Monday, February 28, 2011

Welcome to our quad blogging buddies

This week it is our turn to be visited by our quad-blogging buddies:

You might like to listen to and add to our Voicethreads:
'Meet Us' and 'Our School'.

Use our tag cloud to find other popular posts such as Pets Day, Repertory and Oobleck!


Last week Mr Salsich's class were hoping that they would finally get to 2000 comments 
since their blog started. 
THEY MADE IT!

This week we hope that you will help us to achieve 900 comments since our blog started. 
We are up to 841!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Our Flat Stanley project

During the summer holidays B4 and B3 were invited to join a Flat Stanley project by
 Miss Jordan and Mrs Morris from 2KM and 2KJ in Australia.

We were excited to join as late last year 
we had read 'Flat Stanley' which was written by Jeff Brown in 1964.
 Stanley Lambchop is a boy who was flattened, but not hurt, by his bulletin board one night.
Stanley then has a lot of fun adventures.

We kicked off the project by skyping with 2KM and 2KJ two weeks ago. 
Last week all of the students made their own Flat Stanleys, which they have named after themselves, and have written an introduction about themselves.
We shared our Flat Stanleys at assembly on Friday.
The Flat Stanleys are now in the mail to Australia and 2KM/2KJ's are on the way to us.
We will look after them for a week and keep diaries 
about the adventures they have, before the Flat Stanleys return home.

Have you ever looked after a Flat Stanley?
What adventures did you have together?

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Getting on Together

In Health with Miss Esnouf, the children are talking about
friendships and feelings.
They have made a friendship wall explaining how to be good friends:

Part of being a good friend is recognising how others are feeling.
Can you detect how we are feeling?


How do you show that you are a good friend?
Why do we like to have friends?

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Our first postcards arrive

Our first postcards have arrived and they are up on our wall!

At the start of this year we joined the postcard project that
Ms Leakey, from the Pirates of Rm 4 in Invercargill, thought up.
Classes from around the world joined up, and send each other postcards by 'snail mail'.

At the start of term we brainstormed and prepared some sentences about our school and town. We chose the best sentences and used them on our postcards.
We posted our cards on February 10.

Now we have received our first cards back, from Rm 2, Kaipara Flats, in the North Island of NZ.
Our cards were written by Nic and Dan, and they told us about their playground and their class goldfish. 

Have you ever sent a postcard to someone?
Have you ever received a postcard?


Sunday, February 20, 2011

Let's Meet Our Blogging Buddies: Mr Salsich's class





B4 enjoy sharing and learning with other classes around the world. This year, they are QUAD buddies with three other classes!


This week we're going to find out more about our quad-blogging buddies in
Mr Salsich's Grade 3 class, in Conneticut, USA.
 
While you're there, you can meet Juan Pablo, the talking frog, and help him with his learning.





Instead of leaving a comment on this post, why not head over to Mr Salsich's blog and leave a comment for them!


They would love to hear from you.

Remember to mention where you’re from!






Thursday, February 17, 2011

B4's blog turns 1.


♥ Our blog is one year old ♥

It's been such a fun year, and we have made lots of new friends on the way, including our first blogging buddies,
Mrs Watson and the 2/3s in Canada
and our quad-blogging buddies
Mrs Morris and Miss Jordan and 2KM/2KJ,
Mrs Yollis and Grade 3 and
Mr Salsich and Grade 3.
We started off with baby steps and have learned lots.
We are working hard on our commenting skills and we love
the connections we have made.
Thank you to all of the people we have connected with and enjoyed meeting.


What have been your favourite posts and pages of our blog?

How do you like to celebrate your birthday?



Monday, February 14, 2011

Skyping about 'Flat Stanley' with 2KM and 2KJ

B4 and B3 had a great Skype session with 2KM and 2KJ in Australia.
We have all been 
reading 'Flat Stanley', and we asked each other 
some questions about the story.
It was a good chance to try some of our inference and recall skills.
Lots of children liked the chapter about Stanley helping to catch 
the sneak thieves in the Museum.


We also got to ask some questions to compare our schools.
We have 9 Year 2s, but in their school there are 100 Grade 2s!
2KM and 2KJ each have 21 students. 
B4 and B3 each have 18 students.
Children at both schools have art, music and PE. 
They learn Indonesian and we learn Maori, so we showed each other how we count to 10.


At the end of the call the children decided that it would be fun if they make Flat Stanleys and send them for holidays in New Zealand or Australia.

Watch out in a couple of weeks to read about the adventures of the Flat Stanleys.

Have you ever read 'Flat Stanley'?
What was your favourite chapter?


Thanks to the student teacher in 2KM/2KJ for this transcript of the session:






Saturday, February 12, 2011

Let's Meet Our Blogging Buddies: Mrs Yollis' class


B4 enjoy sharing and learning with other classes around the world. This year, they are QUAD buddies with three other classes!

B4 became friends with these classes in 2010 and are enjoying getting to know their blogging buddies even better in 2011.
These classes read about Quad blogging from Mr. Mitchell. The concept: four blogging classes come together and learn about one another one week at a time. The alliance (group of friends) will help each class increase their readership while flattening their classroom walls and learning about the wonderful world we live in.


This week, let’s meet Mrs Yollis’ third graders from California! They are a group of 11 girls and 12 boys!

Mrs Yollis’ class has prepared a special post to introduce themselves to you.

Click here to visit their post.


You will find some great videos about blogging and commenting.






  Instead of leaving a comment on this post, why not head over to Mrs Yollis’ blog and leave a comment for them!


They would love to hear from you.

Remember to mention where you’re from!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Postcard Project

Today was a busy day. 
We walked to the Visitors Centre and the bookshop and made sure we had enough postcards.
In the afternoon we wrote our postcards for the postcard project and tomorrow they will be posted all around the world.
We learned that we only write on half of the back of the postcard, and we have to leave room to write the address clearly.


We will be waiting excitedly to see what comes back in the mail!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Tooth Tally

We've drawn our pictures of the Tooth Fairy 
and we've started our February chart.
So far, we have children with wobbly teeth, and children who are waiting.

We think Sam's tooth will be the first one to come out for February.

Are your teeth wobbly, or are you waiting?

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Farewell, Mr Fortune

On Friday we had a whole-school assembly to mark the retirement from teaching of 
Mr Tony Fortune. 

Mr Fortune grew up in Reefton, 
went away to teachers college in Christchurch, 
then returned to Reefton 
where he has taught for 40 years, 
first at Reefton Primary, then Inangahua College, 
and finally, after the schools merged in 2004, 
at Reefton Area School.

He decided it was time to retire when the first grandchild of students he had taught started at a school in 2010.
Enjoy your retirement Mr Fortune.
We know you will come back and see us.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Wonderful Weaving

The children had a lot of fun today with Miss Esnouf (Ay-noff)
learning how to weave in and out.


Next week we are hoping to weave with flax.

Can you weave?
Do you have any woven objects at home?

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

We're back .... and busy!

We've had a great start to our new year. 
Already this morning we have found out about one of our new projects this term - 

In February, March and April we will keep a tally of children who have lost teeth, 
or have wobbly teeth, 
or who are waiting!

Today we read a description of the Tooth Fairy together, then worked with a buddy to highlight the keywords, before we started to draw her.


Do you have any wiggly, wobbly teeth?
How many teeth have you lost?
What do you do with your teeth when they come out?