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.




Geometrical Art

For Maths week we were learning about Geometry and Shapes, the last task asked us to create some geometrical art using a computer programme. To make sure we were all able to have a go, Mrs Lashlie got out our classroom set of shapes and we had a go at making some of our own. Check them out!



           




Math Olympiad

Monday the 26th - Friday the 30th of August was Maths Week at EPS. This meant we held the annual Maths Olympiad for the Year 4's. We had two teams, the first team was TM, SE, SH and SA and the second team was ST, RF, JB and KB. Both teams did a fabulous job and we are all VERY proud of them!


The teachers also had their own Maths Olympiad which was very exciting, Mrs Lashlie's team won!!!!

Madame Butterfly

On Friday the 2nd August we were lucky enough to have Madame Butterfly to come in and teach us about butterflies.  Check out what we learnt.


Mrs Dane even dressed up as a Monarch to help show us.




Hiwi the Kiwi

On Monday 6th August we were lucky enough to have Hiwi the Kiwi, Mr Minstrel and his wife to come and teach us about fishing, boat and water safety! Check out some of our photos.




Kai moana, food from the sea.
Kai moana, to feed the family.
Fish for the future and there will always be,
more, kai moana, for you and me!