trolling the universe for gamma ray bursts, this particular flash has lasted more than two months and is still going on, Bloom said in a telephone interview.

What makes this even stranger is that the black hole, located in the constellation Draco (The Dragon) about 4 billion light years, or 24 trillion miles (38.62 trillion km) from Earth, was sitting quietly, not eating much, when a star about the mass of our Sun moved into range.

"We have this otherwise dormant black hole, not gobbling up an appreciable amount of mass, and along comes this star which just happens to be on some orbit which puts it close to the black hole," Bloom said.

FEEDING FRENZY

"This was a black hole which was otherwise quiescent and it sort of has an impulsive feeding frenzy on this one star," he said.

Bloom figures this may happen once per black hole per million years.

This kind of behavior is different from what active black holes generally do, which is to suck in everything their vast gravity can pull in, even light. Most galaxies, including our Milky Way, are thought to harbor black holes in their hearts.

Black holes are invisible, but astronomers can infer their existence because the material they pull in lights up before it gets sucked in.

In this case, though, the black hole feasted on one star -- about the same mass as our Sun -- with such relish that it tore the star apart before gulping it down. As it did so, the black hole emitted powerful gamma ray jets from its center as bits of the dying star were turned into energy.

The black hole's gravitational pull was so great that it exerted what's called a tidal disruption on the passing star.

Astronomers could use this observation to help them learn more about how black holes grow, Bloom said.

"We still don't understand how black holes and the universe grow," he said. "We think most black holes start off as being no more than the mass of our Sun ... How they go from 10 solar masses to a billion solar masses is critical."

There is a strong connection between the mass of black holes and the mass of the galaxies that host them, with black holes feeding on gas and stars that come near.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Samoan Assembly

What a stunning effort the Community put into their Assembly last Friday. We all enjoyed dressing up in our lavalava and sharing our learning with the whole school. It was also great to have the parents come and join us for a morning tea afterwards in Room 2019.

Here are some pics of us enjoying time with our Samoan Community and parents.

Telling the time - Same but Different!

In room 21 we have been learning how to tell the time. We know that there are analog clocks which are round and have the numbers 1-12, a big hand and a little hand on them. We also know that there are digital clocks (which we think are easier to read) and they also tell the time. They both do the SAME job in DIFFERENT ways!

Today we worked with a buddy practising telling the time.

Siapo patterns

!Water Safety at Northern Arena

STUDENT REFLECTIONS FROM THEIR TIME IN THE POOL!

Hayley said...I found it really scary at the Northern Arena because I could not touch the bottom of the diving pool. It was really hard to do backstroke because I had to make my arm sweep past my ear. It was a struggle to float in the big diving pool because it was deep. It was cool swimming because I learned new things that I have not done before.

Olivia T said...At the Northern Arena there are four pools. On Friday it was fun days because it was the last day of the week. It is hard and the pools are freezing as I slowly got into the pool. We did backstroke and diving - it was fun. I went as speedy as a fish. The water was slippery when I got out. I was wet and it was cold. In the water I had to take risks on backstroke.

Katie B said...Him ,my name is Katie. I like to dive in the water because I like to jump. Sometimes I am Speedy Gonzales. I like water too because it is really fun to play in. I like to swim at the Northern Arena because it is lots of fun.

Emily said...In week four and five we had wonderful swimming lessons. I think the last Friday was scary because the pool was very deep. It was fun day at the Northern Arena and the pool was deeper than normal. Each time I got out of the pool my teeth chattered! I felt cold like ice was closing in on me and soon I would turn into a block of ice. I think I did well anyway by taking a risk to jump off a diving board with no goggles on and I had a life jacket on.

Ben said...In swimming, I felt scared because on Friday we had to go in the deep, deep, deep pool and it was over my head but I learned that the life jacket would not let me sink. I felt really good when it was the last day because I did two weeks of swimming and I got more comfortable.

Marshall said...At swimming, I had to be self-motivated. I was a little scared in the pool doing backstroke. When I got out I was freezing cold. I got more brave as I learned to swim.

