The Last Post

Yipee, tomorrow is the last day of the school year. My little guys are going to meet their new teachers tomorrow and visit their Year 2 classroom. It's been a great year with lots of fun activities and new learning. The brainy bunch have worked really hard and deserve a great holiday. Hope Santa visits them this Christmas and may peace, love and joy be their gifts. To all their wonderful parents, thanks for all your support, encouragement and offers of help. We could not have done it without you. Thanks to all our readers and visitors. I will have a new class and hence a new class blog. We resume school on Feb 2, but the blog will be set up later on in the year. Please do visit us, it encourages little minds to do better.
Merry Christmas and a Great Year ahead 2010, from the Brainy Bunch.

Our Christmas stories

Christmas is a time for celebrating. When we sleep at night Santa will put the present in our home. He knows we are awake. We can see the present if we are awake. He puts the present under the christmas tree. Everyone loves Christmas. Santa comes down the chimney with the presents when it is night time. He gives us present when it is dark. Our class Christmas tree has sparkling balls and a star on top. It has rainbow lights. It is called a fibre optic tree because it has lights. There is a pot at the bottom of the pot. LW
Christmas is on 25 December. It is fun. We have school holidays. I like Christmas Eve. It is great. We get presents. Our class Christmas tree is great. It is not a bit cool because it has silver toys. KN
Christmas is a time to decorating our homes. At Christmas we can get presents. They are cool too. I can have snow fights. We can have some special foods. We go to people’s house and sing Christmas songs. They are called carols. We can play Christmas games. HP
Christmas is for opening presents. We like opening the presents at Christmas time. I like it too. I ride to Grandma’s house for dinner. I eat kiwi fruit. Our class Christmas tree has beautiful lights. It has a star on top of it. It has a drum too. CB
Last Christmas my dad bought me a robot. The robot can change to a car. It has a gun and a shield. The robot also has a sword. Santa comes to our house with his reindeer. Our class Christmas tree has a golden boot and some other colour boots. It has a silver star and beautiful lights. The lights can change colours. CN
At Christmas Santa gives us presents. He comes from the chimney and puts the presents around the Christmas tree. We leave the cookies and milk. We make snowman and I play snow fights. Our class Christmas tree is special because it has a star on the tree and rainbow lights. MN
Christmas is fun because we open presents. We put up the Christmas tree. Our class Christmas tree has decorations on it. It has a star on top. RR
Christmas is fun because Santa gives presents. My Christmas tree is very beautiful. There are balls and candy sticks. The top has a star. In the house I play with my brother. I go out and make snowman. I play snow fights and go sledging. I eat special food and decorate my house. People decorate their houses. Christmas is on the 25 of December. Our class Christmas tree is beautiful because there are lights. It has little baby drums and the top has a star. The lights are cool because they change colour. It has a switch to turn off the lights. ML
Christmas is fun because we get lots of presents. We get to sleep over. It is fun. We get to open our presents. My family will have dinner at oma and opa’s. We get to get our friends over. At oma’s we open our presents. I want a pony and some pets. Oma has a fairy on her Christmas tree. She has lots of decorations. We will have dinner together.
Our class Christmas tree has a special decorations. It has pretty lights. We have a star on the top of the Christmas tree. The colour of the lights are pink and red. TG
Santa gives me presents at Christmas. I decorate the tree. Our class Christmas tree has rainbow lights. It has a big star on the top. VS
Christmas is a time for having fun and playing in the snow. I like snow. We get to make snowballs. Santa comes down the chimney. Santa gives us presents. We get them at the back of our beds. Our class Christmas tree is a fibre optic tree. It has lots of decorations. Our tree has lights on it and sparkly boots, a big sparkly ball, a silver train and an angel. There are drums and a silver bell. ED

The Ant and the Grasshopper Retell

Gingerbreadman

Yesterday we made gingerbread man with ginger, flour, sugar, egg, butter. We put lollies and smiles on. Then we put it in the oven. Our smiles melted because they were jelly snakes. When we ate them they were yummy. I loved the chocolate M and M the best.
NG

The Wonky Donkey

We had a visit from Craig Smith who is a very clever story writer of children's books. He makes a tune to his stories too. We felt really special that he visited our school to share his books with us. The Wonky Donkey is a must read book and comes with a CD too. The author has a beautiful voice. Here are some of our stories.


