Our Class Space '08

Class of 2008 Signing Off.

2008-12-29T13:21:00.002+13:00

Hi everyone,

thanks for visiting our blog this year and sharing all our exciting learning discoveries with us. I am really proud of how much my class has grown over the year, they're a talented bunch of kids. We have explored and experimented with all kinds of digital tools this year and this has meant we've needed to do a lot of thinking and problem solving as well. The children are all moving on to new classes and I'm moving to a new school. I am really sad to say goodbye to my class, but I'm looking forward to getting to know my new class. This is the last post for this blog. If you would like to follow the learning journey of my new class in 2009 please visit our blog here. (http://mrsmacscyberkids.blogspot.com/)
I hope to see you at my new class blog.

Bye for now
From Mrs McGhie (and Rohi the Kea).

Energy Models

2008-12-01T14:40:00.004+13:00

For the term our topic has been Energy. For the past week we have had to make models on our choice of energy source. I chose to build a Hydro Dam. I'm almost finished. In the next few days I will ask my teacher to put a photo up.

K8

Magnificent Models

2008-12-01T14:29:00.004+13:00

Today's 1st of December the last day to finish our models. Hi we have been studying energy in our class. After we Studied our energy source with our two other buddies we reported back to our big group of eight. Over all our class think that the best energy source for New Zealand ( I'm not sure about this because it was majority rules.) Now we are finishing off our models they are of an energy source power like a hydro dam or a solar panel. This unit was really awesome and loads of fun i don't want it to end ( sob sob sob.) But now its nearly finished and we're nearly year six i wonder what cool things we will do then. So T.T.F.N( ta ta for now)

Bye A.G.E.B

Nickelodeon`s Cool

2008-12-01T11:47:00.006+13:00

One the 28th of november we did a nickelodeon compition and the people who were the best in there team would win a small rugby ball and a bag with stickers. And the people from nickelodeon came to see us and they filmed a game of dogeball on to nickelodeon. By J.N

Nikiloden day

2008-12-01T11:43:00.002+13:00

On the 28 of October 08 nikiloden came to our school and spongebob and patric star came. We had to do lots of activties and rotate arround inbetween we had to do some werd moves e.g camondu ballette and lots more. The coolest activty was wheelbarowing through cones and the 2nd coolest was belncing a ball inbetween 2 tummies and walking over diffrent hights of cones and the 3rd coolest was the LIMBO! At the end of the day we got to gunge a teacher and Mrs H had the gunge! that was so funney!! The reason they came is because someone in my friends class won a comp and they had to make up a game and they won so itint that so cool.
Speack to you again bye

C.R

Women's Soccer Tournament

2008-12-01T11:41:00.008+13:00

first game i went to was New Zealand VS Canada.Canada won 1-0.New Zealand played very well.Then it was New Zealand VS Demark.Denmark won 2-1 number 7 caitlin cambel got realy hurt she is my favoirte player.she is the right wing and takes all New Zealands corners it was sad to sThe ee her get hurt.New Zealand VS Colmbia.New Zealand won 3-1.rosie white got a hatrick the coach was very inprest.In 16 games there will be 1 winner.New Zealand is lucky to get in the tournament.

Nickalodeon

2008-12-01T11:22:00.006+13:00

On the 28 0f november nickadeon came to my school we had lots of fun and spongebob and patrick came along to we played lots of cool games and i played a game with patrick it was so cool I wish i could do it again.

2008-12-01T11:22:00.001+13:00

nick day!!!

2008-12-01T11:19:00.004+13:00

On Friday some people from my school won a competition and nickelodeon arrived a few weeks later . We got about an hour to play games and when it was time to swap over we had to do a funky move such as swim, gorilla dance, disco and ninja. We played games like toss the ring onto the stick and throw the plank. Once we had to do a handstand competition and a girl in team 9 won, her initials are C.M. After we rotated around the whole circle we voted on which teacher we would like to gunge with slime but the catch was that they were blindfolded. My teacher didn't want to get gunged so not everyone screamed the loudest Mrs H's hands were all pink afterwards . At lunchtime Spongebob and Patrick turned up at the field they were all giving out freebies too!!!!
By G.B

Nikelodeon Fun!!

2008-12-01T09:26:00.004+13:00

On friday, Nikelodeon came to GLAMORGAN SCHOOL!! It was a WHOLE awesome day of fun! At first we were put in to groups up to ten. I was in group 9. We rotated around games on the field. It was really magnificent because there were people in costumes that looked like Spongebob and Patrick! There were also 2 competitions. And guess what? My group won both of them!! The first one was a handstand comp. First we had to decide who did the best handstand in our group, and I was chosen to do my handstand in front of the rest of the groups. I did a PERFECT handstand and we won! The second challenge was that our group had to make a human pyramid! And we won AGAIN! At the end of the day, the leader had to choose one person in their group that was having the most fun, so they could get a prize. And I was the one who got the prize!!I had a PHENOMENAL day but I will have to stop there because I am VERY tired now.
BYE!! By C.M.

