Athletics Day winners!

Congratulations to Jemima, Ben D, Abi and Ben W for winning awards for the Year 2-4 athletics day that we had last week.

Jemima came 2nd in Year 4 softball throw.
Ben D came 3rd in Year 4 softball throw.
Abi came 1st in Year 4 high jump.
Ben W came 1st in Year 4 sprints.

Well done to everyone in M5 for giving everything a go and trying their best!

Jemima, Ben D, Abi and Ben W hold their awards proudly!

Georgia - artist extraordinaire!

Georgia standing in front of her blank canvas! These classrooms will soon be transformed into a beautiful mural based on Georgia's design.

"Balloons" lipogram

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A Moment in Time - Rugby World Cup

Imagine being Milner Skudder... or Richie McCaw... or even young Charlie who was given Sonny Bill William's medal!

 This week for literacy we pretended to be a person from the Rugby World Cup final and think about what it would be like being in their shoes...(or boots!)
What would the person Hear, Feel, See and Wonder?
Come and read our wonderful "Moment in Time" stories!

Click here to read our work!

Here are some window dioramas that we made to display our work in our class. 

Window Dioramas with 3D pictures!

By Oliver

By Ricky

By Dior

Rugby World Cup Memorable Moments

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We are the champions!

The All Blacks won the Rugby World Cup against Australia in the weekend.

The final score was 34-17

What an amazing game it was to watch too!

World Cup Final Highlights NZ vs Australia

M5 LOVE healthy snacks!

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Passion Project in M5

On Friday we decided what our Passion Project is going to be this term.
We got into small groups with other people who shared the same passion as ourselves.
Next we had to decide on what we would like to achieve at the end? What do we want our outcome to be?
Each group has their own Passion Project book which we can use together. It will be a book for sharing our ideas, sketching, brainstorming, note taking etc.

Everyone is very excited about their Passion Project!  

Watch the video below to hear student voice about The Passion Project!

Calendar Art 2015

Over the past few weeks M5 have been busy creating their masterpieces for our annual Calendar Art school fundraiser.
We did an ocean scene using pastels. We learnt about blending, perspective and colour.

Aren't they beautiful! 

Passion Project Brainstorm

Today Mrs Allen asked us a question.... "If you could learn about ANYTHING at all at school, what would it be?"

We had to think of our PASSIONS. 

What is it that we are interested in? 

What gets us excited? 

What do we love, but don't know too much about?

We brainstormed our ideas on Answer Garden. The ideas that are written larger than others are the popular ones that other learners in our class are also passionate about.
Look at all of the exciting things that we are passionate about!
Stay tuned for our next step...

Goals for Term 4!

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The 2015 Rugby World Cup has arrived!

Finally, after 4 years when it was last held here in New Zealand, the Rugby World Cup has just kicked off this weekend, this time in England.
There are 20 teams from countries all around the world in this very popular tournament.
Everyone in M5 has been randomly allocated a team to support.
Do you know anything about the country that your team comes from?
This week we are going to investigate our Rugby World Cup country.

Good luck to your team!

Congratulations Abi!

This term we learnt how to write a persuasive speech.
Everyone in the class chose their own topic to write about. We found it easiest to write about something that we were passionate about!
We learnt how to write an effective speech and what language features help to make a great speech - one that people will remember!
Congratulations Abi who represented M5 at the finals.
Abi presented his speech in front of a packed hall full of students and parents. 
His speech was about factory farming, and how it should be stopped. 
We are very proud of his effort!

Congratulations Abi on your fabulous speech about factory farming.

When I Grow Up

Look at this wonderful video we watched in Mindfulness today.

What do you want to be or do when you grow up?

Lucy's story

Ricky's story

Come and read Ricky's amazing story he wrote on Storybird. It is about a young boy who gets taken from his family by an evil witch and dragons. His father goes on a quest to find his son.

Ben D's story

Check out Ben's story he has written on Storybird! I love that he has dedicated this to his sister Evie! 