At the Wonky Donkey show we were listening to the music. RR
The man sang a song for us. It was funny. LW
I saw Craig singing songs. It was funny. NG
At the Wonky Donkey show the man did funny songs and the last song was really funny. TG
I saw Craig and he sang some songs for us. The songs were funny. I liked the raindrop sounds. ED
At the show Craig sang songs. It was funny. We did noises. It was fun. I liked the bird song. HP
Craig sang a song about the Wonky Donkey. I thought it was funny. Craig was cool. I kept wondering how he did the water sounds. JP

The winners are...

 Best News Project
 Winner: Katharine Mitchell,
Hukanui School – Hukanui Air
 Runner-up: Petra Ohlrich,
George Street Normal School – TREK Radio

 Best Class Blog
 Winner: Clemency Wright,
Outram School – Room 9 You Shine
Runner-up: Stephen Baker,
Hokowhitu School – Fab4

Well done to the winners!
My little darlings in Room 3 you are all winners in my eyes.
You work really hard, try your best in everything and I love that you guys have come such a long way. You have all achieved a lot and I hope you have gained skills that you will use later on in life. You are my PRIDE and my JOY!!!!!!

At the Maritime Museum

Sorry about the font, we tried a new thing using I-photos which was making a book.

The Fantastic Cake

Wish us Luck!!

Thanks to everyone that voted for our class blog. The voting has closed. We will know the results at the end of the month. We hope we get 1st place. Please keep visiting us and leave comments.

Treasure Hunt Activities

Response to the book At Number 10 Tawai Crescent

This is what we do at Number 3 EP School.

Interface Magazine Blog Awards

Just received an email telling me that our blog is one of the 5 finalists in this year's INTERFACE Awards 2009 'Best Class Blog'. What an achievement Room 3! The Interface Magazine is the technology magazine for educators to learn about using ICT. The judges have chosen the top 5 blogs and now it is for teachers and educators in NZ to decide who the winner is. Kindly click here to vote for Room 3's Blog The Brainy Bunch @ Elm Park School.
Voting closes 5pm Monday 19 October, 2009. Everyone who votes goes into a draw to win a 16GB Toshiba USB Thumb Drive.

The Safe Place

What will a safe place be for Mrs. A's wallet?????

Dog on the blog!

Real Dog

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Using Comic Life with Ms. J

We read Mr Beekman's Deli and then created pictures in Kid-pix. We wrote the words for our characters. Ms. J then showed us how to use Comic Life to make a comic book. Thanks Ms. J

Mr Beekman

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Jump-Rope

Today was Jump-rope for the Heart Day. Here is a slide show of the fun we had. MA thought it was 100% fun. Some of us thought using skipping ropes was the best thing in the whole wide world. We also had some lovely parents come and watch us. Thanks to Mr. B for taking the fantastic photos of us in action. Mrs. A would like a lesson in photography from you!

Rhyming stories

Look out for bottles. They are full of pottles. HP
Look out for boats. They are full of coats. IP
Look out for chairs. They are full of tears.Look out for flats. They are full of bats.Look out for trees.They are full of fleas. JP
Look out for the snails. They are full of tails. VM
Look out for beds. They are full of heads. TG
Look out for boxes. They are full of rocks. NG
Look out for chairs. They are full of hairs. RR
Look out for buckets. They are full of lockets. LW
Look out for the stadium. It is full of radium. MA
Look out for shoes. They are full of boos. Look out for clothes. They are full of blows. ED
Look out for cars. They are full of bars. IK
Look out for trees. They are full of bees. MN
Look out for chairs. They are full of bears. SB
Look out for roads. They are full of toads. KN
Look out for socks. They are full of rocks. CB

Retell by ED and MA

MA and ED used a story board to retell their Reading Book. There drew their pictures in Kid-pix and made a slide show. They then exported it as a Quicktime. Please do leave comments for them as this work was done entirely by themselves. Great job boys!

This is our Perceptual Motor Programme (PMP)

A Blog With a Purpose!!!!

It has been great to share our work with our family. We have found the blog to be a useful tool. Please read to know why. Some of our parents tell you why they think having a class blog is worthwhile.
Kindly click on 'full' to view full screen.

We love our blog...

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Follow Harold

Who loves Harold? Well you can visit him here.
Click on the picture to take you into space.

Happy Fathers' Day to all our Wonderful Dads!

This is what we think of our dads and why we love them so much!

