Congratulations Room 7

What a wonderful week and year it has been Room 7. 
On Tuesday we had our end of year prize giving. 
Congratulations to our prize winners 

Top Academic Girl	Luisa
Top Academic Boy	Loto
Excellence in Music	Salesi
Excellence in Art	Charlie
Excellence in Physical Education	Mary
Excellence in Social Skills	Alex
Excellence in Digital Learning	Salote
Most Improved Academic	Tamati

Also congratulations to Shannon, Fasi, Davarni, Loto, Luisa, and Salote who received awards for excellent attendance. Well done. Being at school all the time means that you are making the most of every opportunity to learn. 

Every year we have a winner from the Jnr and Senior syndicate to receive the Ofa Kina Award. This award goes to the kindest most respectful and thoughtful person and is voted by their peers. Teachers have no say in it. This year the Senior Syndicate Ofa Kina Award went to our very own Luisa. Congratulations Luisa. 


Afterwards we had our dance presentations in front of our parents. We looked and felt wonderful dancing the waltz, the samba and hip hop. We also looked pretty wonderful doing our silly faces below! Haha. It's been a fabulous year Room 7 - All the best next year. 

Fraction Strategies

Today we went over the fraction strategies for working out a part of an amount.  Watch for yourself and have a go at our practice problems 

There are 35 people in Room10.  
If 3/5 of them are boys, how many are girls?

There are 36 candles to put on Mrs Parker's birthday cake. 
How many candles are on 3/4 of the cake?

Wondrous Whittaker's

This week was an extraordinary week. Mrs Parker procured some chocolate straight from Whittaker's head office for us to all try. We used a chocolate meditation script to help us use our senses to mindfully taste, smell, and feel the chocolates. 

We used this as an opportunity to develop our figurative writing skills. First we described the chocolate flavours then imagined that we were in the Willy Wonka Factory (or Whittaker's Factory) and were able to create any flavour in the world! Stay tuned to see our upcoming blogposts of what we thought. 

Room 7 this year

I was looking back at our photo's from earlier this year, and realised how much we have all grown since February. We've said goodbye to a few people, and we've a few as well. But either way it has been a magnificent year working, learning, creating, sharing and having fun in Room 7. 
This year we have learned digital skills, new math strategies, more sophisticated sentence structures and language features. We've read and learned about the world, the solar system, history, and some stories we've read just for fun. Best of all we've made great friends to share all these experiences with. Ka mau te wehi Rūma Whitu!

World Trip ~ By Shannon

World Trip!

A few days ago Glenbrae School had gone on a world trip. Let me explain it to you soon. For our world trip we went to Room 3, Maru had come to our school, we were the 28th school they had visited out of the thousands of schools in New Zealand, so we were very lucky.

When we arrived, we could see a cardboard view master with a smartphone inserted. Mrs Parker and Maru explained what we had to do like hold it from both sides so the phone doesn't fall out and when we press the cardboard “button” down, it would zoom in. Mrs Parker controls the phone on a tablet, so where ever she presses on the tablet, we go there. When I put on the “Google goggles”, I didn't know it would look 3D, I thought it’ll just look like a normal smartphone screen, but no, it was 3D, because there were some glasses in there. Maru said that they’re still deciding if they want to release the app or not, so we kinda got a sneak peek and just to let you know they are real life photos… so we couldn't go to the other planets like Jupiter, Saturn and the others.

After that, Mrs Parker told us to carefully grab one and wait for her to take us to our destination. We first went to the Volcanoes, I got so scared, because it looked like I was standing in lava. It look SO REAL! We went to so many places, but I especially liked the Slovenia caves and space. I really liked space, because we I learnt that the Milky Way goes all around our galaxy. As I said before we went to so many places, but I can only write about two so let's talk about space now!

In space we saw the Earth’s atmosphere, the Sun, the Moon, Mars and the Stars/Milky Way. On Mars it was just grey and students were asking why it was that colour, because we all knew that it was a bright colour. Mrs Parker said “Because it is night time, during the day time it’s bright.” We also went on the Moon, and saw Neil Armstrong. It was really scary, because we were kinda like flying and it was really high.

After a few places, we went to the Slovenian Caves in Slovenia, near Italy, but I've been to the Caves somewhere in New Zealand. It looked really similar, but there were glow worms.

To read more of Shannon's work go to her personal blog gbsshannonw.blogspot.co.nz

Google Expedition ~ By Luisa

Google Expedition

Has there ever been a time where you want to go to somewhere but plane tickets are expensive. Well, Google HQ created a special type of technology that can take you to different places without actually going. Room 7 took a world wide tour to amazing places with spectacular views. We used Google goggles called Cardboard viewmasters with a smartphone inserted. Out of those amazing places my two favourite places we visited was the Slovenian caves and the Great wall of China.

