Police Dog Display

Last Friday the police dogs came to school to do a display for us. This was fantastic and we were very lucky to see 6 dogs working hard with their handlers. Thanks to Joseph's Dad from Rimu for organising this event (he even arranged for Mrs James' car to get stolen).

Christmas Spirit

Today  Pauline Walker from the Parish came to school to collect all the shoe boxes. She will take all the boxes out to St James School, Aranui. We had a fantastic response from the school and collected over 50 boxes. Rata got to help her load up her van with all the goodies. It is great to see the children so excited about giving to others.

Sun Flowers

Today we all received a sunflower that Jake Cadigan grew from seed. Thank you Jake, I look forward to seeing lots of photos of beautiful flowers.

Athletics

On Thursday afternoon the junior athletics took place. It was a wonderful afternoon and the children got to show off their athletic skills. They competed in running races, then took part in long jump, discus, shot-put and high jump events. They finished the afternoon with sack and egg and spoon races. The mums had a fun race and the dads were very competitive. A great afternoon had by all.

                

Sugar Shocker

Butterflies

This week our poem was about butterflies. We made butterflies using the maths symmetry knowledge we have learned over the past two weeks. They took some time to make and a lot of thinking about where to make the right cuts.

                                         

Sugar

Over the next 2 weeks we will be finding out information about sugar.                                     

What we know about sugar

• we like it
• it makes you fat
• it is white, brown and pink
• it come in cubes
• we add it to things
• it's not good for you
• it's yummy
• we use it in baking
• it rots your teeth

Today we did an experiment on 10 items to find out how much sugar is in each one. The one that surprised us the most was 2 minute noodles (7 teaspoons of sugar WOW).

The most sugar was  found in maple syrup (it is liquid sugar almost) and the least amount in bread. We also found out that 1 tablespoon of tomato sauce has 1 teaspoon of sugar in it. (Mrs McRandle will have to stop Pete eating sauce like a vegetable)

1. Maple Syrup

2. Moro

3. 2 Minute Noodles

4. M & Ms

5. Bake Beans

6. Lite Peaches

7. Yogurt

8. Krispie Biscuits

9. Bread

At the End of the Day

We have been learning how to be a good friend and how to be a caring member of our classroom. We have learned about many different types of feelings and how our words can make people feel sad or happy.  We read the story At the End of the Day by Trish Puharich and learned about Room One at Henderson Valley School and their massage circle. It sounded like a great way to finish the day so we tried it. We especially liked the idea that everyone needs at least five hugs a day.

Calendars

                                                                     

Amazing Calendars

We have been creating beautiful works of art based on Monet's Flower painting. We used chalk pastel, black vivid and pva glue to make our pictures. Calendar orders are due early next term, Wednesday October 16th. I think these would make beautiful cards.

Feelings

This week we have been learning about different feelings. We have been acting out different situations and thinking about the feelings we might experience.

Friendship Flowers

We have been learning about friendship one of God's great gifts and how to make our friends feel special. Our poem this week is about being a friend and we made friendship flowers to give away to a friend in our class. When we look at our flower it reminds us that we have lots of friends that care about us in Rata.

PMP

We have been really enjoying our PMP sessions this term. There are over 100 stations that Mrs James sets up for us over the year and it helps us develop our listening, memory and movement skills. 

Bubbling Wizard's Brew

Today Brianna, Caitlin, Andrew, Lily and Sarah made Bubbling Wizard's Brew as part of there reading activity. This caused great excitement in the classroom and squeals of delight from the students as they created their potions and then watched them boil over. This was such a popular activity that lots of children have requested the instructions. Have fun and try and brew a magic potion. If you can, take a photo of your brew and email it to Mrs McRandle.  

The Assumption

Each year on August 15 the whole church remembers and celebrates the Assumption of Mary. When Mary died God took her to heaven, body and soul. We created beautiful pictures of Mary to take home and shared some of our thoughts about her.

Mona Williams

Mona Williams is a Guyanan storyteller, children's writer and educator. She has written numerous books, and has performed at sorytelling festivals all over the world. Yesterday she shared some of her action packed stories with us. Click on the Mona Williams photo in the media gallery to view "The House that Jack Built".

                                     

Church Poster

This week it was Rata's turn to create the poster for the church. We have started the Sacrament  Strand and have been learning that a sacrament is a special meeting with Jesus.  We will be exploring baptism over the next few weeks and have learnt this week that it is how we are welcomed into God's family. With this in mind we discussed how to welcome people and how you feel when people are welcoming. We decided that you feel warm and happy inside when people welcome you and have created a poster that reflects these feeling for the church. 

I am Special Poem

This week our poem is all about how special we are.  We practised reading it and have made some special stars. Click on the photo and hear us read our poem.

Cody's Rabbits

Today Cody brought in his rabbits. There names are Peter and Brook and they are very cute.   
He told us that they are about 6 weeks old and we had to be very quiet so we didn't scare them. Cody is going to bring them back in about 10 weeks so we can see how much they have grown.

Aliens visit Rata

To finish off our space unit the children created their own flying saucer and alien. I was so impressed by the children, their facts about space and their enthusiasm to discovery new information. Rata you are amazing!!!

Pyjama Day

It's the last day of Term 2 and it's Pyjama Day. We all wore our pyjamas to raise money for Saint Vincent de Paul. We are all very excited and are looking forward to having a hot chocolate drink at lunchtime.

Buddy Reading

Skipping

On Friday July 5th we had a fantastic afternoon showing off all our skipping skills. We have been learning to skip using different jumping styles. Some of us couldn't skip when we started at the beginning of this term and now we can all skip. We can jump the rope 5 times at least with our feet together and we all enjoy running and skipping at the same time. Some of us have can even skip backwards and perform the crossover skip.

Every one really enjoyed learning how to skip and extending the skills they already had.