Earthquake Poems

This week we have been learning about earthquakes. We all feel very sorry for the people up in Kaikoura and in other places that have been damaged by the earthquakes this week. As a class we have been keeping an eye on the news and discussing all the important facts.
We had lots of questions about earthquake and have begun some research around this topic. Part of our learning was also to create word lists of words we associate with earthquakes. We created see/feel/hear charts, a verb chart and an onomatopoeia chart. During writing we used these charts to help inspire and support our poetry writing.

Here are some of our earthquake poems:

Midnight Earthquake
Babies moaning,
people crawling to safety - it's hell in the city.
Glass is exploding, sirens are calling.
People run out of their houses,
many tripping, many falling - no where to run.
All trapped, all silent like rats being cornered by a cat.
Bash!
The houses shatter - there will be no city anymore.

By Tessa

Earthquake
Boom, crash!
In fright I stare at my home city falling in front of me.
Buildings collapse and go down as fast as lightning.
I'm on my knees now, barely able to stand.
Watching buildings falling and hear the frightening screams
of the young and the old.
Shattering glass - its like a war.
I feel pain in my legs and hands,
only to see blood gushing out.
I yell for help but no one can hear me.
All of a sudden the ground starts to crack - it gets wider and wider.
I run for help.
In the morning people come out and ask if you are alright.

By Angus

DK Site

As part of our inquiry learning we have been exploring a website that is linked to the book we are using. There is so much great information on this site that many students have asked that I put the link on the class blog. So here it is! I think that it is fantastic that so many students continue on their learning at home - its great to have a curious mind!!

DK Find Out!!

A Busy Start to the Term!

We can hardly believe that it is already the end of week 3! We have had a very busy few weeks. Presenting our 'Gangsta Granny' assembly item was a highlight for students. Everyone enjoyed sharing their performances.
We have also started a new inquiry unit called 'A Street in Time' which is centred around a book that looks at the same scene over a long period of time - from the Stone Age right through to Modern Day. It has been really interesting going back and exploring what life would have been like and what challenges people would have faced. We have been noting how the early people had to adapt to their surroundings and be creative and inventive to solve problems and improve their lives.
As part of our learning we made clay pots using a coiling method. It was great fun working with the clay but also challenging.

Some of our clay pots - note the decorative marks around them.

More pots ...

All the pots were different sizes and shapes - all unique!

This week we have been looking at how to find the area and perimeter of shapes. In particular we have been using our multiplication knowledge to find the area and perimeter of rectangles. A problem was given to us that was an irregular shape and we had to think carefully about how we could split the shape into rectangles to make it easier. 

Today Mrs Jackson gave us a problem to work through. We were given a sheet that had a rectangle and a triangle on it. We had to work out which shape covered the most paper. Both shapes looked quite similar in size. As usual we couldn't just guess - we had to prove it! Working in pairs we explored different ways of working this problem out. Thinking about what we know about area and geometry was very useful. 

Mrs Jackson was impressed with the great maths conversations that were taking place and the different maths knowledge that was being used. She was also pleased with the perseverance shown by all students - not one student said 'this is too hard' or 'I give up!'. In Room 7 we accept challenges and always try our best! 

Reef and Liam Barron showing great focus and concentration!

Angus and Reuben trying out a different idea...

Hannah and Ava testing their ideas

Some great thinking going on here from Sophia and Laura

We are looking forward to Athletics Day next Wednesday. We have all been practicing our skills in jumping, throwing and running. Lets hope this rain stops!!

Commotion in the Ocean

Last term in the Allen Centre Mrs B worked with the students creating puppet shows based on children's story books. Room 7's book was 'Commotion in the Ocean' by Giles Andreae. Everyone had a great time creating their puppets and the end result looked amazing!

Today they had the opportunity to perform their play to the junior school and to Room 6.

Gangsta Granny!

