Question of the Week

We've done some Hot Seat activities around our characters too.  Hot Seat activities can be really hard but Hot Seat can also be really fun too.  Hot Seat helps us to understand characters and develop them further as well.

In small teams we've been creating some plays for our drama unit this term. Our plays are based around pirate characters we've created.

What do you think is the most important three things to remember when acting ??

Multiplying double digits

Question of the week by Leila

On Tuesday we are having Wheels Day.  Everyone has to bring a helmet. If you don't have a helmet you may not participate.

Heelys are included in the Wheels Day.

Everyday some people wear their heelys to school.   In our class, I think that 4 or 5 people wear heelys.  I think that they wear their heelys more than one time in a week. I see them wheeling around every time they have their wheelys on.  They never wear their helmets because the wheelys are their shoes for the day and I think that they think that they don't need a helmet.

However, for Wheels Day, everyone must wear a helmet.

How come you need a helmet for Wheels Day when you bring your heelys but on every other day, people don't have to wear helmets if they are using their wheelys?  Are some days wearing heelys safer than others?  Are wheelys safe?  Is the Wheels Day going to be safe?

Question of the Week - Jaedyn

I like Screencastify you can do lots of different things on it like webcam, voice recording, and you can use a pen. You can post things on Youtube and you can save to google drive. One of the bad things is you can only record for 10 mins. I like doing gaming videos using Screencastify.

James was looking for Snag.it and then accidentally found Screencastify. We have been recording ourselves playing different games. I like to record myself playing games because if you post on Youtube you MIGHT get money for it.  Besides getting money it's fun. I think that people want to see me while I'm playing the game.(UPDATE: We now understand that it's virtually impossible for people to earn enough money through posting on Youtube.  Monetizing your Youtube account can only be done by someone 18 or older and should NEVER be done without parental consent or with a New Windsor account.)

Screencastify recording is quite cool tell me the things that you love about Screencastify ?  

Screencast

Screencast

Screencast

Here is a screencast of Ana doing maths this morning. We were looking at strategies to add on numbers. I showed multiple ways in which you can add two numbers together. I hope you enjoy my post and would love your comments and feedback.

Screencast

Screencast

Screencast

Screencast

Screencast

Screencast Maths Lesson

Peanuts with Ana.

Screencast

Class Photo

Looking gorgeous.

What do we know about sound?

Where does sound come from?

Make Music

Students fill glasses with water and hit the glasses with different materials.

Big questions: What have you done with the water and glasses? How could you create different sounds. What do you notice about the sound? Does one glass sound higher or lower than the others?

Watch: Water Alive

Big questions: What could we change in this experiment? (Fair test)

Quality Blog Comments from Mark Maddren

James has shared with us a graphic which can help us to remember how to create a quality blog comment.  Take a minute to reflect on your own commenting so far.  Spot an area you could tweak into being even better than it is already.

Sara's Pirate Flag

If Sara were a pirate this would be her flag!!! Why do you think she chose these colours and symbols, what do they mean?  Have a guess and we'll see if we're right.

Musical Native

What does endemic mean? According to the Dept of Conservation tuis are endemic to NZ.   Perhaps, due to a concerted effort to replant the NWS grounds with an abundance of native NZ plants, trees and shrubs we are lucky enough to spot tui on a regular basis, flying, diving, whistling and singing.

What do tui need to thrive?  Why are tui always around our school?  How can we encourage more tui to hang out at NWS ?

Hot Seat

Room 15 has been developing some pirate characters.  We are using our characters to write stories, create wanted posters AND to hot seat. We've only just begun BUT we've met Captain Kelly the Killer, Olivia, the Captain's dad and Ned Flanders.  Would you like to meet these people?  Ask someone in Room 15 about them.  Who is the oldest?  What kinds of jobs do they do?  Who cries themselves to sleep each night?

 Today we met a few more characters and soon we'll meet even more.

Question of the Week - Andrea

We had Athletics Day last week at the Trust Stadium.  I enjoyed it because it was really fun to do the activities, the weather was good, it was fun to be outside with my mates and I like competing.   I'm good at running and jumping.  I wonder, do I enjoy sports because I'm good at it and I'm an athletic person.  Would I like athletics  day if I weren't good at running and jumping?

My question is:  Do you need to be good at something to like it?

Tadpoles to Frog

Joining us in room 15 are some tadpoles.  I wonder is there a way to tell what kind of frog a tadpoles will turn into just by looking at them?  

