Playground Songs

Recently Hawes Primary in England put up a post about playground clapping games.

You can view their videos here, and here and here.

They were keen to find out about playground songs from around the world,

so Mr Salsich and his class put up a post on their blog with a playground song that they know.


Mrs Kistler and the 49ers in San Antonio, Texas have also got some videos up. Check them out here.


Mrs Hembree and the Bellbulldogreaders have their 
videos here.

Mrs Lynch and Grade 1 have videos here.


Some of our Year 3,4 and 5 girls have been doing playground songs at our school, so here are our contributions:


Hey Mr Postman
do your duty.
Here comes along Miss American Beauty.
She can do the pom-pom
she can do the twist,
But I bet you five bucks
she can't do this...
ABC

Old mella, kiss a fella

lazy boy, ping pong.

Old mella, kiss a fella

lazy boy, ping pong.

Turn around, 

touch the ground.

Freeze like this

We would love to see playground songs from more countries.
 Please put links to 
Hawes Primary, Mr Salsich and Open the door to b4
on your post.

Measuring Area

This morning in maths each group had to sort objects from biggest to smallest by 

measuring the area of each object.

'Area' means the amount of flat space that an object takes up.

We discovered some interesting ideas as we worked:

You can't compare 2 objects by measuring with different units!

That wouldn't be a fair comparison.

If we choose measuring units that are too small, it takes a lot of counting!

Some of our units overlapped the object we were measuring. That made it tricky to count the number of units used!

But we worked together as teams and overcame the problems.

Yay us!

How does working as a team help us in our learning?

Our flat selves are home from Australia

We were excited on Friday when the parcel arrived with our flat selves, back from 

visiting 2KM and 2KJ in Australia.

It was fun reading our diaries and finding out 

what we had done.

The diaries will be a great keepsake, and the project has been an exciting part of our learning this term. 

Writing the diaries for our visitors from Australia gave a real purpose to our writing.

B4 children, please comment - what did you do in Australia?

The Flat Stanleys final weekend

Thank you to the parents who were able to email in photos from the weekend.

A Weekend with our Flat Stanleys on PhotoPeach

How did you have fun with your flat person?

A new dental clinic

The dental nurse Ann, and her assistant Alayne, 

are here for the next few weeks and they have a new clinic.

Instead of visiting them in the old dental clinic building 

we get to go into the new trailer unit.

Spike, Jonathon, Ganda and Lily went for a visit and took these photos.

Do dental nurses come to your school?

How do you take care of your teeth?

Do you have any wobbly teeth at the moment?

Our Flat Stanley diaries

Our Flat Stanley project with 2KM and 2KJ is nearing an end. 

Tomorrow we are making the final entries in the diaries and then the Australian 

flat people will fly off home.

They have had a busy time while they were here. 

We took them for a walk around town and took lots of photos. 

Our flat friends came to the lunchtime disco last week, 

they took part in athletics day and 

they spent some time at our homes.

Some have been swimming, milking cows and horse-riding. 

Take a sneak peek at our diaries!

What was your favourite activity with your flat person?

Raising Money for Christchurch

This week the school had a mufti day, sausage sizzle and lunchtime disco to raise money for the 
earthquake relief effort in Christchurch.

We were pleased to find out that the school raised nearly $500!

Thanks to the Student Council for organising and running the day.

Here we are in our mufti clothes and at the disco.

Today the national Memorial service was being held in Christchurch, and our thoughts were with all who had lost loved ones.
Our thoughts are also with those caught up in the devastation in Japan.

Skyping with Maggie, James and Delia

We finally got to Skype with Maggie, James and Delia. 

They live in eastern USA and are home-schooled by their mother.

The theme for our session was favourite foods, and we discovered that there were lots of foods that children in both countries liked. 

Lots of B4 children have yummy food growing in their gardens, and we learned that it will soon be spring in America, and Maggie, James and Delia will plant their garden.

We also talked about our class mascots. 

We introduced Quicksilver but we couldn't meet their chimpanzee Rocket because he is on the way to Australia!

We did get to meet Speedy the parrot.

Our note-takers did a great job, and so did Nathan and Liam on the camera.

What do you like to grow in your garden?

Athletics Day

This year, instead of  separate senior and junior sports,

we had a whole school athletics day, with both competitive and fun events.

The day started with a house relay, 

with 3 children from each year group running for their house.

