Caring For Our Kowhai Seeds

We have learnt how lots of Kowhai trees in New Zealand grow alongside rivers. We found out that Kowhai seed pods drop off the tree and when it rains the seed pods are pushed into the river and float away.

As the seed pods float they bump up against rocks. The sharp rocks break open the seed pods and the seeds pop out. The water pushes the seeds up onto the land beside the river and the seed grows into a Kowhai tree.

We pretended to be the sharp rocks and broke open some Kowhai seed pods. Then, we clipped the end of the seeds very carefully with some scissors. Next, we soaked the seeds in warm water for two days until they got round and fat. Lastly, we planted the seeds into little pots.

Now look what is happening to our seeds..............

Animal Shops

In maths we are learning about the value of money. We have learnt about the different New Zealand coins; what they are called, what they look like and the pictures on the front and back of the coins. Today we had $10 worth of $1 and $2 coins. Working with our learning buddy we had to use the money to buy animals. Our challenge was to spend all of the $10. We wondered how many different ways we could spend the money.

Our Favourite Books

We are very lucky in Room 14 to have Mrs Rose, Mrs Heibner and Mrs Morgan (and Miss Morris every second Tuesday) support us with our story writing as part of the writing program in Nga Rakau iti Manuka and Nga Rakau iti Kowhai.

Today we wrote about our favourite books. Check out what these clever authors wrote .....

Author Keagan wrote:

My favourite book is Crush The Tower because its about a robot that caught a building on fire with his machine gun.

Author Hannah wrote:

My most favourite book is Where's My Kitten. I love the book so much I feel like squeezing the cats out of the book because I love the book's pictures. It is the best book in the world. One day one of the kittens goes missing and when the mum cat was looking the kitten was hiding behind the curtain.

Author Zack wrote:

My favourite books are Magic Trick Books because they tell you how you get people surprised and sometimes the magicians make a coin disappear and it can't reappear and they say, "Oh oooh, your money is gone dammit. I thought I had that one!" I have magic tricks in my bag.

Author Caitlin wrote:

My favourite book is Ariel. The book is about Ariel going away from her house because her Dad was being bossy. Heaps of sharks were chasing Ariel. It is a chapter book.

Parkvale PRIDE

Congratulations to Room 14 two PRIDE recipients this week:

Balin Casson - for being an awesome role model of Parkvale PRIDE.

Rebekah Sullivan - for showing enthusiasm and enjoyment in all her learning.

Well done, Balin and Rebekah !

Our Teddy Bears

We are showing PRIDE in learning special things about ourselves and others.

Today, we wrote about our teddy bears. We had to use describing words to give the reader clues to guess which bear was ours. Check out the stories by these clever writers ........

Author Ekrose wrote:

My teddy is soft as a feather. It is very very soft. She has curly fur. Her colour is brown. She has a brown bow and her nose is black and her eyes are black. Under her feet are smooth. Can you guess?

Author Ayden wrote:

My teddy has a black cape and a yellow belt and bats on his belt. He has a tattoo on his chest of a bat. He has triangle eyes. He only comes out at night.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be .........

We are showing PRIDE in learning about ourselves. We used the PIC Collage AP on the IPADs to share our ideas. Then, we wrote stories to share more detail about what we want to do when we grow up.

Author Rebekah wrote:

When I grow up I want to be a nurse and help sick people to stay alive. I want to be in the hospital because my mum has been in the hospital before. I will wear a nurse uniform with a little watch.

Author Ethan wrote:

When I grow up I want to be a train driver. I am going to work at the train station. I am going to take people in the carriages and I am going to carry the big containers to the docks.

Author Cloe wrote:

When I grow up I want to be a policewoman. Policewomen catch people speeding in their cars. They turn on their lights so they know to stop.

Showing PRIDE by doing our PERSONAL BEST !

We are learning to show PRIDE by doing our PERSONAL BEST.

We learnt about what plants need to grow because we are growing Kowhai seedlings. We drew a diagram to show what plants need. We learnt that a diagram is a picture with labels.

We know that plants need water, sun, air and soil to grow.

Dominic did his PERSONAL BEST drawing and labeling his diagram. Well done Dominic.

Reading Bugs

We LOVE reading in Funtastic Room 14. We made reading bugs to help us with our reading. The bugs hug our fingers as we read.

Look at some of our funtastic creations....

Cushla

Whetu & Harlem

Caitlin

Charlie

Ayden

Spelling Superstars

We are learning to be super spellers. We practice our spelling after story writing. To help us learn how to spell the words we
* read the word
* say the letters
* write the word
* read our words to a buddy from our group.

Check out these super spellers......

Cushla, Janice & Ethan

Jordan, Rebekah & Balin

Learning Buddies

We are learning to be fantastic learning buddies. We worked with our Room 11 buddies to create creatures on the IPAD. We learnt to take a photo and then use the Draw Free Ap to change our photo into a special creature. Look at some of our amazing creations....

Balin

Cahlia

Ekrose

Gwen

Hannah

Janice

Karamea

Keagan

Riley

Zack