Nickelodeon Day

2008-12-01T09:22:00.008+13:00

On the 28Th of November we had a Nickelodeon day at our school. They were here because 3 people invented a game into a competition and they won. Sponge bob and Patrick (people dressed up) were here!!! There were lots of games and they were even filming. We had lots and lots of fun. By A.R

CALM's Wind Energy Glogster Pt3

2008-11-10T14:31:00.001+13:00

CALM - Wind Energy Pt 2

2008-11-10T13:52:00.001+13:00

CALM's Wind Energy Glogster Pt 1

2008-11-10T13:50:00.001+13:00

K8's WInd Energy

2008-11-10T11:39:00.003+13:00

This is my glogster that has information about Wind Energy. There is also a link to Flickr which is where I got my photo from.

By K8!!

BB- Geothermal Energy

2008-11-10T11:18:00.001+13:00

AR - Geothermal Energy

2008-11-10T09:38:00.001+13:00

Geothermal Energy - AR

2008-11-07T11:56:00.007+13:00

Geothermal energy is heat whithin the earth. Geo means land/earth and thermal means heat. geothermal energy is produced by: volcanos, mud pools, guysers, steam and water and produces hot water and electricity. The first ever geothermal power plant was bulit in Italy around 104 years ago. Geothermal energy produces 7% of the worlds elelctricity and 1% of New Zealands electricity. By A.R Info by B.B, G.B and A.R.

Delightful Descriptions - VoiceThread

2008-10-19T17:24:00.005+13:00

Towards the end of last term we contributed our ideas to Mrs Shearing's wiki page on 6 word memoirs. Basically you have to tell a story or share a thought about a picture in exactly 6 words. The idea is that the combination of a powerful picture and a carefully constructed "memoir" will be all that is needed to convey a message.

We had to learn about adjectives and how a well chosen adjective can help to create a powerful description. We also explored how your punctuation can change the way a message comes across. We revisited similes and alliteration, which we had learnt about earlier in the year, as these can make all the difference to our descriptions too.

Once we started drafting we discovered that it is VERY hard to get your message across in only 6 words. We all wrote several different versions and then discussed them with our conference group before choosing our best one to revise and publish to the wiki.

We had so much fun doing this that we thought we'd have a go at using this idea to create a VoiceThread. By using a VoiceThread we were able to choose to either type or make our voices heard. The other thing we liked about using VoiceThread is that other people can contribute to our VoiceThread either by adding their own descriptive phrase or by giving us feedback about our efforts. Please take the time to listen to/ read all our contributions and add your own comment or contribution if you like. Thank you to the wonderful educators who have already been to visit and left us a comment.

P.S Mr Guhlin blogged about our VoiceThread here. Thank you so much Mr Guhlin.

5 Frame Stories

2008-10-17T14:14:00.003+13:00

We have finished and uploaded our 5 Frame stories to the Tell a Story in 5 Frames - Kids group on Flickr. (The name of the group is a hyperlink - just click on it to be taken to the page where you can view our stories. Please leave a comment after you visit - we like comments.

taupo

2008-10-17T09:45:00.004+13:00

In the holidays I went to Taupo. The best day was when we went on the high ropes and i had to walk across 1 rope and hold on to 2 ropes. When we got to the other side I had to walk backwards and hold on upside down and then come down. After that we went dirt bike riding through big puddles and jumps it was really fun. At first I didn't know how deep the puddles were but the when i went in one it came up to my hips. when we got back to the motel dad didn't want to go swimming so me and mum went. I went down the wild slide 26 times and i went down the mild slide 18 All together i went on 44 times for $2

LH

Reflecting On Our Learning.

2008-10-17T09:29:00.006+13:00

Towards the end of last term and at the beginning of this term we have worked on 6 Word Memoirs and 5 frame stories as ways of coveying a message or idea using only a few words & mostly pictures. We even did some oral six word memoirs using VoiceThread. We also looked at other people's 5 Frame stories and six word memoirs to see how they did it.
What I would like you to do in the comments section is to reflect on the learning you have done so far. Answer the following questions in the comments section and remember to sign your initials so I know who you are.
1. What did you enjoy about doing the 6 word memoirs and 5 Frame stories?
2. What didn't you enjoy about doing the 6 word memoirs and 5 Frame stories?
3. What do you think makes a good six word memoir?
4. What do you think makes a good 5 Frame story?
5. What suggestions and tips would you give to another class doing 6 Word Memoirs?
6. What suggestions and tips would you give to another class doing 5 Frame Stories?
7. What do you know about camera angles? How did it help you in planning and creating your own 5 Frame story?
8. Visit the six word memoirs on OUR wiki and visit our VoiceThread, leave some useful feedback for others about there work.
9. How do you feel about leaving feedback for others? How do you feel when others leave feedback for you? What do you think about feedback from your parents, other children from other schools, other teachers?
10. What are the pluses about doing our work on the internet and working on projects that other children are participating in from around New Zealand and the world? Can you think of any disadvantages? What are they.
11. Is there anything else you'd like to say about 5 Frame Stories or 6 Word Memoirs?

