William reads to his class

William Reads 'Hairy Mclary' from Whaea Katie on Vimeo.

Cross Country Placement Awards

Today at our whole school assembly the students who came in 1st, 2nd or 3rd place in our school’s Cross Country race (in their respective year and gender categories), were awarded with their certificates. It was pretty exciting and there were a few students from Room 2 who proudly clutched onto their certificates as the school cheered and clapped their achievements.

Whaea Katie took this photo back outside our class after the assembly; unfortunately Te Aronui had already disappeared off home, so he's not in them (sorry Te Aronui). Well done to everyone in Room 2 who participated in the Cross Country, but here is a special mention to our classes quickest legs… well done guys!!!

Hip, hip, horary, Draydyn's seven today!

The organization and party shenanigans continues!



Celebrating birthdays with parties sure can be a lot of fun, but they are definitely a bit of work to organize too (as we found out). But I have to say, I think we all did a fantastic job... don't you agree?

More photos:

A special thank you Whaea Jeanette, Whaea Holly and Whaea Tui who helped us with the baking!

And another special thank you to everyone who was just mentioned along with Mrs Stewart, Carol and Whaea Ngakari who were special visitors at our party!

Room Two ~ the PaRTy planners!

This week our 'Celebrations' inquiry has been focused on planning a birthday party to celebrate Draydyn's 7th birthday.

At the start of the week, we had our thinking caps on, trying to decide where we would go next with our inquiry. Somehow the topic of birthday parties came up and Draydyn explained it was his birthday at the end of the week. Room 2 found this fact very exciting and decided we should work as a team to plan and organise a class birthday party for him as a part of our 'Celebrations' inquiry.

Take a look at what we got up to...

Team Work

The Room 2 students are learning to work well in a team!

After seeing ourselves work in our thinking group, we made up success criteria for working well together in a team.

We are learning to work well in a team (learning intention) by making sure...

1. Each member of the team takes on a job

2. Each team member listens actively to the person sharing

3. Everyone is included (everyone shares and listens to each other)

4. The team perseveres to get the set work done

Karakia Mo te Kai

Karakia Mo te Kai
Whakapaingia ēnei kai
Hei oranga mo ō mātou tinana
Whāngaia ō mātou wairua
Ki te taro o te ora
Ko Ihu Karaiti tō mātou kaiwhakaora
Āmine

In English:
Bless our Food
As well being for our body
Feed our spirit
With the food of wellness
For Jesus Christ our Healer
Amen

(I will add a video or recording asap)

Karakia Tïmatanga ~ prayer to start the day

Whakataka te hau ki te uru,
Whakataka te hau ki te tonga.
Kia mākinakina ki uta,
Kia mātaratara ki tai.
E hī ake ana te atākura
he tio, he huka, he hauhunga.
Tihei mauriora.


For those of you who may be interested, here is the English translation for this karakia:

Cease the winds from the west.
Cease the winds from the south.
Let the breeze blow over the land.
Let the breeze blow over the ocean.
Let the red-tipped dawn come with a sharpened air.
A touch of frost, a promise of glorious day.

Ready, set… go!!!

Today we had our whole school cross country. Everyone in Room 2 felt like they had put in their best effort... well done us!

Thank you to all of the parents and whanau who came along to support us!!!

Before School Jobs

When we get to school, before the bell rings, there are a few things we need to organise so we are ready for learning.

First we need to hang up our bag in our outdoor cloak bay area...



Then we can go in to class with our homework bag, give our teacher a big smile and hello, change over our fluency reading book and pop the homework bag into the right box.



Its then time to put the chairs down, put our equipment caddies on our thinking group tables...



... and sharpen the pencils...



On Monday mornings we also make sure our new homework sheet is stuck into our homework books.



Then, we are ready for our day of learning.

Lights, camera… action!!!

“Lights, camera… action!” was the theme of our Scholastic Book Fair this week. And we had a great time celebrating reading during our Book Fair, character Dress up day parade (even though it got very chilly!).

Afterwards we went back to our warm and comfy classroom with Room 9. The big kids from Room 9 spent time with us, reading us stories and talking to us about books (some of us even read a book or two to our big buddy too!).