Friday picnic in the sun

This afternoon we had a really lovely picnic in the sun. Big thank you to Liam's Dad who gave us a bucket of delicious crunchy apples from the company he works for Mainfrieght and to Katie's mother who made courgette muffins with the courgette from the Arahoe vege garden. It was a really special way to spend the afternoon. 

Certificate winner week 6

Well done Lulu, you got an award for your wonderful ability to write a story all by yourself. Keep up the awesome work.

Oreo learning

On Wednesday we learnt about how the moon changes shapes throughout the course of the month. To make this learn fun and hands on the children were each given an Oreo biscuit and had to make the shape of the moon using the Oreo! We had a lot of fun. Can you spot a Cresent whole or half?! 

Look who came to garden club!

Today a lot of room 18 children joined Mrs Turner for garden club. We picked beans, carrots,courgette,  feed the worm farms and cut up comfrey to lay underneath all the fruit trees in the orchard. Junior garden club is on Tuesdays but is moved to Thursday if it is bad weather . 

Star Dome Visit

Hi everyone,

One of the mothers in Room 18 would like to visit the stardome in the weekend on Saturday or next Saturday depending on numbers, if you would be interested in joining Yash's mother and others please email Zabeen on zabeen4u@hotmail.com.

The Stardome is based in One Tree Hill and would be an excellent way for your child's interest in the solar system to grow.

Star Lab Visit

As part of our solar system topic we have  star lab visiting us with an inflatable planaterium to talk about the solar system. Your child went home with this notice below today  The cost is $6 or $4 for Arahoe members. Please bring your child's money to school in a named envelope or bag before the 5th of June. 

Maths

We love maths time and some of us have been learning how to instantly recognise numbers on a dice. We then had to cover the numbers on our bingo board.

Sharing our work

These children shared their work today. 

Lunchbox writing

Well done Aarna for writing a story with for sentences. We wrote a story about our lunch boxes today 

Making our solar systems

We are having so much fun making our solar system pictures. Yesterday we painted the sun and earth and today we are adding the remaining planets. We had to discuss each characteristics of each planet if it was hot or cold, windy or bumpy and then we choose fabric and textured paper to represent each planet. I can't wait until they are on the walls. Next stop is adding stars and the moons for each planet!! 

To make each planet we had to trace around a circle cut it out and glue.

Congratulations James

One of the reasons why we love teaching is when you see the ah ha moment when children are learning a new skill and then they can do that skill with no assistance. It suddenly clicks. This happened today during writing when James went and wrote a sentence all by himself! Well done. The grin on his face and excitement when he shared it with his friends was very special.

Our blend of the week.

This week we have been learning all about the blend ch. To help with learning this blend we had a lot of fun today by taking part in activities that began with Ch. We danced the cha cha and made food that began with ch for Charlie's restaurant. We also watched this hilarious youtube clip from the muppets about Charlie's restaurant that could only serve ch food.

School photos

Tomorrow this  envelope is going home so you can Oder your child's class photo. This is the black and white copy of the photo. Don't they look cute!! Please return the form ASAP

Solar System Projects - can you help?

As you would know we are learning all about the solar system this term. Room 18 is fascinated  with the topic and we have been researching fun and learning related art activities we can complete with the children based on what they want to know more about. At the moment they are very interested in space ships and the planets. We are hoping to complete the following projects and would love your help with collecting the things we need. We are hoping to start the project in week 7 on the 2nd of June.

Solar System Globes

Do you have any of these things at home?
1. Glass jars with matching lids
2. Glitter
3. Modelling clay

Space Ships

Do you have any toilet rolls or tubes at home? Please bring them in so we can make space ships!!

Parent interviews

Good evening parents,

We have enjoyed speaking with some of you over the last two days about how your child is going in Room 18. I understand there are some families that were unable to get a booking for an interview, we would like to remind you that at Arahoe we have interviews four times a term and our next scheduled interviews will be for those parents who were unable to see us/ get a booking this week. They will be in week ten and we will send out a reminder. Feed back from the interviews was that a lot of parents would like to know the reading strategies we use in the classroom and we will add this information onto the reading page within the next week.

Once again, it is great to have the opportunity to "catch up" and please remember we are available in the mornings and by email if you have any questions.

Dana and Jaimee.

Shadows

We have been learning about shadows so we had a play with the OHP today and had to guess the shadow on the screen. 

Solar system fun

We are learning all about the solar system and we made planets out of playdough and talked about then.

Maths fun

Here is a wee video of us singing along to a Maths counting video. This video clip is also available for you to watch with your child under the Maths page.

What really happens at lunchtime?

Arahoe is a really amazing school with the large variety of lunchtime activities on offer. We have choir, rock band, bolly hop, Kapa Haka, african drumming, garden club, art workshops, drumming, guitar and many more. Today Mrs Sadgroves our music specialised teacher took her African drumming group outside for all the students to enjoy. All of Room 18 gathered around and watched in amazement. I hope you enjoy the video, you can hear Ms Reid in the background enjoying it!!


 If you are interested in any of the activities on offer at Arahoe head along to our school website and view the events calendar, from there you have all the information about what is on offer.

Here is the second video I took where the group performed again at afternoon tea break. The two boys are in middle school and the girl in is senior school!

Apples

Mr Limbrick our principal handed out delicious apples to the classes this afternoon. We enjoyed munching on our apples while we listened to a story.

Shadows

Today we explored the concept of shadows as part of our science topic. We discussed how do shadows change, how does the relationship between the position of the sun change our shadows. As a learning activity we set up a shadow play area and the children each had a turn putting on a shadow play for their peers. The children were able to use their hands or puppets. Children even came up to be a narrator to tell a story as the shadow play was happening. What a special afternoon activity.