Netball Tournament

On Wednesday the 12th of August Glenbrae School had the pleasure of competing in an inter-school Netball tournament. Three teams and 30 students from Years 5 to 8 competed. The day was a great triumph of fairplay and good sportsmanship with the three teams really working together.

In the year 5 team our most valuable player awards went to Danny and Mary, with Amelia getting most improved player.

In the year 6 team our most valuable player awards went to Luisa and Fineasi, with Angelica getting the most improved player award.

Well done to everyone who came along and made it a great successful day.
Thanks to the parents for coming to support and coaches Mrs Tofa (Year 5), Mrs Parker (Year 6), and Ms Atuahiva (Year 7/8). Also a big thank you to Ms Maruariki for coming along on the day to support the Year 5 team.

Kākāpō's reading activity

Kākāpō reading group read a narrative called "The almost rescue" by Diana Noonan from School Journal P.3 N.2 2009. It's about a girl who nearly saved a whale... Honey interviewed the main character Ella (Luisa), see what they learned about the story, and their technical skills of green-screening.... 

Weka's Reading activity

This week the Weka reading group read a narrative called "When I grow up" by Barbara Berge from School Journal P.2 N.4 2006.

Whitney, Sean, Fasi, Setaita and Litia interviewed some of the main characters - see what they learned.

Assembly Presentation Term 3

This week Room 7 had the pleasure (and nerve-wracking job) of presenting our school assembly. The last presentation was done by Rooms 8 & 5 and they did a dance battle to "Watch me", it was so good, with some amazing freestyle dance moves. 
We knew it would be a tough act to follow and weren't sure how we could beat it... Until some of us had the great idea that we could do a flash mob! 
A flash mob is when the dancers are scattered through the audience and the dance just begins randomly without announcing it to anyone. 
Well, we had 6 days to practice, and practice, and practice, luckily we're all pretty good at dancing in Room 7, in fact some of us are really good, so when it came time to present we were ready! 
While we were waiting for everyone to arrive in the assembly, some of us started to get nervous, but Mrs Parker just reminded them that the nervous feeling was just excitement. 
Charlie, Salote, Honey and Loto were in the middle of presenting, the music started... and gradually, by 2, by 3, by 4, then everyone was dancing and rushing onto the stage. 

Stay tuned the to video recording of our dance. 

Sharing with our Glenbrae Kids

This morning Room 7 went on a mini field trip out the gate, down the path and into the next gate to visit the wonderful young tamariki at Glenbrae Kids Early Childhood Centre. We took along a bunch of our favourite picture books to share with the them. 
After sharing our books with the children, they shared their learning activities with us. We got to explore their arts and crafts, blocks, and playground. We invited Glenbrae Kids to come to our special assembly next Friday where they might share a song with us all. 

 

Keeping ourselves organised

Term 3 has led us to think about how we keep ourselves organised in Room 7 so that we can make the most of our learning time. We talked about what we need to do to be organised throughout the day. 
Below are the ideas that we came up with:

Over the past few days we have been focusing on doing these things without having to be reminded. We have been getting better and better at managing ourselves, and this means that we have been making better use of our learning time. 

Look how beautifully organised our class was this morning before the bell rang! 

Some of us have also made posters to display as reminders of how to be organised. 

Looking after our teeth

We had a presentation today from a dental hygienist called Cynthia. She talked to use about two really important things we need to do for caring for our teeth. 

Firstly, sugar. We learned that sugar harms our teeth, and to avoid decay, and rotting painful teeth we need to eat healthy food and not eat or drink foods that are full of sugar. We learned that a bottle of coca-cola has 16 tsp of sugar, when we are only supposed to have 4tsp of sugar a day. Wow. Read our personal blogs to learn more about what we should and should not eat to protect ourselves from tooth decay. 

The second thing we need to do to look after our teeth is brush and floss them every day. We wrote some great tips on our blogs about brushing our teeth and making our own dental floss. 

Cynthia is running a short information evening next Wednesday evening to talk about the ways we can look after our teeth and save money on our dental care. Please come along and hear what Cynthia has to say. There's also going to be a hamper filled with healthy treats from Pak'n'Save for one lucky family, and details to win an electric toothbrush. 

Wednesday 19th August 

5.45pm 

Sausage Sizzle 

Some of the money saving tips Cynthia had were in the picture below:

Te Reo Māori myths and legends.

Last Wednesday morning, Room 7 jumped on a bus sang to the bus driver and arrived at Glen Innes Library to be greeted by 5 kaiako (teachers) from Auckland Museum. We were divided into two groups were we each sat on different sides of a blue cloth. The cloth represented an awa (river). Our kaiako taught us how to use patu (club) and rakau (stick) just like the native ancestors of Aotearoa (New Zealand - The land of the long white cloud). Then we began to hear a story about two tribes - Waitakere and Hunua. The waitakere people were known as patupaiarehe (forest fairies), they were small and had long flowing blonde hair and blue eyes. The hunua people were known as Tūrehu (fairy people), and were also small with flowing red hair. These people had a great battle and our job was to participate and act out the battle between the two tribes.
See the video's below.

Following this, we were each given a piece of clay. Here we made a mould of a matau (fish hook), just like Maui used to fish up the North Island. Later on, we will use our mould to create our own taonga (treasure) necklace from.

Learning to take charge of our own learning.

In Room 7 we are learning how to be good learners. How to take charge and responsibility for our own learning. 
Today during literacy learning time, while Mrs Parker was with one reading group, the other groups were taking charge of their own learning. Some were reading and blogging about KiwiKids news articles, others were seeing what other people had been learning about by reading and commenting on blogs, while another group was reciprocally reading. 

Reciprocal reading is a cool strategy that we use to lead our reading groups without a teacher. As a group we take turns being the 'leader' and predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarising what we have read. This helps us to help each other make understanding. 

Reciprocally reading Weka Group (from left: Vainikolo, Sean, Fasi and Danny)

 Pukeko Reading Group (clockwise from left: Charlie, Newsam, Salote, McKenzie, Trent) 

July Blogger of the Month ~ Danny

An outstanding month for blogging in Room 7. 
This month's winner has however gone to Danny. Danny has a record number of blog posts. 
29
Yes. 
Twenty 
Nine

Not only has he blogged his learning activities, but he has been writing recounts about other events at school, at home, and out and about with family. 
Great work Danny. You sure have a passion for writing and sharing. 
Keep it up.
Read Danny's blog posts here

Egg Sitting Challenge Success

As our egg sitting week drew to a close we had many successful egg parents. 
Unfortunately there were a few fatalities during the week, and valuable lessons were learned. 

Congratulations to the teams who managed to keep their egg in one piece for the entire week. 

Loto and Charlie 

Luisa and Honey 

Nirvana and Whitney 

McKenzie and Sean 

Davarni and Shannon