Calendar Art

We are well under way with our plans for some stunning calendar art.  We have used a New Zealand artist - Warren Pohuta - and have looked closely at some of his amazing animal art.

We discussed how he uses bold colours and blending as well as some very detailed patterning.  The students are now practicing their pattern drawing skills on a template of one of his animal designs. 

Once we have mastered how to draw some of these intricate patterns, students will draw their own design and use Warren Pohuta patterning to complete it. Look out toward the end of Week 8 for our finished pieces. 

What's Up - Week 6

This week sees another busy week as we kick off in speech board preparations along with Taranaki Trophy and our very first Japanese Day.

This afternoon we were hoping to run our school cross country but weather isn’t on our side unfortunately. We had pencilled in Friday as a postponement day but the weather is looking rough for then as well. We will just have to play this one by ear and see if we can get a clear spell for it. If not we will continue to train when it is clear enough to get out there. Rural Schools cross country is scheduled to go ahead at Rawhit on Monday next week.

Taranaki Trophy this week is on Wednesday at Auroa. The rugby and A netball teams will be travelling to Auroa to play their games. We will be leaving Toko School 10.15am which will allow time for the teams to warm up before kick off at 11.30am. I recommend bringing a towel and change of clothes as the weather isn’t looking too flash for this week. Transportation has been sorted and reminder notes will be sent home to those parents involved today.

In writing and reading we are getting stuck into our speech board prep. We will be looking at depth into each category the children are required to present and discussing what they need to do to be successful. Each child needs to have a topic for their informative talk and a book to discuss. Make sure to check in with your child and check they have their topics and book sorted.

In maths we continue looking into algebra and using open ended tasks to challenge and extend our knowledge.

On Friday we are going to hold a Japanese Day where the kids will spend the each block doing activities based around Japanese festivals, food and the written language. There is a Japanese exchange student based at St Mary’s who is going to come out and work with the kids so we will have an expert to help out for the day. Her name is Saho and she worked with the children during their Japanese lesson last week. The kids homework this week is based around preparing for this day and getting some background knowledge around the areas we will be looking at. Check in to make sure they are on track as this is due on Thursday.

We are still collecting bottle caps to finish off our project from tech week but are only after brown and silver/grey lids now. If you have any please send them in.

Looking ahead to next week there is of course Rural School Cross Country and then next Friday 8th September will be our final Taranaki Trophy fixture which is away against St Josephs. This involves the rugby and both netball teams.

Have a great week, stay dry!

Japanese with Mrs Karasawa and Saaho

Not only were we lucky enough to have Mrs Karasawa come and take another Japanese lesson but we also got to meet Saaho - a Japanese exchange student.

Mrs Karasawa and Saaho

Mrs Karasawa and Saaho taught us how to say our age correctly and the vocabulary that goes with this.  One of the ways they helped us learn this was through Speed Dating! Well not really, but it was like speed dating. We lined up in two lines. One line asked the question '"How old are you?" and the other line answered, then the line moved on. Watch this video to see how it went. 

After that we went outside and had a game of Chinese Whispers - well in this case it was actually Japanese Whispers! Teams had to come to Mrs Karasawa and listen to a sentence. Then they had to take it to their team and whisper it to the next person in the line. When the last person had the whisper they ran to Saaho and repeated it to her. It was interesting to note how often we got the whispers wrong!

All lined up in teams.

Checking with Saaho.

Passing that whisper along.

It was a really fun lesson. Now we are looking forward to next week and seeing what cool things Mrs Karasawa and Saaho will come up with. 

What's Up - Week 5

Week 5! Back to a normalish week at school after another hugely successful tech week. The children all had a great time on their selected tech option and some of the finished projects that were produced during the week are very impressive.

In maths this week we will be looking at Maths Week activities. This is a nationwide week of maths activities and challenges which was held last week but due to tech week we will be working on it this week.

Children will be working on some of these maths activities for homework this week. The Rotokare Scenic Trust is also running a photo competition which is an option for homework this week. Details are in the children’s weekly homework note on their Google Drive so check in with them for some more info on that.

