Surprise!!!

Wow I have an amazing class! On Friday morning Mrs Toohey and Room 26 surprised me with an awesome baby hamper. They also wrote messages on nappies and everyone had written a letter to the baby with beautiful hopes and wishes for him. I felt extremely lucky. Thanks to all of you, your Mums and Dads and Mrs Toohey. You are all wonderful.

Yr 6 Song

Backing Track with Lyrics.

Full Song

Athletics

Here is Chloe coming in first in the 80m sprint at zone athletics last week. We had a clear winner there! Well done Chloe.

Monster Fair

Thank you to all those people who braved the changing weather and made their way down to the Monster Fair yesterday. Your support was crucial to making the event as successful as possible. I hope you all had a blast and managed to see all the things that were on offer. Special thanks to the parents who helped us out on the candy floss stall. You were wonderful.

Young Wirters

Last week the Young Writers' Workshop returned to St Albans for some talented Year 5 writers. Jake was lucky enough to be a part of this group. Here are two pieces of writing he produced over the 2-day session. You can find stories from other Year 5 writers on the GATE blog.

The Escape

As I trudged along, the rain was pouring thick and fast through the canopy of the rainforest and all over my coat of fur. I have to tell a story tonight in the burrow. But I’m the worst in my pack at public speaking and even worse, the story has to be true.

Then, through the dark trees, I see an ocelot’s worst nightmare. Skidding my way over the muddy grounds is … the king of the jungle. The jaguar’s mouth is expelling foam, its eye’s glare at me with anger and hatred. I see it’s yellow razor sharp teeth and smell its revolting breath It pounces! I manage to scurry out of its reach but I see its reflection in one of the many rain forest puddles. It pounces again and his knifelike claws dig into my face and neck. I swing my own claws and they rip a gash in his tough cheek flesh. He backs away. I take this as my chance and sprint under a hollowed tree root. The jaguar comes back for another try but only his claw tips can fit in the root. He skulks back to where he came from with his head down low.

I wait until he’s gone then slide under a fallen jungle tree and bolt. I get away but I’m not out of the woods just yet. I still have to take the journey of scampering home with blood flushing from my cut ear and nose. My front left paw is injured badly so I am easy prey to other animals.

All to share this story, I thought to myself, while limping back to the burrow. I’m not sure stories are worth it!


Faster Than Sound

Thunder cracks loudly like a boom box
People below flee to the safety of their homes
I speed down racing against sound itself
Thunder gains on me
My friends cheer me on
I hit the ground
I am like a splotch of paint now spreading the walls
I am faster than sound!
I am a raindrop.

Hats, Hats, Hats

Remember that this is a hat term. Make sure you have a hat at school every day.

Runathon

Fund-raising for camp and improving our fitness and health at the same time - perfect! Last Friday we finished the day with a runathon to raise money to help reduce our camp fees. Each Yr 5/6 student had searched high and low for sponsors to help the cause. The money we raised was based on how many laps they could run in 20 minutes. The final tally is yet to be confirmed as money is still being collected. I'm sure it will be a brilliant total.

School Kapahaka Performance

Te Mahuri finished their cultural festival efforts with a final performance for the whole school last week. It was fantastic for everyone to finally see a live performance and they all did beautifully.

Alpine Ice

Today the senior school went ice skating at Alpine Ice. We had a huge range of skaters, from those who had never been before through to those who were pros like Jack and Tane. We had a fantastic time and had some pretty exhausted children by the end of our skating session. We tried to get some photos of everybody but some were a bit dark once the lights got turned off. Here are the ones we managed to get.

Cultural Festival Performance

On Monday night our kapahaka group Te Mahuri performed at the cultural festival. A clip of their performance is below and it is brilliant! See if you can spot some Room 26 class members.

Kapahaka

For the last 4 weeks Room 26 and Room 24 have been doing kapahaka on a Friday morning. This is a separate programme to those who are performing in the cultural festival and it has given everyone the chance to see what kapahaka is all about.

