Sunday, June 24, 2012

The best thing about Star Circle is ...

Friday was a very busy and slightly strange day at Bradford.  Most of the students and even some of the teachers came to school in their pajamas! No, we didn't have a memory lapse and forget to get dressed.  It was part of our BVD (Bradford Values Day)  This is another way of celebrating awesome behaviour and students in the top level in their class were able to participate.  In Room 4 that means being on the green traffic light.

Being on the green traffic light means we've been honest, polite, including others, showing 5 great listening skills and following instructions straight away. 

The other part of the celebration involved spending about an hour playing and enjoying a huge variety of board games brought from home.  Room 4 certainly looks like they are having fun!










Star Circle
We had a good think about Star Circle on Friday.  We shared a lot of different things that we like about Star Circle and and some points that we don't like so much.

Some of the best things about Star Circle are:

  • The games 
  • Finding out who is Star of the Week
  • That everyone listens to what I say
  • Being the Star of the Week
  • That it's all fun 

Some things we don't like so much about Star Circle are:

  • Not being the Star of the Week
  • Having to sit still
We had a discussion about how we could solve the problem of sitting still.  There were a couple of suggestions and we discussed the good points and bad points of those.  So now Mrs B has some useful information for future classes.  

"Yay, thanks Room 4!" 

Speaking of the Star of the Week, here's the latest one.

He's been displaying the Key Competency of Managing Self and taking responsibility for his own learning.  Especially in reading and writing.  Three cheers for ...

Dylan.


Watch out next week for some photos of cool things in the last week of the term.
Bye for now.
 

Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Wonky Donkey and other interesting things.

Another famous author visited Bradford last week.  This time it was Craig Smith, the author of The Wonky Donkey and Willbee the Bumblebee.  He sang some really funny songs as well as singing along to these two very funny books.  We helped him out and joined in for some of them.  


We got a sneak preview of his new story Kaha the Kea.  Summer from Room 3 was very lucky and got to show us Kaha  while Craig sang us the story.  

During this song we had to make all kinds of movements and funny faces then freeze.  Some of us have some very funny expressions!

Counting in Tens

Ngā porowhita kōwhai (The Yellow Circles) maths group has been learning about place value by counting in tens.  Kahnye the photographer got some good shots on Thursday of maths buddies showing off some new skills.  Here's a photo showing how they were doing it.

Isaiah pointed to a 2 digit number.  Nika and Josh collected that many beans.  This number is 50 so there are 5 containers of 10 beans.


Talking Tins

Yes - you read correctly.  Tins that talk.  They have all sorts of uses.  This week one of the writing groups used them to record ONE idea at a time before they wrote it in their books.  
You record the sentence then you can play it back as many times as you need to write the sentence. After you have written the sentence, you check that it has a beginning capital letter and a full stop.  The dolphins wrote some awesome stories last week.  The sharks will get to use the talking tins this coming week too.

Caleb and Sora loved using the talking tins.


Star of the Week

This week's star has great self management skills.  He often likes to work and learn by himself.  
This year he has been developing his abilities to enjoy working with a small group and now he rather likes it!  He's also really good at encouraging others to participate. 

Tigue - a star at relating to others.  

Don't tell anyone, but there are only two more weeks in Term 2.   Shhh!




Sunday, June 10, 2012

All sorts of fun.

Welcome to Week 7's blog entry.  There were so many visitors at Bradford last week.

We had a visit from Kyle Mewburn.  A really, really cool author who wrote the books Kiss Kiss Yuck Yuck, Hill & Hole, Duck is Stuck, Ants Pants and some other funny books.  He was hilarious!  He also shared about how he writes books.  One of the most important things is to have lots of ideas in your head and another is to keep working on a story until it is the best it can be.


We also had a visit from some student dental therapists.  Whew, those are big words!  There was a furry fellow with big ears there as well.  They talked to us about how to brush our teeth properly and reminded us to do it twice every day.  After breakfast and before bed are great times to brush your teeth.

Gracie from Room 3, Isaiah and Tom helped out by being dressed up as a dental therapist and a patient.   

Gracie wasn't too keen about putting the mask over her mouth and nose so Tom helped her encouraged her by doing it first.  Thanks Tom!



Check out the cool dark glasses that protect Isaiah's eyes.

Dr Brushwell was rather keen on hugs!


They also helped us out with some 'wonderings' we had about mouths and teeth and toothpaste.  Briah wondered how teeth get wiggly.  Here's what one of the therapists shared with Briah and the rest of us. 

The root of each baby tooth slowly disappears as the adult tooth starts growing deep down in the gums.  When there is no more root to hold it in the right place, it wiggles all the way out!  Then the adult tooth grows up in the same spot. 

Maths in action in Room 4

Luke and Tigue are learning how to use pairs of numbers that add to 10 to add up lots and lots of numbers.

Salesi and Briah are identifying 3 digit numbers by s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the hundreds, tens and ones out.

Nika, Josh & Kahnye are playing 'Shoot' to help them instantly recall basic facts.  You have to be really quick to get to keep the card when these two are playing!


Lastly, here is Room 4's latest Star of the Week.  She is a star at the Key Competency of Thinking. 

Caitlin has been using great thinking skills in her writing and her questioning.  Go Caitlin!!


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Bits & Pieces from Week 6

We had an awfully busy week last week.  On Wednesday we said a final "Farewell" to Annashay.  She and her family are on their way to the Gold Coast to live.  We hope you enjoy the trip and find a really great school when you get there.  We'll be thinking of you this week when it snows in Dunedin!

During our reading sessions in Room 4, we have some tasks we have to do and some we can choose to do.  Here are some photos of some of us enjoying various ways to extend our reading skills.

Kerrianne and Nika are playing Battleship.  This game helps readers to read phrases (groups of words) easily and fluently.  It's a lot of fun.

Thomas and Caleb are enjoying some of the activities that go with our story of the week on Sunshine Online.  It's especially fun on the Active Board!

Dylan, Lindsay and Sora are enjoying Sunshine Online too.  


On Friday we had an ABC (That's an Awesome Behaviour Celebration)  We got to choose from a range of activities and games for half an hour.  Plus we got to enjoy a lollipop!  

Steven, Matthew, Caleb and Isaiah are playing Shuffleball.  You have to be really accurate when rolling the ball along the board.  Isaiah was really tricky and managed to shuffle one ball into another and push it into the next point zone!!

Finally, here's our new Star of the Week.  She has a fabulous 'can do' attitude and is really rocking Room 4 with her determination.

You Rock Kerrianne!