Ms O'B is still learning......

Ms O'B is having trouble with her learning with blogs at the moment. She knows how we feel when we are having trouble with our learning too. Unfortunately she still can't edit her posts and add the photos in after. She has had perseverence too and has asked some other people to help her. However it is not working for her and so she has decided to begin again. Here is a wee not from her.

Very sorry folks about the inspiration, photos and work that I have promised to add to our class blog with earlier entries. I was trying to use my time well, and at least get the written information up and thought I could get help to add the photos later. Apparently I needed to put the photos in first. Feel free to pop into class and veiw any/all of these things mentioned. As I say to the children the wonderful thing about teaching and learning at school is 'Every day is a new beginning' ... we are so lucky not like that poor farmer who once he has ploughed his paddock he is stuck with it. Thank you for your patience with my learning. Cheers Maree O'Boyle

Health Road Show - Term 3, Week 9

Learning Community 9 and the Kiwi Team were lucky enough to have the opportunity to have this awesome Health Road visit us. We learnt so much about many things: - Dr Phil talked to us about Germs and Bugs - Safety and Washing Hands -Road safety - bikes and train crossings - Safety with Dogs - Foods with fats and sugar -Civil Defence - Fire Safety. We washed our hands and then put them under a special machine which lights up and shows us which parts were really clean. Gee did we get a surprise to see the parts that were not washed properly. We have been learning how to wash our hands properly in class so this was awesome. We know now to cough into your elbow, that way all the germs don't get spread around the room. If you cough into your hand you could touch something and Oops!! ... the germs have been spread more. We kinow that having a bike helmet on that fits properly is very important. Brice taught us how to keep ourselves safe with dogs, it was great. We were shocked to find out how much fat and sugar are in some foods. Kathy had a stand with all the things a family might need in their survival kit if there was an emergency, for example an earthquake. We want to learn more about this, it was really interesting. Some of us want to help our families to make a survival kit. Ms O'B said we could learn lots more about Civil Defence next term. We had a fantastic time being firemen helping Tim. Did you know there are three colours of fire engines. Red ones are used for Fire Service (buildings), Yellow are for Rural - (vegetation fires) and Lime Green are Airport (aircraft fires). They have different equipment for different types of fires.

'Change and Challenge' - T3/4 Inquiry Health Topic

Week 7: This week we have created a brainstorm on 'Healthy Living - Ways to stay Healthy'. We put on our 'White Thinking Hats' and in pairs we searched books from our library shelves 'for Information' to add to the brainstorm. We came up with all these ideas...and have presented them on Inspiration as a whole class.
Week 8: Using our 'White Thinking Hat' again, we created a brainstorm in pairs for the sub-topics that we want to look at in our Inquiry Learning. Some of these were, play, exercise, healthy food. feeling unwell, and people who help us. We have come up with some wonderful ideas and are publishing them on Inspiration. Ms O'B is typing the information and each child is typing their own name.

Ella and Kaitiaki visit West Melton School Term 3 Week 7

We were very lucky to see a great show about how we need to look after our world. This story was about Ella and her imaginary friend Kaitiaki. Ella's Dad had told her to dump the rubbish up by the big tree, he did not know about recycling. Thank goodness Kaitiaki and her brother knew that the trees would die if they kept putting rubbish around. So they taught Ella how to recycle all the rubbish so that there would be lots of worms for the Kiwis to eat and a chance for the trees to grow. It was very special to us because we have been learning lots of Maori words and we are understanding more every day. Our whole Kiwi Team went, and we were very safe Kiwis crossing the road.

Team 9 Present their Mihis

We have all created our own Mihi from the 'Whanau Tree' that our families helped us to fill in. We have practised as a class, in pairs, on our own and even at home. Then we presented them to our class. We needed to present them with - respect - correct pronunciation - and good pace. Ms O'B was shocked and so got the 'goose bumps' when we presented them. She said 'tino pai rawa atu' - excellent!! She is just so proud of us, because we have perseverance in our learning and we are Winners! She also says that she knows just how proud our families are of us all for the amazing effort we keep putting into our learning. 'Each of us is working at being our own best person!!'

Cinderella ... celebrated on 'Inspiration'

Inspiration is a mind mapping ICT tool that we are lucky enough to have the chance to use in our classroom. It is really great because Ms O'B is learning with us how to use this. We have all completed our Story Webs for Cinderella and now Ms O'B has published them on Inspiration. We chose our own colours. First we checked our own one on our teacher's laptop, then our whole class looked at all of them on the data projector in our classroom ... they look fantastic. All the other teachers in our school have seen them too. Ms O'B will load these and the other pictures into our blog tomorrow.

''Telling Our Stories' - Cinderella

We shared our Cinderella stories and our art work with Learning Community 8. Apparently the word was out from the Palace that someone from Learning Community 9 at West Melton School was thought to have left the glass slipper after the ball. They are coming to check all the slippers to find out who it belongs to. We created our slippers from collage, we had to use 3 different things... small cut up pieces of ... material, shiny coloured paper and bright coloured small cardboard tiles. They were very fiddly to handle but we all had fun, especially when we got to choose our own sequin. Pop in to see them in our class room if you can. This is one we shared with Learning Community 8 children and Mrs Herring ... 'We love to tell our stories and become the teachers, it is so cool'.

Story Web - Wacky Ms O'B T3 Week 3

What a surprise we got when we arrived at school on the Thursday to find all our teachers dressed up for 'Wacky Teacher Day'. We just couldn't stop laughing ... they just looked sooooo funny! Ms O'B looked so ridiculous! Our class decided to use this great opportunity to use describing words to write our Story Webs and build sentences. We will include a picture of Ms O'B, a Story Web, story and our class Inspiration. ...

Kiwi Jump Jam Promotion - T3 Week 4

The whole Kiwi Team had an awesome time with Steph Rumble leading us in the new Jump Jam routines. We were very lucky to have a lot of children from both Learning Community 7 & 1 to help us out with the moves. What a great way to start our day!

Junior Rugby Skills- Term 3 Weeks 3 & 4

Learning Communities 8,9 and 10 had an amazing 3 sessions of Rugby Skills with Lee Golding from the Canterbury Rugby Union. Lots of us wore our rugby boots and of course our mouth guards. Our teachers were shocked to see how great our ball skills were. Here we are having lots of fun! Oops! ... I am really having trouble getting the pictures on our blog again, so it's back to some more learning for Ms O'B tomorrow at school. With some help from someone, perseverance and Team 9 'stickability' I am sure I will should get this sorted tomorrow. Signing off now...