Week 9

This week we are finishing off our animal reports, as well as writing letters to Santa. We are having a go at pastel resist art and creating some amazing looking reindeer. We are also so excited about Agri-kids this afternoon! We have finished up our science experiments which was a lot of fun. We are finishing up with our flash card homework this week. Katy says:  "We are having lots of fun doing our must do action stations, and we are learning lots and lots."

Week 8

We are full swing into conducting our science experiments. We are finding that sometimes our hypotheses are correct, and sometimes something very different happens. We are really enjoying the magic of science. During literacy we are putting the final touches on our animal reports and we have learnt so much! 

Week 7

This week we are looking very carefully at the scientific process, and creating our own experiments. We have also had a lot of fun designing our own pop-up cards. This skill will come in very hand over the next few weeks. For our inquiry we have been looking at 'Thinking'. The 3 strategies that we are working on are:  1. Ask questions to get more information. 2. Explain my point of view. 3. Explain others' points of view. We have looked at the 'true story of the 3 little pigs' from the wolf's point of view. We have learned that it's ok to have different opinions, and we should try and understand what other people think.

Writing Time

On Monday at writing time we did a science experiment where we made oobleck. We then used lots of words to describe it. 

Pirate Song

Week 6

This week one of our popular action stations is making our own triangle blocks out of card. We need to make a structure that can hold as many books as possible. We are discovering a lot about stability and what shapes are the strongest. In response to our 'spring garden' poem from last week we are following instructions to make our very own spring garden. We are also adding music to poems and stories. We are all so excited about Friday. First of all its explore a joy day! Check out the kids own blogs for their reflections on the taster day. The second exciting thing is that we are on assembly. So assemble the crew and board the ship to the activity center for a great assembly! Arrrgghhh me hearties. 

Creating a structure with the blocks 

Experimenting with a winter garden and a spring garden! 

Writing about creating the structure

A great musical rendition of 'daisy chain' 

Week 5

This week Mrs Godby is away at her son's graduation and we are lucky to have Mrs Ah-Wan in our class. She is helping us to learn about the scientific process. In maths we are learning about area - that is how you measure the space a shape takes up. We are really enjoying giving feedback with our reading and writing, and are getting better at using the feedback to make our work better. We are also very excited for 'Explore a Joy' day on Friday. Some of our class had a lot of fun at the colour rush on Sunday!! 

Wow science is fun!

On Tuesday we were lucky enough to have Mrs Young come into the class and show us some very exciting science experiments. We all loved the Diet Coke and Mentos one where the foam bursts out of the bottle. We hope to carry on doing more experiments over the next few weeks. A big thank you to Mrs Young for giving up her time to show us such wonderful, exciting experiments.

Firefighters to the rescue!

On Monday we had the Fire Department in telling us about what they do. All the children got to have a look at the inside of the fire engine and squirt the hose!

Week 4

We have another busy and exciting week ahead. We are finishing using the Robotics and with some expert help we managed to get them moving most of the time! 

We are writing a blog post plan and will publish what we managed to achieve using the robotics.

As it is Guy Faulks on Thursday we making fireworks pictures. We have looked at fireworks displays to help us to draw the right colours and shapes. 

Week 3

Welcome to week 3. 

This week we are all going to be having a go at using the robotic Lego. We invited some experts over from Kawaka to help show us what to do. This week we are also using out recorders to help us write some music and we are practising our sight words by reading them correctly before we can have a shot a at getting the ball in a bucket. 

Week 2

What a busy start to the week with a fantastic pet day! Rawe are joining forces and delivering a joint assembly this week so we'll be busy practicing that. We also had a visit from St Johns today, and have some visitors from the bank on Thursday. As well as all these extra learning opportunities we are working hard practicing the key competency of thinking during action station time. Busy busy busy!! 

Media Mash 5 Day Challenge

A group of students worked together to create a movie in ONLY 5 DAYS! This is what they had to do:

The main focus of your 5 day challenge movie will be about...
"The people of your school."

•   who are they?
•   what do they do?
•   what makes them special? 

Here are the list of 'extras' that you must include in your movie:

• A gumboot
• A lego person
• The New Media Mash Logo
• Some form of animation (stop animation, moving image etc)
• A 'boing' sound effect (cartoon boing on iMovie or similar
• A slow motion shot

Let us know what you think!!!