Then we moved to the rotations in year groups, 

taking part (with adaptations for the younger children)

in sprints, high jump, long jump, 

javelin/vortex, shot put/softball throw, discus/gumboot throw, 

with an obstacle course, sack races, three-legged races 
and water slide for fun.

Luckily the Flat Stanleys from 2KM and 2KJ in Australia arrived yesterday, 

so they were able to take part too!

What is your favourite athletics event?

Two tryathletes

During the weekend two B4 students travelled to Nelson and took part in the Weetbix Tryathlon.
The Weet-bix tryathlon is an event for children.
It is called a try-athlon because we want kids to 'have a go.'

A triathlon is a contest that has 3 events.

The events were swimming, running and cycling.

Both boys got a medal each and had a great time.

Have you ever taken part in a triathlon?
What sports do you take part in?

Let's Meet Our Blogging Buddies: 2KM and 2KJ

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

*Mrs. Yollis’ Classroom Blog U.S.A.*
*Mr. Salsich Class Blog U.S.A*
*2KM and 2KJ  in Australia *

*Open the Door to B-4  in New Zealand*

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. 

This week, let’s meet Miss Jordan and Mrs Morris and 2KM and 2KJ from Australia.

These two classes share a big learning space and altogether there are 42 Grade 2 students.

Click here to visit their post.

You will be able to visit Leo the Lion and leave him a comment, 
and check out their other great posts and pages.

Maybe the Flat Stanleys will arrive in 2KM and 2KJ this week!

  Instead of leaving a comment on this post, why not head over to 2KM and 2KJ's blog and leave a comment for them!

They would love to hear from you.

Remember to mention where you’re from!

Skyping with California and Vancouver Island

We had two Skype sessions this week.

Our friend Mrs Yollis dropped by on Thursday. 

Each B4 student introduced themselves to her and said how old they were 

and when their birthday is. 

Mrs Yollis was surprised that our class is quite a lot younger than her students.

Some students got to read to Mrs Yollis.

On Friday we Skyped with Mrs Soltau-Heller's Grade 1 class on Vancouver Island, Canada.

The children in her class are about the same age as our Year 2s.

We talked about the games we play and found out 

that lots of children in both classes like to play with Lego.

On Vancouver Island it is the end of winter and they had some snow.

In New Zealand summer is over and autumn has started.

Our school has about 230 students from Year 1-13 (about 18 yrs old).

Their school has 300 students from K - Grade 7 (about 12 yrs old).

Grade 1 taught us a First Nations word:

Gilakasla 

which means goodbye/hello/thank you.

We taught them a Maori greeting

Tena kotou

which means hello (to more than 2 people).

They asked about our school uniforms.

We can wear grey shirts or white blouses, black pants or shorts, or a pinafore for girls if they want, and we have a maroon polar fleece.

Grade 1 can wear whatever they want to school.

Thanks Mrs Soltau-Heller and Grade 1. It was nice talking to you.

Do you have a question you that you didn't get to ask?

What is good about wearing a school uniform?

What would be good about choosing your own clothes?

My name is Quicksilver

Hello, I'm Quicksilver the Kea

Thanks to all of the people who helped  to choose my name by voting.

Remember, you can find out more about me and my family by clicking here.

Learning to Write Quality Comments

We received an awesome number of comments this week 

(we now have more than 940)

from our quad-blogging buddies in

Mr Salsich's class

Mrs Yollis' class 

Mrs Morris and Miss Jordan with 2KM/2KJ.

I needed a simple system to make sure that our buddies received replies, so I printed out the comments we received and glued one or two into each child's writing book.

This gave them the chance to spend time composing without worrying 

about computer skills as well.

I was thrilled with the comments the children have made, 

and  some good conversations are developing.

Read for yourself!

For great advice about quality comments visit Mrs Yollis and her class and watch their videos.

Teachers, what system works for you?

Children, what do you like most about blogging?

Meet our class mascot

Here is our new class mascot.

It is a kea, which is a New Zealand parrot.

Keas live in South Island alpine regions.

We chose a kea because they are inquisitive and like to investigate and learn about the world.

We thought that sounded a lot like us!

You can find out more about keas by clicking here.

You can hear the call of our kea:

We brainstormed some names for our kea, but need some help to make our choice!

Please vote for the name that you think would be a good fit.

Do you have a class mascot?

What is it?

How did you choose your class mascot?