What a fabulous week....

After working so hard this year I felt the kids deserved to have fun so this week it has been tools down and we have enjoyed some awesome activities.

On Monday we all went to Santa's Christmas Grotto in Spreydon.  This was magical seeing all the displays...think the overall favourite was the wrapping present room in which the elves were busy putting presents in one end of the machine and they came out wrapped the other end.  

On Wednesday we were lucky enough to go along to Isaac Theatre Royal to see two amazing shows....Alice in Wonderland and Swan Lake.  Xaria performed in the first one with some show stopping moves.  We finished the outing off with some dance moves of our own on the 'Dance-o-mat' in town!!

Thanks to the parents and Neil that allowed these outings to happen.

Many Christmas crafts have been done this week from painting pine cones to painting our feet....hope you like the end results!!

Yesterday we finished off our busy week with some yoga.  We sprinkled on some magic dust and took a look inside ourselves whilst becoming many different animals with various attributes.  Humble gerbils, proud peacocks, free butterflies, confident leopards and courageous lions.  It was great to see everyone take some time out to think happy thoughts and feel some magic inside! 

The Candy Cane Story

Wrapping Centre

Say 'Cheese"

Well Done Xaria

Beautiful Isaac Theatre Royal

Check Us Out!!

Flexible Cobras

Confident Leopards

Guinea Pigs in Room 2

The children were absolutely enthralled this week when Troy invited his cousin Linda to come in and bring her guinea pigs to show everyone.  Linda came with a mummy guinea pig and 4 babies (3 boys and 1 girl).

We learnt a lot about them and had so much fun holding them and playing with them.  The babies were only 2 weeks old and weighed about 70-80grams.  When they were born they were fully furred and had their eyes open and were able to start eating grass straight away.  Babies spend 4 weeks with their mum then can live by themselves.  

They made wee squeaky noises which is their way of talking to each other, they are able to swim when they get older and a guinea pigs teeth never stop growing!  With these teeth they can also bite!  

These were some of the things we learnt from Linda about guinea pigs:

"They don't like you holding them upside down" Xaria

"Put your hands under when picking them up" Hunter

"They do tickle lots under their paws" Kaiya

"That they're really soft" Madi

"How to hold it and how fluffy this is than the others" Aiden

"You hold them underneath" Jett

"That they eat fruit" Kahu

"I thought they don't have fur but they do" Amber

We enjoyed having them in our class so much and our writing reflected this the next day - come in and check out our written pieces in our books.

We hope very much that Linda can bring in some more near the end of the term.

Thanks so much Linda and Troy - a highlight in everyones week!  

Friday Baking

 Today Rooms 1 and 2 came together to do some baking.  Unfortunately one of our lovely Board members, Margaret Abbott, is very sick so Blanche and I decided it would be a nice idea for the kids to bake her some cookies and make cards.  Margaret did a lot of work with the children from Room 2 last year, baking with them, helping with poetry and hearing them read so we thought it a lovely gesture to bake for her.  

It was a lot of fun mixing and adding ingredients then seeing the end result.  Once they had cooled we made icing and packaged them up with all our lovely cards and art work.  I am sure Margaret will be very appreciative of all the hard work from the children.

                   

Keeping Bromley Beautiful

As part of ''Keep NZ Beautiful'' week Room 2 has been busy weeding the gardens around the court.  Everyone was very enthusiastic and a great help. 

At first we had to discuss what an actual weed is and how to pull them out by shaking off the excess dirt. Then we were off! 

    

    

"I liked the weeding because there was too much and I picked up much" Hunter

"I liked doing the weeding because you could find lots of things you could show other people" Kaiya

"When I was gardening I also saw some people cleaning chairs" Chelsea

"It was fun and there was a whole castle of weeds" Olivia

"It was like fun and Jett and me found a baby worm" Aiden

"A mini worm" Jett

 

Cross Country

What a fabulous day for the cross country this year. The children were all very excited about it, getting in the spirit by wearing their Hapu colour and getting their face painted! 

It was great to see how many parents came along to support them and even have family lunch time. 

In the cross country I will.....

