Hear the angels...

...well, the angels weren't singing today in Room 10...but we did have a harp playing!  Bridie came and played some Christmas carols for us and we sang along.  We all got to listen and ask questions, then we were allowed to strum the strings.  Harps are amazing - we all learnt something new about them.

Here is Amon and Bridie with her beautiful harp!  Thank you for the amazing music!

Excellent illustrators # 8

Well, Nate took out this weeks' excellent illustrators competition.  He had lots of judges too as Kayla was away so... ALL the previous winners cast their votes and chose him!

This is what we thought:

• his illustration matched the poem
• the car on the screen is "so Nate"!  We thought it was cool that he thought to have something on the computer screen - and not just a blank computer!  It even looks a bit like the 'Create a car' game we like to play...but Nate says it is Craig Lowndes from the V8s :-)
• the details he added - like the correct keys on the keyboard - and the mouse make a really great effort!

Lily!

This is Hanna's new puppy, Lily.  She came to visit us at school today. She wasn't scared of us at all..and she even let us pat her (and she gave a few of us a lick!).  Lily was the name of Hanna's best friend in Germany, so that is a very special way to remember her here in New Zealand.  The puppy is SSSOOOOOOO cute!

Excellent illustrators # 7

Kayla was last week's excellent illustrator!  We liked the way she:

• coloured the monkeys not just one brown colour but a mixture
• made the boat in the water look like it is in the sea
• made the bucket of glue look cool
• coloured the branch really carefully but shaded over the leaves to create a different effect

Well done Kayla!  It is getting tricky to choose...good luck for next week!

Comments please!

We would really love to hear any comments you have about the ‘blog’ we have been trying out over the last 2 terms.  It has been our ‘experiment’ – a way to share what happens at school every day with our families at home.  Maybe you could tell us:

• What you enjoyed reading about?
• If the photos / videos were ‘cool’?
• Is there anything we didn’t share that you would like to have seen?
• Was it helpful having links to games etc that we use at school?
• Do you have any other ideas to help make it better next year?

 Any comments (positive and negative) will be useful for the future!  Thank you.

Either use the 'comments' tool below or email us at: ccsaroha@gmail.com

Hot off the press!

We have a super star in our class!  Asher was in the newspaper this week because he won a competition that everyone in the whole of New Zealand could enter!  That's a pretty amazing achievement!  Here is the article from the paper:

The boys' favourite things 2012! Part 2

• My fav thing was swimming because it's fun and I like swimming.  By Reuben M
• My fav thing was jenga because I like building and I liked it.  By Reuben H
• My fav thing was math becuse it is fun and I learnt a lot.  By Bailey
• My fav thing was maths because at maths I learnt my doubles.  By Vernon
• My fav thing was art because it is fun.  By Ben P
• My fav thing was art because it is fun.  By Asher 

The boys' favourite things from 2012! Part 1

• My fav thing was maths because I learned so much by Nate
• My fav thing was handwriting because I am good at it by Caleb
• My fav thing was art because it is fun by Amon
• My fav thing was maths because I'm always getting better at it.  By Talaiasi
• My fav thing was going to Te Manawa because it was so exciting by Ben G
• My fav thing was playing teeball because I am good at it by Leighton
• My fav thing was maths because its fun to do by Roy
• My fav thing was teeball becasue it helped us practise our batting skills.  By Jed

The girls' favourite things from 2012!

• My fav thing was our college teachers because they taught us heaps of things and they read us a book everyday by Kayla
• My fav thing was art because I am getting better at drawing.By Jada-Arielle
• My fav thing was Rayz road show because it was funny by Hannah
• My fav thing was the trip to Te Manawa because it was fun and I learned lots about using ink and I liked reading the short book because it was interesting By Loisi
• My fav thing was reading because it is fun By Nikhitha
• My fav thing was the Te Manawa trip By Hanna

My best learning this year... (boys)

• was in maths.  I am really good at it and it is fun!  By Reuben M
• was in handwriting.  Now I am a better writer than I was.  By Nate
• was in maths.  I liked the adding and take away work.  By Reuben H
• was in handwriting.  I am doing small letters now.  By Caleb
• was learning about the olden days.  It was very interesting.  By Amon
• was when we used the jenga.  I learnt about building things.  By Talaiasi
• was in maths.  It was fun and I learned a lot from it.  By Bailey
• was in maths.  I learnt things I never knew before.  By Jed
• was in reading.  I think I understand books better.  By Ben P
• was in maths.  It is my favourite thing and I can use tidy numbers on a number line now.  By Asher
• was in maths.  I am better at telling the time now.  By Ben G
• was in maths.  I can work out the answers better.  By Roy
• was in maths.  I know my doubles and I can add numbers better.  By Vernon
• was in maths.  I know how a family of facts works!  By Leighton