Storybird!

Today Mrs Allen introduced us to a wonderful online writing website called Storybird.

Storybird uses artwork to inspire us to write. There are lots and lots of different art to choose from so we will never be short of inspiration!

Today we learnt to log in with our own usernames and select our own passwords.
Then after selecting some art we could write a picture book or a poem.

We are able to save our work to continue with for later or publish our work so that others can read it in our class.
We can even add a link to our blog so that our family can read our stories too!

We can follow other authors in our class and leave comments about their writing!

We all really loved using Storybird. It was fun to use and it's a great way of sharing our writing with others.

We can't wait to share our writing with you!

Riddle of the Week

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Home Learning Teacher Mission: The answer is 12. What is the question?

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How we celebrate with our families in M5

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I am little but I'm a great winner!

M5 have been doing some wonderful writing based on this short video.
First we did note taking of the sequence of events in the video. We used key words and abbreviations - S= Squirrel and E= Eagle.
Then we pretended we were either the squirrel or the eagle, and we wrote a letter to our Mum or Dad telling them of our adventures that day in the forest!

Celebrations around the world!

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M5's Growth Mindset Assembly 2015

Bruno Mars - Don't Give Up!

Maori Language Week

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St Thomas's Expo...

In M5 we have been very busy over the past few weeks getting our AMAZING product ready for our first ever 

St Thomas's Expo!

In M5 we are making a Drawstring Bag. We have been following the technology design process and been having lots of fun, success, and some failures (which help us learn too!).
We can't wait to show you our finished product!
Here are some photos of us going through the design process.

The Drawesome Bag! on PhotoPeach

Teach the Teacher!

In M5 we have recently started something new called "Teach the Teacher!".

Once a week, 3 students get the opportunity to share their learning and teach Mrs Allen (and the rest of M5 of course) something that they are passionate about!

I've learnt about many different kinds of animals, (Foxes, Jaguars and many other amazing animals), Space, Cricket and even had a drawing lesson on how to draw a pig!

I can't wait to see what I get taught this week!

Teach the Teacher - Weeks 7 and 8 Term 2 on PhotoPeach

Design your own chocolate bar and slogan! Yummmmmmmm!

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Eva and Oliver's Street Tomato Festival!

Berowald Place tomato festival! Each year our neighbourhood gets together to plant tomato’s and celebrate our tradition giving the tomato trophy to the proud family who had the best tasting tomato’s in a year. The Corbetts won this year (2015) and the Hannings won last year (2014). The trophy is very special to our neighbourhood. The tomato festival started in 2011. This is the list of the families who won throughout the years:2011 Joe Mihaljevich2012 Don Finlay2013 Boulmann2014 Hanning  (Eva’s family)2015 Corbett   (Oliver’s family)   We are proud of our Berowald place and who won throughout the years I’m sure it will keep on going over the years. The parents all do a vote to see who is the winner, however the parents cannot vote for themselves. The judge normally is the person who is hosting the festival. Also the person who is the judge has to be honest he can’t just give his one the highest score he has to prove it.The end By Eva and Oliver.

Winter! Brrrrr!!!

Now that it looks like Winter has arrived... what is something you like about this season?

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Crazy Book Characters!

Check out our awesome costumes that we dressed in on Friday as part of Book Week. We had a great time dressing up and there was a big variety of costumes in our class. 
What book characters can you recognise?