Remember to write your answers as complete sentneces that make sense in English. I know you'll do a fantastic job. :)

Writing Starter

2008-10-15T19:11:00.003+13:00

Wix.com

After a challenge?
Use the picture above and write a story, poem or a report about pandas. You need to write your story (or poem or report) in the comments section.

Doggy Party

2008-10-15T11:12:00.005+13:00

In the September holidays I celebrated my dog's birthday! She turned 3 on September 11th. We gave her heaps of doggy treats. The day before her birthday her friend came over to play. I took them for a walk around the block. When we came home I gave them doggy treats I made the dogs do a trick before I gave them the treat. Just before they went home the owner said "We're going home now" and then they started to play. The day after her birthday we visited her friend who came over to our place. They didn.t play until we said, "Lets go now". Then once again they started to play!

By A.D.B

Maths

2008-10-15T10:28:00.002+13:00

Hi there
We are learning about fractions the top number on the fraction is called the nemorator and the bottom number is the denomonator. Did you know that if you have the nemorator and the denomonator the same number it would be a whole no matter what? Decimals are a type of fraction! Fractions are really interesting!
A.E.G.B

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

2008-10-15T09:47:00.003+13:00

In the holidays I saw Beverly Hills Chihuahua with my Granny the Chihuahua is called Chloe, she gets lost in Mexico. Chloe was rich. Chloe has a diamond collar and everybody is trying to get it. She meets a dog. That helps her. There is a rat and a lizard. The rat is funny. The best part of the movie was when the rat was in a piniata. Someone picked it up and the rat and the lizard fell out. It made me laugh.

A.b

Year Six

2008-10-14T11:27:00.003+13:00

Hi there! When i go to year six i am looking ford to camp because it looks like it will be fun! Also the work in mrs c's class(witch is room10 ) has to be perfect or else mrs c will make you to do it agin. In room 10 the art work is wonderful . The teachers in year six are mrs s mrs c mrs m mrs h. that is my post i will write agin for youplease coment .J.R.K

what i did in the hoildays

2008-10-14T11:21:00.003+13:00

In the hoildays I went to Whangarei and went to the simming pool . I was so exciterd to go and I was having so much fun . But , my mum was reading and bored . I asked my mum but she would not get into the pool the next day I went to the bmx track and stayed there for four hours.I was exhausted !I went to my dads after and played with my dog (kennashe is a schottish terrier ) at night Iwent to my grandparents place. I thought that my autntie was trying to poison me but she did not. It was the pasta-it made me feel sick!!.

My Holidays

2008-10-14T11:13:00.004+13:00

In my holidays I went to the movies and saw wall.e.
Then the next day I went to a holiday program for a week
the next week i went bolling with my brouther and my famerly.
Then it was the end of the holidays.

By G.C

The Last day of the holidays

2008-10-14T11:12:00.001+13:00

These holidays i didn't do much apart from going to movies but thats what everybody does. Pretty much all I did was watch T.V with my dad for 5 hours and had lunch served to me. On the last day I was a little upset because I didn't get to do much.

K.W

Soccer Stuff

2008-10-13T14:53:00.003+13:00

Once on the news a whole heap of New Zealanders went to England's premiere league to trial for the FA cup teams. The FA cup teams have been around for a very long time. The red demons, known as Manchester United, have been around since 1878. They are my favourite team because they are very good,they usually win the FA cups.

Google Sketch Up

2008-10-13T14:49:00.005+13:00

Google Sketch Up

Last term one of my best computer toys at school was called Google Sketch Up. In Google Sketch Up there are heaps of tools, the tools are: Mouse, Rectangle, Circle, Pencil, Rotate, Arc, Push and Pull, Measure, Paint Bucket, Move, Zoom, Walk, Pan, 3D Warehouse, Eraser, Shadow and Follow Me. This is How they are used:

Mouse: To highlight things

Rectangle: To make a rectangle

Circle: To make a circle

Pencil: To make lines

Rotate: To turn things

Arc: To make an arc

Push & Pull: To make shapes 3D

Measure: To measure objects

Paint Bucket: To paint stuff

Move: To move things

Zoom: To zoom in & out

Walk: To make the camera move at a certain pace

Pan: To pan round the place

3D Warehouse: To import 3D objects

Shadow: To make shadows

Follow Me: To make pipes

My best part of it is that you get to make 3D houses, cars etc.