I like my dad because he hide and seek with me. I hide behind the door and my sister cannot find me but dad finds me. My dad gives me cuddles. CN
I love my dad because he gives me breakfast. RR
I love my dad because he plays with me. He makes my porridge for breakfast. TG
I like my dad because my dad buys toys for me. I told my dad to buy me a PSP. LW
My dad is special because he cooks me food and I love my dad. He drives his car and brings me toys. He sleeps with me. HP
My dad is special because he lets me play on the computer. He builds the new house. He makes rice bubbles for me. MA
My dad is special because he always comes to my bedroom and I always hide under my blanket. My dad makes me laugh. ED
I like my daddy because he plays bat and ball and gives me pink ice cream with chocolate cookies. He buys me toys and cars. He bought me a colouring book. I like my dad. He's the best! IP
I like my dad because he gives me chocolate. SB
I like my dad because he puts the T.V. on when I wake up. He serves my breakfast in a bowl. I love my dad. CB
I love my dad because he draws cars and dragons for me. VM
I like my dad because when we went to the shop he bought a bike for me. MN
I like my daddy because he plays bat and ball and gives me pink ice cream with chocolate cookies. He buys me toys and cars. He bought me a colouring book. I like my dad. He's the best! IP
I like my dad because he always tucks me into bed and gives me cuddles. IK
I like my dad because he buys me toys. He takes me to the pools. KN
I like my dad because he buys me toys. He will buy me a PSP. NG
I love my dad because he bought me a bicycle. He teaches me how to ride it. EH

Our Best printers of the day!

Mathletics is fun!!!!!

We had only 2 weeks of using Mathletics. We love it because...
Listen to our voice thread to know why.

Our Little Fufu

Our little Fufu died. That was very sad.
We have written little stories of what she meant to us.

Handa's Surprise

We read the book Handa's Surprise and made masks to act out the story. We loved the different animals in the African forest. We uploaded the photos into Kid-pix, recorded our parts and chose the transitions. Our teacher then exported it as a Quicktime. Enjoy!

Baby Rabbit

On Friday, CB brought a baby rabbit for Show-and-Tell. Her dad found it at his work. The rabbit's eyes were still closed. CB's mum looked after the baby rabbit and she looked really well. They fed her milk with a little syringe. We had to use our little voices when she was around, not to scare her. We all thought she was cute! Thanks Mrs. B

Our Learning with Harold

Please be patient while all the pictures load to read our stories.

Illustrating in Kid-pix

Each of us drew a picture in Kid-pix and then made a slide show as a class. We chose the transitions and recorded the story. See if you can answer the questions at the end of the story.

Looking after our planet

At our school we put yoghurt pots in recycling bins and food scraps in the worm bin. TG

At our school we recycle yoghurt pots. If they are dirty we need to wash them. IP

At our school we reuse yoghurt pots. We can also put banana peels and apple cores in the worm bins. The worms eat the banana peels and make it into tea for the plants. MA

At our school we have a worm bin for recycling and we put in banana peels in the bin. VM

At our school recycle yoghurt pots and we wash them to reuse them. The banana peels go into the worm bin and it keeps our school environment good and clean. ED

environment on PhotoPeach

Jelly Making

As part of our inquiry we looked at changes to jelly crystals. The children learnt heaps and had fun. The special thing about the photos were that they were taken by my 3 five year old photographers. They did do a great job. They took turns and also participated in the class discussions. Something that touched my heart was the gratitude the children showed. They were so thankful and said so. They found the jelly really yum!!!!!!!!
I found it difficult to upload the presentation so had to stick with this poor quality video. Sorry about that.

Learning Te Reo

Last week was Te Reo Maori week in NZ and our school. We learned some Maori words and 2 songs. Room 22 created activities for the whole school. We watched these on our Smart board. We also had a competition everyday. Room 3 won the junior prize on 2 days!

Weekend Story

This is CN's weekend story. He is learning to listen to vowel sounds and write them in his try words.

The Train Ride

Making it our own...
After reading the book we wrote our stories and recorded our voices in Garageband.

A Visit to the Life Education Caravan

Here is what we learned with Harold in the Life Education Caravan. There are some written comments, some audio and some pictures too. Hope you find it useful. We learned a lot of new facts about our brain and body. The audio stories were written in 2 Writing sessions.

Our 100 Hundred Celebration

Healthy/Unhealthy Food

This is what we knew at the start of the lesson on making good food choices. We will be visiting the Life Education Bus (that visits our school) to listen to Harold the Giraffe share his thoughts on healthy eating. More on that later.
Photos taken by MA

Our 1st Podcast

We read the book, The Terrible Tiger by Joy Cowley. It made for a great read because it had repetitive words and created a rhythm. We made a podcast of the story. Listen for the sound of animals!!! Were the children in the story really brave??