Room 13's blog

Picasso Portraits

2008-11-04T13:33:00.000-08:00

During Term 3 in the art suite we were creating our own Picasso inspired portraits. We had to learn how to mix prime colours to make other colours and we also learnt how to blend our paints properly on the paper. The portraits look really effective and are awesome hanging up on our wall in the class.

Making Ice Cream

2008-09-07T17:15:00.000-07:00

This term we have been looking at production and process and changes in food. We have been looking at the different stages that foods go through. For a treat one day Miss Lind bought in the ingredients to make homemade Ice Cream. We had to put some ice and some rock salt into a big bag and then put some milk, sugar and vanilla essence into a small bag. We put the small bag into the big bag and then had to shake and shake and shake. It took us a while and we all got sore arms after all the shaking but when we got to eat the ice cream it was really nice. None of us had made ice cream before so we didnt know if it would work but when it did we were really happy.

Our Olympic Day

2008-08-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

On August 8th we had our own Olympic Ceremony at school. Each class was given a different country to represent and we all dressed up and had a parade of the countries in the hall. Room 13 dressed up as Norway and we got our faces painted. We also had a show of the different sports being played at the olympics and the house captains said the olympic oath and took down the banner. We also had a torch bearer relay. We had medals to give out for the best dressed classes. Room 1 came 3rd as Australia, Room 9 came 2nd as Japan and Room 16 came 1st as Jamacia. It was such a great day!!!

Raincoat BP Technology Challenge.

2008-08-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

On Friday 1st August the Taranaki Syndicate had a syndicate wide BP Technology Challenge afternoon. The children were split into groups of 5 or 6 and were all given 6 plastic bags, 2 meters of sellotape and 1 pair of scissors. Their challenge was to make a raincoat to protect them from the rain. One person in each group had to be able to wear it. The kids had heaps of fun making their raincoats. All of the raincoats were modelled for the rest of the syndicate at the end of the day then the teachers chose the best one from each class. The people wearing those ones had to walk around the courts 3 times so we could see if they raincoats were durable and wouldnt fall apart. Mr Dickey also got the house out to test that they would keep the rain out. It was a great afternoon! Here are some of the photos:

Woven Koru

2008-07-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Miss Lind saw some cool Koru designs in the holidays and came back to show us. We thought that they looked pretty cool too so we decided to make them ourselves. We had to weave our backgrounds first and then had to draw a koru design that we could cut out of the black paper to put overtop of the weaving. Here are some for you to have a look at.

Newspapers

2008-07-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

We are now back at school for term 3. For the beginning of the term we are using the Newspapers In Education resource as our reading programme. Each child gets a newspaper every day and there are activities related to the newspaper and a story that is written in the paper especially for the children. Room 13 is loving making their way through the papers and completing the activities. Here we are hard at work.

Our Culture Swap Powerpoints

2008-07-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

When we had been to every country in our syndicate wide culture swap we took our passports with us to the computer suite. When we were in the computer suite we had to turn the information in them into a powerpoint presentation. We learnt how to hyperlink and 'spruce up' our presentations. You can have a look at some of the presentations by going to our class knowledgenet page. Here is the link to take you there Greenpark KnowledgeNET

Aboriginal Masks

2008-06-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

This term in the Art Suite we are making Aboriginal Masks. This is to carry on with our topic of different cultures that we have been studying. When we went to the Art Suite yesterday we were making the templates for our masks and were starting to use the paper mulch to make our features that are going to stand out. We will keep updating our blog with the different stages that we are at during our mask making. Here are some photos from yesterday.

Trip to Art Gallery and Library

2008-06-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

On Friday 20 June we went on a trip to the Art Gallery in town and the public Library. We caught a bus down there. When we got there we went to the Library first where one of the Librians took us on a tour of the Library and then shared some books with us. It was cool getting to look at some new books and to see how different parts of the Library works. Then we had morning tea on the grass area beside the Art Galley. After morning tea we got to go to the Art Gallery. We went upstairs and looked at one of the sculptures that was made out of a chair. It looked cool. After we had talked about a few of the different pieces of art we got to go into the classroom and create our own sculpture out of spoons and forks. That bit was really cool. Then we got to draw 2 pictures, one drawing spoons and forks and the other was drawing the shadows of the spoon when we held it above the piece of paper. We got to bring them back to school with us to finish them. Our favourite part was when we got to walk through Big Red! It was kind of scary, but also really cool. It was a great day. Thanks to the people at the Library and the Art Gallery for showing us around.

Japanese Kites

2008-06-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

We made Japanese Fish Kites when we went to Japan for our culture swap. They are cool and bright hanging up in our classroom. We had to paint our kites and then fold and stuff them. Where are we going to next?!?!

Hieroglyphics

2008-06-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

When we went toEgypt, we got to look at the writing style 'Hieroglyphics'. We were able to write our name in Hieroglypics. It was heaps of fun trying to write our name in a different way. It looks a lot different from how we write!

Aboriginal Art

2008-06-08T16:53:00.001-07:00

This term we are looking at cultures and traditions from different countries around the world. We are having a syndicate wide culture swap where we are 'travelling' around to different countries. When we are 'travelling' to a different class/country we are learning some information from the different countries and then we are doing an art activity from that country. When we 'traveled' to Australia with Mrs Valois, we did some Aboriginal Art. They look awesome hanging up in our class. Keep an eye out for the other art that we have done from other countries as we go around them.