The Slovenian caves were mind blowing. Throughout the tour of the cave Mrs.Parker explained the different informations about the cave and how she had visited the cave three years ago. Turns out the cave is over ninety million years old, it’s even older than the dinosaurs. Some of us tried to get closer to the cave but just bumped into each other. We discovered that the cave creates these type of rock statues made by a special type of liquid. The caves were very large but had such low entrances with Stalagmites and stalactites hanging over which also create the rock statues.W

My second favourite place we had visited was the Great wall of China.  We visited the Great Wall of China when we were looking at the Seven Wonders of the world. As we were standing from a distance the view of the Great Wall of China was spectacular. The Great Wall of China was built 2,220 years ago and the wall is about 5,500 miles which would take a long time to walk from one end to another.

What a fabulous experience that was. To put on the view masters and going to all those places were so surreal. A couple of times I tried reaching out to touch the objects in front of me but was actually just waving my hand in front of myself. This a experience of a lifetime that I hope I can try again.

Read more of Luisa's work on her personal blog gbsluisam.blogspot.co.nz

World Tour with Google Expeditions

Today Glenbrae School went on the trip of a lifetime.... except we didn't really go anywhere. 
We stayed right here at school. But we each were given a viewfinder, with a Google Expeditions app loaded. Using the teacher console we were able to explore amazing places all around the world. We got to stand in a lava flow on the famous Russian volcanoes. We went deep into the 90 million year old Slovakian caves. We explored the Battleship Missouri and the Hiroshima peace memorial in Japan. We went out into the earth's atmosphere, and even further into Space. We landed on the Moon and looked back at the Earth and the Milky Way. 
It almost seemed real.... "We had a good experience using the google viewers Going to Mars and going to the moon" 
"It felt like I was really there but it was in my imagination, I'm thankful that Google provided this for us" ~ Charlie
"I loved learning about different layers of the Slovakian caves and how the stalactites and stalactites were made" ~ Charlie 
"Being above Earth was surreal" ~ Luisa

van Gogh variations...

This term we were exploring visual arts in context and attempting to understand famous art works, and why they became so important and valued. As part of this we developed our own ideas and created our own versions of Vincent van Gogh's famous Sunflowers painting that he did in 1888. He used lots of short dabbing brushstrokes to create the effects. Check out our masterpieces. 

Even better, come and see them for yourself. They are proudly displayed in the office foyer and in the corridor outside Room 7. 

What's been happening in Room 7

What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. This blog post is a quick update on what we've been up.

Buddied up with our teina

Last week we had two trips out of school. On Wednesday the whole school went to the Manaiakalani Film Festival at Hoyts Xtreme Screen in Sylvia Park. We went there tuakana - teina style, so Room 7 got to take care of our new entrants children in Room 4. There we got to sit in the plush seats and see all Glenbrae School's films on the big screen. When we got back to school we got to re-watch our favourites and some we'd missed, and post thoughtful positive comments on people's films. If you would like to check out some of the films yourself you can view them on the Manaiakalani website.  Be sure to watch Room 7's "We're going to be friends" and "They're Coming"  




On Thursday last week we went on another trip, this time to the Auckland Stardome. Here we learned lots about the Solar System and in particular the way the earth spins on it's axis and orbits the sun. We discovered that this is what causes the seasons: Summer, Winter, Autumn and Spring. 
Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures inside the Stardome, but we do have some wonderful pictures of us reading books on the bus ride there and playing in the playground during lunch time! 

Also yesterday, half of Room 7, along with half of Rooms 8 and 5, got to go on a special science adventure to Auckland University. Here we went into the Chemistry lab and got to participate in 5 awesome science experiments. It was pretty high-tech stuff, and I'm sure we have a few budding scientists in our midst. 

October Blogger of the Month is Setaita

Setaita has really taken to blogging this month. Even though she doesn't take her netbook home, she still logs on and continues her learning. Setaita successfully completed our Holiday 10 Day Blog Challenge and has begun putting extra effort into making sure her blog posts look good as well read well.

Congratulations Setaita and keep up the good work. You can see her blog at gbssetaitam.blogspot.co.nz

They're Coming

Who's coming? Well the Glenbrae Kids film club were doing some investigating about topics that interested them. This took them on an amazing adventure ... an adventure of a lifetime.

We're going to be friends

At Glenbrae Primary School we value respect and work hard to respect one

another. As part of a happy connected learning community we made this

video to give you an insight into our world.

Manaiakalani Film Festival at Hoyts Cinema this week....

As part of a digital school we create things to share via digital mediums. 
This week is our annual film festival at Hoyts cinema. Every Manaiakalani school will be there showcasing their movies, and sharing in one another's learning. 

Check out the previews for our 2015 films. 

...and THEY'RE COMING... 

See the preview trailer below

Sports this term

This term is going to be fun filled with plenty of sports and physical activity. 
We have our dance fever coaches. We are learning hip hop, the samba, and the waltz. Dancing is a great source of fitness, and we get really puffed keeping up with the beat. 
We also practice Just Dance clips on rainy days instead of doing fitness outside. You can view these on our class site.
In kiwi sports we are learning hockey skills. It's pretty tricky moving the small ball around with a hooked stick, but as always we are learning quickly thanks to our great coaches. 

We'll also be practicing our athletics skills as the inter-school athletics tournament is coming up. Last year Glenbrae school competed and did really well in sprinting, shot put, and discus... This year we might even have some champion jumpers. 

Meet Jerome ...

