Cross-country 2013

We had our school cross-country during the week. 

Primary students ran courses around the school 

while secondary students ran a longer course around town.

 B4 student, Hamish, took these photos of the 

Year 1-6 students for us.

Make a video

of your own at Animoto.

We made some maps of the cross-country course.

by Zaria

by JiaXuan

by Billy

by Lachy

by Aubrey

Do you like cross-country running?
Where is your favourite place to run?

Our World, Our Numbers: Topic 7 Seasons and Temperature

We've reached the seventh and final topic 

on Our World, Our Numbers. 

It's been a lot of fun sharing our mathematical lives with the other classes.

This week we’re talking seasons and temperatures.

In our inland town on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand we get quite distinctive seasonal changes.

 Summers are usually hot and dry; spring is often wet; and winter brings frost, fog and sometimes (if the children are really lucky) some snow.

Right now in the southern hemisphere it is autumn. 

The weather is getting cooler and the colours of the trees are changing.

One of the oak trees at our school.

This year many areas of New Zealand suffered drought over the summer and for the first time ever drought was declared on the South Island’s west coast!

Here is some temperature and rainfall information for our town over the past few months:

Can you see which months we were in drought?

We searched out some information about 

weather extremes for our town.

Can you share some weather data about the place where you live?

All of the classes are keeping track of this week’s midday temperatures on this   Voicethread.

Are there seasonal changes where you live? 

Which season is your favourite? Why?

Why don't you head on over to Our World, Our Numbers to check out the other posts and the comments.

A Visit to the Weather Station

Have you ever wondered where the official temperature reading for the weather report comes from each day?

It comes from a weather station.

The weather station for our town is right across the road from the school, so we went for a visit.

Zaria, Jia Xuan and Emily have written the rest of this post 
about the visit.

There are lots of measuring instruments at 

the weather station.

This one  tells you how hard the wind is blowing.

The solar panel charges the battery so the 

weather station runs.

This is the grass thermometer that tells you how hot or cold the ground is.

This one is the thermometer that tells how hot or cold 

the weather is. 

Today at 9.30am it was11˚C.

This is the rain gauge that tells you how much rain has been falling.

Do you like hot weather or cold weather?

Have you been to a weather station?

Do you want to work at a weather station?

Using Action Words to Bring Our Writing to Life

We're learning that strong action words can bring 

our writing to life. 

Action words are verbs. 

They tell what someone or something is doing.

We've written about our favourite seasons and tried to think about our action words.

How do you think we did?

Which words did you enjoy the most?

ANZAC Day 2013

Even though it is the middle of our two-week term break, many of our students attended today's community parade to commemorate ANZAC Day.

ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. 

On April 25 1915 New Zealand and Australia forces landed in Gallipoli during the First World War. 

The events of that campaign led to many casualties, but also helped to create a sense of national identity in both countries. 

ANZAC Day has been marked in New Zealand since 1916. 

It is now the day where we remember all who have lost their lives in any military operation that our country has been involved in.

In our small town a dawn service is held at 6am followed by a community parade at 10am. 

The Pipe Band (which comes each year from Westport) leads the veterans; the two schools; the scouts; and other community groups.

Did you attend an ANZAC Day service?
Do you have a relative who has served their country?

Beautiful Baked-dough Birds

As the culminating activity for the art unit on New Zealand birds (see our 'Cheeky Keas' and 'Perky Pukekos') the children made birds from dough, which were then 

baked and painted.

Here are some of the 'practice' birds:

and the completed birds:

What do you think of our birds?

Have you ever made art from dough?

Mystery Skype

Last week we did a mystery skype.

Mrs McKenzie first learned about mystery skpe calls from our friend in California, Mrs Yollis.

In a Mystery Skype call we have to find out the location of the other callers, hopefully before they guess where we are!

Before the call we prepared some questions to eliminate or confirm some areas of the world.

The questions had to be closed questions - the answers could only be YES or NO. 

Everyone had a job to do. 

The SPEAKERS asked and answered the questions.

Other students used the CAMERAS.

The ATLAS people were busy using the answers to the questions we asked. 

They had to eliminate or suggest locations.

The HELPERS took suggestions from the ATLAS people to the SPEAKERS.

The other class guessed first that we lived in New Zealand,  

but WE were the first to guess the actual location of the callers.

They were from Miss Panther's class in Greymouth, only 80km away from us!

Have you ever done a mystery skype?

What was your job during the mystery skype?