CALENDAR ART

We have been drawing butterflies to put on a calendar for 2011. The butterflies will be printed on a calendar that we can use at home or give to someone as a gift. Mrs Baillie showed us how to make a design that was symmetrical - that means that one wing looked like a reflection of the other. We are proud of our colourful butterflies.

CROSS COUNTRY

The whole school had to go on the field for the cross country running race. Millie came 1st, Elise came 2nd and Jane came 3rd in the year 3 girls race. The cross country went up to the year 6s. We needed our drink bottles because it was hot. We sat on the bank and cheered for our runners. Everyone tried really hard. It was worth all the practice we did with Mrs Baillie.

PAPER MAKING

We had fun making our own paper. To make the paper we recycled used paper by chopping it up in a blender.

To make our paper interesting we put in some coloured paper and

some glitter. Then we used a mold and a deckle. We poured our paper pulp from the blender into the deckle while holding it in a trough of water. And, WOW ! we lifted a piece of stunning paper from the trough and upended it on a cloth to sponge and dry. Some of us are making Christmas cards from our paper. We each made 2 pieces of paper.

PIRI- HIRA'S EXHIBITION

On Monday 30 August all of Room 12 went on Mr Tukupua's bus to the Council Buildings to see an exhibition of Piri-Hira's designs.
She is our teacher for Bible in Schools and she is a graphic designer. It took us about 5 minutes to get there in the bus. When we got off the bus at the entrance we saw some big Maori carvings outside the Council building. When we got inside we mostly liked the little pond and the river in the floor made of paua. We got told the rules and then we went to look at the designs.
There were 12 pictures. My favourite was number 12. It had coloured squares in a pattern and it had 3 see-through tiki on the squares. There were little bites of paua with silver ferns on them but you hade to get up really close to see the silver ferns.
Then we walked outside and went across the road to the adventure park. We played for about 10 minutes and then we had our lunch. After that we had another ride back to school in the bus.
posted by Biship

BOOK CHARACTER DAY

We had a Book Week last week. On Friday the 28th it was Dress Up Day. We all dressd up as a favourite book character. In Room 12 it was funny because Mr Beggs because was dressed up as Grandpa Joe of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. All the classes came to the senior syndicate to put a gold coin on a picture of a daffodil because it was also Daffodil Day, when we raised money for cancer. Then later we walked around the court and we had to freeze in a music game. Miya and some others won the game. Look here and see what these people had dressed up as. Kane was dressed as Cat in the Hat. Millie was dressed as Puss in Boots. Max was dressed as Captain Underpants. Kathryn was dressed as Jasmine from Aladdin. Heath was dressed up as a witch from Harry Potter.

FROM PAGE TO SCREEN

Page to screen is about the books that get turned into movies, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In room 12 we are focusing on Roald Dahl books. Both Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movies ended differently from the book. Some characters were different like Charlie, Mr Willy Wonka and some inventions like the elevator that goes around the factory. Max likes the part when Veruca Salt was pushed down the chute. Brandon's favourite part is when Grandma Georgina said "I think there is someone at the door" when the elevator smashed through the roof.

We have made posters about new products that we have invented. We have learnt quite a lot about Roald Dahl. The pictures in his books are cool. They are done by Quentin Blake.

(Kane, Gemma and Kathryn drew these pictures on KidPix)

Blog by Brandon and Max

KIDS LOGOS

All the kids designed their own logo. On the logo we put our initials and something special to us. They were photographed so we could use them on the computer. Some of us drew our logos on Kidpix.
by Kathryn and Lily

SIGNS and SYMBOLS TOPIC - PiriHira Visits

We have been doing a topic called Signs and Symbols. Last term Piri-Hira came. She takes us for Bible-in-Schools and she is a graphic designer. She showed Room 12 some of her logos. Here are two of them. She has also done one for the Horowhenua Aquatic Centre and some designs for the Rugby World Cup. Piri-Hira showed us how to design a logo. We had to make a brain storm. Then we put the pictures of our brain storm on a matrix and mixed them up with other pictures. After that we made our own logo for a T-shirt. If it's good enough, it could go on a real T- shirt.
by Jaymie, TeAriki, Biship

THE JUNIOR DISCO

Levin North School had a disco. It was on the 25 of June. The junior disco was for years 0-4 kids and the senior disco was for years 4-6 kids. My brother went to the senior disco. The cost of the disco was $2. I dressed up in a sparkly dress and gray shoes. And the best part was the line of people dancing. The glow sticks were cool. I enjoyed the lollies.