What are you able to tell about the tadpoles just by looking at them?  What other questions might you have about them?  What can we find out? 

These tadpoles came from Drury, Manukau and the owner of the tadpoles posted this picture of a pair of frogs indicating that they are the parents.  What can you tell about these frogs?

Athletics Day

The sun was out and it was a lovely warm day for our annual athletics day at Trusts Arena. There were six events: short and long sprints, long jump, softball throw, high jump and long jump on the timetable plus the 800 metres race and the relay race.

November 4th APPA Music Festival

There are four students in Room 15 who belong to our school's kapa haka group.  On the 4th they performed at the 2015 APPA Music Festival

A former NWS principal wrote : 

 

I had the pleasure of attending last night’s APPA Music Festival.  I know I have said before that a particular performance by our kapahaka group is the best yet and I know it is hard to compare events so far apart but I have no doubt that last nights presentation was one of the best if not the best ever.

I want to congratulate you, the tamariki and all of the adults involved.  You have made the school and its reputation shine and I hope demonstrated to other schools that a truly high standard can be met.

I think the dramatic response from the audience was a clear message of their appreciation of the performance and for me the item was the highlight of the night.

I was proud to think of my links with the school as I enjoyed the performance and I hope that all of you in the group are feeling proud today.

Once again, congratulations and thanks.

Way to go !!!

 

 

Go Noodle

When working so hard everyday it's necessary to have a break so that we can get the most out of our brains.  Sometimes it's a run sometimes it's a game and sometimes it's a dance from GoNoodle .  We like to shake it up! 

Sometimes it's just a matter of shaking it up!

Scooter Safety Day

Thirteen people brought their scooter to school today which is 13 out of 31 students.  Two people brought their helmets.  Wait.  Does that make sense?  What happened next?

Fish Tank Project

If you had a fish tank with a 400 litre capacity what would you put in it?  We've already got 10 Gold Barbs, 10 Long finned Zebra Danios and 10 White Cloud Mountain Minnows, 2 Golden Apple snails and 3 Ramshorn snails.

Twenty Thousand Views

WOW ! We almost have 20 000 blog views but most of our comments have been made by us. Why do you think people come to look at our blog?  Why do you think that people come to look at our blog but don't leave a comment?  How can we encourage people to leave us their message? 

Have your parents had a look at our blog, your friends, people in other classrooms? Ask them to leave us a comment. Talk to your family and show them our blog, ask them to leave us a comment.

Question of the Week - Pooja

Doing music with my group was fun.  I just clapped my hands to our musical pattern.  As it got more complicated it became more difficult for me.  I kept missing the beat by going too fast or going too slow, I couldn't match the speed of the others.

What was the most difficult thing you found about making music?

What energy moves you around the field?

  Left foot, right foot, arms pumping propelling you forward. How does it feel to run?

What is the name of the energy you used to move around the field?  How is that energy created?

What would be your top three adjectives to describe the feeling as you move around the field? How do you get yourself from the cricket pitch to the goals posts?

What does it take to fly?

As you get ready to make your jump what are you thinking about ?  How do you motivate yourself to make your leap?  

What energy are you using to move your body through the air?

Have a look at yourself mid flight?  What do you think about your form ? ?  How can you fly further?  What will you do next time?

Potential vs Kinetic Energy

Designing a paper plane is a tricky process if you wish to beat your classmates in a paper plane flying contest. There are many designs to consider and throwing techniques.  What has worked best for you?

What is potential energy?  What stage of paper plane making demonstrates potential energy? When does potential energy change into kinetic energy?

What kind of energy do you use to make the plane fly??

The Stump

What is a stump? In this case the stump on our back field was created when our beloved Gum tree was chopped down. Why was the stump left on the back field? How did it escape the chop? What fun games could a stump be used for? In the case of our stump, it was turned into a missile when rolled down the roly poly hill and in to the neighbour's fence. Some of the boys noticed the problem and decided that the stump better leave our back field, for the sake of younger children and the fences.

What goes on in a classroom with 1:1 devices?

Room 25 paid us a visit to have a look for themselves. They asked questions, they looked at what the current year 5s and 6s are doing, they checked out all the different things they might have a chance to do next year. I wonder what they thought of it all. Are they intrigued? What did you tell them? What advice would you give to anyone thinking about joining a digital classroom?

Is it soccer or is it football?

