Ant and Cicada dance

This is our dance called the dance of the Ant and the Cicada. We put a lot of hard work into this dance and the music and we hope you enjoy it.

Term 4 - Journey of Survival

Term 4 is now upon us and we have a very exciting and busy 10 weeks ahead! We are going on a journey of survival, looking especially at NZ birds threatened with extinction. During the term we will join 'Kiwi' on a LEARNZ virtual field trip.This looks like being an amazing journey!

We will also be reading and writing Maori legends and exploring 'Kiwiana' symbols.

Mrs Waters has spent part of her holiday attending the U-Learn conference in Christchurch. Whilst there she learnt a great deal about educating children to ensure they are prepared for the future. This term there will therefore also be a focus on thinking, inquiry and problem solving - we will become 'solution thinkers'.

Room 9 drew Olympic mascots for when the Olympic Games come to N.Z. We have put these into a video clip for you to view.

Buddy Class

Our Buddy Class - Room 1 - is looking at transport this term. We visited them on Friday and helped them use shapes to make into vehicle pictures. There were many different vehicles including rockets, cars, boats, trucks, planes and more. We all had so much fun and love to help our little buddies. We are very proud of what we all produced.

Olympic Report Card

Room 9 children created PMI charts on the Beijing Olympic Games. Here are some of their ideas.

Mrs Barlow's Blog

Room 9 here is a link to Mrs Barlow's Blog featuring gorgeous Annabel.
www.annabel-a-day.com/

Libby Trickett

Hi my name is Puti. Libby Trickett is my Olympic athlete because she is a fast swimmer. Libby is 23 years old. She is swimming for Australia. She is going to the olympics. Libby is doing free style.

Mahe Drysdale

Hi my name is Daniel and my Olympic athlete is Mahe Drysdale. He is a rower and this will be his first Olympics. He may have not taken part in these
Bejing Olympics 2008 because Rod Waddell left for the Americas Cup and
then came back. They had to have a three race competition. In the first race
Drysdale won by miles. In the second race he lost by very little and in the third game
Rod Waddell was sick so Mahe won. In the Rowing match between all the countries
Mahe Drysdale came second. Four years ago Rod Waddell came first
in the same race. Mahe Drysdale is who I support and I think he is going to win!

Mark Todd

Hi my name is Annabelle. I am going to study Mark Todd, he is a famous horse rider. I picked him because I like horses and he is a horse rider. He was born in March 1956 in Cambridge, New Zealand. He grew up in the Waikato area. He is 52 years old and completing in his sixth Olympic games in Beijing 2008. He had a eight-year break and now will be in the arena on his new horse Gandalf. So far he has two olympic gold medals and 2 bronze medals. In the 1992 Olympics Mark Todd was the opening ceremony flag bearer. He competed in Los Angeles in 1984, Seoul in 1988, Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996, Sydney in 2000 and now in Beijing.

Valerie Vili

Hi my name is Jazmin. My Olympic athlete is Valerie Vili.
Valerie Vili is a famous shotputter. Valerie was born on the 6 October 1984. She broke a 20 year Commonwealth record of 19.00m with a throw of 19.66m in 2000.
She won the world youth champs in 2001, her throw was 16.87m. In the 2005 world champs. Valerie won a bronze medal because her throw was 19.87m. In the 2004 first Olympics she finished 8th in shotputting. In the Commonwealth games she won a silver medal and her throw was 17.45m. In the 2002 junior champs Vili's throw was 17.73m. She came second in the world athletics final.
I think Valerie is a great shotputter and she's a role model for younger people. I'm definitely going to watch the Olympic games!

Amy Chow

Hi, my name is Ye Eun.
My Olympian athlete is Amy Chow. She is an Olympic gymnast. I chose Amy Chow because she does gymnastics just like me!
She is twenty-two years old and her hometown is San Jose, California.
Her Olympic history: She competed in her second Olympics after winning a medal in the teams competition.
Her accomplishments: She finished first in the all-round, uneven bars, floor exercise and finished third in the vault and balance beam at the 2000 Bluewater International Invitational. She finished sixth in the all-round, tied for first in the vault at the 2000 RCA Gymnastics College.
Amy was coached by a guy called Mark Young and Amy Chow was the first Asian-American women to take an Olympic medal in her sport!
Amy has been a pole vaulter before AND she has two gymnastics moves named after her!!!!! Wow!!! That is one truly amazing gymnast!

Adrian Blincoe

Hi! I am Richard. My Olympic athlete is Adrian Blincoe.
He is a 1500m runner.and this will be his first Olympics.
He was a runner in the 2005 world track and field championships in Helsinki and he competed in the 2006 Melboure Commonwealth games.

Welcome Term 3

Wow, what a busy term we have just had. Performing Uncle Crumble's Mad Machine was a great way to finish the term. All the children in the Middle Syndicate were fantastic and performed their roles with style. Room 9 had children backstage, in the choir, in leading roles and dancing. They were all brilliant and can feel very proud of their achievements.

Term 3 is about to begin and our focus will be the 'Journey of the Olympics'. Mrs Waters loves sport and is very excited about the great learning that will take place in Room 9 this term. We will begin by looking at China and Beijing, the city hosting the Olympic Games. We want to find out how life in China differs from life in NZ and what is special and unique about each country.

There will also be a focus on fitness this term. We are all to be given pedometers and our class will try walking from Cape Reinga to Bluff. The cross country will take place later in the term and Room 9 will be ready!!

Middle School Production

The middle syndicate is currently rehearsing Uncle Crumble's Mad Machine. This will be performed on July 1st, 2nd and 3rd at 7pm in the school hall. As part of this we are discussing our individual roles in the production and how each of these is important for the show to be successful. This picture shows some of the children who will be in the choir.

Swimming Sports day

On Wednesday 27 of February the Middle Syndicate had swimming sports. To learn survival and have fun. First we hopped into the pool. Then Mrs Barlow

slammed the clapper then started our race. We stood up on the end of the pool after the race and everyone clapped.
It was a sunny and hot day, but the pool cooled us down.
By Chase and Lotu

Room 9's Visitor

On March the 3rd 2008 Puti found a humungous moth under one of our desks.
We thought the moth was really big and was sleeping.
It was so interesting because it was the biggest moth we have seen. We are now going to find out what kind of moth it is and we will post this on the blog.
Lotu and Chase took the photos to record the exciting event.

The Room 9 Rumpus

We have read a book called "Where the wild things are" by Maurice Sendak. We decided to create a rumpus of our own by drawing and writing about the characters.
We started off by drawing our monsters, Max and the mother, then using vivid for the outline and coloured them in. We then wrote sentences about the characters.