Bertha and the Beeman - Explain Everything

Again we have been working hard in Team Maunga in our reading.  This week our shared book was called Bertha and the Beeman.  Here are some examples of work that children have produced.  They have also been busy learning about bees using our 'BEE AMAZING' site.  They are also busy working on the 'create' part of our bee theme with some amazing artwork being produced as well as the creating of stop motion movies.  Looking forward to being able to share all this amazing mahi with you soon.

Hawaiki-Roa

Quinn

Tyler

Subira

L'Sayn

MacKenzie

Honeymakers Explain Everything Learning

This week our shared book has been based around Bees and much of our 'Bee amazing' learning.  Here are a few examples of Explain everythings that have been completed by students to share some of what they have been learning.  

We have also had students starting to work on the Create part of our 'Bee Amazing' learning.  Most students have also made a Bees-Wax wrap (we just have a few people who have been away to catch up).  We also had 2 groups of students recording this and have been working hard to make this into a movie.  Watch out next week for the upload on this, as one group has a little bit more tweeking to do.

All in all it has BEEn a full on week with lots of great learning.  

Hawaiki

(Hawaiki you have become so independent at completeing these and uploading them to the right place)

Tyler

(Love how excited and focused you have become at reading time)

L'Sayn

(What a great example of work you have shared this way!  Well done on perserveering to get it finished and uploaded.  Keep it up.  I can't wait to see next weeks!)

 

T-Shirts from Nana's - Additional Post

 

Here is another post of work from last week.  Well done both Hawaiki and Tyler for fixing a few mistakes and posting your work to Drive and Seesaw!  You are all doing a fantastic job.

Hawaiki-Roa

Tyler

T-Shirts from Nana - EE uploads

Here are a couple of examples of Explain Everything that were completed last week as part of our reading program.  Last week was an extremely busy week for us with all our other activities going on at school, and Mrs G being out for a couple of days as well as Greats and Grands day.  

It is fantastic to see how independent some of our tamariki are getting at completing these tasks and uploading them to the right places.  Well done guys.  

We are hoping to have a few extra "T-Shirts from Nana" EE's added to our blog later this week, but enjoy these in the meantime.  Also, look out for this week's Honeymakers activity which will also link to our play make create T-Shaped literacy, reading and Beeswax wraps that we will be completed in class this week and next.

 

Evie

Subira

Te Tino O Te Taiamai - Shared book

Mrs G wrote a Story for our Shared book Last week, and we became the illustrators for our own book.  Then Mrs G turned it into a digital book that we could read whenever we wanted to.  WE LOVE IT!  

It was based on our visit to Te Tino O Te Taiamai.  This week while Team Moana was away at school camp we were also able to borrow Whaea Aimee to help us turn it into a Movie, where we were the stars.  We had so much fun learning and reading about our local landmark.  We also wrote our own stories which we published as well - We were so excited to share these with Matua Ken.

Below is our Digital book, and the Movie we made.  We will create another post with our amazing Te Tino O Te Taiamai Stories.

 

Engaging reading through Coding instructions

Here is take 2 of our trial of using instructions to engage our readers more.  The idea is that it provides a focus and a real context for children to use their reading skills in.

Here is their work.  Don't forget to comment and let us know what you think!

Tommy

Subira

Peri 

James 

Evie

Engaging Reading through Coding instructions

In reading we have been trialing lots of different things to excite our readers in class.  What we plan to do is to use instructions as a reading task and children need to follow the instructions to either make something or do something.  Today the task was to use a Scratch instruction card to make characters move and dance.

We think they have done a great job.  What do you think?

 

Evie

James 

 

Peri 

 

Subira

 

 

Tyler

Dr Sprocket Makes a Rocket

Here is a link to a couple of pieces of work children have created this week for Reading.  They are based around a shared book we have covered called Dr Sprocket makes a Rocket.  This was the basis of some of our Play, Make, Create that went alongside our reading.  This work was completed in Explain Everything which is a great creative learning tool but one we are only just getting use to using.  We hope you enjoy.

The first example is by James.  It is very exciting to see how he also included a poem on his last page where he is describing his own lego rocket construction.  This is fantastic as it shows how the different texts we are reading are helping us to feel engaged and learn about the topics we are covering in class.

Evie did a great job of clearly reading part of the story and explaining what her rocket creation is like.  Well done Evie!

Subira just did a great job all around with her explain everything as well.

Maunga and Iti Space Stories

Team Maunga and Iti have been reading and learning all about Space.  We have also been busy creating different things to turn our classroom into a space place and we are finding it all very exciting.  Here are some stories we wrote after reading different books and looking at different videos about rockets and them lifting off into space.  We were trying to use interesting words to describe the parts of our rockets.  We hope you enjoy it.

Space Rocket Reading

Walking back into the classroom after morning tea to find this amazing group of children.  They are loving our classroom space focus and the half-made rocket and space area that we are setting up.  This has defiantly become a favorite place for children to read to themselves and others.  It is fantastic seeing them reading to each other quietly before school too.  

