Chritmas Cookies - easy

Click on the picture below to enlarge the recipe we used to make Christmas cookies in class.

Add cinnamon and ginger if you wish - we used a wee bit.

Gold coin donation

An opportunity has arisen for our class to give back to the commumnity. West Lynn Gardens has a beautiful Christmas tree. We can help decorate it and give a gold coin donation for each decoration. West Lynn Gardens (click here to see their website) runs solely by donations.

I've put forward Room 24 to help make decorations and donate to West Lynn Gardens. If you would like to donate, please bring a gold coin donation on Monday. We will be making pinecone decorations on Monday.  There will be other fun activities as well.

Christmas

What a lovely time we've had celebrating the fast approaching Christmas holidays. Room 24's learning has been integrated into lots of fun activities:

• measurement language of mass and volume into Christmas baking
• skip counting in 2s and 15s around Christmas tree outlines
• writing about Christmas stories
• creating harakeke and pohutukawa Christmas scenes

The children worked hard to create iced Christmas cookies. They will go home on Friday. Thank you Melanie Sorby for all your help.

Reading, spelling and white icecream containers

Reading and Spelling
This week there will be no reading books sent home as we are counting all the books at school for our yearly stocktake. There will be no phonics spelling lists sent home this week. Instead, practise your essential list words.

White Icecream Containers
If you have any white icecream containers, could you please bring them in to class. I am making them into containers for maths for next year. I need as many as I can get my hands on. Thank you so much!

Basic facts practice will be as normal this week.

Yoog is back

Welcome back Yoog! Yoog is back from India. Here is a picture of his house in India. Children, have a look at the architecture. What are the similarities and differences of this house to homes in New Lynn? Why are some things similar and some things different?


It's great to have you back Yoog!

Aman's plants at home

Here are pictures of Aman's beans at home. Well done Aman!

Plants growing at home

Here's a picture of Devereaux at home with his beans. Sorry, the picture refused to go the right way.

Measuring - Mass, Volume and Length

Which bottle holds more volume? We diluted some citrus fertliser concentrate to watch the colour lighten. The more the water ligthened, the larger volume it held. We then poured bottles into each other to see which ones held more volume and which ones held less.

Next, we looked at mass. Can you guess how many pieces of lego a cone holds by looking at it?

Can you guess Kaydince's cone lego mass?

A fond farewell to our plants

A news packed week



The plants we have been helping grow are now ready to go home. If you have room, please plant them in your garden or in a potplant. The peas and beans should be ready in time for Christmas.

Here's what's been happening:

• James won every event he entered in the 7 years division in the Auckland Motorcross Champs (he's only six!).
• Four people won a colouring competition: Jaanvi, Alaina, Silvia and Devereaux.
• Jayden went to Eden Park with eight other Arahoe children to learn athletics moves and meet Valerie Adams.
• We visited two beautiful gardens of our parents and relatives of the school. A big thank you to Cat and Mark (their son Zach is in Room 15), and Katrina (aunty of Jayden).
• Jaanvi had her last day - we will miss you Jaanvi. Enjoy beautiful Fiji.

Click here for more pictures and videos of the event from stuff.co.nz.

Thank you Katrina

Thank you Cat and Mark

We will miss you Jaanvi!

 





Arahoe kids do the Gangnam with Valerie Adams

A group of Ara Teina children went to Eden Park this week to experience an athletics movement course. They met Olympic gold medalist and shot put superstar,Valerie Adams! They even danced with her.

Kids... Valerie Adams is a true example of someone who eats all their fruit and vegetables because her skin was glowing... and boy was she toned!

Click here to watch a clip of TV One news.

Learning about harakeke

Today we learned about being a kaitiaki (carer of the land). We learned about how the simple technology behind composting can reduce greenhouses gases but increase plant food for our garden!

We took a walk down to the harakeke (flax) at the bottom of the field. There we learned the special process of cutting harakeke. In pairs, we practised plaiting the grandfather leaves. Next week we will be creating woven art.

We had a visitor

Today we had a very interesting visitor - a bearded dragon! A senior girl popped by our room and showed us her pet. At first, it looked like it wasn't real and had come from an animated movie.

Ask your child about what they learned today about warm blooded and cold blooded animals. It was fascinating. Click here to a link on bearded dragons.