Alannah said...In swimming, I struggled to float. I enjoyed swimming at the Northern Arena. I had to persevere in the deep pool. At the end of swimming I reflected about how I ahd done. On Friday we went in the big pool to do some activities. My friends supported me when I was scared. I felt better when I got into the pool.

Carlo said...In term 2 we had swimming. I was scared because when I jumped in the deep pool I thought that it would be over my head. But it was not. It was at the deep end! I touched the bottom of the deep end - it was fun.

Charlee said...The Northern Arena pools were cold. There were four pools. The pools were freezing when we just got in. Some were deep and some were shallow. When you just get in the pool it is cold. I had to jump in the pool. I had to persevere to swim to the end of the pool. I was very good at swimming.

Jayden said...I liked swimming on Friday because Room 21 practising helping people who were drowning OH! NO! But it was okay because the teachers helped us and that's good. And we got to do different things in the pool. We did diving and rescuing and we even did life saving WOW! Then we got dried and dressed and lined up to go on the bus.

Megan said...I loved the Northern Arena because Monday to Thursday we did normal swimming but on Friday we did funday. We went in the deep pool. The first activity we did was to put a life jacket on and jump in the water. The second one was to get a partner and one jumps into the water and the other person gets a noodle and pulls them back to the side.

Maddie said...As I got to the Northern Arean I didn't feel really confident because it was my first time swimming there. When I got out of the pool it was really cold and freezing, because I had damp togs on. I was in the highest group in swimming. How cool is that! To get there you go on a bus. Mums can't pick you up and take you there. Olivia was in my group. Me and Olivia past into the eels group. When a few days past, I got more confident to go in the pool.

Tana said...I had a fabulous time at the Northern Arena. In the first group I went to the deep end but...we had life jackets to make us float. After that we went to the shallow end. I could touch the ground with my feet because it was shallow.

Kaisee said...I loved the Northern Arena because you get to learn a lot of swimming and swimming's fun. Well maybe not for you, but for me - I love it! Put a smile on you're face because some day you will need to swim. :-)

Vaughan said...At swimming I was very good at backstroke but my classmate Ashly always sped past me. I am very proud of myself. I was persevering.

Blake said...I like swimming at the pools because I am learning how to swim. Swimming is fund because it's a good thing to do. Swimming is good because if you fall out of a boat, you can swim back to land and you are safe.

Hamy said...I past everyone in my group. In the pool it was awesome. It wasn't very deep. I past everyone that's why I did freestyle very fast!

Hunter said... I went to the pools and it was freezing and I was knackered. I wanted to go home. I liked diving in the pool. I liked making a pencil with my hand. I liked doing the rescue.

Motuora Fundraiser follow up

Well done to Room 21 who raised over $800 during the walkathon, for our Motuora Unit. We raised the second highest amount at school and for that, we get a special treat of a movie, popcorn and a drink or iceblock.

A huge well done to Blake who raised the highest amount in the whole school, a whopping $218 - we hope you are enjoying your prize Blake - an awesome effort! You all make such a difference with your efforts and the efforts of your family and friends. This is living the Red Beach vision! Thank you parents for supporting your children to succeed. Vanessa and many other students at Red Beach School will directly benefit from your hard work.

Have some fun with WORDLE...

src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/3630429/room_21"alt="Wordle: room 21"style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

Click on the link above to go to Wordle and have some fun - you will see our class names there.

A couple of science questions to think about...

How long does it take for Earth to travel around the Sun?
Is Venus hotter than Mercury and if so, why?

The Sun and the Solar System

We are beginning to learn about the Sun and how it affects our planet in ways that are the same and also different.

Visit the website Science Facts on the blog, to find out more interesting information.

Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com

NOUNS...NOUNS...NOUNS!

We are going to be exploring how nouns are so important in reading and writing! Enjoy watching this Youtube clip.