Bathurst 1000 2008

2008-10-13T14:37:00.000+13:00

Bathurst 2008 was a very cool race held in Australia. Bathurst is a race were different brands of cars race to see whos the fastest. This race went on for 5 hours and the dricvers had to do about 161 laps of a course. Bathurst is sort of big in my family because my grandad use to work for honda. Also my uncle went to the race live. I watched the qualifying and top ten shootout and a bit of the final race. New Zealand was very lucky to have great racers like Greg Murphy as one of New Zealands drivers. He came 2nd with Jason Richards. Supercheap auto is their main sponsor.

Do you know anything else about Bathurst?
Please comment
A.G.E.B

Miley cyrus/Hannah montana!!!

2008-10-13T14:29:00.003+13:00

One night my friend and i were sitting in front of the when suddenly miley cyrus appeared on the news she was celebrating her sweet sixteen at disney land. All of her fans were invited.miley cyrus and hannah montana !!WOW!! miley cyrus sang break out and much more. Me and my friends are such big fans. Hannah montana has her very own program on disney channel. I like Hannah montana/miley cyrus because she is a great singer and she is very nice. I wish she was my older sister.

L.R

My Trip to England

2008-10-13T14:20:00.008+13:00

Image: 'The Eye' www.flickr.com/photos/9147703@N03/2472759097

When i went to England it took 30 hours to get there. We Went From Auckland To Brisbane To Brunei To Dubai To London It Was A really really long flight. We Flew with Royal Brunei. My grandad,nan uncle Auntie and my baby cousin came to collect us from Heathrow airport. I went in my grandads merc (mercedes) my brother went in my nans mini. When i got there i rememberd my grandads houes it is exactly like all of the other houes in the street.

Room 24s Term

2008-10-13T14:10:00.003+13:00

In Term 3 we made ancient chinese umbrellas and and dragon puppets. International Talk Like a Pirat day was fun but we had to dress like a pirate but most of the boys didnot the girls did dress like a pirate. My best day was when we did the puppets and umbrellas because i like art.

Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana

2008-10-13T14:09:00.001+13:00

One night my friend and I were watching T.V when suddenly Miley Cyrus came on the news. It was Miley Cyrus sweet sixteen party and she was celebrating it at Disney Land all her fans were invited. Miley Cyrus sang "Breakout" and heaps of other songs (she is a really good singer). Miley Cyrus is hannah montana AWSOME!!.My friends and I are bigs fans of Hannah Montana. Hannah Montana has her own programme on Disney Channel. I am a big fan of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus because she is a really good singer, she is really nice and she has got her own show. I wish she was my big sister. Not everyone likes her because some people think shes a bad singer and a bad actor.

B.B

Terrific Trampolining

2008-10-13T14:00:00.000+13:00

Every Thursday I go to the N.S.T.C. That means the North Shore Trampoling Club.I do the recreational sort.I love tramp because

I want to be able to do what the competetors at the olympics can do
Because I can hang out with my friends
Because I love it so much.

my favourite coach is Leo because he can do almost anything and he's still young . Also he supports us and helps us rise to challenges. At tramp we have four tramps and two double mini tramps that are combined I have been doing tramp for a little over two terms I think that I will carry on doing tramp because it is one of my favourite sports

Waiwera hot pools!!!!

2008-10-13T13:55:00.005+13:00

When my mum picked me up from my friends house to go to Waiwera it was so cool. I went on the little kids slide with the water fall and we went to the big yellow and blue slide. One of the side was'nt deep but the pool was so deep I got out of the pool, stood on the side and jumped off landing in the water!

Competition for the best

2008-10-13T13:48:00.005+13:00

I think that the Greens for the goverment party would be the best choice because they don't have everything good about them but the good things about them would be the best choice. The Greens are going to try to save the enviroment to help everyone. I thnk one of the worst ones are John Key because he just makes the bills go up up up UP and i just wouldn't vote for him. I am not sure for any others because i haven't heard about them , but i know Helen Clark.
Questions
Who would you vote for and why?
Do you know any of them personly?

L.H

Welcome to the World!

2008-10-13T13:48:00.004+13:00

On the 8th of October, I was the luckiest girl ever because I got up and close with the Auckland Zoo's newest baby tiger cubs! They were all girls and two of them were twins. Oz, the dad, was so proud to be a dad for once! Milecka the mum was so stressed and thats how the Zoo keepers found out she was pregnant.When I was there, she was shut out because it was too dangerous to go in there with her too!After, I go to bottle feed one cub while the Zoo keepers fed the other two. It was such a good experince to be with them and that I was the first one to see them up and close!

Question: Have you ever been up close with any tigers? Did you enjoy it?

