Controversial Issues

For our Oral Language we have been learning how to hold a discussion with opposing views - Learning how to disagree or agree politely. These are some of the skills we are looking at
we look at the speaker
we can make a polite comment about their view - an interesting idea, I see why you think that etc
we make our point - I think that .....
we give a supporting reason for our opinion.

We have been discussing topics to do with the Olympics - should men and women compete against each other.

Here are some poems which are based on a poem by New Zealand poet James K Baxter.

Te Puna is usual enough, it has a rugby club,

a cafe, Maramatanga Park, Wairoa River and even

the Minden Stairs that I have never been to.

My Dad, sister and I  do what families do - walk my dog to the four square, kayak together, go to

the park and run around like crazy people, visit

Te Puna Quarry, walk on Te Puna beach, travel,

feed chickens and visit old friends.

Doing nothing important

Simone

Te Puna is usual enough, it has Maramatanga Park,

Te Puna Beach, a fish and chip shop,

four square and even the Minden stairs

I have never been to. My dad, my uncle and I  

do what people do - drive to the beach to collect

shells, walk to the shops to get some

chocolate, eat fish and chips like pigs,

climb trees.

Doing nothing important

Rhapsody

Te Puna is usual enough, it has a beach, a park,

a quarry and even a reserve that I have

never been to. Denali, Cameron and I do what kids do -

Visit each others houses/orchards, eat sausages at the Country Fair, see animals at Ag day, run down to Maramatanga Park at cross country,buy lunch from the four square,

Doing nothing important

Rikihana

Inspired by Derek Redmond

Our class watched a video of Derek Redmond running his 400metre race in the 1992 Olympics.  Here is some writing we did in response to this video. we tried to vary sentence beginnings and include some complex sentences which include more than one idea. See the Derek Redmond video and Rise song in the Olympic page on our blog.

Derek Redmond, from England, went to the Olympics and ran in the 400 metre race in 1992. It was held in Barcelona. Derek was actually the favourite to win.

Derek Redmond was pumped and of course he was nervous and excited. Derek was determined to win. He had to warm up . he did this by jumping up and down, looking at the other competitors.

Derek was coming fourth but then a very sad thing happened. He was 250 metres to the finish line but then he snapped his hamstring. Derek grabbed the back of his leg and fell to the ground in pain. He started crying. Derek put his hand on his face but then he got up to finish the race because that was what he came to the Olympics for. But his dad came running to him and helped him finish the race - it was a miracle. Derek’s dad put his hand around Derek. Dad quietly said “we will finish the race together”. So as they were running officials were saying to dad “ you cannot help , get back in the stand” But he told the officials to go away. Finally they finished the race together.

I will never forget Derek Redmond. He was my hero. I will never give up and I will do my best just like he did. Hopefully no-one will give up. Never fall - always rise. Listen to the Katy Perry Olympic song RISE, I think it suits Derek Redmond. I hope Derek inspires you like he inspires me.

Simone

Plurals song

We have been learning about plurals and came across this song to teach us about adding es.

If the word ends with 

a ch, an sh, an x or an s

add es, es

and not just an s

Handwriting

We are learning to write using a cursive style. We have only been learning this for a few weeks so I am very impressed with the results so far.

                              

Synonym Slapdown

In our Literacy swap we played a game of Synonym Slapdown. A variety of words were placed face up on the floor. I read out sentences and the children had to choose the synonym of the word at the end of the sentence. If they slapped their hand down on it first they won the word. The person with the most words won the game.
It became much more competitive as less words were left on the floor.

Class Haiku

We have been learning how to write Haiku which are Japanese poems based on nature. 
Our poems needed to have 17 syllables in the pattern, 
line 1 - 5 
line 2 - 7 
line 3 - 5

Here are some of our poems with photos that we took in the garden

Haiku Walk and Sapphire Springs

Linking

For handwriting we have been doing linking - cursive writing. This is new for many people in our class.
We have some very good linkers in Room Ten. We also have to remember to slope our writing.

Silver sword

This term in class Miss Chambers is reading the Silver Sword by Ian Serrailler. Click on the picture to find out more about the story.

  

Haiku poems!

Today we went in to the school garden to get inspiration for our haiku poems

A haiku poem is a poem that has 3 lines made up of
5 syllables  
7  syllables
5 syllables 

A haiku poem is usually based on Nature

Here is our class doing it in the school garden: