A Close Call and a Sensible Girl!

This little 5 year-old girl from our class 
woke at 4.45am this morning 
and smelled smoke. 
She woke her parents. 
They found that her stuffed toy cat had fallen between the bed and the wall, onto the night light.
It was starting to smoulder.

Listen to what happened:

Untitled from Judy McKenzie on Vimeo.

We are very proud to have such a sensible girl in our class!

Can you suggest some safety rules for using night lights and other appliances in bedrooms?

Magnie is here!

Magnie the whale is visiting us from Burravoe School in the Shetlands, Scotland.

Magnie has been in New Zealand for awhile, 

visiting with the Super Scoopers in Dunedin, and with the Pirates of Rm 4 in Invercargill.

He will be on his way home soon, to get back 

before Burravoe School start their long summer break.

Magnie's been hanging out with our mascot, Quicksilver the Kea, and with Lovely, Nikki's little whale.

They are quite envious of Magnie's very cool knitted hat and badge!

Magnie came to assembly and was introduced to everyone in Year 1-8.

He shared some postcards and brochures that arrived with him.

What do you think we should show Magnie before he goes home?

SuperScoopers and Pirates, what was your favourite memory of Magnie's time at your schools?

The 'Real Art' roadshow and other events

We've had lots of cultural events in the past couple of weeks.
Check out our photos of:
Harold the Giraffe who came in his big truck for Life Ed;

a play called 'Patutupaiareherehe', which was 

based 

on the story of 'Rumpelstiltskin';

and the concert band from Tauraroa Area School in the far north who entertained our whole school with a variety of items.
  .

Lastly, we had a big truck arrive that turned into an art gallery, with fold-out walls!

We listened to some clues and searched for the right art work, and we got to talk about our favourite and least favourite art works.

The Real Art roadshow on PhotoPeach

What was your favourite event in the past week or two?
What did you learn from Harold?
For our blogging friends - does Harold the Giraffe visit your school?
Have you ever had class in a big truck?

Planets in Our Galaxy

We found out some information about what we need to survive on Earth, and we've drawn pictures, and written riddles 

to test ourselves. 

We hope the information is useful for the alien

 who crash-landed on the moon and is trying to get back to his home.

Now we have a fourth message.

He needs to know about the planets in our galaxy. 

Can you help?

What are the planets in our galaxy?

Do you know the order they are in, from closest to the sun to furtherest from the sun?

Do you have your own riddle?

We've got Mail! (and we talk about nicknames)

The postman brought lots of exciting mail to us today.

Earlier in the year we sent a parcel 

with a book and some book marks to 

Mrs Watson and the 2/3s in Canada.

Today we received a parcel back from them, with this cool counting book called 'Loonies and Toonies'.

Loonies and Toonies are nicknames for the Canadian $1 and $2 coins!

Thanks Mrs Watson and class, we love the book, and it will be fun to learn more about Canada.

We also got two new postcards. 

This one is from Grace in 2TM, Rosana, Melbourne.

The second one came from Patricia and her class in 

Toronto, Canada. 

They have a clean desk fairy in their class.

Wouldn't that be handy!

A nickname can be an abbreviation (short version) of your name, or a nickname can be a fun name given to you by family or friends.

Do you have a nickname? What is it?

Do you remember who gave you the nickname?

A Third Message from the Alien

Last week some 'space junk' landed in our school yard.

Then we received two messages from an alien who had crashed his ship on Earth and was now on the moon 
trying to get home.

Now we have a third message!

What do you know about our planet?

What do WE need to survive on Earth?

Junior Cross-Country 2011

The whole school took part in cross-country races today. 

Year 7-13 runners started out of town and ran back to school, while others had a 

team rogaine event.

Year 1-6 students had their races around the school block.

Luckily the rain stayed away!

Junior Cross-Country 2011 on PhotoPeach

Did you find the run challenging or easy?

Can you think of a more exciting course for a cross-country run?

Listening to Messages

Did you manage to figure out the message we received?

This is what we think we heard:

A second message has arrived.
We listened and heard:

This is what we think it said:

We think the 'alien' is telling us some information about itself.

We drew what we think the 'alien' looks like:

We wonder what will happen next week!

P.S. We know that the alien is not real!

We have talked about 'suspending our belief'' and pretending that there is an alien on the moon trying to get home.

A Strange Occurrence .....

There was a strange noise at the back of the Reading Recovery room this afternoon.
Mrs McKenzie raced over and got B5 and their teacher,
and some of those children ran and got B4 and B3.
We rushed out and saw a pile of unusual looking debris, 
some mysterious rocks and fabric, and even a little pile of burnt stuff.

It was all very puzzling!

Strange Debris on PhotoPeach



Back in class with Miss Marquet we talked about what we had seen and where the debris might have come from.

Then, even more strange, a message appeared on our computer! We had to listen hard because the voice was very unfamiliar!

Luckily Mrs McKenzie was able to save it to a Vocaroo.

Do you know what the message says?
What do you think happened?
Did any strange debris land anywhere else?

Sand between Your Toes

Last year we put up a post about lost socks, and our friend Mr Salsich in America was quite intrigued by the idea that children in New Zealand often play in bare feet.

This week his class put up a post on their blog asking their New Zealand friends 
about bare feet.

Mr Salsich's class thought it might be a good idea if they had a day to go bare foot in the classroom, but they needed some advice about whether or not 
they would get cold or sore feet.

B4 children prepared their comments during writing time this morning, 
before putting them up on Mr Salsich's blog. 

Check out what our children had to say.

 by Lily

 by Ganda

 by Samantha

 by Jack

 by Dylan

Do you like to feel the grass under your feet and the sand between your toes?

Open the .... Revolving Door?

Sometimes it seems as though our classroom has a revolving door!

The new entrant class is growing, so this term 

we welcome Year 1s Nikki, Neil, Jordan, Lukah and Alex from B5, and Holly who is new to our school,

and we farewell some of our Year 3s  as they move to B3.

We have also farewelled Miss Esnouf who has returned to Australia for awhile, and we welcome Miss Marquet (Mar-kay) to our room.
We're looking forward to a great term of learning, with a great new team.