We are a Year 1 class at Nelson Central School, Nelson, New Zealand. Most of us are 5 years old,
except for our teachers, Tracy and Sam and Mark our trainee teacher aide, who are a little older. This blog lets you know what we
have been up to and what our next learning steps will be. We love to find out what people
think about our class so please get typing and leave us a comment.

Monday 27 April 2015

Term 2 Week 1

Welcome back to our first blog post for Term 2. This term we will be sharing focusing on  Maori whakatauki or proverb each month and a new Maori word each week. The kupu o te wiki was kura meaning school. This is how it can be used in a sentence:
He nui taku kura.
My school is big.
The whakatauki for April is:

Sam and I are both very impressed with how the children have turned into real experts when it comes to folding and recycling their milk cartons, a great start to our Zero Waste topic
 In buddy time this week we worked with our Room 5 buddies designing and making different types of paper transport including helicopters and planes.
 As a part of our focus on the sound 'l' we created some lovely lions ......
 ...and learnt how to spell the tricky word ' look', 
 On Tuesday we had our first hockey lesson with Scotty. I was impressed by the skill level of the children and we are all looking forward to our next lesson in week 2.
 On Thursday Sam helped us to learn about probability in maths by thinking about the things that Little Red Ridinghood would, would not and might, see on her walk through the woods.

Have a listen to our counting song we were using to help us think about groups within 5 in maths this week e.g. 2+1, 2+2, 2+3. By the end of the week some of us were working with groups up to 10..well done.

In art we used the primary colours: red, yellow and blue plus the secondary colour green to make a background for out portraits.


The primary colours theme continued with blue as our colour of the week. Have a peek at all 3 primary colours in this photo show.

Red, Yellow and Blue in Room 10 on PhotoPeach
What are we learning in Term 2 Week 2
Sounds: 'b' and 'ai' as in rain
Tricky Words: was
Writing: weekend recount, descriptions
Maths: grouping numbers e.g. 5+1, 5+2. 5+3
P.E. No Child Left Inside
Maori word for the week: Akomanga, classroom
Topic: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Art: Wiggle painting 
ICT: Starfall
Colour of the week GREEN
Reminders
Tracy is teaching Mon, Tues, Wed, Friday
Sam is teaching Thursday
Tuesday 2.30-3,00 Jolly Phonics Parent information session in Room 10
Wednesday 3rd June Museum trip for Maori Myths and Legends, leaving school at 12.40, helpers needed
Term Dates
Term 2 finishes Friday 3 July
Term 3 starts Monday 20th July
Term 3 finishes Friday 25th September
Term 4 starts Monday 12th October
Term 4 finishes Wednesday 16 December


Sunday 12 April 2015

Term1 Week 9

The final week of our first term together has been one mixed with excitement and sadness as we said good by to Dr Potaka who retired on the last day of term. Here you can see him wearing his special korowai gifted to him by the school community. The red represents the North Island and the  green represents the South Island. Each feather represents one of the many children he has helped during his career as a teacher.
Here is our own leaving message for Dr Potaka from all of us in Room 10.
On Tuesday of Week 9 we had some special friends visiting from Campus Corner with their teachers. All these friends will be joining the Kowhai syndicate when they turn 5 later in the year.

In maths we continued our work on ordering numbers by exploring a new game from our group boxes. It was a bit trickier than it looked so we will continue to practice this next term.

During the week we read the book The Tree Hut Treaty which introduced us to the Treaty of Waitangi. 
We then went on to make up our own Room 10 Treaty using ideas from the Convention for the Rights of the Child to help our thinking. Below is our finished result which will be on display in Room 10 by the end of Week 1 Term 2.


Over the last 2 weeks we have started saying Good Morning to each other using some of the languages spoken in our class other than English and Maori. So far we have used Goede Morgen (Dutch) and ito ta em (Chin Mizo). We would love to learn how to say Good Morning in other languages spoken by our Room 10 families and whanau.

Finally we leave you with a little reminder of Easter with our Easter Egg poem.

See you all in Term 2!!!!


What are we learning in Term 1 Week 9
Sounds: 'u' and 'l'
Tricky Words: specific to spelling groups
Writing: weekend recount
Maths: grouping numbers e.g. 5+1, 5+2. 5+3
P.E. No Child Left Inside
Maori: continuing to develop our pepeha: Ko Vernon toku papaKo Tracy toku ingoa
Topic: 
Art: Wiggle painting and finishing portraits
ICT: Digital camera work.
Reminders
This week's colour is blue
Tracy is teaching Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs morning, Friday
Sam is teaching Thursday afternoon
Term Dates
Term 2 starts Monday 20 April 
Term 2 finishes Friday 3 July 
Term 3 starts Monday 20 July 
Term 3 finishes Friday 25 September 
Term 4 starts Monday 12 October 
Term 4 finishes Wednesday 16 December