My best learning this year... (girls)

• was in maths.  I didn't get many answers right at the start of the year, but now I do!  By Kayla
• was in art.  I am better at drawing now.  By Jada-Arielle
• was in handwriting.  Before I wasn't so good at it but now I am better!  By Hannah
• was in writing.  I know how to put full stops and commas in now.  By Loisi
• was with Mrs Jorgensen.  I was brave and did a play at assembly! By Nikhitha
• was in maths.  Maths is fun and I have learnt a lot in it.  By Hanna
• was in swimming.  I learnt how to paddle with a flutterboard.  By Litanya

Excellent illustrators # 6

Last week's winner, Reuben, chose Vernon as the best illustrator this week.  We particularly liked the animals Vernon added at the top (especially the skinny elephant!) and the extra details he added - like the water the elephant is squirting.

Well done, Vernon.  You get to be the 'judge' next week!

Reuby Doo Show # 3

Here is another 'episode' of the super spelling show!  We hope you like it!

Well done to Asher  - he filled in for Reuben when he was away the other week.  We had an 'Asher Smasher' show instead!  Great work on those words that make us go WOW!

Excellent illustrator # 5

Hannah chose Reuben M to be the excellent illustrator last week.  We thought he had added heaps of pictures to illustrate the poem, the feathers looked very real, it was colourful and he added details on the t-shirt that looked awesome.  Well done, Reuben!

Athletics

What an amazing day!  The sun shone, the breeze kept us a little bit cool,,,and Room 10 kids were incredibly sporty!  Congratulations to everyone who tried so hard and especially to the winners who gave their best!

Kayla was the top Year 3 girl.  She said: "I have won a medal ever since I have been at Cornerstone.  I love doing sports and my favourite events were discus and hurdles."

Talaiasi was the top Year 3 boy.  He said: "I feel so proud of myself. This is my first medal!  My favourite events on the day were sprints and high jump.  I did 4 jumps and I came 3rd."

Koru Art

We have been busy learning about Maori culture and language.  We really liked the koru shape and made some colourful pictures so we could look at the shapes closely.

The koru shape is often used to mean 'new beginnings' or 'new life'- that is awesome!  It really fits in with our theme this term of 'God is Redeemer'.

Te Pae Tamariki Festival

Look at our beautiful girls from Room 10 who are ready to represent our school as part of the Kapahaka group at the Regent tomorrow.  They have been practising so hard and they sound amazing!  Well done to all the children for their hard work!  Tino pai!

Special "Hi!" to Abbey and family

This is a special message for Abbey - one of our BEST comment writers...even though she has moved away!  We would love to hear from you if you can email us one day when you read this.  We hope you are still enjoying reading the blog and that you have fun seeing what we are up to!
We would love to hear about your new school - maybe we could publish some of it on the blog for everyone here to read?  Have a think about it.  You can email us: ccsaroha@gmail.com
Bye for now!

Excellent illustrators # 4

Congratulations to Hannah who is our excellent illustrator this week!  What a tough job for last week's winner, Leighton...

We were really impressed with some of the details Hannah thought of:

• the colours in the lion's mane
• the pattern on the snake and its tongue!
• the mixed colours on the parrot's wings
• the way the grass looked real (and was a different green to the parrot)

Well done, Hannah!  You will be the judge next week...

What does a snail see?

We have had great fun this week learning about photography.  We have been thinking about different ways to take our photos...and one of the ways was from a snail's view.  Here are a couple of examples:

Then we tried to imagine what it would be like to be a giant looking down at something:

 

 

You can tell we are having fun!



Excellent illustrators # 3

Caleb had a tough job this week choosing the next 'excellent illustrator' for our weekly poem but he eventually chose Leighton.  Here is Leighton's work:

Here are the comments we made:

• he used good colours
• there are lots of beautiful pictures
• we liked the detail he put into the dog, trolley, the bird in the tree and the man on the moon

Well done, Leighton!  You will be the judge this week!