Watch out Jiya



Readalongs

There's a new page on our blog for reading along to stories, called 'Readalongs'. Click above, it will only take about 30 seconds for the page to download - there are ten stories in total.

Which readalong is your favourite?

Thank you...

Thank you children for remembering to bring your:

• library book and library card on Tuesdays.
• swimming bag on Wednesdays.

Please bring back your permission slips this week for our class walk to local gardens. Thank you Melanie Sorby and Sheree Collins for suggesting your friends' gardens.

Halloween School Disco

The children had a great time at the Arahoe School Disco on Friday -more photos under the 'Photos' page.

Athletics Day

What a day!!

Beautiful sunshine, lots of sunscreen and certainly lots of fitness and fun. Check out our new 'Photos' page to view photos of events.

Parent Teacher Discussion

Please book in your time with me via the Arahoe School website for the 12th or 14th of November.

Thank you
Fleur Tuck

Athletics Day

Athletics Day is on Tuesday. Please remember to bring both your swimming bag and your library book/card on Tuesday.

Room 24 will be the "Green Team" for Athletics, so come in green coloured mufti. See you in green on Tuesday!

Plant container technology

Today we looked at the recycled containers we have brought into class. The children noticed that we need more recycling to make plant containers. Please bring in more containers, especially big fizzy drink bottles with lids.

Also can we come and visit your garden? We would love to have a look if it is in walking distance (within 2 km). Let me know so I can book the children in for a tour of your garden - thank you!

Well done

Well done for following instructions so well Room 24. You had your togs here pronto. Unfortunately things have changed and we are going to start swimming next week. You will need your togs on both Wednesday and Tuesday as it will be Athletics Day on Tuesday and there will be a fun activity in the pool - yay!

Reading
The Shreks were reading "Too Many Possums" yesterday when Hana noticed a picture of a possum trap that her dad uses! Whoah!! Her dad, Mr Duncan, was very kind and came in today to tell us more about the traps.

Possums are a major pest in New Zealand and kill many plants, trees and chick eggs. Ask your child about what we learnt about possums today!


Watch out!



The trap is set.

Hana, Mr Duncan and "Too Many Possums"

Drew - Does the head come off the possum when the trap comes down?

 Mr Duncan - No, it just strangles them.

Room 24 - Can cats get killed in the trap?

Mr Duncan - Cats don’t go in there because cats are meat eaters. We set things like apples inside the trap for possums.

Kaydince - What if you put meat in there, would a cat come and eat it?

Mr Duncan - We wouldn't put meat in there.

James - If it’s black and the cat walks into it, might it set it off?

Mr Duncan - Cats are very smart and they won’t walk in there by accident.

Aarav - Have you caught any possums yet?

Hana - We’ve caught about ten.

Basic Facts

This week your maths homework is on the Homework page. Next week (week 4) and for the rest of term you will be practising basic facts. Please go to the new Basic Facts page for this.  Practise three times per week. Keep using the maths website pages as well... and have fun!

Swimming and more

Swimming starts next week, week 3. Room 24's swimming day is Wednesday. Please bring your swimming bag in as early as possible next week so we can be ready to go!

Please remember your library book and card on Tuesday.

Last of all, please remember to bring back your reading book and notebook everyday.

The new spelling lists for week 3 are under the Homework page. Have a go at the essential spelling list words too. These words appear in writing all the time and must be learned off by heart.

Fleur

Mufti Day

Mufti Day is tomorrow, Friday.

Please wear your favourite clothes and bring a gold coin. Donations will go to cancer research for Daffodil Day.

Thanks for the plastic pottles

Thank you for bringing in plastic pottles and fizzy drink bottles. Please keep bringing in more for our technology unit.

Do you have a garden we could walk to as a class? We would love to come visit your garden to look at how you help the plants grow and what they grow up and what they grow in.

Let me know so I can book in a class tour of your garden.

Thank you

Welcome to Room 24's Blog

Haere mai and welcome to Room 24's blog

Nga mihi ki a koe,

It's so wonderful to be teaching the children of Room 24 at Arahoe School. I look forward to meeting all Room 24 parents and caregivers soon. 

This term we are learning how to create more space around the school for plants. The children will put their creative hats on and have some hands-on fun working with recycled items. This is a technology inquiry where the children will work out how to put materials together to support plant growth.

Tena koe
Fleur Tuck