Walkathon Fundraiser for Motuora

Room 21 went with all of Red Beach School to walk at Shakespear Regional Park on Friday, as a fundraiser for our Motuora Unit at school. Our amazing staff in Motuora work with children with disabilities and Vanessa is a student in Room 21 who benefits from the support and care of the Motuora Unit. Room 21 enjoyed walking with Room 26, and we had a great time playing at the park after our walk as well. The iceblocks were a welcome treat at the end of such a lot of walking and running around down at the park. So far, the school has raised over $12,000 from this fundraiser - an amazing effort from the Red Beach Community!

Bike Skills with Constable Dave

Fundraiser for Japan

Well done to our Japan Community and school for their efforts to raise money to help the Japanese people in their time of need.

Our schoolwide mufti day raised over $800 to give to Red Cross for support to Japan. The students got to add their coins to the coin trail in the hall today.

We have some incredibly generous-spirited students at Red Beach who gave much more than just one gold coin and from their own pocket money. RICH HEARTS all the way!

Athletics at RBS!

What a stunning day we had with the Athletics Carnival and the incredible Samoan Community athletes - you guys were awesome. Athletics is about PARTICIPATION AND CELEBRATION and we did lots of that. Here you are in action...

Popcorn Maths

Ahhhhh...there is nothing like the sound of popcorn exploding around a saucepan over a hot gas cooker to do some thinking and learning about measurement. Today we were investigating the volume of corn kernels before and after popping, and the capacity of different size spoons to measure the kernels.



Our investigation using popcorn in maths today turned up some interesting conclusions. We got to measure corn kernels using three different kinds of spoons and fill up a container that was near enough to half a cup. We found that the teaspoon took 30 spoonfuls to fill half a cup, the dessert spoon took 11 spoonfuls and the large serving spoon took only 2 and 3/4 spoonfuls to fill half a cup.


We found that you could get more kernels onto a larger spoon and we learned that the CAPACITY of the larger spoon was greater than the teaspoon.


We also predicted how much half a cup of popcorn kernels would actually make and we chose what we thought was the most suitable container to put the popped corn into. Here is us guessing which container it might fit into.





We found that half a cup of popcorn actually makes quite a lot!
Then...of course we had to eat it!

We learned today what volume and capacity means - tomorrow we are going on a hunt around our classroom to find things that have volume and capacity.

Pancake perfection!

On Friday Room 9 and Room 21 got together to make some delicious pancakes with the help of some of our awesome parents! We had read an online book on Studyladder about making pancakes and we had completed some tasks during the week to help us understand the process of making pancakes.

In our powerful learning process we were using GET IT! SORT IT! AND USE IT!

To GET IT, we read the story about making pancakes and we found what ingredients and equipment was needed.

To SORT IT, we completed a task to show our understanding of how to make pancakes and we had to SORT ideas in our head, especially when it came to choosing our favourite toppings and selecting the most favourite one.

TO USE IT, we took what we had learned to actually make some pancakes and put our favourite toppings on. Mmmmmmmmmm - they were delicious!

Random sentences

Room 21 have been experimenting with writing random sentences.

Random word - Fox
One day there was fox and he crept up to a chicken house in the dead of night and stole a chicken. Hamish

One gloomy, dark night a cunning fox family sneaked out to get the white chickens who were dumb enough to be caught! Katie G

A beautiful fox got saved by a man and the fox went away because he thought the man was scary. Vaughan

Foxy Maloxy ate my egg so I karate chopped him in the nose and made his eyes water! Carlo

A sly fox came creeping up behind me so I ran for my life! Alannah

The sneaky old fox was waiting in the bushes at Shakespeare Park, for the birds, so she could feed her babies. Hayley

My fox is digging up a burrow so he can hide in it so he could pop up to eat the rabbits. Megan

The terrifying fox opened his huge scary mouth with huge big teeth that were pale brown. Charlotte

A smart fox ran up the humongous tree to get away from the fierce lion. Ben

Random words - world and young
Were the people in this world young before I was born? Tanatswa

When I was young the world was an humongous place. Bailey

I was young when I entered this world and I was zero years old. Jayden

The young person went all over the world travelling to different places. Hamy

When I was born, I was really little and the world was much bigger than me. Katie B

I am small like a little young baby in the great world. Olivia T

I live in a young, enormous world with beautiful places, yucky places, cold places, hot places, dry places and wet places. Vaughan

The very young world woke up one day and discovered it could move and it shook causing an earthquake. Hunter and the class

Spelling Buddies

Room 21 are working well towards achieving the target of learning all 230 words on the essential word list.