Book Week Characters in M5! on PhotoPeach

Book Week at St Thomas's, 2015

Last week was our bi-annual (every 2 years) St Thomas's Book Week. A week filled with everything to do with books!
It started on Monday morning when we arrived at school to find our door decorated with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It looked so good! (We just wonder WHO did it?!)
During the week, the Book Fair was held in the school library. We were able to browse the many books and we each wrote a 'wish list' to take home of the books we liked.
Many thanks to the generous donations from Eva and Ruby's family who donated books for our class library. We now have some wonderful books to read which is very exciting!
On Tuesday we watched the Perform Musical called Worlds Apart. This was the story about two characters - Molly and Edward, who lived 100 years apart but were able to communicate with each other through a magic box. 
On Thursday a visiting author, Melinda Szymanik came and talked to us about her job and read to us one of her books called The Ware Nana (not a bedtime story). We really enjoyed her story!
Finally, on Friday we were came to school dressed up as a book character. We had a Character Parade in the hall with the other classes from Syndicate 2. There were so many different characters, and some people had put a lot of effort into making their costumes.
What a fun week we had!


Book Week 2015 on PhotoPeach

M5's Garden

Recently we asked our lovely Caretaker Shaun to clean out our garden of old plants so that we could get it ready to plant seeds to grow something fresh and new.
M5's Green Rangers (Eva, Dior, Tia and Sasha D) went and got a few wheel barrows full of garden mix and dug it through the garden so that it made the soil much better for what we wanted to plant in it.
After digging through the garden mix, M5 scattered seeds onto the garden and we gave it a light rake so that they were covered, before giving it a gentle water.
We are growing flowers to give the front of our class a bright, pretty exterior. 
We would also like to make some garden sculptures later in the year for our garden as well.
Stay tuned for photos and updates of our beautiful garden over the next couple of months!

M5's Garden on PhotoPeach

St Thomas's TV!

This term Mrs Agoston has been working with some senior students to bring us daily live broadcasts to our classrooms to give us our notices and other important things happening in the school.
These broadcasts are filmed in a room opposite our class, so we have to be careful not to make noise which could be heard on the camera when they are filming.
As well as these daily broadcasts, every Friday the film crew video the Senior and Junior assemblies so that the classes who don't attend the assembly are able to watch it from the comfort of their own rooms! 
Last week it was Miss Hooper's class assembly. We enjoyed watching the children's item which was all about Independent Learners! (Something we know lots about in M5 too!)

St Thomas's News Room.

Watching M11's Assembly on the IWB in M5.

Great assembly M11!

Book Week at St Thomas's!

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Lest we forget Andrew / Rob Gourlay

On Friday, Maria (one of our lovely teacher aides) came to talk to us about one of her family members who had served in World War 2.
She also had some amazing personal items from the soldier which she showed us.
One of these is called an 'hassif', which is a sewing kit that soldiers would use to mend their uniform. In it were things like a darning needle, thread and buttons.

An hassif (sewing kit).

Inside the hassif. Can you see the needle, thread and buttons.
What else can you see?

Another thing she showed us were the soldiers 'pay book'. She told us how soldiers were paid to go off to war, and for many families this was their only source of income.
Inside the pay book were the soldiers dental records so that if the soldiers were killed in battle, and their book was on them then they would be able to be identified (along with their 'dog tag' which was a special necklace they wore as well).

Rob Gourley, who later re-enlisted in the army as his brother Andrew Gourlay.

A soldier's pay book.

Read the 'rules' for the soldiers. Why do you think these were important?

It was very interesting listening to Maria talk about her great great uncle. He was quite a character! 
Do you remember what he did to go to war?
He said he was older than he actually was. Later when he was found out to be only 15 and sent home, he signed himself up again, this time as his older brother - who was unable to go to war because he had polio (a disease which meant he couldn't walk properly).

He survived the war, but later died from war related illnesses.

Anzac biscuit baking - Yum!

Today we baked ANZAC biscuits as part of learning about ANZAC day and the importance of them to our history as New Zealanders.
We got into small groups and worked with Mrs Allen in the kitchen, while the rest of the class worked with Miss Hooper on writing 'letters' to soldiers.
Baking was fun but... as some of us discovered, it was very important to read the recipe correctly so that we got the measurements of the ingredients correct!
However...all the biscuits tasted delicious (even if some of them were a little bit crumbly!) 
How would you describe the taste of the ANZAC biscuit? Crunchy? Chewy? Sweet? 
Did it remind you of anything you have tasted before? 
They smelt delicious cooking in the kitchen didn't they? The yummy smells drifted along the corridor into the other classes!! 

