Beach Education

The junior school had our Beach Education visit to North Beach Surf Life Saving Club last Friday. Unfortunately we didn't do so well with the weather on the day so we missed out on beach activities and spending the afternoon in the water, instead we had a quick dip before it rained in the morning and learnt about Sun and Surf safety, the role of a lifeguard and had a tour of the clubhouse before heading back to school.
Even though it was cold, we still had a great day and learnt a lot of new things.

Whiteboard writing - 14 October

We are practicing our words of the week in writing - I, is, the, and

We Are Learning To: Write our names

Today Room 7 have been practicing writing our names. Here is an Explain Everything movie of what we can do!
Well done Kimiora, Abby, Anahera, Semisi, Rachel, Lydia, Kahzion and Abraham who are showing perseverance as they are learning to form letters, recognise letters and say their name.

Parents - here is the way we form our letters at school, please click on the picture to make it larger.

Knitted Hats

We were very lucky to receive some handknitted hats. These arrived just in time for a cold snap! Thank you so much to Iona Presbyterian Church.

Clifford Wind Socks

In week 2 our big book was 'Dog'. We also read a Clifford story and then we made these Clifford wind socks. We took them outside in the wind and tried them out. You can now see them hanging up in Room 7.

Blowing in the wind!

Term 3 - new environment in Room 7 & 8!

The children will be in for a surprise on Monday as during the holidays there have been builders in our school knocking out walls so we can start using Modern Learning Spaces to teach the lucky children at Aranui Primary.

I look forward to a busy term 3. In writing we will be focusing on Narratives including Fairy Tales and our POGI (Programme of Guided Inquiry) Topic is Technology based - 'Aranui Helps Out'. We will start with Geometry for Maths then continue with Number.

Our school production will also be held at the end of the term and we are looking forward to helping out making sets and being part of crowd scenes to support the older actors.

Here is a quote to keep in your minds - I will try to post a quote up most weeks that will also be in our weekly What's Up.

Lueqis learning to write words!

Lueqis copied these words using our word fish today at one of the reading stations in Room 7! We'll done.

Sebastian's writing

Sebastian has been doing some amazing writing lately. Here is his story about his weekend.

Dad's snore - retelling with stick puppets

Our shared book this week is "Dad's Snore" by Heather Lovich. We made stick puppets of Dad and one more character of the story and then performed a mini-puppet show to each other.

Long lost iMovie from 2013

Here is a link to our 2013 entry to the Pegasus Digi Awards - we won a prize for the 'Celebrating our Community' category for Years 1-3.

This shows how we like to connect with our local preschools and kindergartens.

Room 7 busy in the garden!

We had a busy day planting our vegetable seedlings on Monday. We finished weeding our plot then planted broccoflower, beetroot, roly poly carrots, silverbeet and cabbage. We made sure we gave our seedlings a big drink of water as well.
We have also planted out some herbs in the central herb garden including rosemary, lemon balm mint, catmint and chives.

Please check out our school gardening blog here: Aranui School Garden Blog

Thank you to Mitre 10 Mega Ferrymead for supporting our school garden project!

Helping set up our new school Worm Farm

Our school garden is being renewed this year. Each class has been given a plot that they will have to take care of by weeding, feeding, planting and harvesting a selection of vegetables that we will then use to cook and eat later in the year.

Craig, our SWIS (Social Worker in School) helped us set up our Worm Farm today with some special Tiger Worms and a 'Worm Blanket'.

We put newspaper in the different layers of the worm farm this morning with some worm castings from Craig's own worm farm at his house. Then this afternoon we put some worms in and gave them some apples to begin munching on. We will make sure our worms have just a little bit to eat each day so they can make some nutrient rich worm juice we can use on our large garden.

Eggy Numbers on the iPads

We are practicing counting to 5 using Eggy Numbers on the iPads!
It is lots of fun and we are learning how to count groups of objects.

Welcome to 2014

Kia Ora, Talofa Lava, Hello! Welcome back to Room 7!
We are starting back at school on Wednesday 29th January at 9am. School is open from Monday 27th January so if you need anything from the school office you can come in and see Mrs Scott between 9-3.

Please make sure that you have the correct school uniform and your stationery. Our required stationery is as follows (this can all be purchased from Warehouse Stationery in Linwood - make sure you mention that you are purchasing for Aranui School and help our school earn rewards.

Stationery List:

New Entrants Room 7	Number
1A5 Exercise Book	5
Scrapbook	1
20 page Clearfile	1
Learn to Write/JL2W/JWB/LWB	1
My Writing Book One –Clever Kiwi   Company	1
Clever Kiwi Company – Topic Book	1
1A8	1
Journal Bag (Reading Folder)	1
$5.00 to cover the cost of pens, glue sticks, whiteboard markers, highlighters – to be paid to the teacher.

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday and hearing about your summer holidays.

Mrs Derrick

Christmas Fun Days

We are almost at the end of the year - just 1 1/2 days of school to go now.
This week we have been busy with Christmas crafts and cooking. Here are some pictures of our Christmas Ice Cream Cone Trees, Christmas Gingerbread and Christmas Trees made with strips of coloured paper.

We also had a shared party lunch with our friends from Room 8 at lunchtime! We had so much yummy food - and the great thing is, there are still leftovers to enjoy tomorrow!

Big Day In!

Bad weather meant that we had our Big Day Out to Thomson Park changed to a Big Day In at school.
We had a great time with a gigantic obstacle course from Bibbidi Bobbidi Bounce, fun trying out all of the different Pedalmania crazy bikes, scooter/skateboarding on the courts, movies in Room 4, moonhoppers, sports gear and a yummy Cheeseburger and sausage sizzle at lunchtime using the ASB Community BBQ. A big thanks to the Red Cross Grant that enabled our whole school to have a fun day at the end of a long year.