WHY do we learn how to spell?

Sew we can rite ackuratly an mor importintly, so uthas can red wot we rite ezely!
(Did you have to read that carefully? :-)

Here is Room 21 at work as buddies, testing each other on a Monday afternoon. I wonder who will be the next speller to achieve the infamous 230 words in room 21?

Making A Difference!

It was so heartwarming to see children bringing their pocket money, and money given to them by friends and family, so they could contribute to the needs in Christchurch.

I was blown away by the generosity of children in Room 21 - some raising upwards of $30 by helping out around home and trying to earn money to give. Awesome effort Room 21 and Red Beach School! We raised over $2000 on Friday. Ms M :-)

[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]

Timothy visits Room 21...

We were lucky to have a visit from Timothy the Cockatiel on Tuesday. She belongs to Emily and her family and we were privileged to meet HER! yes HER! and find out a bit more about cockatiels.

We wrote about our experiences with Timothy. We brainstormed key words and then sorted them into headings - what she eats, what she does, what she looks like...

This week we were learning how to use topic word lists in our writing

Emily wrote

On Tuesday I brought Timothy my Cockatiel into school. She is one year old. She was born on the 9th of February 2010. A few days ago Timothy broke her back toe. She has feathers on her head called a crest. She has orange cheeks and behind them she has her ears. Timothy's colours are called pearl and cinnamon. She has pink feet and sharp black claws. Her crest is like a mohawk! She has yellow tail feathers and she pulls them out sometimes. When she goes to bed at night she sleeps on her highest perch. Then when my mum covers her cage up she gives Mum a goodnight hiss. When she cleans herself, she dips her beak in her oil glands. She chews bark to sharpen her beak. She chews on cuttlefish bone to give her calcium. On a hot day she has a shallow water bath, but too deep would drown her. She eats seeds and her favourite kind of seeds are sunflower seeds. But most of all she likes... butter, melted cheese, paper and toast. She also eats soup and cucumber. Cockatiels come from Australia and are the fastest bird there. I think Timothy is the funniest bird I've ever met.

Katie G wrote

"Hi! I'm Timothy the Cockatiel and I'm pleased to meet you!" Timothy is actually a female and that's a bit strange because Timothy is a boy's name. Timothy eats bird seed but she really like butter and melted cheese. If any of you folks out there are wondering if cockatiels clean themselves, yes they actually have oil in their tail feathers so they dip their beak in it and then they run their beak up their feathers. Timothy is one year old so she's still a baby. Did you know that cuttlefish bones actually give calcium to cockatiels. Among all of the birds, cockatiels are one of the fastest in Asutralia. Cockatiels sleep standing up. Imaging trying that! It would be hard. It was funny having Timothy in our class because all she did was just walk around. At night when Emily puts the blanket on her cage she hisses because she's saying "I dont want to go to bed." Timothy has a mohawk. It actually isn't a mohawk - it's just feathers. I felt sad when she had to go because I really like animals - especially birds.

Hamish wrote...

Yestereday we had a visitor - it was Timothy the Cockatiel. She has big orange cheeks like a clown. Her feathers are orange, black and yellow. She eats bird seed and butter and melted cheese. She stands upright when she sleeps. She's got oil in her tail feathers to keep herself clean. She sharpens her beak on bark. She is one year old. I felt happy.

Jayden wrote...