More Mixed Up Stories

We have had some more fun with our mixed up stories.  Here are a few we read today:

A big boy
married a woman
and three days later she put him in
the dump.

By Talaiasi

The penguin
made a wooden boy
and had to wear handcuffs when he was put into
a boat.

By Vernon

...and this one by Ben G

 

Puss in Boots

was captured by the police crew

and they learnt to walk with

the beautiful girls in room 2.

Excellent illustrators #2

Our winner from last week, Loisi, chose Caleb as our 'Excellent illustrator' this week.  Here is his spring poem:

These are the comments we collected about his work:

• Caleb added extra details (birds, real looking eggs in a nest, a tree with spring colours, the sun, clouds)
• he added colour to the title which made it stand out more
• we liked the way he added lines to make the bee look like it was zooming along

Well done, Caleb.  It will be your turn to choose the winner next week!

Reuby Doo Show # 2

Here is another episode of the Reuby Doo Show...with special guest, Nate!  Thanks to Kayla who was the director of the video and to Ben G who does the announcements!

Excellent illustrators!

This term we are going to think about being excellent illustrators.  Sometimes we draw our own pictures and sometimes we colour a picture that another illustrator has made.  Either way...we need to do our best work!
This week the class chose Loisi as our 'excellent illustrator' for her Spring poem.  Here it is!

 

We thought Loisi had:

• made the picture match the words ("pink and white" buds on the trees)
• used the bright green that we see on Spring trees
• coloured the person in 'true' colours
• added some extra details (but not too much!)

Well done, Loisi - you are our very first excellent illustrator!



Special treats from a special lady

It was very sad to say "Goodbye!" to our College teacher, Mrs Young, at the end of the term.  On the last day, she came to school with a very special treat for everyone in Room 10 - cupcakes!  We need to say "Thanks" to Mr Young too because we know that he helped to make them as well.  Don't they look scrumptious?  The chocolate butterflies on the top are really amazing.  Thanks Mr and Mrs Young!

Te Manawa Trip

We have really enjoyed thinking about "Our School Now" as part of the school Jubilee celebrations this year. It was very interesting to go to Te Manawa and look at the old schoolhouse as well. Here are some photos from our trip.
Please remember that there may an advertisement at the end of the slideshow.  Always take care when using the internet!

 

Hockey Superstars!

Our College teacher, Mrs Young, has been teaching us some hockey skills.  It has been fun!  Here is a video of us having a go at 'dribbling' the hockey ball up and back on the court - a bit like our running relays.  Do you think we are good?

Skipping fun!

We have been practising some skipping skills.  Ben G and Leighton told us they were really good at this trick.  They are doing a 'basic jump' but they have swapped their handles on the inside so that they are turning the rope for each other!  How do you think they are doing?

Malo e lelei!

We have had a wonderful Tongan Language Week.  Special thanks to Loisi, Talaiasi and Vernon for sharing their language with us each day.  There are a lot of words the same as Maori we found out and we all loved listening to the beautiful sounds of Tongan being spoken.  Vernon praying in Tongan almost made Mrs S cry...it was awesome!
On Friday afternoon , all the Tongan children at school had a special activity with Mrs Jorgensen.  Here is the amazing art they did - this picture is by Loisi.

The Reuby Doo Show!

What do you do with an amazing child who spells all the words you could possibly want him to?  You give him his own 'spelling show' of course!  We hope you enjoy "The Reuby Doo Show" and that you learn some words that make you go "WOW!"

 

 

P.S.  This video may not show automatically in Internet Explorer, but you can see it in Google Chrome (free download).  Sorry about that...we are just learning!

We can...

We have been thinking about what it means to be 'holy'.  We read a story called "Jesus and the 12 Dudes That Did" then we thought about what we can do today - just like the disciples did when they were with Jesus.  We wrote our ideas down.  Here there are!

 

 

How do you think we can be 'holy' everyday?

 

Guess who read our blog...

It was very exciting today to read a comment from author Debbie Diesen.  She wrote the book 'The Pout-Pout Fish' which we enjoyed reading in Room 10.  We had been learning about alliteration and found some really fabulous examples in her story.  It is very encouraging to hear from a REAL author as we learn about writing ourselves. Check out her comment under the post about 'Alliteration'.
Thanks, Debbie!