C.R

Guarding the NZ Waters, the Royal New Zealand Navy

2008-10-13T13:42:00.003+13:00

In the holidays I went to the Navy base. It was very cool because my name was on the memorial board. We also saw a boat in the dry dock which is a dock where they drain all the water out so they can fix the boat. It was a awesome expearience.

Questions

Do you know were Aucklands navy base is exactly? where?
Have you ever been there? would you like to go there? why?
What do you think the navy do for New Zealand?

(A.R)

A Very Special Guest

2008-10-13T13:41:00.002+13:00

Last term a special guest visited Glamorgan School,his name was MAHI DRYSDALE!!!,Mahi Drysdale was a rower in the Olymics,and was very sick on the day of the race. He threw up after the race and even when he was sick he tried his hardst and got a bronze. Glamorgan School was very lucky to have him. Each class got to ask him one question,We were also lucky to see the bronze medal as well because he brought it to our school. It was so cool to see a famous rower up close. He was really really tall. We also gave him a present to say thank you for coming.

Here's a question to read and write back to:
Which sports person would you like to meet and why?

(G.A)

Glogster

2008-10-01T16:18:00.002+13:00

Hi everyone, it's Mrs McGhie here. I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday so far. I thought I would upload the Glogster chart I made the other day and shared at school. Some of you have been lucky enough to use Glogster. I have emailed the EduGlogster people and they are busy organising a special student account for us to use so you can create your own Glogsters in a cyber-safe environment.
If you have a few spare moments I have a question to ask...
What ideas/suggestions do you have for ways that we could use Glogster in the classroom? Would it be a helpful digital tool or do you think it is unnecessary?
So far I have discovered that we can email a link to our Glogsters, we can embed them into our blogs and wikis and if you don't have any movie or sound parts then you can take a screenshot to create a jpeg image to use in VoiceThread, PhotoStory, Comic Life,etc.
Please add your ideas and suggestions to the comments section for this blog post. Have a fabulous holiday. Check our SchoolZone page tomorrow too because I have a couple more holiday tasks ready for you to do.

ancient china

2008-09-26T14:18:00.007+12:00

This term we have been learning all about Ancient China.We searched about famous Chinese places and did a power point or Photo Story on 12 Chinese inventions.We got to read a two Chinese books - The Dragon Keeper and The Willow Patten. This term for art we did Chinese dragon umbrellas and dragon puppets. We did an explanation report about making paper and we presented the last Assembly for the term.

by(A.Y)

Fantastic Umbrellas!!

2008-09-18T10:18:00.001+12:00

This term we have made some amazing artwork out of umbrellas. We had to do it in steps and these are the steps:
1. We had to paper mache' the umbrellas.
2. Then we had to paint the paper mache' with sky blue.
3. After that, we had to paint on dragons only with Green, Yellow and Red.
4. At last we had to add India Ink.
The India Ink made them look amazing! Now they are going up to the hall for the art festival.

By C.R

My Fantabulous term

2008-08-29T14:37:00.000+12:00

This week our class checked out a really cool website of Google called " Google Sketchup". It is used to build 3D models like: houses, teddy bears and much more. We also started research on 12 greatest inventions they are
1. Compass
2. Ice-Cream
3. Indan ink
4. Gunpowder and Fireworks
5. Kites
6. Printing
7. Paper
8. Tea as a drink
9. Matches
10. Silk
11. Collapsible umbrellas
12. Wheelbarrows

Thank you for reading and hope you could try to do some of these

Bye!!

C.R

My AWESOME term!!

2008-08-29T12:14:00.001+12:00

This term, our teacher showed us an awesome computer program called 'Google Sketchup.' On Google Sketchup, you can build things like houses, boats, and much more. For art, we did chalk drawings of cabbage trees. After we had finished doing the chalk, we started to colour our drawings in with pastel. When we had checked that there were no white spaces, we dyed our pictures with black dye. When our pictures had dried, they had a really cool effect. So thats pretty much what Rm 24 has been up to this term.

Bye!!

C.M.

Phenomenal Paintings

2008-08-29T11:58:00.001+12:00

This term we are studing Ancient China our art has been done very nicely because our teacher Mrs M has shown us how to do a very good painting with layers like a base coat, a top coat and detail. We have done things to do with China have a guess...... Did you guess dragon? Then you are right we did do dragons. They are red, green, orange, pink, yellow and purple. We got to use a little bit of gold (A little bit) on the detail. I think our pictures are very bright and make the classroom look colourful
A.B.

(Finished pictures coming soon)

Explanations

2008-08-29T11:29:00.001+12:00

This term we've been working on explanations. The first explanations were about how either crabs, starfish or octopus eat. I decided to do it on octopus because I did not know much about octopus how the octopus eat and I was curious. Here is my chart that I did for my explanation.
For those of you who don't know what an explanation is. An explanation is a type of writing where you can not put in your own opinion. You have to explain how something works. Now you know what an explanation is. Well bye for now.
A.D.B

Serious Artwork..