On Tuesday, we met a one year old cockatiel. Its name was Timothy. They live in Australia. They are the fastest fliers in Australia. She is a girl. She has feathers on her head like a mohawk. She eats bird seed but her favourite is melted cheese and butter - that is Timothy's favourite food.

Carlo wrote...

On Tuesday we met Timothy the cockatiel. She is one year old. She eats bird seeds and she eats butter and melted cheese too. Did you know that cocktaiels come from Australia and they are the fastest flying bird in Australia. Timothy hisses when she does not want to go to bed. She has orange cheeks. Timothy's feathers on her head look like a mohawk and she has oil on her tail feathers. Her feathers are black and yellow. She looked beautiful!

Ben wrote...

On Tuesday we met Timothy the cockatiel. She is one year old. She eats birdseed but her favourite is butter and melted cheese too. Cockatiels are the fastest birds in Australia. She has oil glands in her tail feathers so she can clean her feathers. She slides her beak on the back feather to get the oil and she slides her beak on her other feathers, but not the back feathers. She does this because it gets the bugs off. If a cockatiel hisses, it's a girl. She likes grown-up shoulders. She likes shiny things. I was excited to meet Timothy the cockatiel.

Maddie wrote...

On Tuesday Timothy the Cockatiel came to visit us. Cockatiels come from Australia. People say that they don't really know if they can fly to NZ from Australia but they might do? Timothy has orange cheeks like a clown. She sometimes eats melted cheese and butter. I like her colour on her cheeks - it's a nice orange colour. When she goes to sleep she perches on a branch in the cage. During the night when Emily's mum puts a blanket over her cage she hisses because it gets really dark and gloomy. When she wakes up from that dark and gloomy night, Timothy then starts preening herself just like us cleaning ourselves. I really enjoyed having Timothy around.

What is culture?

Today we were trying to understand a bit more about what culture is? We know that there are many cultures in our world but we really didn't understand what culture was so we looked at a range of pictures and sorted them onto a Venn Diagram.

Some pictures were really easy to sort - but we had to really think about others. One picture was of a pacific Island beach and after discussion we decided that this picture was not culture. It is nature.

Our sorting and dialogue led us to decide that Culture is about people and what makes them different!

Our next step will be to compare our culture with the culture of Samoa to find out what is the SAME BUT DIFFERENT!

There's a FLY on our blog!

Room 21 had a discussion today about one of our followers. His name is FLY and he looks like a sumo wrestler, a half naked Santa Claus, he has a tummy like Kung Fu Panda. We thought he was scary, a stranger and we didn't think we wanted him on our blog. We were so surprised when Ms McPhail told us who he was.

Katie shared her learning about blogs - she said "There are some things that are real and some things that are not real on BLOGS."
Bailey said "Well some people can pick some icons and silly names to put on the internet - we think it could be a stranger, but it can sometimes be someone we do know."
Vaughan said, "I learned that there are followers who watch our blog."
Hayley said, "we have to be careful when we click on pictures because there could be things that are not real, or not good to see." Charlotte suggested, "if we see something we should not be looking at, we can click on the back arrow." Katie G followed up with this..."and then to you tell an adult."
Ben said, "I wouldn't click on anything because there could be viruses."

Ms McPhail thinks there is a lot of learning to be done around using the internet safely - we will be exploring this in the next few weeks.

Talofa and welcome to Room 21!

We have hit the ground running this year! We have been busy getting acquainted with what life is like as a Year three student and...Guess what? We have our very own TOTE TRAYS under our table and we keep all our books in them! We are learning to be responsible for our own books and equipment.

We are part of a vertical community this year based on the teams represented in the Rugby World Cup. Our team is SAMOA and so we will get to do lots of interesting learning about Samoa and how we are the SAME BUT DIFFERENT!

Our first big activity this week has been to combine Maths and Art. We have designed function machines. When you drop a number into the machine, it is programmed to do something to that number, and a new number splits out the other end!Whew - designing takes a lot of energy!

We have also written about our holidays in our new writing books - we did a plan first to help us.

We are keen to share our learning with you so stay posted!