Friday Sharing

In the front of your child/rens homework book there is a sharing timetable for Fridays. Each week there is a different topic for discussion. If you could please help your child to make sure that they are ready for their sharing on Friday.
Thanks,
Cassie & Natalie

Basic Facts Programme

Starting from next week our basic facts flashcards will have a new look. This is to ensure that the programme is consistent throughout the whole school. The main changes you will notice are:

• The flashcards may not be in numerical order. e.g. your child may bring home set 30, then when they pass that set they might bring home 24 D. This is just so your child/ren are learning the basic facts in a logical order.
• Your child will be ‘reset’ regularly. This means being tested on previously passed sets. The purpose of flashcards is not just to pass each set, but to ensure that the sets become known facts. By ‘resetting’, your child’s recall of facts will become instant, which will greatly help with their problem solving.

If you have any questions or queries please contact us.

Thanks,

Natalie Godby and Cassie Watt

Term 4 Week 1

Welcome back to Term Four! We welcome Noah to our class , as well as saying welcome back to Benrick! Our action stations this week are animal themed - getting ready for pet day next week.

Creating a place for chickens to live 

A barn for all the farm animals 

Sorting out whether things are living or non-living

Moving like animals! 

Music Through the Ages

We had our production last night. Libby's favourite part was when she did her classes dance. Madeleine liked when Rata did their dance and the steam came. Paige liked it when the smoke came. Joseph's favourite part was when we went down to the ground and the steam came out to make us look creepy. Some of us felt stage fright,and a bit nervous. We all felt proud afterwards. Our Mums and Dads felt proud of us too. It was so much fun.

Week 10

Rawe have been super busy with rehearsals for our amazing production! When we're not practicing our great dance moves, we've been working on our 'Media Mash' entries. We have to make a commercial that is 30-45 seconds long. It's a great way to practice and refine our participating and contributing skills. 

Week 9

At Maths time today we were practising measuring length. Here Amelia has been using non-standard units to find out the length of the of the sandpit. Others used their hands and bodies to find the length of many things around the school. 

Production rehearsals are well underway with daily dance practices, which are looking good.

A big thank you to all the people who have sent along their costumes for the production already. We are having a dress rehearsal on Monday.

Week 8

This week we are practising our participating and contributing by starting a line drawing which we give to buddy. Our buddy then completes our drawing. We are also making some awesome sand sculptures together. Have a look on our blogs to see these.

Keep an eye out for our production notices which will be coming home soon. 

Week 7

Each week everyone does a blog post and to help us to make these even more interesting we are making a plan first. 

We are excited to have a dance teacher here to help us come up with some great dance moves. We are making up some cool dances at Action Station time and this week we are improving them by listening to our feedback and using it.

Week 6

In action stations this week we are practicing a dance routine, focusing on different levels (high, medium and low) and locomotor (moving around) and non-locomotor (on the spot) movements. We are also focusing on being a good audience and giving constructive feedback. 

Week 5

We are all very excited about our production this year! We have looked at some videos which have the music we are dancing to. Rata are doing a dance based on the 1980's and Miro are doing a dance based on the 1960's. We will be starting to learn the moves for these this week so watch out for some amazing dancing at your house. 

We are continuing to practise our length measuring skills. We know that it is important to use the same unit to measure different objects. 

We have sent our letters to Mrs Watt and hope that she really enjoys reading them.

Week Three

We write everyday and use lots of different spaces. This week we are writing to Mrs Watt so that she can keep up with all the Rawe news. We continue with our origami fractions but this week we are making airplanes. The class is getting very good at folding tiny pieces of paper! We are looking at ways we can participate by doing the right thing at the right time and we contribute to the class by making it easier for others to work and learn. 

I have noticed that some children are bringing toys to school. This is fine on a Friday as we share our news then but during the week the toys can be distracting. 

Fraction Frogs

We are proud of all the frogs we made

Week Three

This week we are lucky to have Miss Paula Stewart who is working in Rawe while Mrs Watt is having a challenging time at Outward Bound. We are continuing to work on our fractions and we have been making full, half, quarter, eighth and one sixteenth size origami frogs. They have been quite tricky to make and we have had to use persistence to be successful. 

Different ways we practised our spelling today!