They are enjoying writing fantastic stories about space, and publishing these using Explain Everything - Watch this space for some of these!  They are also looking up different books we have in the class library, and reading books we have selected for them on sunshine classics about space too.  The space poems with QR codes that students can scan and practice reading if getting lots of use within our rocket reading space.  Our afternoon program is all based around creating things they are reading about so we can display them within this area.  They have lots of clever ideas on how to turn our whole class into space place!  It's fantastic to see all their creativity and enthusiasm.

Deano Yipadee our Virtual Author Experience

Today we had a virtual Author visit us via a direct link.  He sang us some of his favourite songs which he has made into books and we all had a great time singing and dancing along too.  He talks to us about how authors get their creative thoughts from everywhere especially the funny and sometimes silly things that happen around us.  

Here are some photos of us having fun listening to him reading and singing us his stories as well as us dancing and having fun.  We think reading and writing is MAGIC!  Lots of us want to be authors too.

PS:  We are still in Covid Level 2 restrictions at our school so we have to stay at our tables and keep in our own spaces.  But we still had lots of fun together.

Sunshine Classics Fun

This week we have been learning how to login and use Sunshine Classics.  For some, it was just a quick refresh and learning their new login details.  For others, this was more difficult, but we are really proud of each other as everyone can now login with NO teacher support!

This is great learning for all and will be something that supports our reading learning both in class and to continue this at home.   Sunshine Classics is fantastic as the teacher sets books for students to read and then students can login and complete both reading and activities based around books at their current reading level.

Ask your child to login and show you at home.

T shaped literacy

We have started using T-Shaped literacy in our class.  We read books as a class and then work with buddies at our table to record ideas about questions that help us think about the things that are happening in the stories.  Here are some photos and an Explain Everything that was created during this time as part of T-Shaped literacy work.  

Our T-Shaped literacy often links both our reading and writing together as well as topics we are focusing on.  Currently, we are focusing on Animals, looking at different types of animals and their different habitats (both in the wild and as zoo animals and as pets.  This is helping us get ready for our Zoo trip in late August.

The previous topic that we were focusing on was about Myths and Legends.  Here is an Explain Everything of a story that was being re-told.  Our publishing during this Myths and Legends T-Shaped literacy focus was acting out myths we had focused on and we recorded these.  We hope to be able to share with you all what these look like.

Reading therapy dogs

Every week we have the 'Reading therapy dogs' visit.  Today when they came we had a big talk about how to be safe around dogs.

One of the things we learnt was to check that a dog is safe before we approach them.

Reading Plays

Every now and again Mrs G brings her iPad in from home.  When she does we sometimes use an app called puppet pals.  This is a great way to record stories and plays, however we don't have it on our school iPads.  This week Mrs G came up with a way to replicate something like puppet pals on Explain Everything.  Here are a few examples.  

The First story was the play, The birthday cake that the Hovercrafts reading group had.  They broke into 2 groups to record the whole story.  Enjoy.

Part 1

By Honey & Nakita

Part 2

By Kaelan, Harvey & Rakai

Watch out for next weeks version of 'The Terrible Fright'.  It was one of the books that the Water skiers read during the week.  They really enjoyed starting to make this into a play as well, so WATCH THIS SPACE!

Great work everyone!

Smoothie Day

Today in Room 4 we were learning to read and write recipes.

We had so many delicious bananas and apples we decided to make smoothies. 

First we wrote a recipe for our smoothie. 

Then we washed our hands. 

Next we cut up the bananas and apples and put them in the blender. 

After the fruit we poured in the milk and turned on the blender. It made a very loud noise! Finally we poured the smoothie into cups and drank them!

Here are some photos of our smoothie moustaches! 

       

A monster wrote me a letter

In Team Maunga we have been learning about letter writing.  We had a shared book called Monster write me a letter.  Then Maureen called us over the loud speaker to say that we needed to come to the office to collect something. 

And it was a letter from our very own school monster.  It hangs out in Maureen in the office.  We wrote some great letters in return and learnt how to start a letter with a greeting, explain or praise something, then ask a question before finishing off with an autograph.  We thought it was very similar to writing a blog comment.

We sent the monster a couple of letters back and were lucky that he replied again to us.  We had great fun learning to write letters.

Watch this space for Explain Everything examples explaining the process of writing a letter.

Mesiah's Reading

Mesiah has been learning to point to words as he reads. We are so proud of his amazing reading last week. Keep up the great work Mesiah!

September Reading Certificates

Wow lots of Reading Certificates for the month of September.  The first 3 certificates (in green) are 120 nights reading.  This is outstanding.  Well done everyone!  Keep up the fantastic reading.  

August Reading Certificates

Another 90 Night reading Certificate!  Well done Laylah.  You are amazing.  It is no wonder that your are progress in your reading as quickly as you are!

Well done to our 60 nights reading certificate people too!  Keep up the awesome effort!