Year 3 - 6 Christmas concert

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!! and have a great summer break!

Thank you for all your hard work this year Room 8, you have been a fantastic class to teach and all the best for Year 4!
Miss Collier :)
Thank you parents for all your help and support!

A snapshot of our EOTC week!

Friday: Zoo trip
Monday: Beach sculptures
Tuesday: 'Something different' rotation: Christmas card making, Stone people, Art and Science experiments
Thursday: Butterfly creek walk
Friday: Bishops park games and swim

Driftwood, stone and seaweed sculptures

Today the Year 3s and 4s kicked off 'Education outside the classroom' week with cooperative sculptures at the beach.

CHECK OUT THE WINNERS - who get a small edible prize

Year 3 - Winner

Dylan and Tim

Year 3 - 2nd Place

Andrew, Ben and Paige

Year 4 - Winner

Monty, Mathieson and Euan

Year 4 - Second place

Amy, Willow and Georgia

Most creative Winner

Lucy, McKenzie and Ella - Sushi Shop

Mini Carnival

Over the past few weeks the Year 3 & 4's have been very busy preparing for a mini-carnival. The carnival was part of our Integrated Studies Unit - Orphans of Nepal. All term we have been learning all about Nepal, including finding out about how the Himalayas were formed(Tectonic plates), Language, Religion, Food and much more. We also found out about the Orphans of Nepal Trust and the Oprhanages the Trust supports.

The Year 3 & 4's organised their own stalls - selling food and drink, playing games and running competitions. They were amazingly organised and ran fanastic stalls. Thank you so much to all the families who helped plan and organise the stalls with their children. It was a huge success!

The Year 5 - 8's came and spent lots of money! In total we raised just over $900!! This will go to the Orphans of Nepal Trust as the Orphanages wish to buy chicken coups!
Here are some photos of a great afternoon...

Blogging poetry

Remember to check out Room 8's Sharing Blog (see the link under favourite blogs) to see some of our poetry. We have chosen to blog either our Himalayan Haiku or a few of our favourite lines from our summer poems!

Stitching!

This term Room 8 have been working VERY hard to improve our stitching skills. It has taken a lot of effort, patience and team work!

We have been learning to:

• Thread a needle and tie a knot with independence.
• Sew along a drawn line.
• Design and make a wall hanging

Here area few photos of our finished designs! We think they look great!

Stars for Starship

And the winners are ...

The completed stars were judged last night and it was so hard to make a decision. Here are the winning ones from the Year 3 and 4 Team. They were a little different from the rest and hopefully they will catch the judges eye in Auckland.
Well done Eva O!
All the stars we send will go on the Christmas tree at Starship to cheer up the children who have to spend their Christmas in hospital.
Check out the judging last year and see where the stars go.
http://www.mercury.co.nz/Kids/starship.aspx

The rest of our stars will go on our class Christmas tree later in the term!

Athletics Day at Petone Rec

The sun was shining and everyone had a fantastic time last Thursday at the Petone Rec for our Year 3 - 8 Athletics Day!
Everyone tried their hardest, competed well and of course had a great time!
Here are a few snaps of the day.
Congratulations to our speedy Room 8 relay team who won the Year 3/4 relay race!

Thanks to Mr Hull and Mr Skilton for organising such great event and a big thank you to the parents who supported us!

Athletics

Here are details of the Athletic Tournament. It will be held, weather permitting, on Thursday 11th November at Petone Rec.



We look forward to seeing you there.

Calendar ART

Wow look at our fabulous art work!!!
Please bring your money and form to Room 8 to order a calendar, pack of cards or diary as soon as possible (last day Friday 5th November). Please remember if you have brothers or sisters at Muritai we need the money and order forms seperately.

Nepal Presentation

This afternoon all the Year 3 and 4's were lucky enough to have Macey's grandparents (Room 10) come to speak with us about what life is like in Nepal. Ross and Kathleen spoke about the different regions of Nepal and the differences in clothing, housing and how they carry things. They showed us items of clothing like; scarfs,dresses and bags, as well as jasmine paper that is made in Nepal and much much more! Make a comment about what you learned from our expert visitors!

