On Tuesday night my wife, Christall, was on Maori Television. Her life and work was on display and she showed her appreciation of natural resources and the sustainability of harakeke. I'm sure that some of you may have seen the programme, but for those who missed it here it is. KETE ARONUI
Kia ora everyone just a notice to tell you that a travelling Minstrel is coming to school to entertain the children. We would like everyone to attend so please bring the money in quickly.
Time: 4th August, 9:15 - 10:15 Place: School Hall Cost: $3.00
Hello everyone I hope that you all have had a good break and are eagerly waiting to get back to school. We have an exciting term ahead of us. One of the things we will be looking at is making webcasts of our learning. If you look at the video above you will see an example of how you will be showing your learning to your parents.
This term we will be doing:
Theme: Kia Kaha / Fabric and Fibres Unit I.C.T: Blogs/Computer safety Writing: Procedural Reading: Procedural Maths: Multiplication/Division Handwriting: Slope/Ligatures Kapa Haka: Ka mate/Haere mai Art: Korowai/pake puakarimu (rain cape)
This term we will be hosting the school assembly. This will happen in week six of the school Calendar. We will be having learning conferences this term as well and it will be happening on the same week as our assembly.
On the last two days of the term we got some new computers for our classroom. Earlier in the term we were trialing the system to see if it met our ICT needs and we found out it did! So the wonderful members of our B.O.T got on board and purchased us new system and it works just great. Now Room L is even more excited about ICT we are really looking forward to this new term. Below is a power point of our system.
At Manchester Street School we value the members in our school by having a designated time to spend with each other. During this time we cover things that relate and are pertinent to the school ethos. Here we are getting to know one another's name and what we like do in our spare time. We feel that this time is precious because it builds a sense of 'whanau' amongst children of all ages.
Although it's a little late it still deserves a mention. Michael Jackson is one of the most influential artists of our time. He has changed the landscape of music in so many ways. Even with his troubled life he still emerged as an inspiration to many. I have enjoyed his music for decades and a few of my personal favourites are 'ABC' and 'Scream' to name a couple. But one of the best videos that I've ever seen is Smooth Criminal. But here is a video that keeps with the tone of our school called 'Earth Song'.
Here is one of the best songs from Michael Jackson's memorial service "Heal the World". This term we will learn this song and we might perform it for our assembly
Lyrics: Heal the World
(Verse 1)
There's a place in
Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could
Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need
To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow
(Pre Chorus)
There Are Ways
To Get There
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place...
(Chorus)
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
(Bridge)
And The Dream We Were
Conceived In
Will Reveal A Joyful Face
And The World We
Once Believed In
Will Shine Again In Grace
Then Why Do We Keep
Strangling Life
Wound This Earth
Crucify Its Soul
Though It's Plain To See
This World Is Heavenly
Be God's Glow
(Verse 2)
We Could Fly So High
Let Our Spirits Never Die
In My Heart
I Feel You Are All
My Brothers
Create A World With
No Fear
Together We'll Cry
Happy Tears
See The Nations Turn
Their Swords
Into Plowshares
(Pre Chorus)
We Could Really Get There
If You Cared Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
To Make A Better Place...
(Chorus)
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
If you are interested in who the lead singer was who sang "Heal the World" her name is Judith Hill. She is possibly the latest sensation to arise from the ashes of a fallen star. There is an interview with her on Entertainment Tonight and this is the song she sang after the interview, "We are the World."
This term we have been reading the book "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen. It is a story about a young boy who gets stranded out in the Canadian bush when his plane goes down. We all were engrossed with the story and these are some of the comments that the kids made after it
Here is a vocabulary presentation of the book "Hatchet". Click here and see what are the key words in the story and what they mean.
Comments:
Caitlin: I didn't like how he left at the end because he left all the yummy food.
Blair: I was surprised at how long he lived in the wild.
Jonny: I can't believe that he changed as soon as he found the survival kit.
Shayla: I think the story was awesome.
Jamie: It was a very interesting book and I loved it.
Amanda: I was happy when he got saved.
