Welcome back to school for Term 4!

It was fantastic to see everyone again and hear all about your holidays.  We have made a great start to this term at school...

We've been writing recounts about our holidays, reading great books, including our class book: 'Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone' which is great fun!

We have also been learning about fractions and finding the fraction of a shape or a set of objects in Maths.  We had a subtraction basic facts test today.  Three people got 100% - Yahoo!  Keep working on your basic facts knowledge at home.  It really helps you to improve!  We are now focusing on our four times tables.  For those that know these already, you can work on improving your speed of recall, or try some more challenging times tables.

This week we have also had two sessions related to Civil Defence's 'Get Ready NZ' campaign.  We have been learning about natural disasters and how we can help our families be prepared for them.

For the next 6 weeks on Thursdays our school is having a 'Cultural Rotation'.  This involves each student being part of two different groups outside of our own room.  The options are:  Kapa Haka, Pacifika, Art, Movie making, Jump Jam, Poi & Te Rakau, Choir and Chinese Fan Dancing.  We are so lucky to have the opportunity to experience many different activities within our school!

To finish, I have a lovely quote to share from Olivia today:  'I love being at school and spending time with our class and our teacher!"  Thanks, Olivia - I enjoy spending time with you all too!

Art/Writing Exhibition, Open day and Jubilee Assembly.

Wow!  What an amazing display of our student's art work and writing there is to view in the hall!
I am so proud of all of the work our class has created over the past few weeks.  It's great to see all of the other class's work too.  Such a variety of art and writing all presented in so many different ways.

I was also really impressed with the cultural groups who shared items with us today at the Jubilee Assembly.  We had students from our class in the Kapa Haka group, Pacifika group and in the Chinese fan dance.  All of them had worked hard to make sure they produced a great performance for our huge audience today!

Thanks also to the parents and family members who visited our classroom during today's open day.  I hope you enjoyed sharing some of the things we do every day.

Speeches.

This term our class prepared speeches at home and shared them with our class.  I was really impressed with the preparation and effort put in to most of these.  It was wonderful to watch everyone confidently get up in front of our class and speak so well.  It was also great to observe the audience being so thoughtful and supportive.  At the end each speech everyone was welcome to contribute their compliments and suggestions.  I was proud of the way you all showed your CARE values and encouraged each other.

Our class voted for the best speeches to go forward as finalists to share our Top 2 speeches with Room 23.  They did the same.  Congratulations to Ethan and William for their well prepared speeches, delivered clearly and confidently.  They both included great information and humour to keep us entertained and informed.  Well done boys!

Preparing for our Torbay School Art and Writing Exhibition in Week 8.

Our class has had a very busy time creating magnificent artworks and writing to share with the school, families and our community during our School's Writing/Art exhibition in Week 8.  This coincides with our school's 60th Jubilee celebrations.   We hope everyone can come along with their families to share and celebrate!

Here are some photos of us preparing work for the exhibition...

Museum Trip

Today we visited the Auckland Museum with Room 23.  We had an awesome time exploring through the galleries and observing the incredible artifacts, artworks and objects, especially in the Maori section.  We made sketches of things that interested us, which we will use to help inspire when we create our own art works.  We enjoyed our time with the educators teaching us about Maori legends and the different parts of the Maori meeting house and the art works within it.

We all enjoyed the Maori culture show, which included beautiful singing, poi and te rakau demonstrations and a spine-tingling haka!

Thanks to all the wonderful parents who helped us on this trip.  We are so grateful that you could come along!

Olympics Fun Day!

Our whole school enjoyed an Olympics Fun Day. We came dressed up in our favourite sports gear and got in to teams from different countries. Mr Wheaton and Mrs Heasley set up lots of fun activities for us to try in the hall.  I wonder who we will see at the Olympic Games in the future from Torbay School?

Gymnastics

We have been having a great time doing gymnastics with Room 23. Check out our skills!