Do you enjoy football? We had the opportunity to get a taste of the game with our coach, Brendan. We ran through the drills, played some games and had a lot of fun.

NZ ShakeOut

Have you ever been in an earthquake?  On October 15th at 9:15am, NWS participate in the NZ ShakeOut earthquake drill.  Many of us are from Auckland and have never experienced an earthquake but some of us like Mr Bermingham have experiences both big and small earthquakes.

Mr Bermingham shared some of his experiences with us and we've all practices the stop, drop and cover drill which may be the thing which keeps us safe during a quake.

Are you a Mrs Trunchbull or a Miss Honey?

 
Tania
  
Kira

Israr 


 Ingrid

 
Andrea

 
Hareem


Max

 

The End of Term 3

Gosh, that went by so quickly.

Have a safe and fun holiday.  I hope you all have a great rest and recharge your batteries.  Have lots of fun and enjoy your families.  We will see you back here at school on October 12th.  See you soon!

Question of the Week - Ethan

During the holidays,I'm stuck at home with my older brother.We usually do our own thing but he still annoys me.When he plays on his X-box,I can hear him screaming if he wins or if he loses.What kind of things annoy you during the holiday???

The Weekend News

This week we created newspaper articles using the newspaper clip generator. They are an easy way to present our weekend news. Have a look at a few of our articles.

by Tania

  

by Wynstan

   

by Hamish.  Writing a newspaper article

by Andrea

 

Question of the Week

Which apple do you think tastes the best?  I know that certain apples taste different from one another.  I know that different apples have different purposes.   I don't have a favourite I like them all.    Do you have a favourite?  Why is it your favourite?

Apple Ads

This term we looked at all the things New Zealand farmers grow and sell.  We studied the ways in which NZ produce is marketed and sold and we had a go at making our own ads for selling apples.  Teams developed ads for Royal Gala, Granny Smith or Jazz.  Which would you buy?

Kizoa slideshow: Jazz Apples Ad - Slideshow

Kizoa slideshow: MAX eat the gala apple - Slideshow

Kizoa slideshow: Apple Commercial - Slideshow

Jaedyn's Ad using Animoto

Steven's Ad using Animoto

Hamish and Anoki's Ad using Animoto

Art Appreciation

When we completed our Calendar Art, Miss Skipper over heard many people talking about the things they liked in other people's art pieces.  All the positive feedback was really nice to hear.  It was good that people were appreciating other people's efforts because sometimes art was really difficult for some people.

Here are some of the feedback people shared with their favourite artists.

Artist : Avara  Feedback : Steven

Artist : Ingrid  Feedback : Andrea

Carnivalito and Kahoot with our buddies in Room 14

Every week Rooms 14 and 15 get together to share some time with one another.  Room 14 has students who are year 1 or 2.  They are lucky enough to have the wonderful Mrs Chester for their teacher.

Sometimes we sing songs or read or engage in an activity.  Once we even went to see a play called Dexter's Deep Sea Discovery at Tapac.  This week Room 14 taught us a dance called Carnivalito.  We are going to perform it for our assembly next Friday.

After our assembly and dance practice, Room 15 helped Room 14 do their first ever Kahoot quiz.   The quiz was all about the Farming unit we've all been studying.  It was so much fun, we hope to do it again really soon.

Pet Carrots

What's your dream pet? A dog? A cat? A carrot?  A carrot!! Have you thought about having a pet carrot?  Have a listen to Tania's speech.  Her speech is a level 3 and she was the winner of our classroom speech competition.  Well done Tania!

Calendar Art

Every year our school has an art based fundraising appeal called Calendar Art. This year Room 15 created Auckland skylines. First, we created our backgrounds using crayon and dye, then we sketched the skyline. From New Windsor Road, out the front of our school we can see the Sky Tower.  We went to the front of our school and we sketched what we could see.

Next, we used newspaper to cut out the shapes we were going to use to represent Auckland's skyline.  We arranged and decorated the cutouts before gluing them down.  Now our art is completed and up for sale.  Our art can be used to create a calendar, a diary or a mouse pad.  It's a great fundraising opportunity for the school and it was a lot of fun to create.

Tri Star Gym

Today was the day! The bouncy bouncy day where we finally made it to the Tri Star gym! We took our annual trip to Tri Star gym to have our turn in the foam pit, on the bouncy mats, using all the equipment we've been training ourselves to use.