This term our class book has been 'Gangsta Granny' by David Walliams. We have really enjoyed this story. It is about a young boy called Ben and his old granny. In the beginning Ben doesn't like visiting Granny or spending any time with her because he thinks she is boring. But little does he know! Granny ends up telling Ben that she is actually a jewel thief who has pulled off lots of heists and had plenty of amazing adventures. Ben and Granny hatch a plan to break into the Tower of London to steal the crown jewels but it doesn't quite go to plan.
We have enjoyed exploring the amazing characters in this book and how the author has developed them.
As an end of term activity Mrs Jackson tried very hard to find a copy of the BBC movie version of this book but she had no luck! So she came up with another idea - we were going to recreate some of the scenes from the book ourselves using drama!
We started off the morning with a quick quiz about the book. Several groups got all 8 answers correct. Then it was off to the hall.
To recreate the scenes from the book we had to think very carefully about what the characters were doing and what our audience would like to see. We weren't allowed to use voice (so no talking) so our gestures and expressions had to tell the story. We did have a narrator who read the passage from the book out loud though. Mrs Jackson also said - no props! So we had to think carefully about how we could use to our bodies to create any props or scenery that might be needed.
Here are the final videos from our performances. One group had a tricky scene - Granny giving the cake to the Beefeaters. This scene is not actually detailed in the book so it was up to this group to write a script and come up with the ideas of what happened.

Polyfest 2016

On Thursday the Outram Kapa Haka group performed at the Otago Polyfest. The students really enjoyed their moment on stage and our leaders did a fantastic job! All students can be so very proud of their performance. The video below shows part of our performance - thanks to Mrs Grace for videoing it for us.

Our Week in Room 7

We have had another very busy week here in Room 7, we've had a netball tournament and Hui Ako. What amazing opportunities our students at Outram School get! As a class we have been working on creating a class newspaper as a way of writing about all of our experiences. We have looked at other newspapers and identified the layout and language features that they have used. We've practiced creating interesting headlines and have begun developing the first drafts of our articles. Working in a group can be challenging and learning to work together effectively is a focus for us this term. We are learning to listen to each other and consider new ideas, compromising and co-operating.
Keep an eye out for 'The Outram Weekly' newspaper coming out soon!

An updated class photo - what an awesome bunch we are! (Hannah absent)

Next Week - A Request Please

Could all students please bring a clean jar with a lid to school next week please! Secret things are happening!!

Ukulele Jam

What a fantastic time we had at Ukulele Jam this morning! It was great to see so many children there singing and playing with such enthusiasm. Mrs Jackson was so proud of all of Room 7 - you represented Outram School beautifully. You managed yourselves so well! Well done to the students who took up the challenge of going up to the front to do a special job for some of the songs.

Ukulele Jam!

Ukulele Jam Artworks

Next week is Ukulele Jam! Yay! We are really looking forward to it. All our hard work practicing is beginning to pay off and we have all noticed how much we have improved.
Part of the event is a ukulele designing competition. Two entries from each class/school are chosen to enter the final competition. There are some great prizes up for grabs!
We have been working hard on our individual designs this week and they are looking amazing! Lots of different ideas coming through - lots of glitter too!
Mrs Bayne now has the tricky job today of choosing just 2 ukuleles from our class! The other ukuleles are going to be displayed in our classroom.

What a colourful classroom we are going to have!

Liam Brady's ukulele

Hannah's creative design

Anita's musical creation

Michael's colourful ukulele

We're 'green' with envy - William's looks great!

Maths - Transformations

This week we have exploring shape transformations. We have been looking at reflection (flip), rotation (turn) and translation (slide). To do this we used cut outs of our first initial. First we looked at all of the three transformation as a class then we had create a pattern showing all three transformations on our own. Next we had to explain to a partner what we had shown. Our final patterns have become 'transformation artworks'!

Angus, Liam Ba, Ava, Laura, Jack, Sophia and Hannah holding their transformation artworks.

