Lily Writes About Getting Ready For Pets Day

Lily has just turned 6. 

She was excited to enter her rock Mouse Family as an exhibit on Pets Day last week.

Do you have any feedback for Lily about her writing and her mouse family?

Through the Window: Looking At Ourselves

We've been working with Mrs Wistrand to create these artworks, where we are looking at ourselves 

through a four-pane, white-framed window.

These are the pictures that gave us inspiration:

'Birds of a Feather'

(2005)

Joanna Braithwaite

and 

'Boy with Noah's Ark'

(1916, 1917)

Edith Collier

Our sepia-look picture has a photo of us now, with our baby photo in the background. 

The sepia effect was created with crayon and dye.

In the second picture we clothed ourselves with photos of something special to us.

The third picture, with our toys, was done using water colour pencils, high-lighted with vivid pen.

For the fourth picture we drew memories, using pastels in our school colours.

What would you include if you were making artworks like ours?

What inspires you?

The Global Classroom Scrapbook Moves On

A few weeks ago a Global Classroom scrapbook arrived in the mail for us. 

You can read about it in this post.

We've put together our pages for the scrapbook. 
Here are two of them:

Now it is time to send the scrapbook on to the next class.

Off it goes to a school in Milton Keynes, England!
We're looking forward to hearing that it has arrived safely.

Do you think a traveling scrapbook is a good idea?
How can it help us in our learning?

Mystery Number Skype

Mrs. McKenzie read this post by Ms. Cassidy in Canada about her class doing a mystery number skype, and thought that the students in B4 would enjoy doing it too.

Now we've had our first mystery number skype with Miss Revell and her Year 2 class of iKids, near Napier, New Zealand.
Beforehand, we brainstormed some useful questions, so we could eliminate lots of numbers from our choices.
These questions can all be answered with 'yes' or 'no' answers. They are called skinny questions!

First, our class had to work out their mystery number.

After lots of questions to eliminate the numbers, there was only one number left. It was 64!
That meant that the iKids won that round!

Then it was their turn to guess the number we had 
chosen to start with, which was 67. 
It was funny that both classes had chosen a number in the 60s!
For the next rounds we tallied the number of questions asked. Both classes solved their puzzles in only 6 questions.

Now we are looking forward to more mystery number skypes with Mrs. Watson's class in Canada; 

and Ms. Lirenman's class, also in Canada!

We have a mystery number for you to work out.

Ask us questions in the comments section.

Remember, questions can only be answered with 'yes' or 'no'!

In It, Not At It

We've had a school-wide focus on taking responsibility for our school environment in the past few weeks. 

At an assembly this week students are sharing visual presentations they have made, reinforcing the message 
'In it, not at it - Put your rubbish in the bin'.

These are the presentations made by some B4 students. 

Jamie, Bradley and Michelle used Puppet Pals on the ipad to share their message:
Jamie, Bradley and Michelle from Judy McKenzie on Vimeo.

Caleb and Billy used Skitch on the ipad:

Liv, Samuel and Aubrey used Pic Collage on the ipad:

Reagan and Chelsea made a video using the ipod and computer (with the help of camera person Liv):

Reagan and Chelsea from Judy McKenzie on Vimeo.

Marcus, Korbyn and Bobby also used ipod and computer to make their video clip:

Marcus, Korbyn and Bobby from Judy McKenzie on Vimeo.

How do you care for your school environment?
What ipad apps do you like to use for creating?

'World Traveler' -a global classroom scrapbook

We were excited to receive a scrapbook in the mail. 

This is one of the scrapbooks that began traveling the world in 2012 as part of a Global Classroom project.

So far this scrapbook has visited classes in Australia, 

Hawaii, USA 

and Ohio, USA.

Over the next few weeks we will add to the scrapbook before sending it on to a new class.

Have you taken part in a global project like this?

What should we include on our scrapbook pages?

Effective Writers Play with Words

The students in B4 are learning that effective 
writers play with words until their writing sounds 'just right'.

We've used a variety of mentor texts during the term and we've examined how the writers used words to add effect.

We read many of New Zealand author Lynley Dodd's books. 

She REALLY has fun with words!

One of our mentor texts

Another mentor text

We also read a piece of writing by a young New Zealand writer, in the Journal of Young People's Writing 2003.

Our third mentor text

What are some other things that writers do to make their writing effective?
What do you enjoy most about writing?
Can you describe for us how you eat your favourite food?