2008-06-12T14:14:00.001+12:00

This term we have been doing some serious artwork and they have turned out great.
These are the steps we got told to do them in:
* get a piece of brown paper
* Then get some chalk
* After that we drew with the chalk a New Zealand native tree or plant
* Then we got 3 different shades of pastels and we blended them all together to make a cool picture
*After that we smudged it with our fingers
* Then we got some black dye and put all over the picture
* The 2nd to last step was to get some news paper and put the picture in side fold it in half and rub it with your hands 1 2 1 2 side ways
* The last and final step is to take the picture out and then leave it to dry on your desk or table
Hopefully then after you have followed these steps correctly your picture will come out with silver out lines. That is how we made these fantastic pictures.
C.R

THE BEST TRIP EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-06-12T12:08:00.001+12:00

We just had the best trip ever Guess Where
You got it Tiritiri Matangi. We took a People fery of to the Island.Then We went up Blue Bottle Trail it only took 1-2 hours. On the walk we saw LOADS of New Zealand Native Birds and Plants. At the top we had lunch during lunch I saw a Saddleback Wood Pigeon and lots more. After lunch we walked back on Kauri track.Kauri track took 2-3 hours to walk on. We are studying about Wild New Zealand. At the moment we are doing New Zeland Native bird Reports. The birds are Pukeko, Tui, Kea, Kakapo,Weka and many more.

NZ Robin

This is my report

The Pukeko Diary
Intro
The pukeko is a special New Zealand bird Pukekos are common all over New Zealand.

Habitat
This Magnificent creature cane live in Australia and New Zealand. The like in quite swampy areas. Also they are often seen by motoways and roads. They are not at all scared of Trucks, Cars, Airplanes and Trains that is why they often get hit.

Diet
The Pukekos diet is quite a lot they eat Snails, Insects, Eggs of ground birds, Fish, Leaves, Seeds, Frogs and as a treat they have Duckling. Pukekos catchtheir prey by standing very still for a minute they race foward and catch it. Their prey can't usually run away because Pukekos have long thin legs so they can run very fast.

Life Cycle
The Pukekos Hatch from a reddy creamish coloured egg. The Mother Pukeko lay between 4-8 eggs! When the chicks are born they are a dark black colour. The chicks are more awere of stoats than their mothers. After about 2-4 years they have fully grown. They become an adult Pukeko.
AGEB

The Hard Cross Country

2008-06-12T11:57:00.000+12:00

It has been a very long term this term. We have just had Cross Country and been to interschools our school came a big 2ND over all. One of my friends ran in the 9 year old she came another big 3RD out of all the 9 year olds.At our school the 9 and 10 year olds had to do 3 LAPS of our WHOLE School.The year 1s where SO SO lucky they only had to do 1 Lap of our FIELD not our school our field.
AGEB

Collaboration

2008-06-10T22:12:00.003+12:00

Hi everyone,
just sharing a VoiceThread project we collaborated on with Mr Kirkpatrick's class in Manchester to write cinquians about the pictures on Mr Kirkpatrick's VoiceThread. We didn't know what cinquains were when Mrs McGhie first showed the VoiceThread to us. She told us there were 3 different types, some were trickier then others. We decided it would be best if we followed the format used by Mr Kirkpatrick's class. It was really neat to be able to take part in a written language activity with a class across the other side of the world.

Beginnings and Endings

2008-05-01T16:43:00.002+12:00

Hi Room 24

I thought you might like to try this out. Since we learnt about this last term I thought you might like to practise creating interesting beginnings and endings for stories. Leave a comment on our blog to tell me what you thought of the activity or to leave tips and suggestions for others.
From Mrs Mc

what we have been up to.

2008-04-14T11:49:00.000+12:00

The last few weeks we have been in the Discovery Centre making ads about ourselves on Movie Maker,Power Point and Photo Story. Most of us chose Power Point. When we were finished the teacher showed the whole class everybodys ad. While we were watching, Mrs McGhie was assessing us. A few people didn't get to show theirs because they were not finished or they hadn't done somthing. A few weeks after we had assembly. 3 people were presenters, one each from Rm 24, Rm 22 and Rm 23. At the end of the assembly we did a rap about being in team five, that someone in our class made up. After assembly when everyone had left, we went back to our class and did oral presentations. We had interviewed a partner and we were presenting them in front of the whole class. Some people thought it was really embarrassing. While we were presenting our partner the teacher was assesing us on voice projection, eye contact and stuff like that. Meanwhile, we have finished the "Misery Guts" book we started to read. We had to do a last activity about it like a film strip or board game and heaps of other stuff. Nearly everyone did the board game. We have also been doing something called Nga Mihi wich is kind of like "Advertising Me" but slightly different. In the time we had with it we had to draw a picture of what you look like, we also had to copy our house and write where we live inside our drawn house, where you came from, what airline you flew here in,what river and also what mountain was near us in our country. We have also been learning about the sixteen Habits of Mind here are some of them:
Creating,Imagining and Innovation,
Taking responsibile risks,
Persisting,
Managing Impulsivity,
Remainig open to continuous learning
and Thinking flexibily.
Bye for now!!!!
By G.A.