Today I (Ms A) was sitting in Mr McKenzie's office doing some work when I heard the boys begin to perform a haka led by Thomas. It sounded so brilliant that I jumped up and went to check it out. The girls then performed a poi song that they had only just learned, which was also very well done. All of the children enjoyed these lessons and hopefully this will lead to some of our Year 5's taking more of an interest in our school kapahaka group next year.

Poetry Recital

Last week we held the annual Room 26 Poetry Recital. The class have been working on their poems for most of the term, both in class and at home. We have been focusing on different aspects of recitals such as the use of expression, using pace for effect, volume, clarity and gestures/actions. Ms Pelham was the judge for our recital and our buddy class were part of the audience. Ms Pelham had the extremely difficult task of choosing our winners, along with some highly commended awards. Here were out results:

Year 5:
1st Place - Jake
2nd Place - Chloe
Highly Commended: Kahn and Paige

Year 6:
1st Place - Emma
2nd Place - Lydia
3rd Place - Thomas
Highly Commended: Ibrahim, Anastasia, Ryota and Ambyr

Jake, Emma and Lydia went on to recite their poems in the senior school poetry recital on Tuesday. The standard at this event was incredibly high and we were so proud of how all 3 of our class mates went. We also had some excellent results:

Emma received 3rd place in Year 6!
Jake received 1st place in Year 5!!

Well done to everybody who performed in both the class and the senior school recitals.

Calendar Art

Here is some samples of our calendar art this year. If you like the look of these, check out the Room 26 folder in the office and order your own calendars, cards, diaries or notepads. A copy of the artwork is also on the wall in the classroom.

Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori

Week 1 of this term was National Maori Language Week. We refreshed out knowledge of maori days of the week, numbers, greetings and instructions along with learning some new words and phrases to use at home and in the classroom. Our biggest goal was to perfect our mihi. A mihi, or pepeha, is a way to introduce yourself to others. It shares information about the land that we call home, our family and our community. Here is the mihi that we used in Rm 26:

Tena koe/korua/kotou

Ko _______________ te maunga (mountain)

Ko _______________ te awa (river)

Ko ___Hato Opani___ toku kura (school)

Ko _______________toku matua (father)

Ko _______________toku whaea (mother)

Kei ______________ toku kainga (home)

Ko ______________  toku ingoa (name)

Ko ______________ toku ingoa whanau (family name)

No reira
Tena koe/korua/kotou, Tena koe/korua/kotou, Tena koe/korua/kotou katoa.

We now have several children in Room 26 who can recite their mihi off by heart - Ka rawe!!

Book Week

Last week we had one of the best book weeks yet!! It started off on Monday with the book parade. In Room 26 we had Hairy Hooligan Vikings, Harry Potters, Mary Poppins, The Mad Hatter, Dorothy, Tintin and many more! Willow (the Mad Hatter) and Olivia D (Mary Poppins) won prizes for best dressed in our class.

 We also had a big Book Week secret. We had been practicing a dance with our buddy class to the song "This Book's Gunna Be a Good Book" to the tune of "Tonights Gunna be a Good Night". On Wednesday at lunch time we all played on the courts and when the song came on we broke into a giant Flash Mob with the 5 other classes who had learned the dance. It looked really cool.

On Wednesday everybody bought their favourite books in to share with the class. It was great to see the range of books and authors that our class enjoy.

Throughout the week there were heaps more things to keep our minds on our books:

The Book Fair - this was set up in the hall and lots of people bought new books. It helped to raise money for our school.

Visitors - Craig Smith visited with us new song called Square Eyes. A parent from Room 21 (Dale) also visited with a book he wrote when he was 16! He is just getting it published now.

Book Olympics - this was a race between all the classes to answer questions all about books. It all got a little bit crazy!

Book Reviews - most people have presented their book reviews and they look amazing! It's great to see people putting some extra effort into their homework.

Audience Readers - some people read a picture book in front of the class. These were well read and most were very entertaining!

Book Tally's - each person kept a tally of the number of books they read over the week. Lots of people read 20-30 books and some even read over 60! That is a lot of reading.

Remember that you can keep using our Book Week saying whenever you are trying to read:

Don't bug me, I'm reading!