Term 4 Highlights

Well it's certainly been a busy term. We've shared our learning experiences with our whanau during Creative Week; been part of the Flat Connections Project and skyped a school in America; had Tatjana join our class all the way from Germany; made bread, butter and picked vegetables from our garden, and welcomed more children into our class.

Now we're getting ready for a well earned holiday and it's time to look back at all we've achieved this term. A special thanks to Tatjana, Mrs Van Schaijik, Miss Morrison, Mrs Irshad, Gayle, and all our parent helpers.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!

Photos by Andrea, Mrs Van Schaijik and Tatjana. 
Music: Marathon by Ben Des Forges

Term 4 2016 from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

What a Crazy Penguin!

Sometimes the big kids come and read us a story that they have written. Caitlin's big brother Ronan, who is in Year 4, read us his story about what happens next in this picture.

Wow! I can see a polar bear laying on the cold and wet ice but a penguin had some cymbals...   Then the polar bear woke up and he was cranky. He raced after the penguin. The penguin ran and ran. The penguin saw water and he jumped into the water but when he looked behind himself he saw a seal. The penguin raced to land...but too late the seal got the penguin. The seal ate the penguin.
"Yum!" said the seal.
The polar bear then saw another penguin. She had a bag of fish. The polar bear sprang at the penguin. The penguin ran and ran until she could see a cave. She ran into the cave. The polar bear ran and ran but... then he got lost in a snow storm. The penguin was safe with her bag of fish.

The Lions reading group read a book about making a bird feeder. Gayle asked Mr Wang if he could help us make our own. A big thanks to Mr Wang for helping us make our bird feeder.

the bird feeder from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Lets plant a seed

Spring is a great time for growing plants and so we have been planting beans and other vegetables. Here's how we did it.

Plant a seed from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Rangoli Patterns

Happy Diwali!

It's that time of year when many Indian families celebrate the Festival of Lights. Room 7 and Room 2 thought this would be a great opportunity to learn more about the festival of Diwali and create Rangoli patterns.

Rangoli Patterns 2016 from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Our Flat Connections Handshake

Thanks to Mrs Van Schaijik, we are taking part in an exciting learning opportunity as part of the Flat Connections Global Collaboration project. Julie Lindsay is the amazing global educator from Australia who started Flat Connections and our very own Sonya Van Schaijik is our project leader. We will be working with schools from Australia and USA. We are excited about sharing our learning and finding out about what school is like for junior school children in other countries. The first step is to make a "Handshake" where we can introduce our school. Here's the "Handshake" video we've made.
Welcome to Newmarket School from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Pyjama Day

We all thought that it was about time we had a pyjama day and what better time than the last week of the term. Lots of children, and teachers, brought their favourite cuddly toy and wore their cozy pjs. We made some yummy treats and created stories and art and finished off with a movie. What a great way to end a busy term.

Pyjama Day from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Chinese Fans

As part of our Chinese Language Week, Room 7 teamed up with Miss Cleary's big kids in Room 2 and decorated fans. It was cool working with the year 4 and 5's and we can't wait for the next collaboration. A big thanks to Sonya Van Schaijik for organising the Chinese Language Week.   

Fan Making from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

We have completed our mural inspired by the work of Friedensreich Hundertwasser. We enjoyed looking at his art and architecture. Here are some of our stories about our experience.

Hundertwasser by Lucy

Hundertwasser is the best. I like him because he does lollipop trees.  He does curvy lines and lots of patterns and does cool building with lots of colours.

Hundertwasser House by Rianne

I was hiding behind a lollipop tree because my sisters were going to eat the Hundertwasser house. They thought it was real candy!

Hundertwasser by Etura

I saw lollipop trees in Hundertwasser's painting. He made candy buildings.

Lollipop Trees  by Julien

I see the lollipop trees.  I like the trees because the lollipop trees are green.

Hundertwasser  by Andy

Hundertwasser had a beard.  He painted lollipop trees.  I like them.

Hundertwasser  by Wendy

Hundertwasser painted lollipop trees and butterflies because he like them.

Algebra Repeating Patterns

In maths we are exploring algebra and have started by creating repeating patterns. Here are some of the patterns we made on Friday.

Patterns from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Ways to make 5 and 10

The hexagons maths group have been looking at different ways to make 5 and 10. Here are some of their ideas

Patterns to 10 from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

NPS Oympics

The great team at Kelly Sports ran a wonderful Olympics day for us. We were put into different country teams and competed in lots of fun activities. Ethan took some fabulous photos and captured the spirit of the day. Here's a taste of our Olympic day. 
Music - I Want A G Pig by Harry Des Forges

Newmarket Olympics from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Our Trip to Stardome

On Tuesday we went to Stardome Observatory and Planetarium. We have been learning about the Sun, Earth and Moon and thought this would be a good place to find out more information.
We met John, an educator at Stardome. He told us about how the Earth moved around the sun and the Moon moved around the Earth. We saw a planetarium show called "The Little Star that Could". We wanted to write stories about our experience. Here are Andy and Julien with their Stardome stories. Thanks to Rika for her help with our writing, and videoing our stories.


Stardome Trip from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Hundertwasser Art

This term we are going to look at the art and architecture of Friedensreich Hundertwasser and use his work as inspiration for our own artworks.
We started by looking at his architecture. We looked at the sort of buildings that might be found in many cities and then looked at some of the buildings that Hundertwasser designed. We discussed what we noticed. 