Dancing at the Mall

2008-03-14T11:43:00.003+13:00

Our class has been writing narratives based on television adverts that we think are effective and attention grabbing adverts. This is a narrative written by one of the talented Rm 24 authors.

Well just yesterday I was in the Westfield parking lot, parking my car. Just then as I turned off my car something really strange happened, my brand new silver car turned into a enormous transformer and started dancing to music. I was really scared at first but soon I realised he was totally harmless so I joined in.
Everyone from inside the mall stared at us but I just said "Join in." Not long after that we had everyone in the mall dancing with us. All of the shopkeepers wondered where all the customers had gone.
All of a sudden the transformer turned back into my car, but everyone kept dancing. Then I wondered why. Soon I realised I hadn't turned off the car radio so kept dancing.
Not long after the dancing we all went back into the mall for dinner. We all hoped a news reporter was there and guess what I'm now reading today's newspaper and it's on the front page with the headline,
"DANCING IN THE MALL PARKING LOT!!!"
Who knows when I'll have another dancing session.

By KW

The Week in Review

2008-03-14T10:23:00.006+13:00

Hello Again,

This week we haven't been as busy as we originally were. We have been doing quite a bit of maths like measuring our group buddies and practising our basic facts. In Topic our subject is Advertising Me. We have been looking at adverts and writing naratives about the advert we chose. Some of the adverts we looked at were: The Playdoh bunnies, exploding paint and bouncing balls for Sony Bravia, cars on balloons for Ford and cars transforming into Transformers. We have also been learning the 16 Habits of Mind - our class made posters for each one. In Maths we learnt a new game, it had a really weird name. It was called the "No Name Game". It is supposed to help with adding compatible numbers to 100. Today we have our first assembly. In Written Language we have been learning about capitilisation. In the Computer Suite and in the school library we have been learning about the Dewey Decimal System. The system is:

000s- General Works
100s- Psychology and Philosophy
200s- Religion and Mythology
300s- Social Sciences
400s- Languages
500s- Natural Sciences
600s- Applied Science
700s- Fine Arts and Recreation
800s- Literature
900s- Geography and History

Keep checking out our blog for more new posts on what we have been doing
See you later

Room 24 and Mrs McGhie (Written by KW)

Fun And Education Galore!

2008-03-03T14:35:00.007+13:00

We've been really busy again! A couple of weeks ago we went to art classes with Graham Braddock and we had to draw a possum. We had to draw it in a few easy steps:

First set the limits
Next draw the big shapes
Then draw the sub shapes.
Then draw the little shapes.
Then add the detail.

Here is a picture of our finished products -aren't they amazing?

Graham Braddock usually comes to our school every year in February, he's a pretty amazing artist.

Last week we spent 2 days participating in Team 5 Outdoor Education Activities. There were 4 different activities; Bush Craft, Orienteering, Problem Solving and Water Safety.

For Bush Craft we watched a video and found out what we needed to take on a bush walkor tramp. On the video it showed people who knew what they were doing and people who DIDN'T know what they were doing and didn't check any of the conditions. One group tested how fast the river was going and didn't cross it. The other group on the video didn't test and tried to cross so someone lost their bag. We learnt a lot about what to do and what not to do if we ever go to the bush ourselves.

We thought Orienteering was the best activity because it was like a treasure hunt, the clues were scattered all over the place. We didn't have to use compasses because they are a bit tricky to learn to use in a hurry. On the first day Mrs McGhie wrote the clues and they weren't too tough. The next day though, the people who had won the day before wrote our clues and they were really HARD!

For Problem Solving we had to imagine we were at the "Tricky Swamp" and we had to find a path through it on the grid Mrs Peters gave us. A boy from another class got through it first. It was quite hard to find our way through in the first place but, we finally got through. Mr Halkyard and Mrs Peters took turns at running this.

Water Safety meant you had to wear an over sized T-Shirt and you had to create a flotation device made from milk bottles, string and pipe. We worked in teams to make our flotation devices. It was lots of fun.

Our class is participating in the Voices of the World project with children from all over the world. We had to create some pictures to represent the numbers 1 - 10 and then use Photostory to create a movie with our voices counting to 10. We chose to count in Maori as New Zealand is the only place in the world that it comes from (although there is Cook Island Maori as a language but it's a little bit different. Our movie should be uploaded to the Voices of the World wiki site in a few days. In the meantime you can check it out here.