"Try my best" Aiden

"I will sprint" Xaria

"I will run like a cheetah" Olivia

I was super proud the effort put in by everyone around the race track, everyone's legs pumping, focused on the task at hand and most with a huge smile on their face! Tino pai rawa atu! 😃

Visit to Bromley Kindy

Last week Room 2 courageously went and performed a poi dance that we have been practising at the kindy.  It was very exciting but we had some nerves as well! We were welcomed by a sign saying 'the junior Kapa Haka group was performing' so there was high expectations but we pulled it off brilliantly!

                        

We also 'signed' Ma is White as this is another song we have been learning.  The kindy kids sang us a couple of songs which was lovely.  We were lucky enough to be able to stay and play for awhile afterwards.  We look forward to coming back in the near future. 

                        

When we were back in the classroom we chatted about our experience;

"When I did the poi's I was shy but then I started to not get shy" Kaiya

"The kindergarten was so amazing cause I get to see my brother" Irakehu 

"I like everything" Olivia

"I was a bit nervous" Amber

"I was nervous about going doing the poi dance" Shae

     

Tuesday in Room 2

We had a very busy, fun-filled day today. First off we were all at Kapa Haka learning some fun action songs. Lots of the words used in the songs we already knew: paki paki (clap), hurihuri (turn around), kanikani (dance).  There was lots of laughter and great singing!! 

After lunch with our buddy class, Room 10 and Mr Bates, we had Kiwi Sport with Pete doing ball skills - rolling the ball between partners then throwing to each other.  Straight after we had Mainland Soccer teaching us soccer skills. We learnt about finding space on the field then had 3 a-side soccer games. We were rather exhausted afterwards!! 

 

                                              

                                          

Badminton

This week we were lucky enough to take part in some modified Badminton. Charlie came along from a local badminton club to teach us some of the moves we need play. We started off with a balloon each hitting it up with just our hands. We found that with little taps we could control the balloon more but with big hits we could get the balloon to go further. We buddied up to hit the balloon to each other to practice getting the balloon to go in the direction we wanted. Charlie then gave us each a badminton racket to carry out the same moves. We noticed that if we swung the racket underarm the balloon would go up and if we swung it overarm the balloon would go down.

This was a lot of fun and we can't wait to have her back again in the next couple of weeks.

Orchestra Trip - Term 2, Week 7

This week the whole of the Junior School were lucky enough to go and see the Symphony Orchestra perform for us at St Margaret's College.  

The kids were so excited to go on the bus - on the way I asked them where they thought we were going and what an orchestra was:

Xaria: "A bus filled with a lifty up bit with heaps of instruments in it"

Madi: "You have a conductor in the orchestra"

Taliah: "A band"

Aiden: " We going to another class they going to teach us.  They play instruments"

Jett: "A party"

Olivia: "People play the violin" 

Chelsea: " I think it has a conductor to make it play music and it has a conductor sticky thing"

Phoenix: "Play instruments"

Kaiya: "Where all people dance and do gymnastics and sing"

Hunter: "We might see the museum"

Shae: "I think its a big palace that has people that sing"

Amber and Irakehu were unsure but very excited to find out....

The Orchestra went through the four different families that makes up the Orchestra - 'Wood Winds', 'Brass', 'Harp and Percussion', and 'String'.  Each with their unique sound. The Brass section even played to us on a garden hose!  We got to vote on what melody, harmony and rhythm we liked and they played these all together as dictated by us.  

Back at school we talked a lot about the different instruments, what we liked about them, how they looked and sounded.  We hope to get to have a go on some of these instruments ourselves later in the term.  

Samoan Language Week 25th - 31st May

On Friday we were lucky enough to have Jett's dad come into Room 2 and teach us some Samoan language.  We learnt how to say numbers 1-10, different greetings & goodbyes and a fun song.

hello = talofa or malo

goodbye = soifua

please = fa'molemole

how are you = o a mai oe

happy birthday = Manuia lou Aso Fanau

1 = tasi

2 = lua

3 = tolu

4 = fa

5 = lima

6 = ono

7 = fitu

8 = valu

9 = iva

10 = sefulu

Savalivali means go for a walk

Tautalatala means too much talk

Alofa ia te oe means I love you

Take it easy, faifai lemu

Instructional Writing

This week in Room 2 we have been looking at writing instructions.  We imagined aliens coming and we had to tell them step by step how to make smoothies.  On Monday we got all the ingredients and had a go at making them - yummy result!

Pour in yoghurt

   

Put Bananas in the blender

 

Add the milk

 

               Taste and enjoy!