Monday 12 October 2015

Weather Inquiry Blog

The intermediates have a new blog page for their unit of inquiry. The link is on the Y 7/8 Page which is in the toolbar above.

You can also access it from this link!

Tuesday 15 September 2015

Sharing Our Learning

Last week we had a great turn out for our Student Led Conferences. Thank you to all the parents who attended!

















Monday 31 August 2015

Happy Birthday Maria Montessori

via
Today is Maria’s birthday, she was born in 1870, in Chiaravalle, Italy. This is an important time for us because she designed the Montessori philosophy and she developed a system that could help children’s education.

She became the first woman to get a medical degree in Italy when she graduated from the University of Rome in 1896.

Montessori worked with children who were developmentally challenged where she thought of the philosophy of Montessori Education.

In Montessori, different children and year groups are all in the same class. To help the children learn, Maria made materials herself. Thousands of schools around the world use Montessori education. She came up with having freedom for what work you could decide to do, but also with responsibility.

I think Maria Montessori is a great role model to all of us, who are in our class because if she didn’t create this amazing education system, we wouldn’t be able to have the freedom we do or be able to use the cool materials we do.

By Stella

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Why Do People Migrate?

The Year 5 & 6 students have started a new unit of inquiry. We are looking at migration and its impacts on communities. We did a brainstorm using AnswerGarden - we came up with some fabulous answers!


Tuesday 4 August 2015

The Pine Cone

We have been working on adding adjectives to nouns to make interesting sentences. Below are our favourite sentences about the pine cone in the picture!


The pine cone, spiky, beautiful and rock hard, was lying in the rain, lonely and sad. (Finlay)

The chocolate brown, spiky pine cone fell off the tree. (Charlotte)

The pine cone, silky and brown, went rolling down the big hill. (Lee)

Thursday 30 July 2015

Year 5/6 Experiments

Below are some photos of the experiments the Year 5 & 6 students have been working on in class for their Unit of Inqiury. They are inquiring into the properties of materials and the different states of matter.

How does colour spread in different temperatures?

Making sugar crystals.

Mixing liquids to find how they react.


Comparing the density of different liquids.

Finding out what happens to the air in a bottle when it is cooled and then heated.

Tuesday 28 July 2015

150+ New Journeys!

We have some new, slimy friends in our class! Our two axolotls have laid some eggs around their old tank, but now they are in the old fish tank (don’t worry our fish got a new tank). So far we have seen and counted over 170 new eggs!

On Monday the 27th of July, while checking on the axolotls, one of our classmates spotted some weird looking ovals with some half black and white dots inside them. Someone thought they were these animals that clean the sea from chemicals but most of us thought they were eggs. Then we searched “Axolotl eggs” on Google and it came up with a picture of eggs that looked egg-zactly the same!

First, we got a new tank from the junior class so our classmates and I moved the fish into their new tank so the axolotls  would not eat the eggs. Last night, they laid more eggs in the new tank. We moved the plants that had new eggs on them into the old tank.

Sadly, some eggs were covered in sand and we could not save them, so some of them also have been eaten by their parents, but we learnt that it's just the processes of life. Hopefully some will survive.

We plan on selling the axolotls if some survive, and a couple of the eggs will go to our classmates with tanks at home.

The first batch of eggs were laid over the weekend and they should hatch in around 3 weeks or more than 17 days!

Tez says to them “No more laying eggs please!" but the rest of us say good luck.

We’ll keep updating the blog as they develop!

Monday 27 July 2015

Books and Movies Quiz by Georgia

Books & Movies Quiz

  1. How many books are in the Treehouse Series

  2. 126
    6
    4
    24

  3. What is the name of Germonimo Stilton's sister?

  4. Amy
    Anne
    Stella
    Thea

  5. In the movie "Harry Potter", what is Harry's pet?

  6. Owl
    Frog
    Cat
    Dolphin

  7. What is the name of the boy who finds the BFG?

  8. Jake
    Fred
    Tom
    It's a girl named Sophie

  9. What was the 2015 Junior Movie Night movie?

  10. Paddington
    Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 1
    Frozen
    Despicable Me 2

  11. Who is the author of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series?

  12. Jeff Kiney
    Roald Dahl
    Dan Brown
    Mike Sooleki

  13. What is Agnes's (from Despicable Me 1 & 2) favourite animal?

  14. Tiger
    Elephant
    Unicorn
    Puppies

  15. Who writes the book "The Honest Truth"?

  16. Jeff Kiney
    Dan Gameinhart
    C.J. Robbt
    Max Haloo

  17. What did Lucy name her cat in the movie, "Home"?

  18. Pig
    Felton
    Manare
    Shella

  19. What is the name of Riley's imaginary friend from the movie "Inside Out"?

  20. Harry 2.0
    Lisa
    Vita Boo
    Bing Bong

Wednesday 15 July 2015

Mighty Michael

A few weeks ago, we had a visitor to our class - Annie has written about it below.

It had been taunting me all day. Who was the mystery guest speaker? The clock struck 9:30 AM. Rose came in followed by X-Factor third place rock band sensation bass player, Michael Anderson!

Michael entered the X-Factor in a band called Brendon Thomas and The Vibes. They finished third. As soon as Michael came in, there was silence. We sat in group and he told us about his awesome X-Factor experience.

I think we must have annoyed him with all of our questions, photos, and requests for signatures, but he seemed really happy to take photos, answer our questions and sign our pencil cases and journals! The time flew by as he walked out the door to visit the next classes. Michael came from The Montessori Unit at our school, so I am proud to be here today. Michael is a nice, great guy and we are so happy he could come in to speak to us!



Thursday 18 June 2015

Whanau Feast!

Kia ora te whanau!

This morning, Room 27 smelled sooooooo delicious!

Our community celebrated Matariki today. We came together to make and share a harvest vegetable soup. The students all contributed and prepared the soup and bread to accompany the meal. We took the opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments and achievements over the past year. We had some beautiful sentiments, where the children talked about how well our class works and functions; how blessed we are to be in New Zealand and in a lovely school and that some children had decimal lessons!

The afternoon saw many parents come in and visit our class to see the amazing learning that has taken place over the term and to share in our feast. It was so lovely to see our Montessori whanau come together to celebrate our achievements.

Thank you to all the families and children who worked so hard to make our feast a success - after today, many bellies and hearts were full!


We look forward to sharing more of our special events, celebrations and learning with you over the coming years.