Olympic Sports Festival

NB: There is one slide at the end - advertising!  The content is appropriate at the time of publishing but care is always needed when working on the internet :-)

Olympic sports festival from ccsaroha

Aroha team and Room 6 had a fabulous day at the Arena the other week.  It was a great chance to celebrate the Olympics and also to learn about different sports and games.  There were LOTS of children there (and some very tired but happy teachers by the end of the day!)
What was your favourite activity?

A writing tree?

Have you seen our writing tree in Room 10?  Here it is if you haven't!

 

 

We have been thinking about growing into 'Level 2' writers.  There are a few 'surface features' to work on.  These are things like spelling and punctuation that help our readers enjoy our work easily.  We have put these up the top of the tree.

The 'deeper features' are down the bottom and there are LOTS of them!  They are like the roots of the tree and they make our writing 'strong'.  These are the things that really make our writing interesting and make you want to read more.

Please ask us what our goals for writing are because we are practising talking about our learning!

Mr Mollard

Wasn't it awesome to see Mr Mollard at school last week?  I think we all enjoyed the rugby game on Thursday...even if the Cornerstone team lost.  I'm sure it was very different to the rugby team in India that Mr Mollard works with!
At assembly on Friday, he talked about their life in Delhi, India.  It is SO different to Palmerston North!  What did you think about Charlie and Oli's school?  Did you see things that were the same...or different?  Maybe we could ask Charlie and Oli to tell us what they play at playtime in India!  That would be interesting!

Our fish are named!

At last the voting is finished!  We have chosen names from all the suggestions posted in and the winners are...

• The red fish is Ferrari (thanks to Nate)
• The yellow fish is Sunny (thanks to Abbey)
• The blue fish is Anakin - (thanks to Asher) but there was a lot of votes for Pingu (by Ben G) as well! 
• The orange fish is Nemo (thanks to Loisi)
• The black fish is Coke (thanks to Abbey - you have great ideas!)
• The greeny / grey fish is Hopper (thanks to Nate).  We had an awesome runner name too - it was Stormy.  Guess who thought of that?   Abbey again!

Thanks to everyone for your ideas.  Just remember to keep feeding our fish too!

In the 'Olden Days'...

We have some questions to ask you!  We are thinking about what we do at school NOW, but we would also like to find out about what school was like for our parents and grandparents.  We would love to hear your answers please.

To write your answer, look down the right hand side of this page for "In the Olden Days" and click on the link there.  A 'Post-it' wall will pop up and you can leave your answers there!

These are our questions:

• What were your favourite games at school?
• Did you have sports gear to use at playtime?
• What did you have in the playground to play with?
• What did you do at playtime on rainy days?
• Did you have games in your classroom to play?
• Did you wear uniforms?
• How many children were in your class?

Please choose a question and leave us an answer.  Thank you!

Alliteration!

We have been learning about alliteration in our writing time.  That is when the same letter or sound is used at the beginning of some words that are written together.  Here are some examples that we made up:

• Kayla is a cool Kingdom Kid.
• Rally Reuben raced robots.
• Awesome Abbey ate apples.
• Clever Caleb can catch cats.

Later we read the story "The Pout Pout Fish" and we found lots of alliteration in it too!  It helped us to see how authors use alliteration to make their writing interesting.  If you can, have a look at that book and you'll see what we mean!

Can you make up some alliteration to share with us as a comment?

More Mixed Up Stories

There is a book that gave us the idea of making 'Mixed Up Stories'.  We have the book in our room at the moment, so we have made a story from it to share with you.

It says:
Cinderella
was laughed at by ducks
and discovered a huge pile of tresure that had been stolen by
an apple.

We hope you enjoyed another crazy mixed up story!

Do you know Daniel?

We have been reading about Daniel in the Bible.  He loved God and prayed to God all the time...even when it meant he was going to be thrown into the lion's den!  That must have been so scary!  His friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego also choose to do what God wanted...and they were thrown into a fiery furnace!  It was really tough living in those days!

Daniel and his friends made the right choices and tried to be good for God.  What can WE learn from them that we can do at school and home?

Another handwriting goal!

Hannah has a goal to make her writing the same in all her books.  Here is a picture of her handwriting book (left) then her reading book (right).

 Do you think Hannah is achieving her goal?  Do her books look the same?  Please add a comment to tell her what you think!

Handwriting goals

Leighton's goal for handwriting is to add sloping to his letters.  Here is a picture of his handwriting.

How do you think Leighton is doing with his goal?

