Gala Preparation

In Room 19 this week we have been busy preparing for our stall at the gala.  We are in charge of the "Ring a Drink" stall and will be setting up after lunch by the sandpit outside the Junior rooms.

We have spent several sessions this week designing, and then drawing, colouring and painting posters for use on the stand and around the school.

Boxes of drinks arrived this morning to cries of, "Ooo when we can we drink them?"  Many students have also brought in cakes and cupcakes to sell on the cake stall, and enter in the decorating competition.

Christmas and Gala fever is definitely in the air at Torbay School and in Room 19 at the moment!

   

Our Learning

Maths

Today in maths we went shopping!  As we will be dealing with money on our Gala stall tomorrow we did a recap from our learning on money earlier in the year.

I set up "Mrs Kelly's Shop" at the back of the classroom by labeling various items with a price.  The stereo was worth $35, a bottle of paint $4 and a pencil 20c.  The students were then given the task of  deciding how to spend the $50 they were given.  They were allowed to buy only 5 different items, but could buy as many of those items as they wanted.  The idea was they had to spend as near to $50 as possible without going over.  So for example they could buy  the stereo,  dice, milk carton, highlighter and a reward stamp as their five items - but to make it add up to $50 they could buy 1 stereo, 4 dice, 10 highlighters etc.

The girls hard at work working out. their shopping

The students enjoyed working out how much they had spent and how much change they had left.



Writing

Yesterday in writing I set the students a challenge of including adjectives whilst writing about what was in a mystery box.  They were allowed to hold and shake the box, and then had to write either a realistic account of what they thought the box might contain, or a creative account of what might be inside if it was a magic box.

The mystery box.

Today each student read out their writing to the class, and we wrote down all the different adjectives the students had come up with to describe the items they thought might be inside.  They did a great job as you can see!

Our adjectives!

Speech Finals

The Kawau Team Speech Finals were decided on Tuesday after Neve had been given a chance to share her speech.  The judges deliberated whilst the students sang Christmas Carols and then the winners were announced.

Well done to Summer, Capri and Sophie!

Neve gives her speech

The winners are announced

Although our representatives didn't make the top three I am still really proud of their efforts and the outstanding way presented their speeches to the class and the year.  Well done!

Performance Assembly

I always knew we had a talented bunch of students in Room 19 and today has proved me right!  This afternoon we had a Performance Assembly at school and many of our students were involved.

Tiara, Damien and Ethan wowed in the Junior Kapa Haka performance,  Emily shone in the Fan Dance.  Gabriella, Rebekah, Ellie, Janielle, Skye, Grete and Emily all showed off their singing skills in a performance by the choir, and Marcus demonstrated his ukulele prowess performing with his ukulele group.

Ka pai Room 19 - well done, great effort. Performance Assembly on PhotoPeach

Amazing MOTAT

On Monday the Kawau team went on a trip to MOTAT - the Museum of Transport and Technology.  The trip was a nice way to round off our inquiry learning this term on "Future Me - What Will I be?" and robots.

In the morning we all hopped on buses and arrived at our base for the day - the MOTAT dome. From there we split into groups and explored the various exhibits, rode a tram and had an educator led session about robots.  The students had lots of fun trying out the different activities - especially in the "Welcome to the Machine" and "Get Smart" exhibits.  Everyone enjoyed playing with the different robots, but I think it is entirely possible that the lazer maze was the big favourite.

Thank you to the parents that helped out on the day it was much appreciated.

Here are a few photos.


Trip to MOTAT on PhotoPeach

Speech Finals

This morning the Kawau Team Speech Finals were held in the hall.  The representatives from each class performed their speeches to the rest of the Year 3's and Mrs McBeth's Year 1 class.

The winners of the Senior School competition were our judges.  They listened very carefully and gave each student feedback when everyone had taken their turn.

They all did amazingly well!

Unfortunately one student was away, so they will be given a chance to share their speech on Tuesday and then the winners will be announced.

Here are some photos of the Kawau students giving their speeches and receiving feedback from the judges, and also videos of Jade and Ellie's speeches.

Speech Final Photos on PhotoPeach


 

Speech Week

Since the beginning of the term the students in Room 19, and across the whole Kawau team, have been busy researching, writing and practising their speeches.

This week was presentation week with the students giving their speeches in front of the class.  There was such a high standard with speeches ranging from air pollution to tigers, being part of a big family to WWE, and the Mariana Trench to Disney Infinity!

The students faced their nerves and one by one stood up to give their speech, some on Monday and some on Tuesday.  The students were very mindful of being a good audience, and listened carefully to their friends as they spoke.  Each student was assigned a buddy and they marked each other across a number of criteria including speaking clearly, using cue cards properly, having a good introduction, middle and ending, and making eye contact with the audience.

Speeches Part 1 on PhotoPeach Speeches Part 2 on PhotoPeach I then had the unenviable task of choosing our three finalists to go through to the Speech Finals on Friday morning.

Congratulations to everyone, but especially to Ellie, Max and Jade who I chose to represent Room 19.  These 3 speeches in particular fir all our criteria and also had some humour in them.