Taine: He lived happily ever after.
Mitchell: I was surprised that he found the survival pack in the plane.
Thomas B: It was amazing how the hatchet saved his life.
Samantha: I like the part when he found the tail of the plane in the lake.
Floyd: I was surprise how he got the hatchet back from the bottom of the lake.
Sam: I was amazed at how he could make a fire with the hatchet.
We are looking for a new book to read for term 3. Do you have any suggestions??
Out of interest I would like to see how many parents of the children in Room L visit this blog and the frequency thereof. So if you are not a parent then you can pass on by, however if you are a parent please spend 5 seconds to enter your vote anonymously.
For the art component of our wind unit we decided to do a mural. We were learning how Tawhirimatea is the wind god in maori legend. He was one of the few sons who did not want to see his mum and dad (Papatuanuku and Ranginui) separated, so he lashed out at his brothers with great gusts of wind. Although this did not stop his brothers Tawhirimatea still shows his disapproval at times with great winds. Today when Tawhirimatea is not so angry he can help us by turning the Wind Turbines with his breath and giving us clean energy. This is our interpretation of Te Apiti Wind Farm. If you would like to visit the mural in person you are more than welcome to come into Room L to look.
On Friday when I went home with Eamon we had pizza for tea it, was yummy. In the morning when I woke up it was in Eamon's room. On Saturday I went to watch Eamon play rugby, his team is called Counties. Later on that day we played on the X Box and drew some pictures. Thanks for coming QBear and frends.
If you saw Christian the Lion on the program "Sunday" then you may be interested in this posting. Christian was a lion cub that was put up for sale in a shop called "Harrods" in London. Two friends thought that they would purchase him to take care of him. Anyhow they had a good time bringing him up and became very attached to him. Like all animal lovers there was true affection shared between both pet and owner. After a while they realised that they needed to return him back to the wild. So when a year had passed they thought that they would visit him and although everyone told them that the lion had turned wild they visited him nevertheless. Here is how the meeting turned out...
Carrying on from our Enviro Day (wow what a day, it's generated a lot of ideas) we have made a mosaic of all the photos we took. It is suppose to look like the photo that is posted below. Does it look like it?Nah, not really but I gave it a go anyway.
Mrs Harris has asked that I join the choir for a little while. The choir wants to sing the "Banana Boat" song and I will join the choir to play the guitar for them. Here is the song anyway. I will put some postings up later with updates.
An article posted on the TV3 website showed that in the US families were spending less and less time with each other due to the use (or over use) of the internet. Social network sites such as facebook and others have grown exponentially over the last year which suggests that the interest is not only with young people but also with grown ups. Click here to read more.
Well it seemed like it was clear cut from game one that the L.A. Lakers lead by the incomparable Kobe Bryant would take out the NBA basket title. Although the Orlando Magic lead by superman Dwight Howard bounced back in game three to defeat their opponents, the writing was all over the wall in terms of who had the superior execution.
Many doubted whether Kobe could lead the Lakers to another title without the colossus Shaquille O'Neal, but those critics were put to the sword when Kobe averaged 32 points during the finals and was picked as the finals MVP (most valuable player) to prove that he is worthy to be counted as one of the greats.
On Friday Q Bear and his friends and came to my house for the weekend. As soon as we got home we had some noodles and watched Sponge Bob. Later that night we had mince for tea. Later on we watched the Simpsons, it was funny. Q Bear and I went to Bulls to go to my Dads work. Q Bear's friends came too. At eight thirty we watched the All Blacks verses France. The All Blacks lost 22-27. It finished at eleven fifteen but I didn't go to bed until one o clock in the morning. On Sunday Q Bear his friends and I got up for breakfast. We had Weet-Bix. I had five of them.
For the rest of the Term we will be doing the Unit Kia Kaha.
The aim of the unit is to create an environment where all members of the school community feel safe, respected and valued, and where we show positive actions toward each other.
The General Objective is so that students, parents, caregivers, and teachers work together to create a safe learning environment that is based on mutual respect, tolerances and a respect for diversity.