Check out Max bouncing around ! What year will we see you representing NZ in gymnastics?

Advice

Want some wise words? Give these pearls of wisdom a listen.

MAGS Farm Trip

The weather held out and our trip to the farm was a major success. Farmer Palmer took us around. We milked the cows; have you ever milked a cow? I have. We had the chance to learn about the calves, the cows, the sheep and the lambs, the pigs and piglets. How would you cope working on a farm?

Farmer Palmer sheared a Suffolk sheep for us to see.  The wool was dirty and felt greasy and Farmer Palmer told us that it was worth about $12.

Our Buddies

Our buddies are in Room 14 with Mrs Chester and Mrs McIntyre. They are the best buddies ever! We do A LOT of stuff with them because they are just too cool! Check them out!

Rugby Taster

August 14th we had a go at Rugby with our coach Nate.  Building skills having fun!

Question of the Week

I think that swimming is an essential skill to learn. If you are on a beach and in the water, you could drown if you can't swim. My opinion is that everybody should learn to swim at the earliest possibility they can. It can save your life and with this skill, you could save others! How do you think swimming could save you? Do you think it is essential?

Milika @ Wesley Intermediate

What do you think about Social Media?  We've been using twitter and I hear people talking about it and saying that they are enjoying it.  Have a look at Milika's blog and listen to what she has to say. Give her a comment expressing your opinion.

Question of the week

I think that farming is important because if we don't have any farms we won't have a lot of food and I think that food will be really expensive to buy.My opinion is that we need farming so that we don't starve to death and if we have farming we can learn new things that we don't know. What do you think about farming? and you do you think that?

A Plea for Sports Equipment

We've had a few discussions at school about finding appropriate activities to do with peers during breaks.  While we have some sports equipment, we agreed that we'd like some more.  We decided to write some letters to Mr Wikaira to see if we could do something about it. Kira's in green was the one chosen to most represent Room 15.

Cyber smart not just cyber safe

What's better ? Preventing a problem from happening or fixing a problem once it's occurred.  Think about James' example . . . if you see a fist coming, do you move out of the way ? Or do you get hit and then get some ice?  Which works best for your face?  Which works best for your teeth?  Which works best for you?  Dodging the problem or putting ice on your bruise?

Question of the Week - Does twitter help you learn?

Here we see three students reading a Journal article about native plants.  They were able to tweet the school involved to ask them questions directly.  Does this use of Twitter help them learn?  What are they learning?

What I think is  it does help us learn because when you tweet something based off your learning everyone can see and it is really helpful when  people give really good feedback and you can learn off their comment and it shows you what to do next time.

Compliments for Dorian

This week Dorian won his principal's award.  Here's a screenshot of some of the compliments he received from his peers  Each week we send compliments to our principal's award winner.

KidsEdchatNZ - The New Zealand Flag

Chat number two for us here at NWS. This week's topic was all about the New Zealand flag. What do you think? Shall we have a new flag or keep our current one??

Beware of Shoelaces

Did you know that loose shoelaces could get tied to your bike as you cycle? Loose laces which are allowed to flap around could cause you a problem. So avoid this problem by tucking them in.  This is one of the facts we learnt at our bike safety class today.


 In our second session, Meg and Kylie took us through our paces. What a cool day spent improving our bike skills. The more you ride a bike the better you get.

Did you smile?

I found that this ad was very emotional. How do you think that this advertising team made me feel sad and then happy?

Road Safety

Learning about road safety and being careful around our school in Auckland.
We have a busy intersection. What do we need to be aware of to keep ourselves safe?

ITM Cup

This week we were lucky enough to meet the captains of the ITM rugby teams.  We prepared some questions for the rugby players we met in the library.  The players answered the questions and then Jimmy from Counties Manukau read a story to our class.  What a cool chance to hang out with people chasing their sporting dreams.

Stories about the Tree on our Backfield

Stories about the Tree on our Backfield

Stories about the Tree on our Backfield

  

Kids Ed Chat NZ

What an exciting afternoon we had participating in our first Kids Ed Chat! We answered all the photo chat questions and trying to write quality tweets. We are looking forward to our next chat.

Volleyball with Gabby

We had our first full volleyball session with our coach Gabby. We learnt about getting down low, locking our elbows and setting up our shots.

Planting

What happens if you've got some trees to plant?  Where do you plant them? How deep do they need to go?  How far apart should you place them?



