Quaky Cat Tuesday

Good afternoon,

This morning kicked off with us lighting Mr Atherton's Christmas Wreath that I haven't got round to giving back to him yet (sorry Mr A!), before continuing with learning to give and follow direction and distance co-ordinates, first with one child of a pair giving their partner directions of how to trace a route through an easy maze onto this paper here, and then the pairs swapped roles to that the other pair directed the first member through another easy maze. Fast finishers then tried again, this time directing their parner through a harder maze the path through which they were to draw onto this paper here.



For reading Red Group read the perenial favourite by Joy Cowley Number One.


It's kind of a rite of passage for all Room 2 readers!

After lunch we had singing practice for our J Team Mass on Friday - which has just been cancelled! We will not be going to Mass on Friday as there will be a funeral happening - we went outside to play scatterball with Room 3.




I am happy to report that we completely trounced them! :-)

Oh yes, and at the end of the day each child was gifted Quaky Cat. It's a lovely wee book, and every Year 1 and 2 child in Canterbury has been given one. Cameron, I've got yours here, along with your class photo.

Bye for now,

Mr Grant

Good afternoon,

Welcome to Week 9. Today we started a new maths unit all about giving and following positional directions. So the Room 2 Mathematicians took turns being a robot or a robot director.




"Face north, take 5 steps south..."

After lunch we discussed the meanings behind the Advent Wreath...


...before making Christmas cards...



And that was our day.

Oh, by the way, I have just learnt that portfolios go out tomorrow week - like, Tuesday next week. Argghh!

Mr Grant

Good afternoon,

Again,

Again,

Just got this proof through of our class photo to check the names are all right. Thought you might like to have a look see...

Mr Grant

How Long Is A Piece Of String

Good afternoon,

Again,

I have just finished going over White Group's Story Webs from today's texts How long is a piece of string?. Maddison go closest. Well done Maddison. 100 points to Red House. Here is what it should have looked something like.

Mr Grant

Taniwha Friday

Good afternoon,

Ah, but summer's on it's way. Horrah!

But I digress. Today Room 2 did a spot of fitness...


...a touch of Topic (yay, we've managed to squeeze out a bit more time to finish our inquiry proper next week, and possibly the week after) where we discussed how to find information on the web...



...before using the 'net to find information from this page here to answer questions on this sheet here. It was really nice to see the children helping each other.





Then it was onto the whole point of this post. We did a spot of Maori and then drew our own Taniwha. I think the children did a much better job than I did!







I'd like to get them hung up in the weekend...we'll see how it goes. I can only come in on Saturday, as Sunday I've got a wee wargaming event. I'm quite keen to try out my dragons!

Have a good weekend,

Mr Grant

A Forgotten Notice

Just a quick update, more later. Last night I was supposed to give a swimming notice to all the children, but only gave it to the oldest and onlys.

If I didn't manage to catch up with your child today (and chances are, I didn't!), here is a copy of the notice that you can print out at home and bring back to school.

Bye for now,

Mr Grant

Finally Friday!

Good afternoon,

And welcome to the Term 3 Holidays!

We had a bit of a busy morning this morning. Another assessment, this time the second half of the weather assessment that was done, what, 5 or 6 weeks back? Turns out I forgot to ask them some stuff that would allow them to get better marks, so I gave them that opportunity this morning. I was very pleased with the results.

After that it was outside for a quick run...


...and then back to work - if you can call something that didn't actually work very well at all work.

I grabbed hold of the NetBooks with the idea that the children could take snap shots of themselves with the web cam directly from Comic Life and then make some sort of message for home. Trouble is, only three or four of the 12 that we were using would actually open up the web cam from Comic Life...so...well...suffice it to say, 'twas not the best lesson on the planet!


During this afternoon's assembly a couple of Hoon Hay School Hip Hop teams came over the paddock to share a couple of routines with us. They were way cool!

And that's all there was.

Thanks for another great term, and have a fantastic holiday,

Mr Grant

Newsletter for Term 3, Week 10

Good afternoon,

Here is the newsletter for Term 3, Week 10. The last week of Term 3. Where has the time gone?

In this newsletter I make reference to the children writing about their earthquake experiences. If you would like to read them, please click here. I tried to link them directly from the newsletter itself, but, for some reason, I couldn't.

Kind regards,

Nick Grant

Monday Monday

...so good to me...


But I digress.

This afternoon we started a new inquiry unit entitled Animals in the World, where we will be learning to show how God has made different animals for different places.

To that end, I had the children enact why you don't find no lizards in Antarctica - they need to find somewhere warm to start the day.




I also received this in my inbox this morning from last Friday's assembly.

Ke te pehea koe?
How do you feel?

Ke te tena pai au.
I feel really good.
Ke te pehea koe?
How do you feel?

Ke te makariri au.
I feel cold.
Ke te peha koe?
How do you feel?

Ke te wero au.
I feel hot.
Ke te peha koe?
How do you feel?

Ke te nge nge au
I feel tired.

Ke te pehea koe?
How do you feel?