Our ultimate goal is that we can work with each other in harmony and collaboratively. We recognise that while our class is large we nevertheless work in a small space, and so we need to be kind with our words and actions to each other. We will be using this song as a theme song so that it will remind us about our goals.
If you watch this clip closely. You will see that there are a large number of people who work collaboratively to make this song so great. The first person sets the platform and all the other artists listen to his recording and add their own piece to it. In the end it makes quite an ensemble. Have a listen!
Well here is another dose of You Tube for you. I get these videos off Tony Ryan's blog. Tony Ryan is an inspiration to me as an educator and he is an all round decent bloke.
If this doesn’t cheer you up, nothing will!
Antwerp Central Railway Station in Belgium on March 23 2009. A recording of Do Re Me, sung by Julie Andrews, suddenly began playing over the public address system, and 200 people streamed out of the crowd and began dancing. They had practised twice. Pretty good effort for two rehearsals.
There has been some suggestion that schools should try to catch this craze since schools are a reservoir of talent. How about all the middle school children who are learning "Thriller" with Mrs Whittaker take this into the K-Mart Plaza in Palmy? What do you say Mrs Whittaker?
I know that many of you enjoyed Karl Lowe's visit the other week, and so I just want to update you about his baby that he told you about. His son is Kalani and he was born on Wednesday morning, cool aye? So that makes me an uncle again.
Hawkes Bay Today (newspaper) wrote a story on the event so click here if you want to read it.
For our buddy time. We had a look at the inside of a generator. This was very important because it would help us understand what goes on inside of a wind turbine and how it harnesses the wind to make electricity.
Every Saturday we play a game of netball. We all play against other schools. We have six players on the court from each team. Then the whistle blows and the game begins. It takes a lot of passes to get the ball to the shooter. The shooter shoots the ball with the defenders trying to distract her. That is how you play netball.
We started well because we had the ball first. We scored lots of goals because we made a lot of intercepts. At the end we celebrated because we won 13 to 5.
Last week Kaelib and Calvin went to the Nursery. In the Nursery we helped Ruth pull out weeds and carrots. We put the weeds in the wheelbarrow and we put the carrots in the bucket. Then we washed them under the tap. After that we dug up the compost and put the compost in the compost bin.
At the start of the game I was very nervous and so was Matt . I was not on at first but Matthew was. He played goal keep. We were facing Hiwinui school and we played at Hiwinui school. Angus and George played defence. In the mid-field was Bryceen Mitchell and Luca. Max was the striker and Matthew was in the goal. As soon as the whistle blew the game was on. They kicked off. Hiwinui got past Max and then nearly scored a goal. It was close game the score was 2 - 1 but a goal was disallowed, so it was a draw.
We had the special privilege of having Karl Lowe as a guest speaker for the day. Karl Lowe is a rugby player who has played for the Hawkes Bay Magpies, and the famous Wellington Hurricanes. His highest achievement in rugby is making the Junior All Blacks.
Room L welcomed Karl and his younger brother Jacob with a hearty Haka 'Ka Mate'. Then we sang 'I believe I can fly' by R. Kelly. He said it was "awesome!!"
Some of the things that I liked about Karl's talk was that his mum brought him up byhaving goals, working hard, having dreams [his dream was to be an All Black] and although he hasn't made it yet he hopes to one day.
If you want to see the full interview then you can press play below. ps. sorry about the heater banging in the background.
Yummy! Remember there is a sausage sizzle on Wednesday. So if you would like to have one for your lunch you have to order it by Tuesday 9:00. The cost is $1.00.
On Saturday Q-Bear watched Jamie play rugby.Then Layton came to stay the night.We had fish,in,chips for tea.On Sunday we watched Haydon play under eleven reps rugby.They lost twenty to seventeen, but he played really well. In the afternoon we all went riding under the bridge in Bulls.That was cool! Our dog Jake had fun as well. Q-Bear went for a ride on Jamie's motorbike. I think he had fun. Then we had to go home. It was a cool day.
