Message to Room 5 girls from Santa

Santa sent you a message.

Santa's message to Room 5 boys

Santa sent you a message.

Christmas Fun

It's soooo close to December and I thought it was time for you to find some sites that had great ideas for Christmas things for you to do. Click on the link to take you to Santa's home and lots more.

There is lots of mail waiting for the room 5 children to arrive on Monday. Viv is wondering if Santa has answered your letters. I hope so!

YUM - PANCAKES!

On Friday Room 5 had yummy pancakes the people thought it was so yummy Alex said they were very hot.Jane cooked very nice and We had very nice maple syrup and whip cream on our pancake's Everyone loved them.Yum!!

Letters to an Alien

We are just about to start our last Inquiry topic for the year. It is all about our solar system. There are lots of games about our solar system and other things in Space.

I have found a great game and activities site to get you started . It's NASA. Click on the link and see if you can find something that interests you.

We went to the Suter Art Gallery to see some beautiful drawings by Don Binney.

Maddie's Birthday Fund Raiser

Maddie had her 9th birthday on Sunday. She decided that she would host a fund raiser for the people of Haiti so instead of gifts, Maddie's friends each donated money. Maddie raised $184.20 which she has already given to Emily for the Kenbe La Foundation, Source of Hope School Appeal.
If you would like to learn more about this just click on the link below.

Kenbe La Foundation

Weekends

What do room 5 children get up to on the last night of October? Well now, some of them come to visit Viv to see if she has any treats. Nile Street was bustling with children dressed in all sorts of interesting clothes. One group performed a wonderful "trick" by singing a waiata. Hope they all enjoyed the treats. The adults definitely enjoyed the visits.

Place Value Blocks

We were playing a great game of changing Place Value blocks today. It involves changing a hundred block into 10 tens. I promised to put the link on the blog for everyone to have fun with at home so here it is.

Place Value Blocks.

Have fun!

Commonwealth Games

We have been thinking and learning about the Commonwealth Games this week for Current Events. Today we did a Thinkers Keys activity about it and here are some of our ideas.

What if the Commonwealth Games were held at the same place every time?

• There wouldn't be enough room for lots of stadiums in the same place every time. (Carmina)
• It would be boring for the competitors because they might like to see something different,(Harry)
• People might not have enough of the type of money you need for that country. (William)
  
• New Zealanders might refuse to come because they wanted to go somewhere different. (Saffron)
• People that live further away might stop competing because it would cost too much to get there. (Hazel)
• It might cost a lot of money for the host country. (Holly)
• The velodrome might get worn out and the cyclists might have accidents. (Jonny)
• It wouldn't be fair to other countries. (Hannah)
• Competitors could keep their sports equipment at the country wher the Games were being held. (Aria)
• Everything would be ready in time for the Games. (Jagreet)
• You might not need to build any more things for a long time. (Ellie)
• The sports buildings would start to look tatty after a while. (Zoe)
  

Integrity

Friday Playing With Our Buddies

Taonga Puoro

We went to the museum today to learn about taonga puoro- that's Maori instruments. Cindi called us in by calling, "Haere Mai," and playing a big putatara (shell). Nikki and Cindi said their mihi and sang then William and Hannah did their mihi for our side. We all sang E Toru Nga Mea, said a karakia and then we were ready to start.
Nikki and Cindi played their instruments and told us some stories.
After that we went upstairs and made koauau which are little flutes. We made ours from bamboo.
Some people can play theirs already.
If you would like to see some instruments click on this link to Te Papa.

Soccer with Jordan

After morning tea we played soccer with Jordan. This is the second coaching session and Jordan is coming back again in two weeks for our last session. The Winter soccer season is over now but some of the people in our class are going to play Summer soccer.
"I liked the Truck and Trailer Game," said Madison.
"I liked Ball Tag," said William.
We all had a great time.

Tennis Coaching

We had such a busy day today. It started off with tennis. Lynnie came to teach us tennis skills early this morning. We had such fun balancing the ball on the face of the racquet and playing relays. Lynnie said that Room 5 were a great class so we think she had fun with us too. She will be back next term for more coaching activities.

The Nelson Youth Orchestra

On Monday at the hall we watched the Nelson Youth Orchestra.There were lots of violins, two flutes, two celloes, a horn, special drums and other percussion instruments. One of the violins was pink. All of the players in the orchestra were from schools around Nelson. They practise every Friday at the School of Music. Some of the players were past pupils from Nelson Central School and Jonny's sister, Gracie from Room 2 was playing too. It was a wonderful performance.

Friday Funday!

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Calendar Art

We have been learning about Vincent Van Gogh this term. We used his paintings of sunflowers to inspire us when we made our our pictures for calendars for next year. A notice will be coming home later in the term for families to order calendars and cards.

Investigating Solutions and Suspensions

Mathletics

Create your own free picture collage

On Wednesday at the libary room5 played mathletics on the computers.