Thanks Dave!

Bye for now,

Mr Grant

Thursday Theology

Good afternoon,

I am very pleased to say that the children aced their Sacrament assessment this afternoon.

Earlier in the day we had a bit of Jump Jam...



...then a touch of reading...


After lunch we had our aforementioned Sacrament post test, and then a Weather assessment.
(Sorry about the quality - I used a different algorithm to compress this clip, and, well, the results are not as flash as I was hoping.)

Then on to a discussion about what we're going to do for assembly tomorrow. The children came up with some lovely prayers that Cameron, Maddison, Molly and Samuel will recite tomorrow at assembly...

Prayers together: Ki te Ingoa, o te Matua, me te Tamaite, me te Wairua Tapu. Amene

Cameron: Thank you God for school. Holy Spirit please help us to work hard. Lord hear us.

Maddison: Thank you God for us being kind and caring at our Catholic school. Lord hear us.

Molly: Thank you God for taking away the sins of the whole world. Lord hear us.

Samuel: Thank you God for the Holy Spirit. Please help us to be more like Jesus. Lord hear us.

Prayers together: Ke te ingwa. O te Matua, me te Te Mite, me to Waru Tapu. Amene.

We will also be sharing this song with the rest of the school...


...as well as a bit of Maori language - we will be doing a shorter version of this text here.

CU in the morning, and then, possibly, again at 1:30.

Mr Grant

Another Monday

Good evening,

Another Monday, another, well, start to the week!

We kicked off the week with a Values Assembly...


...which kinda slipped my attention in terms of planning for thereof!

Still, no worries, maths was just cut a little short. (On a side note, I actually learned something during Maths this morning. The Comparison strategy that I was teaching the Diamonds is just about comparing two numbers and finding the difference. Ha! So that's why they called it comparisons!)

This afternoon we kicked off with a bit of a looksee at Echarist...

Coming together for Eucharist is the best way to worship God.

We then discussed what clothes were appropriate according to the season. Each corner of the room was designated a season, I had the children pretend that they were wearing either...

• shorts and a tee shirt,


• long trousers and a long sleeved shirt,


• long trousers, a long sleeved shirt and a jacket,


• long trousers and a tee shirt

...and I had the children choose what season was most appropriate for what they were 'wearing'.


Bye for now,

Mr Grant

Assumption Thursday

Good afternoon,

Seeing as we are celebrating the Feast of the Assumption tomorrow, we decided to further the children's learning about it this afternoon.




Speaking of the Feast of the Assumption, the whole school is off to Mass at 0915 tomorrow. The children are to come to school in full school uniform tomorrow - leave the sports gear at home.

Following R.E., the children then got into small groups to sort these 1, 2, 3, 4 cards into the correct order.



CU in the morning,

Mr Grant

Water Cycle Monday

Good evening,

Man, it's cold out there!

This afternoon, we discussed, and then acted out, the water cycle.

Here, the children are c___________ into clouds...





Earlier in the afternoon, Room 2 R.E. discussed birthday rituals, and then acted some of them out.


And for those of you at home...


All this after a wet lunch time inside, culminating in a game of Heads Down, Thumbs Up.



Bye for now,

Mr Grant

Why Bless Me, It's Thursday...

Good afternoon,

This afternoon we talked a bit about blessings and, more particularly, blessing each other...


...and then we asked God to bless us...



Then, after a bit of handwriting, we did a bit more weather watching. Specifically, clouds. First to draw and label them,


...then to identify them in the...well, flesh would be the wrong word. Water?


Right, on to tonight's Maori question. (And I would like to say thank you to those who have participated so far...)

Room 2 Readers read Te Taniwha Me Te Poraka. For 100 house points, what is a "poraka"? For another 100 house points, how do you say "jump" in Maori? And a third 100 points will go to anyone who read the first page to me in the morning!

(By the way, you can access a glossary here.)

Please remember that...

• We have mass tomorrow at 11:15


• Yellow House has mufti tomorrow

Have a good night,

Mr Grant

Fine Weather Wednesday

Good afternoon,

And what a lovely afternoon it is. Just as well we had run out of time to look for clouds this afternoon - 'cause there aren't any!

What we did do was update our Weather Chart, and then discussed the three primary cloud formations - Stratus, Cumulus and Cirrus.


We even got some actions going. (As indicated on the image above). Ask your children to show you.

This morning we continued with our ICT work, learning to create a new file, name it (T#W##D## - Term [x] Week [y] Day [z]) and save it to the server to continue to work on it tomorrow.





For reading, Blue Group put on another performance for us, this time What Tommy Did


For R.E., we were learning to identify Holy Objects by moving around objects within the digital R.E. resource that we are using this year. (Just as well I installed those two extra laptops! Now, if we could only get it working on the Macs...)




Right, on to tonight's Maori questions. Please read this - the Room 2 Readers read it this morning.

For 100 house points, what does Ke Te Pehea Koe mean? For an extra 100 points, what does makariri and wera mean?

Kiora,

Mr Grant