Writing

This week in Room 8 we have been planning POETRY all about summer. First we looked at Language features in a good poem;
Alliteration, Simile, and Onomatopoeia.

We looked at photos/pictures and used post-it notes to brainstorm loads of ideas about summer!

We also read other poems about summer and picked out language features we liked in the poems.

Then we used an EXPLOSION chart to record ideas for our own poetry!

Before we started writing we created a class WILF (What I'm Looking For)

We are looking forward to posting our Summer Poems on the blog when we are finished!!

Orphans of Nepal

This term the Year 3 & 4 integrated study topic is the Orphans of Nepal.
We are going to explore Muritai School's relationship with Bistachap Orphanage in Nepal. This relationship has been going on for a long time supported by The Orphans of Nepal Trust.
Our big idea is: "We can make a difference in the lives of others"

Before we learn about the Orphanage and how we can help, we are going to learn a bit more about where Nepal is and how the Himalayas were formed - TECTONIC PLATES!
Check out this cool video ...

Room 8 Garden

Room 8 is planning to grow Beans and later on Sunflowers!!
This term the children will grow their own seed in a pot in the classroom first and then plant it outside in our patch of the Year 3-4 garden.
Today we talked about what we need to grow our beans! Miss. Collier found 24 small pots for Room 8 to plant their seeds in and a few stray Runner and Dwarf beans at home. We thought since we are an enviro-school, let's re-use and recycle what we have at home rather than go out and buy new items.
If you have any of these things at home please bring them into Room 8...
- Dwarf beans seeds
- Dwarf sunflower seeds
- Potting mix
We now have bamboo sticks! Thank you Callan and Alex :)

Thanks for your help!!

Whacky hair and Treasure hunting!

What a great end to a fantastic term. Today we came to school with Whacky hair to raise money for Ferndale School in Christchurch. We are hoping to raise over $1000!
The Year 3's put their Position and Orientation skills to practice by writing and following Treasure Hunt directions using North, South, East, West, 1/4 turns and clockwise and anti-clockwise directions.

PRODUCTION!!!!

Wow what an amazing production!
Here are a few photos of the Year 3 dance groups: Putting on the Ritz, Celebration and Don't worry be happy!

PRODUCTION!!

Room 8 has been very busy preparing for the School Production: The short and incredibly happy life of Riley!
We have been making up our own dance routines and making our own props and costumes.
Each Year 3 class is in charge of making a different part of the costume. Room 8 has been making and painting the sticks that we will dance with in our part of the production!! We chose the colour and design we wanted to paint our our stick so our parents can recognise us on stage!

RUGBY WORLD CUP!!

On Monday morning Room 8 and the rest of the Year 3 and 4's were lucky enough to have Ben from Room 10's dad come to visit. He talked to us about the rugby world cup next year and we even got to have a photo with the REAL cup! Wow!!!

WOW! Homework

Room 8 have been so creative with their homework lately. This week the task was to draw a plan of their ideal bedroom. They had to be creative and think about what they would love to have in their bedroom if they could...
The children drew elaborate plans with things such as hidden trap doors, 3D TV's and grass rugby fields. Some children built a model of their ideal room with materials such as lego, tinfoil, doll's furniture, popsicle sticks, fabric and lots of other creative things!

Mr Dobson came in and chose the 3 most creative plans or models. The three chosen were Lachlan's plan, Isla and Tom's models. They were all amazing!

On Thursday Room 8 had their first Life Education lesson all about being Happy and Healthy! This means thinking about what our body needs- exercise,brushing our teeth,eating healthy and many other things. We were also learning about different feelings we have, learning how to cope with our feelings and accepting other people's feelings that are different from our own. Here is a link with some information about the unit http://www.lifeeducation.org.nz/about-us/happy-and-healthy.php We are looking forward to our next session next Friday!

Pyramid Homework

This week for homework our task was to construct at 3D pyramid out of anything we wanted!
The pyramids look amazing and the children had some very creative ideas for example: newspaper, card, straws, lego, plasticine, ice-block sticks and even corn starch. Some of the pyramids were painted and had pictures of mummies and hieroglyphic writing on them. Some people even put pretend mummies inside! What a creative bunch!!