Cross Country

Just a reminder that our school cross country is on Thursday afternoon! The grounds will be quite muddy so it is recommended that you bring along a spare of shoes and some spare clothing. Bring a warm jacket and a hat to keep you warm while you're cheering on the other runners. Remember to bring plenty of food and water to keep you full of energy and hydrated.

Water - A Sustainable Resource?

Our inquiry topic this term is all about good old H2O! We will be looking at what water is, how it is used, how it is tested and how we can help to ensure it is a sustainable resource. It's an interesting topic. Today we thought about what water is and brainstormed some questions about water. To help us record our thoughts Mrs Jackson introduced us to a new web tool called Popplet.

We will be adding onto this over the next few weeks.

BFG Fun

Today is the last day of the term and Mrs Jackson decided to do something a little different. We spent the morning in the world of Roald Dahl's 'The BFG'. We completed lots of different activities based around the book that included reading or listening to extracts from the book. We explored the different language that Roald Dahl used to describe characters in the story. We also found new made up words that he had created and decided whether they were positive words or not. Next we had a go at coming up with some new words of our own...

'smag' - smurf tag
'chiburger' - chicken burger
'cumato' - cucumber tomato

Who knows? They might catch on!!

One of the themes from the BFG is 'dreams'. As a class we talked about the two different types of dreams you can have - the sleeping kind and the goals for our future kind. We came up with our own goals for the future and wrote them down. Mrs Jackson created a Dream Jar to keep all of our dreams safe. Hopefully they don't mix themselves up like the BFG's dreams or we could have some pretty interesting futures!!

Everyone worked really hard all morning - well done Room 7! What a fun way to end the term!

Our class Dream Jar

Maths, Paper Planes and Giants!

Over the last two weeks we have been exploring measurement for maths, focusing on length. We used two different contexts to practice our measuring skills. We made paper planes and measured how far they flew. We made one modification to our planes and tested them to see if it helped our planes fly further. We measured and compared wingspan and flight distances.
This week on Monday Mrs Jackson bought out a photocopy of an enormous hand print! Our challenge was to see if we could create a formula that we could use to determine how tall the giant was using the measurements from the hand print. To do this we measured our own hand spans, length and width and our height. We learnt how to convert metres to centimetres so that we could convert our height measurements. Then we used calculators to divide our height by our hand span. We tabled our data and we found that most of us had similar answers. Most of the answers were around 8 - 9 cm. We concluded that if we multiplied the giants hand span by 8.5 we would be able to tell how tall he would be. He ended up being 2.47 m tall! That is taller than Steven Adams the NBA player! We were glad he wasn't a real giant!

Folding our paper planes

Hannah lying beside 'our giant'. 

Paper Planes Website

Fold 'n' Fly

Matariki Story - The Seven Sisters

How Our Money is Made

A further 'note' (ha ha) on our money discussion - have you ever wondered how money is made? Or what happens to the old notes? Watch the following clip to find out!

Our New Money! - Homework Task

We had a look today at the new dollar notes. Mrs Jackson found a great website that explained all the different features and icons on them.
Homework task - who is featured on the $50 and $100 notes? What can you tell us about them?
Click on the link below to see the 'Brighter Money' website to find some information. Why do you think they have called the website that? What is brighter about the notes?

Brighter Money

Our Assembly Item

We had great fun on Friday at our assembly. It was great to be able to share some of our learning with everyone. Here are a few photos of our item - a big thanks to Mrs Wright for taking them for us.

Reading out some of our 'Tramp' poems

What a great job everyone did with our ukulele song! Well done!

Persuasive Writing

This week we have begun to explore persuasive language. We talked about what this is and how it is used. The clue is in the word 'persuasive' - to persuade or convince someone, making you want to do or believe in something. It is about putting your opinions across and sometimes changing someone else's. We thought of all the different ways we see persuasive language in our everyday lives. Here are some of our ideas:

• advertising
• speech making
• lawyers
• politicians
• protesters
• the media - TV and newspaper

We discussed how persuasive language is used in each situation. We all found how advertisers use persuasive language to be really interesting - special offers and larger than life claims!