Blog by Kathryn

Water Cycle Rap

We finished our weather inquiry by making up a water cycle rap. We performed it at a school assembly . These are words...
The sun shines down and the water goes up - EVAPORATION
The water vapour cools and makes fluffy clouds - CONDENSATION
The clouds get heavy and the rain falls down - PRECIPITATION
That's what we call the WATER CYCLE
blogged by Heath

Weather Experiments

We have learnt a lot about weather. We know that weather changes when cold air meets warm air. When cold air meets warm air this is called a weather front. You can expect rain!
Here are some pictures of our weather experiments. Jane's picture shows warm air meeting cold air. Kane's picture shows 2 balloons that we launched - we don't know where they landed! Royden's picture shows the flying teabag!

posted by Jaymie

The Water Cycle

This is Kathryn's picture of the water cycle.The sun evaporates water. The water vapour cools and condenses and makes clouds. When the water in the clouds gets too heavy it rains. evaporation-condensation-precipitation
written by Max.

Hot-air Balloon

Look at our hot-air balloon. It's just a big plastic bag with some thin wire around the bottom. We tried making it go up one cold morning by holding a candle under it. Did it work? No! So we tried tying a cotton-pad under it then soaked it with meths. Did that work? SURE DID! The balloon went way up high and landed in the neighbour' place. We want to have a big launch of lots of balloons - maybe.

Our teacher asks us "How does this help us to understand more about WEATHER?"

OUR WEATHER INQUIRY

We have lots of questions about weather. We know the earth has got a blanket of air around it which makes our weather. Our key question is "WHY DOES THE WEATHER CHANGE?"

We know that the sun is important by heating up the air.

This fun activity helps us find out more about the air. It's the flying teabag experiment!

Look at our video clip and figure out what it tells you about weather.

(Watch for our next fun weather activity).

LEVIN LIBRARY

We walked down to the Levin Library with some other classes. When we were there we saw what a busy place the library is. Many of us got new library cards so we can use the library at any time. And it's free for kids! The children's section is really cool. There are heaps of books and it's a great place to sit and read.

It will be a really good place to go in the holidays, especially when the weather is not good.

The library is getting too small for all the books so there are plans to make the library bigger and to give the workers better rooms to work in.

We enjoyed our visit.

WHEELS DAY

Last week on Wheels Day we had 4 options with our wheels. We could ride bikes, roller blades, skateboards or scooters. We had games to play. The scooters and roller bladers had races and went over ramps. The bikes went along narrow lines and in and out of cones. We had a very good time on the day. Gemma took some of the photos.
Room 13 and Room 12 took part in Wheels Day. Biship was the winner.
by Gemma and Miya

THE WOOLSHED

The Woolshed is at Forest Lakes which is just north of Otaki. Room 12 had a great day there for our Fun Outdoors topic. We all enjoyed the drum filling and we liked the food. We cooked the food on the fire and it was yum. We cooked potatoes by wrapping them in tinfoil and threw them into the embers. Corn was good cooked like this, too.
A cool challenge that we had was to stack vegetable crates to see who could stack the highest. We reached 6 crates. The record is 14. We had a contest to see which team could fill the drums the fastest. The trouble was, the drums had holes in them! We had to work together as a team.
posted by Heath and Christian

TERM 1 - 2010

Some of the things we have done this term are

• SWIMMING: We had swimming 2 or 3 times a week in the school pool. When we got in the water was very cold. Most of us got better at swimming. We enjoyed it even though it was cold. We know that it is important to get better at swimming to keep safe when we are at the river or beaches.
• GREY WARBLER: Mrs Baillie found a grey warbler's nest. We didn't know at first who had built the nest. So some of us did some research to find out more. We found out that grey warblers eat insects, that it's nest hangs from the top, that it's Maori name is riroriro.
  We read a book by Janet Marshall which told us about the shining cuckoo which steals the grey warblers nest and lays its own egg in the nest for the little riroriro to look after.
• ATHLETICS: The Year 3 and 4 classes had a great day at athletics. We did the shot put, high jump, long jump, sprints and relays. 3 in our class were chosen to represent the school at the Interschool Athletics. They were Heath, Biship and Christian.

Posted by Sade and Gemma

MEET US

There are 26 of us in Room 12. We belong to the Middle Syndicate in our school. This photo is taken at "The Woolshed" which is at Lake Waitawa near the Forest Lakes Camp (not far from Otaki).
We spent a day at The Woolshed doing fun activities. Our school is doing a Having Fun Outdoors topic, so we went to The Woolshed.
The Woolshed has a lot of interesting old stuff inside. It is not used for shearing sheep today.