Writing and reading focuses on our classes enviro topics with Room 4 getting into the nitty gritty of beekeeping and working out what we need to get a beehive here at school and Room 3 carrying out design process charts for their projects.

This week we have Taranaki Trophy on Wednesday. We are hosting Coastal here at Toko School. They are only bringing a rugby team so that will be the only competition match. Kick off is at 12 and we ask the players to bring a plate.

The Methanex Maths Quiz is Wednesday afternoon. The Year 7 & 8 teams have been selected and we wish them all the very best for this.

On Thursday both Sasha and I are out until lunchtime with Japanese PD which will help us develop our language skills further.

We will be attempting to get out training for cross country daily this week. This will of course be dependent on the weather and the state of the fields. Due to the huge amount of rain we have had lately it is very wet underfoot so we will do our best with the conditions.

Have a great week everyone.

What's Up T3 Wk3

What a busy week we had last week! The kids have worked super hard to produce some fabulous science investigations. They are now proudly displayed in New Plymouth at the racecourse. 😁😁 We are travelling up on Wednesday to view them and see how we got on.

Also last week we competed in our first Taranaki Trophy match against Oakura School. We had good wins in both netball games and a big loss in rugby. This week we have back to back games with St Joseph’s on Wednesday and Opunake on Thursday. We are taking a bus 🚌 on Wednesday but we will be travelling by car 🚙 on Thursday. A big thank you to those parents who are able to help with transport. A note will come home early in the week confirming with those taking transport.  

Technology groups have been selected. Students will be either cooking, constructing, creating art design or making products such as lip balm and hand cream. Some groups will be meeting today to plan exactly what they will be constructing. 🏗👷

Please remember to keep checking your child’s blog to see what they have been learning. We would love comments to be made and are willing to bribe you with offers of chocolate for comments. 🍫🍫

In maths we are learning about algebra and how to find answers with unknown variables. For example a=3 so a x a = 9.  Each day we are also working on increasing our mental recall and our knowledge base. We do this through games and activities before we start the main part of the lesson.

As our science investigations have now finished we move on in writing as well. This week both classes will be basing their writing around their enviro topics. Room 4 will be looking into writing brochures and Room 3 are researching and recording ideas for ways to spice up our school grounds.

Reading of course runs through every subject and is completed many times throughout each day. 🕮📚📙📘

After Tech in week 4 our focus will move to Speech Board. Before then students will need to start thinking about their what topic might be. Information about speech board came home last week and more will come home Thursday this week.

Enviro in Room 3

This year we have made several starts on enviro projects and then found they weren't the best options for us. Firstly we decided to look at planting. This led us down the path of looking into riparian planting. We got enthused about this and then realised that riparian planting is probably something that needs to be done on a big scale. ⚘🎕🎕🎕🎕🎕
Next we got extremely excited about the idea of taking the school paddock and turning it into a community enviro friendly space. The kids came up with the most amazing ideas and we were off and racing..... Then I had a moment of clarity and realised that was a HUGE project and maybe we should start with something just a tad smaller. We chatted and realised that the school grounds could actually do with some more enviro up-grades and we should look at this before moving to a new space. This was met with a wee bit of disappointment but we got over that and realised that tackling the school grounds was much more manageable and achievable. 
So - third time lucky - we are now off and racing again, this time with a focus on improving different areas in and around the school. 
We have split into 5 groups and are investigating: 

Art in the Environment  🖼🖌🖌

Junior Play Areas in the Environment 🙌

Trees and Plants in the Environment 🌳🌺🌷

Animals in the Environment 🐜🐌

Chill Out Zones in the Environment 👌😌😎

We are using the following to assist us with our inquiry into these areas. 

We are busy recording what we KNOW, what we WANT to know and HOW we can find out. This relate to the first 3 letters on the chart above. 

Stay tuned to see where we go from here......

Science Fair Craziness!

The craziness of the upcoming science fair is dominating life in Room 3 & 4 

at the moment. 

The kids have been working so hard on this since before the end of
 Term 2. 
This week has been all about finishing the written aspect of the
 projects and presenting them on their boards. 
They are looking amazing! 
Check out the photos below to see how chaotic our classrooms
 have become! Excuse the mess!