Moving On

The school year has come to an end.

The days we have spent together have been fondly reviewed.  Memories have been giggled over and a few tears have been shed.  Most of the Room One students will move to Room Four for 2014 with a handful of students staying behind in Room One to be the ‘leaders’ as it gains a new teacher and more children.

I will be moving to Bailey Road Primary and Intermediate School in Mount Wellington, Auckland.  I am sure before long you will find me there in some form of blog or page to celebrate learning but for now there is no link to what is still an idea … I will post a link as soon as I have one.  As Boston wrote in my card ‘I will miss you very much …’ I will miss Room One very much too – I am so proud of their efforts, risks they took in learning and successes.

My last post here is one of thanks …

Thank you to those of you who have followed our class blog as readers and by leaving comments.

Thank you to the St Joseph’s School community for embracing our love of learning, inquisitiveness and curiosity.

Thank you to the parents of Room One students who let me be a very special part of your childs life.

Fafetai lava (thank you very much)

 

 

Visit to the bee hive at Newton Central School

This morning we had a really interesting visit to a beehive that a school close to us has.

Ross, Newton Central School’s kind and knowledgeable groundsman showed us the beehive and told us what he knew.  Some Room One children were feeling a little bit nervous and scared before seeing the bees but we soon found out that the bees were very friendly.

Ross even lifted the lid off so we could see inside the hive.  We could smell delicious honey so when we came back to class we did a little bit more honey tasting.  Queen Nefertiti and Queen Una are still the favourites.

It is really pretty special to see something we have seen in books in real life.  After our walk there and back Room One are feeling a little tired.

Ross is showing us is inside the beehive.

Julizah’s Honey Writing

My favourite honey was Queen Charlotte’s because it was runny and it was sticky and soft.  I saw so many little dots.  It was yum and honey is in my tummy!

Honey Tasting

We tasted three types of honey from Waiheke Island.  On the jar it said who the Queen Bee was.

We tasted Whakanewha Native Bush honey from Queen Charlotte’s hive.

We tasted Whakanewha Active Manuka honey from Queen Nefertiti’s hive. About

We tasted Palm Beach Multiflora honey from Queen Emma’s hive.

We had our favourites and we wrote about why they were our favourite.  It was really hard to describe the taste of honey without just saying it tasted like honey!

The three honey pots we sampled.

 

We are tasting honey. We tasted three different sorts.

 

Questions about bees …

We are back at school and already deeply immersed in our inquiry learning… we hve some questions we will use photographs, diagrams, videos, books and people experts to try and answer.  Today we learnt that we have a building for people in New Zealand that is called ‘The Beehive’ … some Room One people thought that was VERY funny!

I wonder how bees collect honey and go from flower to flower.  I wonder how big their wings are and how bees grow.    J’Dore

I wonder how bees can hold onto pollen while they are flying.  Rory

I wonder how bees collect honey and how they bring it to their home.  I wonder where bees come from.  Jayavanti

I wonder how bees make honey.  How do they collect it? I wonder how they buzz and they sleep and why they are different colours.  Julizah

I wonder how bees go from flower to flower.  Dominic

I wonder who would win in bear versus bee?  Boston

I wonder how many legs bees have.  I wonder how bees can make honey.  Is honey bees favourite food?  Kenani

I wonder how bees sting.   Enya

I wonder how bees can fly.  Roman

I wonder why bees have a bee hive.  I wonder why bees are black and yellow.  I wonder why bees make a buzzy noise.   William

I wonder why bees live in a beehive. I wonder what a beehive has to look like, are they all the same.  Zephan

I wonder how bees can fly.  I wonder how bees can make honey.  I wonder about bees little eyes.  Jasnine

I wonder how bees make honey.  I like honey.  Honey is my favourite.  Sebastian

Fiafia Follow Up

First of all Room One were very sad that Team New Zealand did not win but have had useful discussions about how we don’t always win, even when we give it our best and how to really make breakthroughs we can’t just stick to what we know we will win. Lots of great learning lessons to be taken from Team New Zealand – their integrity, determination, faith, striving for excellence, and staying true to who they are (even in defeat).

We did not have long to ponder this as we needed to get on an get ready for our school Fiafia. I wouldl like to send a HUGE thanks to J’Dore’s Mum and Nana who helped me to get the Room One students hair, make up and costumes ready on the evening. Thank you to every parent who send along the correct items for costumes – we looked fabulous!

I was so proud of Room One’s efforts and the crowd seemed to love us

Waiting for their dance partners to pick them up from our Room One hair salon.

As we lined up at the door to head out onto stage Julizah gave Roman some last words of encouragement. They were so excited!

too!

Thank you to Chrystal who helped get our gorgeous girls looking like they stepped right out of the 1950’s!

Americas Cup Sailing

Here is the link to watch the live stream yourself …http://tvnz.co.nz/americas-cup

Go team New Zealand!!!

Curiosity and Wonder

As our followers will know we are soon to perform at our school Fiafia dance evening.  Room One are goingt  to do a simple rock n roll step to a medley of popular tunes from that era.  My daughter has a record player so I went along to ‘Real Groovy’ and bought several records … including Elvis.

It was really fascinating to  watch the children try to make sense of what I was explaining about records and record players.  They kept going back and looking from a different angle before dancing off to continue their work. Then a few minutes later they would drift back and take another look.  Their curiosity was infectious … the more Sebastian, Roman and Dominic looked the more students came to join them.

No Strings Attached

Yesterday we had a performing arts group visit our school.  The show was titled ‘No Strings Attached’ and had the message that we are the masters of our own lives, we do not need to let others be our puppet master and control us.  The actors (Ash, Nicki and Justin) were so talented.  Ash played the character of the evil puppet master and had the whole audience against him which is the mark of a fantastic actor!  Boston was so against him that at one stage he held up his fist and shook it at him!

The message is so powerful and one that our young people need to hear again and again.  The influence of peer groups, daily exposure to media, and unwittingly going along with the ideas of others because it is easier than standing up by oneself are things that all of us could do to think about – yes, even us adults.

Our St Mary of the Cross MacKillop value of the term is ‘Compassion – Do Your Bit’.  Goodness knows she had many times in her life when she stood apart and stood up for what she believed in.  In 1893 she said ‘Let no obstacle deter you from proceeding with courage.’

The Virtues Project says compassion is … caring deeply and wanting to help, even if you don’t know them. It is being kind and forgiving to someone who has hurt you’

If we are to take the message of ‘No Strings Attached’ into our daily lives what will we need to do differently?

Gearing up for the learning EXPO

We are getting everything for our upcoming learning expo.  We are practicing doing some of our rock activities again so we can show our visitors how to do them.

Today we classified rocks into their three groups just like scientists do.  We had long, involved and enaged debates about which catergory or ‘family’ we thought each rock went in.

Long discussions were had as to whether pumice could be rock when it was so light