How are you going to commemorate ANZAC day on Saturday?

Here is the recipe for ANZAC biscuits if you would like to make them at home.

Ingredients

100 g butter

1 tablespoon golden syrup

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup coconut

3/4 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup plain baking flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon boiling water

Method

1. Melt butter and syrup together in a large saucepan. Cool.
2. Mix sugar, coconut, rolled oats and flour together.
3. Dissolve soda in water and mix into butter and syrup and stir until frothy.
4. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
5. Place rounded teaspoons on a greased oven tray.
6. Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

ANZAC Biscuits on PhotoPeach

Scooter Safety

On Monday Constable Gordon came to talk to M5 about the importance of being safe on our scooters.
We rode our scooters around the courts, weaving in and out of cones to practise good control when we are riding as well as using the break pedal instead of our foot!
Another important thing we were reminded of was ALWAYS checking driveways for cars when riding along footpaths!!! And we must STOP, LOOK and LISTEN when we come to a pedestrian crossing and WALK our scooter across.
We did some races in teams too! Constable Gordon made us do exercises like star jumps as funny punishments! It was lots of fun!

Scooter Safety with Constable Gordon on PhotoPeach
 

Wonderful writers

In M5 we have been doing 'Free Writing' as part of our literacy programme. 
Daily writing helps us become better writers and we enjoy being able to share our work with others at the end of the week.
We get into small groups and sit quietly while each person shares their chosen piece of writing.
Then we vote for our favourite writing and that person gets to share it with the rest of the class before we vote on our "Writing Star of the Week!".
Stay tuned for some great pieces of writing to be posted on our blog!
It's fun sharing our work with an audience. It improves our writing and our confidence. It's also good to hear other peoples great work!
I wonder what you will write about this week?

Sasha D sharing her story to the group.

Making Connections! - listening to others, sharing, including everyone.

Ben W eagerly sharing his writing while Oliver listens on. It looks like Oliver likes Ben's story!

Ricky sharing his writing. Well done Ricky. Your English is getting better every day!

Library time!

Finally we are able to get back into our school library! Yay!

We have been without a 'proper' library for a year and a half while classrooms were being built and the library was being used as a temporary learning space.

We were very excited about being able to use the library again. It was so nice to be able to browse the many shelves and have all of the books in one place.

Do you know how the books are organised in the library?

Books with a RED dot on the spine are picture books.

Books with a GREEN dot on the spine are chapter books.

Books with NUMB3R5 on the spine are non-fiction books.

What books do you like to read? 

Do you have a favourite author? 

The library is also open at lunchtimes, so we can come and read or return our old book and get a new one before our next class library visit each Friday.

It's All About the Books! on PhotoPeach

Jumping in The Learning Pit!

In M5 we have been talking a lot about...

"The Learning Pit".

The Learning Pit is where good learners go to challenge themselves and their learning.When we go into The Learning Pit, it often feels uncomfortable and we can get frustrated because we don't know what to do. We may even feel like we want to give up because it's too hard! (But we know that it's ok to feel this way!)A good learner will use strategies to get out of The Learning Pit by persevering, being determined, using positive words to encourage themselves and perhaps asking others for help.Then do you know what a good learner would do when they get out of The Learning Pit?....

They jump right back in again!

We made posters to explain to others about The Learning Pit.M5 Jumping in The Learning Pit! on PhotoPeach

Learning Behaviours

Over the past couple of weeks we have been talking about Guided and Independent Learning behaviours.

A "Guided Learner" needs someone to help them, while an "Independent Learner" takes responsibility for their own learning.

Sometimes we can be a Guided Learner AND sometimes we can be an Independent Learner - depending on what we are doing or learning.

And that's ok!

By identifying and reflecting on our learning behaviours we can become more Independent Learners.