Our Cluster Connection

This year we have to comment on our cluster buddy class blog.  Our cluster buddy class is Te Rōpū Manawahroa at Gilberthorpe School. 

Today Miss Scott asked us to answer questions in groups about commenting on other people's blogs.  Here are some of our answers.

Why is it good to comment on their blog?
To get to know them and understand our buddy class, To tell them what we like about their blog posts, Help them to improve their posts (by Sonnie, Talisa, Lydia and Tiana)
Because we don't like being rude,  (Sean, Vilar and Tyran)

What can we learn from other classes blogs?
Art projects, That we can post more, It is good to know what other people are doing in the classroom (by Jacob, Jaedun, Temera, Michaela, Rye, Neveah and Jasmine)
We can get to know other people better and they can know us better, you can start a conversation, you can learn more things about their class and what they are learning (by Lennox, Nuu and Tory)

What is hard about commenting on other people's blogs
Sometimes you don't know what to say by Kody and Bryce
When they don't return more facts then you have nothing to question, when you don't know how to spell the words, when you don't understand what the post is about (by Sophia, Ahyan, Shylah, Venice, Freya, Victoria)

Amazing Writing

One of the activities that we complete during our reading rotations is a 100 Word Count Story.  It is really difficult to get exactly 100 words and still have stories that make sense.  Here are three of the stories we have written for the prompts.

The first prompt we had was the phrase

“....it was completely out of tune.”

I was in a shop I don’t know what I was even doing. I just woke up in the middle of a busy shop.
It was so busy I could not move to good.  It looked like it was a game shop. There was music
playing but suddenly it was completely out of tune. It started to go all fuzzy and cold. I thought
there was a blizzard outside or even in side it was that cold. People were confused when I got
so cold. It started to get warmer and we looked outside and the blizzard started going away.

By Jacob

This was it. My sister has finally got her chance to show everyone exactly what she can do. She was
prepared and ready to sing. She put on her sparkly sequined beautiful purple dress and  make up. She
looked so amazing and I believed she could do it. She marched on to the stage. I could see her
confidence and fear. She started to sing and I realised something was wrong. Everyone booed and
I could tell she did not notice what she was doing wrong. When the song ended I told her her song was
completely out of tune.

By Talisa

The second prompt we had was this picture

The sun blazed on my skin while I Iaid in my pool then Jack’s dad said, “Come, we need to go right
now!” We went to a camp.  It was called Camp Sunnyside then suddenly Jack's dad Jeff gave him a knife
and said, “Protect yourself, ok kid?” Suddenly the ground moved. I was unsteady on my feet  then lots
of army men came and shouted “ GET IN THE BUS OK LITTLE KIDS NO PARENTS ALLOWED!”
Then all the kids went in and left to a place far away an army base then Jack screamed “WHERE'S MR
SNUGGLES MY TEDDY BEAR?”.

By Jaedun

Class Name Art

We have been working to make a group poster of showing our class name.  We had to work together to reach decisions.  Our work had to have patterns and bright colours.  It was challenging ot work with others and have to listen to their idea.

If we began to get upset with our group we had to use some calming strategies.  This week we used dragon breathing, squeezing the lemons and 5 finger breathing to calm down when we were getting upset.

Collaborative Art Project

We made a tree that shows we are individuals.  We all designed
our own individual circles with our own patterns and then wrote
things about ourselves on the back.  

On one circle we wrote something we wished for, on another
circle we wrote what we like and don’t like and on the third circle
we wrote something that makes us angry.

Then we had to arrange the circles in colour groups and stick
them to our big tree.

Zones of Regulation

For topic we are doing some art work and looking at where we fit in the zones of regulation.  By knowing where we fit we can learn about our triggers and what happens when we move zones.  Our artwork is all collaborative at the moment and it can be hard to work with others.

Here are the zones of regulation we are using.

Today we also brainstormed different emotions and tried to put them in the different colour zones.

Welcome Visitors

Hello Visitors, welcome to our blog.

We are Room 7 at Hornby Primary School.  We are an amazing class of Year 5 and 6 students.  We think we are the best class in the school.

This term we have been doing lots of great things like Kelly Sports, Art, school work, maths, swimming, fitness, spelling, reading, writing, basketball, recount pyramids, water fights and so much more.

On our blog you will see more detail about what we have been doing.  Thanks for visiting - enjoy yourselves.

From Room Seven

Buddy Class

On Friday we had our first buddy class session.  We are working with Room 1 this year.  One of the first things we did was talk about the Zones of Regulation.  We had already talked about this in our class the day before.  People had to decide what Zone they were in.

Next got put with a buddy.  Then we could join with another buddy pair.  We had to make a tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows.  This was really frustrating for some people and move them from one zone to another.

Hot Weather Fun

With the temperatures soaring we have been lucky enough to be allowed lunchtime swims.  Today it was a little different  - the whole school was invited to take part in a water fight.  This included the teachers and other staff.  Everyone got completely soaked but it was great fun.

Kelly Sport

Today we had two coaches from Kelly Sport come to school.  The took us through a variety of activities that were great fun and help to develop our co-ordination and sporting skills.  Here we are taking part in the activities.

Basketball Training

On Wednesday afternoons we are lucky enough to have people from the Rams Basketball organisation coming out to school to help us develop our skills.  This is great practice before the Friday night competition starts in Term 2.

Finding Out About People In Our Class

WALT Identify things that make us unique in our class

Today we had the opportunity to play a class bingo game.  This involved us trying to fill in our Bingo Card with people's names.  It was a great opportunity to talk to different people and find out things about others we didn't know.  Here is an example of the Bingo Cards we used.

Our Class Treaty

After discussions in the class about what a treaty is we came up with ideas for our class treaty.  These ideas were typed up and we all had the opportunity to sign it.  Here is our class treaty.

Swimming 2019

Today we spent some time in the pool getting used to the routines and expectation for getting changed and moving around the pool.  After this we were lucky enough to have some free time.

Summer Learning Journey Winners

Today Emma came to school to announce the winners of the summer learning journey.  The Summer Learning Journey involved blogging over the holidays.  Research has shown that this helps to maintain (and in some cases accelerate) students levels of achievement over the course of the summer holidays.

A number of pupils received certificates for their blogging.  Tory from Room 7 won a spot prize, Celine from Room 6 had the second highest number of blog posts in the school.

Talisa was the big winner  - she had the highest number of blog posts from the whole cluster of schools that were involved.  This was a fantastic effort and she truly deserves all the prizes she received.

El Gregoe

We were lucky enough to start the school year with a visit from El Gregoe the magician.  He brought his birds with him and also a puppet called Borris.  El Gregoe called some of the students up to help with his show.  

The message from El Gregoe this year was 

T .  Truthful

H . Helpful

I .  Integrity

N . Nice

K . Kind

We need to T.H.I.N.K when you act, speak or post.  El Gregoe and Borris also talked about using our W.I.T.S when people are being mean to us.

Mihi Whakatau

Today we started the year with a Mihi Whakatau.  This was a way of welcoming the new people to the school.  We had a fantastic crowd of people.  Whaea Rovena performed the karanga to call the new students and their families into the school.  We had speeches from Matua Hector and Mr Roberts on behalf of the tangata whenua (hosts, people of the land).  Mr Martyn spoke for the manuhiri (visitors or guests).  Here are some pictures of the event.