Vernon's goal is to get better at the size and shape of his letters.  Here is a picture of his handwriting.

Vernon stills thinks he can make his 'i' a bit bigger.  What do you think?

Olympic Sports Festival

We had an amazing time at the Olympic Sports Festival last Friday!  There were SO MANY kids there...
We had a great time learning about different games and how to play them.  We could play some of those games at school too!  I wonder what your favourite sport or activity was?  Can you leave a comment and tell us?  What did you like best about the day?

Maths Week

Remember that this is the only week we can use the Maths Week website!  Log on to www.mathsweek.org.nz and put in your user name and password for heaps of maths fun!

Our fish!

We have had a couple of great suggestions for names so the yellow fish will be called Sunny (thanks Abbey for this idea) and the red one will be Ferrari (thanks Nate).  I wonder if that means the red one is a fast swimmer?  We'll have to wait and see...
By Mrs Sutherland

Mixed up stories

We love a book that has mixed up stories in it...so we decided to make some ourselves!  Here is one by Kayla.

Her story says:

The snake
got a scooter which he loved
and sat on the chair that belonged to
the jail.

Each part of the story is on a different colour so we can choose different ideas to put together to make new stories.  Here are some others we made today:

Abbey's story -
A cat
made a wooden boy
and bought some food for
a magic bean stalk.

Hannah's story -
Hannah
was captured by the police crew
and had to wear handcuffs when she was put into
a shark.

Jada-Arielle's story -
The book  monster
had tiny, cute babies
and took them to her house to show
the dump.

You can see some of them end up very silly...but they always make us laugh and enjoying reading!

Help us name our fish

We thought it would be fun to give names to the fish down on the right hand side of our blog.  Would you like to leave us a comment with some ideas?  We will collect all the ideas and choose the ones that the most of our class agree on.  Have fun!

Science Fair - Room 12

This was the project from Room 12 that we liked the most.  These are some of our thoughts about it:

• It was good that they made a bow and tested it (Hannah, Reuben H)
• I liked how they made one bow tougher than the other one (Kayla)

We also thought of some more things that make projects interesting:

• you need pictures because that's how you can see how they made things (Kayla)
• pictures make the boards colourful too (Jada-Arielle)

When we got back to Room 10, we made a list of the things that are important when you do a Science Fair project:

• You need a good idea
• You need a cool title
• You need lots of pictures and colour to make it interesting
• You need to make sure your face is not in the photos
• It helps if you can show what you made

Science Fair - Room 11

Isn't this a cool Science Fair project?  It was our favourite one when we looked in Room 11.  These are the things we liked about it:

• the title is colourful (Loisi)
• the Lego kit would be very handy because it splits Lego and that can be hard to do (Nate, Abbey, Ben G, Reuben H)
• the bucket on the top is cool (Leighton, Amon)

We thought it was a very interesting idea and that is SUPER important for the Science Fair! (Abbey)

Show you care!

Last week we had a magician come to do a show at school.  He told us it was not really magic...it is just tricks that fool our eyes!  El Gregoe was very clever and we loved the animals he used in the tricks too.

As well as having fun, we learned some very important lessons about bullying.  Bullying is NOT ok at anyone's school.  We need to care for other people and think about how they are feeling.  Being kind by choosing the right words to say and the right things to do means you can have a 'Bully free zone' at your place.
El Gregoe told us another thing - you might know this saying, just like we did:
Treat other people the way you want to be treated 
or as we say it -
Do to others as you would have them do to you.


Have you got any ideas to help us make the right choices and care for people?

Harold was here!

All of the school had a turn at going to the Life Education truck in the first 2 weeks of the term.  Harold is a giraffe and he is the mascot for the Life Ed programme.  Room 10 had a great topic called 'Space Invaders'.  What do you think that would be about?
'Space Invaders' was about how our body eats and uses food for energy.  It made us think about what we eat and if it helps us to be strong and healthy and smart.  We looked at our lunches boxes and talked out the food we eat.  We made a food pyramid to help us think and labelled as much food as we could in Te Reo.  It was a real challenge but we are pleased with the learning we did.
How do you think we went?

Welcome!

This is our first attempt at blogging and our goal is to see how it helps us share our learning with family and friends at home and around the whole world!  It will take us a while to get used to how we can add our work to the blog, and the different ways we can use it as part of our classroom programme.  Please share this journey with us and add a comment to help us 'Learn Serve and Grow' in God.