Food For Thought Challenge

This photo collage personalized with Smilebox

Storybird

Rabbit Adventures Number 1 on Storybird

Tim showed us how to make story books using Storybird today. Just follow the link if you want to create your own or read other Storybird books that people have made. We will make some for our own blogs after Mathletics has finished.
We hope you enjoy the book we made today. You might need to click on the full screen mode so you can see all of the words.

West East

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The exhibition at the Suter Gallery this week is about how artists have responded to the story of the Willow Pattern from the china plates. First we looked at the works and sketched some ideas in the works. After that we went down to the theatre space where Esther had set up tables for us to work on. We made clay pots using coils. When we had finished and smoothed the inside of our pots, we drew a picture in the bowl from our sketches.
Esther is going to take our bowls home to fire them and we will paint them blue and white like the Willow pattern plates.
It was a fantastic session at the Art Gallery.

Science Activities

Solids, Liquids and Gases - Science Activities on PhotoPeach

On Thursday we had some science challenges to do in groups. There were challenges involving solids like baking soda, sugar and solid objects, liquids like vinegar, milk, cooking oil, food colouring and water and gases like the gas we caught in our balloons when we mixed the baking soda and the vinegar. We learnt about words like dissolve, solution and viscosity. The viscosity test was a bit hard because it was tricky to time and compare how long it took milk, water and oil to slide down a slope. It was great fun doing all of the tests though.

Good Luck Freya and the Paddle Ferns and Paddle Blacks

Gymnastics

Every Tuesday we do gymnastics.This week we were doing rotation and last week we were doing spring. Also last week we did the high beam and the trampoline but only the year 4s got to do it. Next week it will be Year 3's turn on the high beam.We think gymnastics is a really great sport to have in a school.

Change, Change, Change

We started our new Inquiry topic today. It's another science topic and this time it's about changes to materials. We started off thinking about physical changes and what that meant. If you would like to watch a cartoon about the States of Matter - solids, liquids and gases, click on the image.

There are lots of very cool games and experiments that you can do to make changes to solids, liquids and gases. Click on GAMES for a link and choose your game.
HAVE FUN!

Book Fairs and Book Characters

There was book fair at school this week and lots of people bought books. Room 5 people decided to dress up as book characters. Can you spot Mowgli from "Jungle Book", Henry from "Henry's Boots",and a genie? You will see lots of your favourite characters if you look very closely.

Tuesday Cooking

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Each Tuesday this term we are cooking after playtime. A group of five people from our class go to the hall kitchen and make something yummy for us to eat with our lunch. Grace's mum helps us and there is usually another parent help as well. This week it was Sophie's mum. Everyone will get a chance to cook and the first thing we are trying out is flapjack. It's a bit like a muesli bar with oats, pumpkin seeds and this week we added banana.
We are lucky to have parents who help with these activities.

Back from Germany

Mika and Grace went to Germany two weeks before the holidays and we had to stay at school. After the holidays Grace came back with some delicious gummy bears for us. She gave us each a packet. Grace gave Wills a special toy because he can't eat too many sweet things. Grace ate snails when she was in Germany and she said they tasted great!
Two days later Mika came back with kinder chocolate for us. We ate it in class while we were working. YUM!!!
It's good to have Grace and Mika back in New Zealand.

Matariki

It's Matariki and the stars are in the early morning sky just close to the horizon. Just click on the link and have fun with this game.You can put the stars in the sky and learn more about Matariki.

Matariki at the Museum

Last week room 5 went to the Museum. Room 5 went to the museum to learn about Matariki and games the maori children played in their child hood. When room 5 got to the museum Cindi greeted us with a call of maori instrument.

Mille Fleurs

Cross Country

Last week we had our school Cross Counrty Event. Gyung, who is a student from Korea wrote an amazing recount in English telling about his race. Gyung has only lived in New Zealand for six months. We are very proud of Gyung's progress and you will be too when you read his recount.

Cross Country

It was the day of the cross country. Finally I ran and ran. Everyone ran fast. I ran as fast as I could. At the back field it was slippery and muddy. I was careful at the muddy field. At the back field I was coming last and one person was behind me. When I was climbing the stairs I was puffing. I thought this was easy but it was very hard. I passed the playground and I passed one person. My leg was shaking. At the end I passed the line. I came 23^rd.

I don’t like cross country but it is good for my health.

Robyn Belton Illustrator and Author

Last week Robyn Belton came to our school to tell us about her work. Robyn explained the things she needs to do to get her illustrations just right. She told us that she works on matching the illustrations to the text on each page and at the same time she tells another story with her illustrations so the reader can get a deep understanding of the story. Sometimes Robyn writes secret messages in the picture and sometimes she uses personal stories in her illustrations. Robyn spends about one year working on the illustrations for a picture book until they are ready to be published.
Robyn's favourite work at the moment is "Herbert. The Brave Sea Dog." This is the first book she has written as well as illustrated. It's a story about a true event. She told us that Freya's dad is the fisherman in the story.
One of the books that Robyn illustrated, "The Duck in the Gun", has been published on line by the National Library of New Zealand. If you would like to read this book click on this link and it will take you to the International Children's Digital Library section of the national Library of New Zealand.