Our first activities involved carrying out mini debates in class around topics based on life at school. The two topics we had were - 'fizzy drinks should be allowed in school' and ' school holiday should be longer'. The class was split into 'for' and 'against' and each side had to come up with some key points and ideas. It was really fun sharing ideas back and forth. We noticed how some arguments were stronger than others.

Tomorrow we will begin writing to persuade. Our topic came from a conversation that Paton had with Mrs Jackson - how insects may become the next major food source. Would you eat bugs? We all said 'no - yuck!' at first but after watching the following clip some of us were beginning to see the possible benefits. Our writing will be trying to persuade others that eating bugs is a good idea!

Watch the clip and see if you can be persuaded!

Science Fun!

Today we carried out a science equipment. The question posed was - 'what will happen when we add raisins to a glass of fizzy?'. We brainstormed our ideas - some ideas were:

• the raisin will float because it's very light
• the raisin will turn back into a grape because it will absorb the liquid
• the raisin will dissolve because of the sugars in the liquid and the sugars in the raisin
• the raisin will lose its colour because of the sugars in the liquid

Then we gave it a go - this is what happened...

We were amazed by the dancing raisins! We think that the raisins kept rising and falling because of the bubbles. The bubbles were attracted to the raisin at the bottom which made it light enough to rise to the top, then the bubbles popped which made the raisin heavier again so it sank. We shared lots of ideas about why this all happened, linking to the gas in the fizzy, the dehydrated fruit and the density of it. 

We wondered if we could prove that it was all related to the gas in the fizzy. We tried the same experiment with water and it didn't have the same effect - nothing happened. Then we tried adding lots of raisins to a glass of fizzy - we wondered if there wouldn't be enough bubbles to make them all float. We found that the raisins still floated up and down. 

We still had questions and wonderings - we wonder...

• does this experiment work with different types of fizzy? Like L&P or Coke?
• does this experiment work with different types of dehydrated fruit?
• what if we used sparkling water instead of the fizzy? does the sugar content of fizzy have an effect on the experiment?

We are going to try these ideas next week!

New Zealand Sign Language Week

NZ sign language is one of New Zealand's official languages and we have taken the opportunity this week to learn some basic sign language. We have all really enjoyed it!

So far we have learnt how to sign 'yes', 'no', 'good morning', 'good afternoon', 'thank you', 'nice', 'nice to meet you' and how to introduce ourselves, signing 'my name is ...'. We learnt the alphabet in sign so that we could spell out our names. Today we learnt how to count to 10 and also some of the signs for animals. It is quite challenging to remember all the different actions. 

Some of the students requested the links to the NZSL online dictionary and also the Deaf organisation website that we have been using - please click on the links below. Explore both sites and see what you can find!

Happy signing!!

My Life In Sign - NZSL Week

NZSL Online Dictionary

Senior Tramp to the Organ Pipes and Mt Cargill

Anita and Mr Marshall looking at the Organ Pipes

The Organ Pipes rock formation

The viewing platform at the top of Mt Cargill

Tessa's Quick Write

Today we had the chance to share some of the quick writes that we have created this week. We have been using interesting photos as our motivation. One photo was of a mouse dressed in spy gear hovering above a mousetrap full of cheese!
As a class we all really enjoyed Tessa's quick write about the mouse. We enjoyed it so much we made her read it again! We really liked how it rhymed and how she used repetition to make it interesting. It just has to be shared!

Pitter patter on the floor, 
little Johnny going out to explore.
He's a mouse with big secret - cheese maker by day and an international cheese thief by night!
Pitter patter climbing walls,
with spider suit and big hooked claws.
He's taking a trip to the sixteenth floor to steal some cheese from Mrs Moore.
Hooked claws opening doors, 
before he pitter patters on the floor,
past the camera and lazer beams and guard dog Mr Bean.
Makes his way to the cheese, 
only to see Mr Bean scoffing down the tasty cheese.

