Tuesday 10 December 2013

Christmas in America

We are very proud to have finished some of our Christmas projects!

Here was our criteria;

How do you think we did?


You can't hear it but we also read along with our slides!

Christmas Projects

"There are many ways to celebrate Christmas and people in different countries blend their cultural traditions with more universal Christmas celebrations. It is common for many households to have decorated Christmas trees, either real or fake. Many homes are also decorated to fit the Christmas theme prior to and on Christmas Day. Many workplaces hold Christmas parties in the weeks leading to Christmas Day. Many people have a day off work and spend time with their families and loved ones on Christmas Day. Festive activities include exchanging Christmas presents, joining in Christmas feasts, and listening to Christmas-themed music or movies. For some cultures, Christmas is an exclusive family affair that sees relatives travel from different geographic regions to unite at this time of the year. Other people may choose to openly invite friends to a Christmas buffet or pot luck lunch or dinner. Christmas Day is a special day for children who receive gifts that they have been longing for. Many children believe in Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, a figure who is believed to provide Christmas presents to children. Some children write “letters to Santa” a few weeks before Christmas Day, asking for a gift that they desire most. Christmas cards are also exchanged among adults and children prior to Christmas Day. Many churches have special Christmas Day services, some of which include choirs, joyous singing, and meet-and-greet opportunities after the church services. Many churches are beautifully decorated and may include a crèche or miniature Nativity scene. Some large-scale Christmas church services are televised for those who do cannot attend a church service."

http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/christmas-day

So we decided to use our e-learning and literacy skills to find out more about christmas in different countries around the world!!

Here are our initial ideas;


Keep an eye out for some of our finished projects!!

Wednesday 18 September 2013

East Tamaki Sequencing / Recount Activity

In writing we are learning to sequence our ideas in our plan and use these words to help us with our recount story. Check out some of our completed work, we used Padlet to create our work in a digital format!




Contractions

We are learning to identify contractions in their expanded form as part of our reading. Check out this video of TJ playing one of the contractions games linked under out 'Literacy Learning Links'!


Saturday 14 September 2013

Buddy Reading with Room 10

We were very keen to have some buddies to read to, so Mrs Lashlie and Miss Ladley got together and organised for room 15 and room 10 to read to each other! We really enjoy it and it is very exciting when we get to help room 10 to read to us!




Trip to East Tamaki School (Garden 2 Table)

On Wednesday we were VERY lucky to take our class trip to East Tamaki School to check out their amazing Garden to Table programme. We have been learning about Enterprise, with a focus on food so this was excellent opportunity to see some very clever entrepreneurs in action and also get a chance to ask them about some of our focus questions in our inquiry.

 

We were very impressed to see the very large gardens that they had full of vegetables! Half of us worked here in the garden and helped find worms in the composts to go in the soil to help the gardens grow. We also made our own mini worm houses!


 


 

The other half of us went to work in the kitchen where we used the vegetables that were grown in the garden to make some fabulous Vietnamese rice paper rolls, an orange and fennel salad and some lemon muffins. Not only was this a fantastic opportunity to see the way in which they use their vegetables, it was a great learning opportunity in many other areas; we used out maths knowledge to work out what fraction of the muffins we were allowed to glaze in our groups, we used our time knowledge to work out when to take the muffins out of the oven in 20 minutes, we did lots of measuring and we even learnt a little science about liquid and solid states!






After the food was cooked, we helped to clean up the kitchen and set the tables. We then all got together and we were all able to eat the food we made! It was fantastic! Nearly all of us tried something new we had never tried before. We found the fennel and orange salad interesting, it tasted a bit like licorice!

 

 



All the left overs them went back into the compost and it began the cycle again!














Keep an eye out for a few of our recounts of the day, coming soon.


"In the past three years we have increased the size of our vegetable gardens. We also have many more dedicated volunteers. This increase has allowed us to offer this amazing experience to more of our students. The students continue to enjoy planting, harvesting, cooking and eating the fruits and vegetables we grow in our gardens. They are becoming experts at indentifying different types of vegetables which they may not have been exposed to at home and really appreciate the opportunity to try something new. Children willingly give up their lunchtime to sow seeds, thin out seedlings, weed the vegetable garden or just wander through to see what is growing.

Our disused swimming pool was removed and the hole that once was the pool filled up with soil. This very large garden has been split up into smaller gardens with paths in between and has as distinct Pasifika theme to it with banana trees and taro being planted in the middle. The old changin sheds have had a makeover and now serve as a potting shed and extra storage space.

The vegetable garden has become even more attractive with the addition of some garden themed murals. We are always very willing to show our gardens and kitchen to others. The Garden to Table Programme is a significant part of the school and we are very proud of it." - East Tamaki School

BNZ Closed for Good

We were very lucky to have one of the BNZ staff members come to EPS during their annual 'Closed for Good' day. Viktoria Morgan who is a fabulous dance teacher (and even teaches Mrs Lashlie) came in to take us for a dance lesson. We had an amazing time and were all practicing our 'Cha-cha-cha's for the rest of the day!! We can't wait for another dance lesson with Mrs Lashlie soon! Check out some photos.