Our Space Adventure

On Thursday we thought that, just for a change, we would take a trip into outer space. Fortunately there happens to be a spaceship available at Newmarket School so we put on our spacesuits and climbed aboard. The spaceship was a Miss Morrison 2016 model.

Take off went without a problem. We all counted down and before we knew it we had passed through Earth's atmosphere and were heading for the moon. 

There were lots of buttons and controls and even some food for us to eat on the way! It takes a long way to get to the moon and Mars. We passed by the sun but didn't want to land.

It was getting close to Morning Tea time so we thought we'd better head back to school. The spaceship touched down and we headed back to write wonderful stories about our adventure.

We published our stories using Puppet Pals on the iPads.


astronauts from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Rain Stories

Here are Andy, Julien, Lucy and Etura with their fabulous rain stories.

rain stories from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Rain

We've been looking at, listening to, reading, writing and talking about rain this week. Here are some rain words we came up with


Rain words from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Let's Get Creating!

We had a challenge to create anything we wanted out of a big pile of materials. We had 1 hour to work on it. The teachers didn't help us or give us ideas. It was down to us. What would you create?

create something day from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Travelwise Safety Message

Here are Elena and Serena with an important helmet safety message.

Travelwise Safety Message from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Leadership Week Workshops

As part of Leadership Week, Miss Speir got together with some fabulous students from Te Ako Kahikatea and created fun workshops for all the children to attend. The Kahikateans had to make a plan for their workshop and the children decided which workshops they would like to attend. Everything from drawing to painting and Jump Jam to dodgeball, baking to drumming and many more in between! Here's a slide show to give you an idea of what we got up to. Thanks to Miss Speir and all the students and teachers who made this a great day. What a wonderful way to show leadership in action at Newmarket School!
The groovy music is Blitzkreig Rock by The Ramones and performed by our own Newmarket School Rock Band

Leadership Workshop Day from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

We had a wonderful time at Tristar Gymnastics. Here's a slide show of some of the activities.

Tristar 2016 from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Elliot's Birthday

Wow! Our Class Bear - Elliot is 21 years old. We thought we would give him a birthday party. We had to think about how we would organise a party. We made a list of party things and decided that our party would need to have jelly, cupcakes, popcorn, balloons, decorations, games and of course, invitations. It was a lot of work but we did it all and Elliot and his friends had a great time.



Here are some of our stories about the party.

Amaryllis
We played with balloons and ate cake. I had fun!

Isobel
At Elliot's birthday we played pin the tail on the lion and we played with the balloons.

Joshua
I am eating cake and playing with balloons.

Alisdair
Why did Elliot have no presents?  Because he is not expecting presents but my birthday I got a bus and I got a watch. There was lots of balloons and we had cup cakes. It was lots of fun.

Caitlin
I was bouncing balloons with my teddy at Elliot's birthday.

Kiaan
I like Elliot's birthday because it was fun. I like the Stop-Go game.

Elliot's Birthday from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

We have been learning how to say who are in our families in Mandarin.
Who is in your family? from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Praying Mantis

Alisdair read a non-fiction book about praying mantis. Here's a slide about what he's learned about this interesting insect.

Bumble Bees

The Lions reading group read a book about Bumble Bees. We found out how Bumble Bees fly even though they have big bodies and small wings. The Lions made a Padlet to show things they know about bees.

Created with Padlet

Fruit Salad

We had fun making fruit salad and writing about it.

Fruit Salad 2 from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Wet Days

We're not sad if it's raining and we have to stay inside at lunchtime. That's because we have lovely wet day monitors to help look after us. In Room 7 Serena and Suin are our wet day monitors. 


wet day monitors from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

The Smile

The Eagles reading group read a book called "The smile".  We found that smiles could be given to people just like in the book. Here's an Eagles' version of the story.



The smile from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Maori Colours

Have a sing-a-long to this classic, Ma is White. 

Ma is White from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Science in a Van

On Tuesday we had an amazing time with Allan and Emily from Science in a Van. We were learning about Mixtures. We found out that some things don't like to be mixed and separate. Other mixtures can cause a reaction. The mixture that we enjoyed the most was Allan's bubble mixture. Have a read of some of our stories and watch the slideshow.



I am blowing lots of bubbles with a stick.
Amaryllis

I make bubbles and they go wobbly!
Yuno

That's the wobbly bubble with two bubbles inside.
Caitlin

I am watching the bubbles when they go up and up.
Alisdair

I like the bubble going wibbly wobbly and I saw two people on the stage.
Shiori

Allan is blowing big bubbles!
Rinne

I like bubbles, dinosaur bubbles!
Tomoya

I like when Allan blew the big bubbles.
Lucrecia

Allan is making a bunny bubble and a dinosaur bubble.
Isobel

Science in a Van from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

No Hea Koe?

Whaea Patty has been teaching us how to introduce ourselves in Maori. We watched Ruma Rima's post 'No Hea Koe'  and were inspired to do the same. 

No Hea Koe? from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

A Swimming Safety Announcement

Swimming Safety from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Safe Walking

Constable Rob came in the second week of the term to teach us about being safe crossing the road. We learned how to Stop, Look, and Listen. 

safe walking 1 from andrea des forges on Vimeo.

Starfish

Hokang and I read a non fiction Sails book about Starfish. He found out that starfish have feet under their arms. I found out that some starfish don't have any arms at all! We both thought this was a great book as it had wonderful photos and told us lots about starfish. 

Football Taster

We had a great first week back at school. On Friday we had fun playing football. We had two football coaches from Football for Children New Zealand. Congratulations to Katie and Eito who were the players of the day.

football 2016 from andrea des forges on Vimeo.