By Tessa

Kiwi Golf With Melanie - Recount

We have been learning how to write great recounts, thinking carefully about what information we need to include and which we don't. We have also been looking at interesting sentence starters and other ways of describing the sequence of time and not using 'then I..' all the time! 

Today we crafted a shared writing recount about our golfing experience. We brainstormed lots of ideas before we started to help plan which information we wanted to include. Next in pairs we created a great opening sentence, which Mrs Jackson recorded on the board. We then crafted the perfect opening sentence from these. From here we used our brainstorming plan to develop the rest of our recount. We think its pretty good!!

Kiwi Golf With Melanie

The class all lit up with joy when the teacher announced that it was 9:45 – golf time. All at once we raced out the door to line up. Quickly we raced over to Melanie to hear about how to play golf.

We were sorted into groups. Jack was our only left handed golfer. After that Melanie asked us to go to a flag and she began calling out instructions. The flags were there to help us practice how to hold the golf club and how to swing. We were all waving our flags rapidly and Brylee said that it looked like a Mexican wave.

After that Melanie sorted us into groups of three and we moved into our positions. We practised hitting different sized balls. Rhiarna thought the rubber golf ball was easier to hit but Reuben and Laura thought the tennis ball was easier.

Lily found it hard to hold the club. A few of us found it hard to interlock our fingers when holding the club.

Whizz – Liam Barron’s ball whizzed through the air, down the field and nearly took Ava’s head off! She got such a fright!

We had a great golf day with Melanie and hope to have the opportunity again.

Swinging the flags

 

Melanie showing us how to hit the ball correctly with her helpful assistant Paton.

Basic Facts

Practice your basic facts! Are you working towards your multiplication learning goal?
Here are some more ideas on how to practice them:

• use a pack of playing cards and play 'Fast Flips' 
• Ipad apps - Sushi Monster, Slide Maths - these apps are free!
• try ABCya - a learning website that has a variety of educational games for different levels. See the link below. Choose either grade 2 or 3 and see which suits you best. Make sure you are challenging yourself. A good game to play on this site is 'Maths Bingo'.

ABCya - learning games

Please ensure you are practicing your facts.

ANZAC Writing Super Sentences

Over the last two weeks as part of our ANZAC inquiry topic we have been exploring letters during the war. We read a book called 'Jim's Letters' by Glyn Harper. This story is a collection of letters from Thomas and his brother Jim who is away at war. We created a list of what we might write about if we 'at war' or 'at home'. We decided to focus on writing letters from the front lines to loved ones at home. 

Here are the super sentences this week. These sentences were chosen because they had great imagery and 'painted a vivid picture'.

I have lost a few friends while they've been serving their country and I am greatly grieved by this but have to keep going. - Josie

The muddy hand dug trenches are so mushy its hard to move around. - Poppy-Jade

Most of my friends have died but don't worry too much, I will still be your cheerful, whole bodied son when I come back. - Tessa

Me and my mates had a weird feeling when we were walking along, then out the enemy came from the bushes onto us. We retreated because they had more men. - Mac

I looked and there was a tall man running after me in the distance. I had to run and leave my friend behind. It was the hardest decision of my life. - Mya

Painted Portraits

Over the last two Friday we have been busy creating our painted portraits. So far we have completed our head outline and our background. We had to select one of the brush techniques that we have learnt to create an interesting background. Each week we will be self assess our painting and consider what we like and what we would like to change. We are hoping to have these finished before the end of the term. We will be pretty busy next week!

Here are some samples of our painting so far:

All ready for the next step!

Close up of stippling

Beautifully textured background

Inquiry Topic - ANZAC Day

Today we started our new Inquiry topic which will run until the end of the term. We will be learning all about ANZAC day and why we commemorate and remember all those that fought or contributed in the wars and how it affected us as a country.
To begin with we brainstormed all the things we already know about this topic. Mrs Jackson was very impressed with Room 7's knowledge and depth of understanding! We followed up our brainstorm with a photo activity and a shared reading activity that fired up our thinking about what questions we have about this topic.
Throughout this topic we will be creating, editing and adding to a Word Wall of topic words. This Word Wall will be very helpful for us when we are writing about this topic.