We are loving having a blog and are enjoying all your lovely comments. Mr Lietze's class wondered why we didn't have photos of our lovely smiling faces. We decided not to put pictures of ourselves on because we have been talking about cyber safety and being careful about our "digital footprints". However, we'd love to know what you think? Maybe some of you that have been blogging for a while might like to leave a comment sharing your opinions. We like to hear different points of view.

VoiceThread

2008-02-26T12:02:00.003+13:00

Yesterday we contributed to a VoiceThread about Sir Edmund Hillary. Ms Hellyer at Tradale Intermediate created it and her class Rm 18, Mr Lietze's class (Year 6s from Tauranga) and our class have all shared our ideas about the attributes that made Sir Edmund Hillary special. We have also thought about how we could be like him and have set goals for ourselves based on these attributes. We drafted our ideas first, then recorded ourselves reading them outloud onto the VoiceThread . You can click the play button on the VoiceThread below to hear our contributions and see what children from other schools have added. Rm 18 are going to add theirs soon and some other schools might add things too so check back and see. Our recordings are attached to the cat picture (Mrs McGhie's cat Merlin)and are scattered all through the VoiceThread . We were really excited to be able to hear our voices and think it's pretty cool to be working on a shared project with these older children.

The Busiest And Most Exciting Ten Days Ever!

2008-02-20T14:11:00.006+13:00

This is our first official blog post. We shared our ideas and sentences and Mrs McGhie was our scribe and typed it up for us.

When we first started school we were a bit nervous. A few days after starting school we did heaps of Maths tests. We also did a 100 word spelling test... phew! Soon we realised that our teacher was really cool and fun (Mrs McGhie thinks we're really cool too). We have only been at school for 10 actual days, but we have been super busy and feel like we have been here for months. We talked about our ideal classroom and also about what we have to do and what Mrs McGhie has to do so that we can learn as much as possible. These are the charts we created that show all our ideas.

We have been lucky enough to get to go to the Life Education caravan twice. In the Life Ed caravan we can learn about different topics and every time we go we learn about something different. Life Education is part of our Health curriculum.

When we walked in for the first time we came into a small room and Corine started to talk to us about the human body and friendship. We got to watch a video about the smartest robot in the universe called Ozone. Ozone was quite impolite and grumpy - he hasn't learnt his manners yet. The second time we went we learnt about bullies. We found out that if you are someone who is a bully then you are not a brave person quite often. Corine taught us to use our WITS

Walk away
Ignore
Tell someone
Say "I" statements

There was also a giraffe called Harold. Harold had made up a song and showed us the video of him singing it. He went to Wellington to make the video. Harold made us laugh because he asked a girl in our class on a date! We're only 9. Harold told us some really funny jokes like "Why didn't the skeleton go to the party? Because he had no BODY to go with". Corine shared information about a special helpline for kids called Kidsline and also one for text bullying created by Netsafe. We only get to go every two years and when we go to Intermediate only some people will get to go again as it depends which school you are in.

On Monday we were lucky enough to go to MERC ( which stands for Marine Education and Recreation Centre) as part of our Outdoor Ed programme. There were lots of different activities like archery, abseiling, rock wall climbing, raft building, surfing, kayaking, body boarding and canoing. We were put into different groups so we all got to do different activities.

Some of us had to build a raft and try it out in the ocean. Some people even got to jump off the raft into the water. We also learnt how to tie different knots to keep our raft together like the reef knot and a figure of eight. You had to be careful to make sure that the raft wouldn't break.

Rock climbing and abseiling were the safest activities at MERC because you are all attached to ropes and harnesses and the adults are holding on to you and keeping an eye on you. (Our instructor said they were the safest). The rock climbing and abseiling walls were 8 - 10 metres high. There was one rock climbing wall where you got to climb across the wall - called the "Bouldering Wall" and you had to have a spotter for safety.

Canoing was the hardest because your arms got sore. Canoing was really fun because we got to go out really far and some of us jumped off the canoe ( we had life jackets on).

When we were doing surfing we learnt how to stand up and some of us had a paddle race. We saw what looked like an old pirate ship it had lots of sails and masts.

Kayaking you got to go out into 3 metres of water. You got to stand up and kayak around. You also got to jump out of the kayaks and try to get back in. Some people hooked up to another kayak with wires and got towed along as they paddled. We had to lean over the edge of the kayak and try to kiss the water! Some of us fell in.

All of the instructors at MERC were really nice and we had an awesome day. While we were waiting to go to our next activities some of our instructors put on some music... it was really loud! We also want to say a BIG thank you to all the parents who came to help.

We have been really busy, but we are learning heaps and are having a fabulous time.

Welcome

2008-01-24T10:55:00.000+13:00

Welcome to our classroom space in the blogosphere. We will be using this blog to share the exciting things happening in our class this year.