Room 15 researched the answers and then drafted some instructions and then when we'd worked that all out we planted them.  It was hard to dig the holes but we persevered.  Now all we have to do is care for them and wait for the fruit. 

How to Plant a Feijoa Tree

What you need

A shovel

A watering can

A feijoa tree

Lots of sun

Secateurs

Security             

Instructions

1. Get your shovel and dig a hole twice the height of a rootball.
2. Place the feijoa tree into the hole and cover the tree with lots of dirt.
3. Give the tree 2-3 metres space from another tree.
4. Water the tree.

After Care

Give the tree some fertilizer to make the fruit grow a little bit faster. Don’t give the tree too much water.

Researched and written by Avara, Caleb, Adia, Steven, Hareen and Ethan

Instructions on How to Plant a Lemon Tree

How To Plant A Lemon Tree

EQUIPMENT LIST

• Spade
• Garden Fork
• Hose/Watering Can With Water
• Garden Trowel
• Garden Gloves (optional)
• Lemon Tree Sapling
• Fertilizer
• Compost

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Choose a location to plant your lemon tree. It must be a place where your tree can get plenty of sun. A lemon tree must have 6 hours of sunlight a day, morning sun and afternoon shade is best for growing lemons.
2. Dig a hole that is twice the size of the root ball (wider and deeper)
3. Add a little compost at the base of the hole.
4. Sprinkle quite it bit of water on top.
5. Carefully place the lemon tree in the hole.
6. Push a little bit of the surrounding soil into the hole.
7. Add more compost and fill in more of the hole with surrounding soil.
8. Mix the compost with the soil and keep pushing the surrounding soil until you fill the hole in.
9. On top of that, you add a little more of the compost and flatten the top down.
10. You don’t want any soil at the trunk of the tree, step around it but make sure you don’t put too much pressure onto the roots.
11. Water the plant and you’re done!.

CARE AFTER PLANTING

You should water the tree twice every day. (In the morning before school and just before home time.)

You can prune the tree any time of the year. Leaves and anything dead that’s on the tree would be a good thing to get rid of.

Yellow leaves indicate the tree needs water or fertilizer, the tree needs fertilizer about every six months. It’s best to use composted fertilizer than just fertilizer.

This is the plan for planting our lemon tree by our Lemon Team- Ishita, Andrea, Israr, Benson, Wynstan and Tania

Question of the Day.

Why don't we do class dojo in class anymore? What is stopping us?
I really like class dojo.  I like getting feedback about how I have been respectful and responsible for PB4L.

Good Bye Tree

The giant Austalian gum tree which use to be on our back field has been damaged in some of the recent storms we've had this winter in Auckland.  Strong winds finally cracked the tree in half.  The tree hadn't been stable for some time and there were thick, rubber cords helping to keep it up right.  The tree had also been infested with the Gum leaf skeletoniser caterpillar also know by its scientific name Uraba lugens.

What can you do?

What should the bystander do? What are you going to do?

Bullying Solutions

What can you do if you are being bullied?  Who could help you? How can you help someone when they are getting bullied ??

Kids Ed Chat NZ - Photo Chat

Kidsedchatnz Term 3 Photo Chat

Here are the Kids Ed Chat questions for term 3 week 2.  Have a look and prep your questions, we will be participating  on Wednesday.

Hey everyone, the first Kidsedchatnz for term 3 will be on at 2pm Wednesday, Week two. 

And what is the topic you ask? Well I'm going to try something a little different for this chat. The topic is a Photo chat! All questions are based on a number of different photos! 

Sounds interesting? Check out the photos and questions below! (All photos come from the fabulous website Lend Me Your Literacy)

QUESTIONS/PHOTOS

Q1. If the doors above were portals into the future and the past, which door would you visit first and why?  

Q2. Do you think people that lived a 100 years ago had better or worse lives than us?

Q3. Why do you think the two sides are so different?

Q4. If you could be more like any animal, what would it be and why?

Q5. How do you think the little boys are feeling? Would you exchange places with them?

Q6. What does a cow pack in a suitcase? Where do you think it is going?

Q7. If you were trapped inside the tree, how would you escape?

Q8. You return to find your home city in ruin, what do you do next?

Q9. If you could have any super power that could help people, what would it be?

Q10. You discover a stone giant at the bottom of the ocean. Do you remove it or leave it where it is?

I'm looking forward to Wednesday's chat, I hope to see you there!