Room 7's Painting Techniques Movie!

Padlet - NZ Calls Homework Activity

Click on the link below and leave a note on the Padlet page. You will need to enter the password on your homework sheet to access the page. Double click anywhere on the wall to leave a note

Padlet - NZ Calls

Portraits

We have been learning how to draw portraits. We have explored famous portraits painted by artists such as Goldie, Frances Hodgkins and Rita Angus. We talked about what we noticed and what we liked or didn't like about the paintings. Then we watched a Youtube clip that explained the dimensions of the face. We found that there is a lot of maths connected with our faces - our eyes are halfway down our head, our nose is 1/3 down our head, our mouth is halfway between our nose and chin. Also - the pupils of our eyes line up with the corners of our mouths. This information helped us to think about where to position our features on our drawing. Mrs Jackson also took photos of us individually that we were to draw from.
Our first drawing task focused just on our eyes - we had to use our observational drawing skills to carefully draw our eyes. We had to remember to draw what we saw and not what we thought - this proved to be quite tricky at times.
Then we moved onto drawing our faces. Here are some examples of our amazing portraits.

Our next step is to paint!

Problem Solving

Today we started looking at maths problem solving. We talked about the four stages of problem solving - understand and explore the problem, find a strategy, use the strategy and finally reflect back on the strategy and solution.
We can use a number of different strategies to help us - these are our 'Problem Solving Toolkit'!
We can use:

• guess and check
• draw a diagram
• act it out
• use equipment
• make a list or table

Today we worked on two different problems working through the four stages. We will continue to work on this over the next few weeks.

Angus, Caleb, Ava & Anita working together to solve the problem.

Isaac, Liam Br, Lara & Rhiarna focused on their problem solving.

Super Sentences!

This week we have continued on our diary writing theme, linking it again with our drama unit about the Early Settlers voyage to New Zealand. Mrs Jackson has chosen the sentences this week that really capture the feelings and emotions on board.

Molly is crying up a sea of her own – Isaac

I feel sorry for the families, the babies are crying, the mums are trying to calm them down and the dads are yelling. It looks like a hard life to live. – Mya

One family brought a book and I listen to them while their mother reads it to her children. – William

I can taste the salty water that comes from the smashing waves. – Tessa

Process Drama - Being an Early Settler

We have been exploring the voyage of the Early European settlers this week. To do this we have been using process drama. We were given the task of developing 'family groups' - including deciding on a family name, family make up (mum, dad, uncle?) and our ages. 
Being in role was one of the drama conventions that we were working on - this meant staying in character and 'walking a mile in their shoes'. In our family groups we decided what belongings we would pack into our suitcase - what would we take or leave behind? What might we need once we got to the new land? We thought about how the Early Settlers would have felt leaving their homelands and discussed their reasons for leaving. Then we had our final family photo on British soil.
As family groups we lined up for the doctors final inspection - we learnt how dangerous any illness would be on a confined space like a boat, but we also thought about how desperate some of these families would have been to get on board. Some would have saved up for a long time or sold all their belongings to get money for the passage. 
The Captain lead us onto the ship and showed us our cabin. We were surprised at the confined space and how crowded it was. We settled down for our first night. We used another drama convention - spoken thoughts aloud - to think about how the passengers might be feeling at this early stage. Some people were worried about the crowded conditions and how they would cope, some people were excited and ready for the journey ahead.
We used our drama experiences to write diary entries in role. Writing in role is another drama convention. Our Super Sentences this week are from this diary writing. Working through these experiences in drama really helped us to think about the settlers experience and their feelings and emotions.

The Brown Family

The Thompson Family

The Brown Family

The Simpson Family

Our Captain, First Mate, Doctor & Cabin Boy

The MacDonald Family