Cross Country

2008-05-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we had the school Cross Country. We had great weather for it and everyone was excited about running the course. We have been training for it al term and it was awesome to see the huge efforts that everyone put in and to see that the training had helped us!

Cory in our class came first for the year 4 boys and Eden came 6th for the year 4 girls.

Here are some photos of our day

Book Day

2008-05-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

Last week it was book week at school. On Friday we had our character dress up day. It was heaps of fun seeing everyone in their different character costumes for the day. Even the teachers got dressed up. We had a parade in the hall for the morning where everyone went up on stage and prizes were awarded for the best dressed character.

ANZAC DAY

2008-04-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

On Friday 25th April it is ANZAC Day. We will be on school holidays for this day, so we have made our poppies to help remember our ANZACs today. For those of you who don't know what ANZAC stands for it is Australian and New Zealand Amy Corps. Here is a photo of our poppies that we made for our class tribute.

Cushions in the Art Suite

2008-04-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we finished our cushions that we have been making in the Art Suite. They look fantastic!!! For our last session we had to sew them up and stuff them. A great big THANK YOU to our mums and grandmas that came in to help with the sewing! Here are some photos for you too see what great artists we are!

Lighthouses

2008-04-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today at school we started making our lighthouses for our Electronic Circuits unit. We had to make a circuit that would make a light shine. Then we started to make our lighthouses using bottles, containers and the circuit. We are doing paper mache overtop so that later on in the week when it is all dry we will be able to paint them. Here are some photos to show you what we have been doing so far. Photos of the finished product will be on here later!

Electronics - Circuits

2008-04-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today at school we had a man called Mr Rogers come in and talk to us about circuits. He bought in some of his special kits that we were allowed to use to make up our own circuits. We got to experiment with different things to see what electricity could run through. We found out that the circuit would work if we used: earrings, scissors, shaperners, hairties, staples, tin foil, rings, keys, braclets, gunstapler, watch, hairclips. It was heaps of fun experimenting to see what would work and what wouldnt. Here is a video of one of the groups making a long circuit to make a light shine.

Art Suite

2008-04-01T13:25:00.001-07:00

This term in the Art Suite we are making cushions. We are using a new method of Batik which is easy to use and mess free. We are using flour and water mix. For our first session in the Art Suite we had to draw different kinds of fish and choose one drawing we would use for our cushion. Then we had to transfer the picture onto the template we were using. Once we had drawn on our template we taped a piece of Calico material overtop of our template. Then we had to use the flour and water mix in a little squeeze bottle to make our print. Here are some photos to show you what we have done so far. Keep an eye out for more photos once we have been to our next Art Suite sessions.

We had to draw a fish first.

We drew lots of different kinds of fish before we decided what one we would put on our cushion.

Then we used the flour and water for the batik.

Ready to try and be painted during our next Art Suite Session.

Graphing

2008-03-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

This term we have been studying statistics. On Friday Miss Lind put us into pairs and we made up a question that we wanted to graph. We then went around the different classes and asked the kids in the other classes so get the information for our graphs. Then we had to come back to class and create our graphs. It was heaps of fun and now our graphs are up on the wall dispalying all the information we found out.
Logan and Molly starting their graphs.

Everyone hard at work transferring data.

Jack and Emily both working hard.

Naveen and Regan making sure they get all the information correct.

Greenpark School Rules P.M.I's

2008-03-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about Rules and Relationships at school. The other day we worked in groups to make up a P.M.I chart on what would happen if Greenpark School didn't have any rules. It was interesting to think about what school would be like if there wasn't rules. We then went over to the computer suite and published them using powerpoint. Have a look at what some of our P.M.I's looked like.

Green Park School in England

2008-03-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

A school over in England called Green Park has emailed Miss Lind as they have found our blog on the internet! It will be great to keep in touch with them and become blog buddies. There are links to the Year 1 and year 4 classes from Green Park from our page. Feel free to check out their pages and leave them some comments. Hopefully we will be get some comments back from them!

Gruffalo Pictures

2008-03-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

One day when Mrs Banyard was in our class she read us the story of 'The Gruffalo' by Julia Donaldson. After we read it we got to make our own gruffalo pictures. We think they look pretty neat. Please leave us a comment to tell us what you think of them.

Weaving

2008-02-25T17:46:00.000-08:00

We did some weaving this afternoon so that we can use the weaving as a back drop for some work. At first we found it a bit difficult to weave the paper but then it became quite easy. It all looks so bright and awesome. We cant wait to have it on display in the classroom.

Year 4 Camp

2008-02-25T17:34:00.000-08:00

On Thursday 21st of Feb we had a year 4 overnight stay at school. The whole year 4 syndicate along with the teachers and some parents camped on the school field overnight. We were all in tents which was really exciting. For the night activities we had a sausage sizzle dinner, then a disco then played a big game of spotlight. We managed to get through the night without having any rain, but it was really really windy!!! The next day it started raining so the parents were taking the tents down in the rain. We had some jump jam in the morning. Brett Fairweather made a suprise visit and showed us some new jump jam. Then we had a movie, relays and a water fight! It was fun getting all the teachers!!! We loved camp! Here are some photos from camp for you to check out.

Welcome

2008-02-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to school. 2008 is going to be a great year! We are going to be doing so many exciting things so keep an eye out for pictures, photos and stories about what we have been up to. We hope you enjoy looking at our blog.