Robots

This term the students have been busy thinking about the future.  We have investigated jobs in the future thinking about how different jobs might change, and whether some jobs will even still exist in 20 years time.  As part of our learning we looked at the ways robots have influenced jobs, and what roles are now being done by robots instead of humans.  The students then set about designing their own robots.  The brief was to design a robot to do a particular job.  Once they had completed their design we set about making models of our robots using cardboard boxes, bottles, straws, lids, plates and anything else we could get our hands on.  Today the Kawau team displayed their robots in class and we all went around the different rooms to see the amazing creations.

Here is a little taster of our amazing robots:
Room 19's Amazing Robots on PhotoPeach
Well done to all the students for your creativity and hard work building your robots, and especially to Marcus and Sean who received Principal Awards from Mrs Sandifer.  Ka pai Room 19.

Blackout Day

Tomorrow (Friday) the school is holding a black out day where students are invited to wear all black to show their support for the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup final.

The school is going to do a Haka tomorrow and send it to the team to watch so we have been busy practicing today.  Here's some of our rehearsals.

Warm Fuzzies

Last Friday we borrowed an idea from the lovely Mrs Ye and Room 18 and wrote some warm fuzzies.  Each student was given an envelope with their name on which we set out on the floor.  They were then asked to write a sentence about each of the students in the class saying something positive about about them.  This comment could be something such as "you've got a lovely smile" to "I think you're really good at reading".  The students became really engaged with the task frantically writing away and then coming up to put their message into the appropriate envelope.  At the end of the day each student got to take their envelope home and read all the comments from their classmates.

 

Sports Stars

Over the last week the Room 19 students have been continuing the sporting theme with further tennis sessions and also the first of our athletics sessions.

For athletics the students from the whole of the Kawau team were split into groups and then they rotated around different stations.  The stations included hurdles, sprints and relays, sack races, high jump and different throwing activities.

Lots of fun was had and there was a little bit of competition too!

 

In our tennis lessons this week we have progressed to learning the correct techniques for hitting forehand shots to each other across a net.  The students are really enjoying these tennis sessions and it's great to see them developing their skills.

 

Home Learning Due in 29th October

This weeks Home Learning - sheets and books will be sent home on Tuesday, apologies for them not being sent home on Friday.  

Wimbledon here we come!

Today the students in Room 19 had their first of five tennis lessons provided by Brown's Bay tennis.  Several of the students have tennis lessons at Browns Bay so were familiar with coach Matt who is taking the sessions.

He started by getting the students bouncing and catching the tennis balls on the ground and on the racquets.  The students then paired up to complete a range of other activities.

We have 2 more lessons next week and another 2 lessons in week 4.  I'm pretty sure we'll have some students rivaling Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams by the time we've finished!

Design Challenge

Today I set the students a design and build challenge.  I told them that they had to work together in groups to design and build a boat that would float on water.  The students were enthusiastic about the task, and then I told them that the only thing they could use to make their boats was blue tack.  Amid cries of, "Blue tack doesn't float!" and "Blue tack is too heavy!" I explained that they had to try lots of different designs to see if they could find one that would work.  There was also a second part to the challenge.  Once they had been able to make a floating boat they then had to add paper clips one at a time to see how many their boats would hold before sinking.  To add some incentive the winning group would each get a prize.

First the students set about drawing designs they thought might work.  Then they started building their boats.  Some groups divided the blue tack and each made a design to see which would float before then putting all their blue tack together to be able to build a bigger version of the working design.  Other students made one design together.

After about 15 minutes and several failed attempts, the first cries went up of, "It's floating" and then, "It sank!".  A little bit of industrial espionage occurred with floating designs being spied on and copied by other groups (or maybe it was a good use of initiative!), and soon there were a few floating boats.

Next the "passengers" were added, at first the boats didn't hold many - 10 and 16 being the highest numbers, but at this stage the competition was fierce.  Boats were remodelled and students realised that making sure the paperclips were spaced out across the boats and not all on one side, that making ripples, and even how gently you placed the paperclips and the boats into the water all had an effect on how soon the boats sank.

It wasn't long before suddenly boats were holding 30, 40, 50 plus passengers before sinking.  Finally we all gathered around each group and watched one final attempt at beating their own best scores.  Tiara, Saria, Mackenzie and Ellie's group was the winner with their boat holding 72 paperclips before finally sinking.

Great job Room 19 - a fantastic effort.

National Shake Out

Yesterday Torbay School took part in the National Shake Out Earthquake practice.  The class were in the middle of our spelling activities when the call came over the speaker that the drill had started.

I was really impressed with how well the students from all the Year 3 classes did the correct actions to keep themselves safe.  We waited until the all clear was given and then carried on learning our spelling words - well done everyone!


As part of the Shake Out activities we also made a map of the classroom and shaded in areas of the classroom that are the safest places to be in an earthquake, and also the most dangerous places to be in an earthquake, e.g. by the windows or where something may fall on you from above.

We also thought about what might happen if we were at home when an earthquake struck, in particular what we would need to have in our emergency kits.  The students decided that water, canned food, torches, a radio, sleeping bags, a first aid kit and toilet paper were all necessary items.