Last El Presidentes for 2014!

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Movement Books

Room 17 have been working hard over the last few weeks to create 'moving books. We worked with a partner to create a book that had moving parts - pop-up, lift the flap or pull tabs. Our goal was to write a book for someone aged between 1-3. Some students are making hard copies and some students worked on Zooburst. Our first book is finished!! Here's Zach and Zander's book about bugs.

End of School Year Reflections

Our final Hands-On-Homework for 2014 was to fill out an end of year reflections. It was such a pleasure to read these and I'm amazed at how thoughtful the comments were. I have picked out all the key words and made some wordles. The first one is all the answers from the following questions:

• My favourite activity this year and why
• I had the most fun when
• What I liked most about my class and teacher
• What I'll miss the most and why
• Things I learned the most this year

The bigger the word, the more students that choose that as an answer. Thank you to all the students that completed their reflections!

Another question was for students to give a piece of advice to students for next year. 

Minecraft Treasure Hunt

Today we did a treasure hunt as our reward for remembering our homework books last term. We were in 4 teams and we had to look around the school for hidden 'treasure chests' that were full of ingredients. We had to use the ingredients to make recipes from Minecraft. We had 45 minutes to complete as many recipes as possible, and each completed recipe was worth points. Congratulations to Zachary, Eric, Sienna, Jordan, Renee and Layla who were the winners, with 2200 points! The rest of the class were rewarded for their team efforts with gold treasure aka chocolate coins =)

Finding out about NZ coins and notes

It's NZ Money week this week and we've been finding out lots about our coins and notes. We worked in groups to research who was on each bank note and why they were there! We also learnt about what the images are on our coins and learnt a bit more about them.  Here are some facts we learnt.

Jordan - On the front of the 20c coin there is a carving of a Maori chief

Zachary - Sir Apriana Ngata played a significant role in the revival of maori people and culture. He's on the front of the $50 note

Hugh - I was wondering what was on the back of the $20 note and when I found it was the NZ falcon, I learnt it's one of NZ's biggest bird.

Yuna - Ernest, Lord Rutherford of Nelson is on the front of the $100 note and he was known as the father of atoms.

Layla - At first I thought it was a tiki on the front of the 10c coin but then I learnt it was a carved head called koruru

Jake B - A $1 coin has a kiwi and a silver fern. I didn't know there was a silver fern too

Eric - I've found out all the animals on the notes and coins

Joshua - A $2 coin has a big bird on it

Levi - Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953 became the first man to climb Mt Everest and to drive overland to the South Pole. He is on the $5 note

Olivia - A long, long time ago only men could vote and not ladies but Kate Shepard said it was not fair and she helped NZ become the first country to let everyone join the vote. She's on the front of the $10 note

Zoe - I learnt that Queen Elizabeth was on the back of every coin

Josie - I learnt that the Yellow-Eyed is the one of the rarest penguins in the world

Renee - On the 50c coin there is a big boat, Captain Cook was on it

Grace - The portrait of the Queen on the $20 note was taken at Government House

Jake S - I learnt the name of the bird on the $50 note. It's a Kokako

Dinosaur Home Learning

For our last week of Term 3, Room 17 had a special home learning challenge to complete. They were given a sheet with different types of activities to do, all about dinosaurs. Some students chose to make dinosaur cages, others made dinosaur food and designed new types of dinosaurs. It was great to see all the different creations!

Hands-On Homework - Salt Crystals

Last week some Room 17 students took up the challenge of trying to grow salt crystals for home learning. Here are some photos of the process and final product. Yuna made a presentation explaining how to get the salt crystals to grow. Click here to view her presentation.

Pick of the Bunch Writing

Well it's been a while but we're back at it now - getting our Pick of the Bunch writing up on the blog! On Monday we went outside and blew bubbles. We used a Y chart to record what we saw, heard and felt when we were watching the bubbles, catching the bubbles and blowing the bubbles.  Our writing focus was to start our story from the moment Mrs B started blowing the bubbles (so we only included the important details) as well as using lots of describing words. Zachary was voted best writing this week.

The bubbles floated like balloons through the sky. I thought the bubbles felt soapy and watery. The beautiful bubbles were like floating see-through marbles. I popped watery, soapy bubbles. The bubbles popped high in the sky and near trees. I popped them with my pencil. I love bubbles.

By Zachary

El Presidentes Week 6 Term 3

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Hands-on Homework and Maths Week!

Last week was Maths week and we had great fun estimating how some of our teachers would get on with their lunchtime challenges. Two days in a row Josie guessed the exact time down to the second! That's pretty awesome estimating. We also had the Maths Wizard visit us on Friday and he asked us some tricky questions but they certainly weren't too tricky for the speedy students in Room 17. Our hands-on homework was to have fun with maths. Some students created games and we played Renee's game on Friday. Keep up the great math's work Room 17!

Teach Me Tuesday Week 2

Olivia and Zachary did a fabulous job teaching us on Tuesday. Thanks to Olivia we learnt how to ice bunny cupcakes (and even got our own recipe to take home) and Zach taught us how to bowl and bat in cricket.

El Presidentes Week 2 T2

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El Presidentes Week 10

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My favourite part of Friday

I love looking at homework books on a Friday and seeing what everyone's done for their hands-on homework, it's my favourite part of Friday!! Check out all the different ways the Room 17 learners found out about the birds that live in their backyard.

Spelling Week 5

Safe Walking

Today Room 17 had a walk around the neighbourhood with Constable Bluemel.  These are the things we learnt about how to cross the road and driveways safely.
- Look out for sneaky driveways (Yuna)
- Stop, look and listen (Layla)
- Listen for cars (Renee)
- Listen for garage doors opening (Zachary)
- Always look to see if there are cars or not (Grace)
- Don't dilly dally across the road (Josh)
- Look left and right and then cross (Josie)
- Listen out for engines starting (Hugh)
- Keep looking left and right as you cross (Zander)
- Walk on the side of the footpath that's closest to the houses (Olivia)
- Watching out for signs a car is about to move e.g. lights on (Scarlett)
- Don't walk on the grass closest to the road (Sienna)
- Stop, look, listen and think, then cross (Jordan)
- If you live on Kyle Rd you leave through the stairs by the junior playground and cross with the flags (Levi)
- If you live in Greenhithe or Fernbank you need to walk through the court gates (Eric)
- If you're walking up to Schnapper Rock you leave through the nature trail (Yuna)