This week Room 7 has a new member. Jerome has just moved to Glen Innes and joined us with his little sister, who is in the Junior School. Jerome and his sister have some of their cousins here at Glenbrae school and are already making lots of new friends. 
Jerome, loves rugby, reading and banana ice cream. 
Welcome Jerome, we look forward to learning with you. 

Addition Strategies.

Today we were going over our addition strategies. We learned how to move counters from one pile to the other, to make it a tidy number. Watch the strategy video below. 

Try these examples for yourself. 

37 + 18 = 

45 + 19 = 

129 + 54 = 

Show your working and email me the solution! 

Vincent van Gogh inspired

This term our art focus is developing ideas. We looked at the world famous artist van Gogh and are attempting to make our own "Sunflowers" creations.


We watched this video which helped us to plan our artworks

First we ruled our page up into 6 x 8 squares. This meant we all had to practice measuring and ruling lines as well. Next we had to enlarge the examples we had, and roughly sketched the outline before beginning the painting....

Stay tuned to see what our final artworks look like. 

What do we know

Today in Room 7 we were activating our prior knowledge sharing our ideas on some of the big ideas about our Solar System. 
We had a chance to share what we know, share our misconceptions, and ask lots of questions about our wonders. From here we are going to learn more about these big ideas, uncover misconceptions and get the bottom of all those wondering questions. 

Some great learning discussions happening. 

September Blogger of the Month... Litia

Congratulations to the September Blogger of the Month: Litia.
Litia managed to blog all of her work in September and update it all on our class blog log.
Putting work on the blog log is a great way to monitor our learning, and make sure that we are up to date. It also helps others locate our work, which is great if they need ideas of how to finish a certain task.

Well done Litia, you can read her bog here: gbslitial.blogspot.co.nz

Coaching with the Silver Ferns

Today 10 Glenbrae Girls were lucky enough to be selected to go to St Kentigern's College in Pakuranga to train with New Zealand's best. The Silver Ferns. Not only them, but the premier team from St Kentigerns' College, who placed second in the nationals this year. 

It was a stellar day and we all learned a lot of great netball (and dance) skills from our coaches. Watch out on their personal blogs for the full story. 
Luisa, Ma'ara, Aaliyanah, Mary, Newsam, Cherise, Davarni, Setaita, Litia, & Telesia. 

Back Row (from left) Litia, Ma'ara, Aaliyanah, Mary. Front Row (from left) Cherise, Newsam, Telesia, Luisa, Davarni, Setaita.

Davarni and Cherise getting autographs

Blog Challenge 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1! My 100th Blogpost

The past 10 days I have been busy blogging about all sorts of things, and today, the final blogpost is to be a picture of myself. It also happens to be my 100th blog post this year! Yay me! And congratulations to everyone else who has participated in the blog challenge. If you've missed a day, that's ok, just pick up where you left off and remember - keep blogging! 

Blog Challenge 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2... Songs

Two favourite songs??? Well this year Room 7 has had the opportunity to present two assemblies, and for each we performed a dance. These songs are good fun, and Room 7 performed them magnificently.

1. Just Dance: Calling all the Monsters
2. Just Dance: Ghostbusters. This one we performed flash mob style! 

Blog Challenge 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3... Films.

My three favourite films... 

1. Well, I would be lying if I didn't say that the Zombie Apocalypse wasn't my favourite! We made this last year as part of our film club, it was great fun, and we learned a lot about being prepared for a disaster. 
2. I also loved Inside Out, a great way to talk and learn about our emotions. We've been learning a lot about our emotions in Room 7 and have written some great poetry about them too. 
3. The Lego Movie - awesome animation and surprisingly cool story. I couldn't get that song out of my head for days though... "everything is awesome!!!"

Blog Challenge 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4... Books

Holidays are a great time for reading. Whether it be a cold day tucked up inside, or a warm summers day lying on the grass, anytime is a good time to read a book. 

Some of my favourite books are as follows: 

1. Goodnight Mr Tom - By Michelle Magorian. Set in war times a young boy is sent from London to live with a grumpy elderly man. Together a wonderful friendship forms between unlikely characters. 
   
2. Pheobe and the night creatures - By Jenny Hessell. Jenny Hessell, a New Zealand author, is well known for her Grandma McGarvey books. Pheobe and the night creatures is a story about a young girl who is too scared to go the bathroom in the middle of the night because there is a wolf under her bed. A charming story, with a confident and courageous female protagonist. It's also been translated to te reo Māori, Ko Pipi me ngā Kīrehe o te Pō, which makes a great text for reading and teaching of te reo
   
   
   
   
   
3. The peace tree from Hiroshima - by Sandra Moore. A great story for learning and talking about the devastation of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb during WWII. Room 7 read this book earlier this year, on the 70 year anniversary of the bombing. It told a great tale of forgiveness and peace, plus we got to learn about Japanese culture, and it allowed me to share my stories from visiting Hiroshima in 2009. 

   
4. The hunger games trilogy - by Suzanne Collins. We read this in Room 10 last year, well the first one at least. Filled with lots of vocabulary it opened up for great discussion about some of the themes also.