Explorers of the World

A new year and a new blog

2011-01-23T17:02:00.002+13:00

After much soul searching the 2011 class will be in a new room, with a new name and a new blog. You can follow the new blog at http://illuminate8.blogspot.com/ Please come and visit us and leave us a comment

Our final farewell.

2010-12-17T09:39:00.003+13:00

The last day as a Room 2 Explorer.
The inspiration for the name EXPLORERS came from a fantastic book, How To Be An Explorer of the World (by Keri Smith). Here is some of her advice...

1. Always be looking (notice the ground beneath your feet)
2. Consider everything alive
3. Everything is interesting, look closer
4.Alter your course often
5.Observe for long durations
6. Notice the story going on around you
7. Notice patterns, make connections
8.Document your findings
9. Incorporate indetermancy
10.Observe movement
11.Create a personal dialogue with your environment
12. Trace things back to their origins
13. Use all of your senses in your investigations

Lets hear what some of the R2 Explorers say:

Rosalind: We learned Art, that you can mix colours. In maths I learned that you can learn facts and they help you with other facts

Harrison: In reading I have learned that you should not sound like a robot. It should sound like talking or it won't make sense.

Caidyn: In maths I used the tens frames to help me know my doubles

Hannah: In reading I recently learned about the way books are organised. It helps me predict what might happen next.

Sam: In reading I learned about going back and fixing up if it doesn't make sense.

Jaiden: At Discovery time I learned about sharing

Ross: I was helping Sam make the marble track. I can help.

Fraser: In writing I learned to slow down. If I don't slow down when I grow up I won't be able to read my writing

Ruby: At maths learning how much water was in a container. It was fun.

Amy: I learned about maths.I learnt that there are different ways to solve maths problems.

Emma: Discovery time, I liked the art. I learned that you have to share.

Ella: In maths, I use the tens frames to help me count.

Ryan: Writing. I have learned my fast words

Kylie: In reading I have learned to fix words up so I can learn more

Maraki: At maths I learned there were 4 containers with 4 teddy bears in each one. I worked it out my using my brain. My brain did 4, 8, , there is 8 in the other 2 and 8+8=16

Milania: In maths I learned to count in twos

Best wishes to you all for a safe and happy Christmas

End of the Year Organisation

2010-12-14T14:49:00.006+13:00

We are really busy getting the class sorted as Jocelyn is moving to Room 8. Elly will be in Room 2 next year. We are the first class in the "shifting chain" so it is busy getting ready for the shift.

Just to let you know the events for the next few days...
WEDNESDAY
-Movie
-Rm 2 furniture shifting (children and equipment will stay in R2)
-Art will be coming home

THURSDAY
-Morning tea for parent helpers
-Year 6 graduation assembly 11.30
-Class books coming home
-Hoping to squeeze in a swim time in the afternoon. Bring your togs but no promises!!!

FRIDAY
-Final assembly 11.30am-12.20
-School closes at 12.30pm
-Any other bits and pieces to come home

Our Maths Learning

2010-12-07T15:06:00.005+13:00

Today we decided we wanted to share our maths learning with you.

We are excited about our learning in Maths.

Circles are learning to remember their fast facts.

Triangles are learning to use their doubles facts to help with other facts.

Squares are learning to solve equal group problems by skip counting. Today Karen came to help us with our maths.

Letting the Board of Trustees Know about our learning.

2010-12-02T09:19:00.004+13:00

We talked about what we would like the BOT to know about our learning this term.
We decided it would be a good idea of they looked at our blog and noticed how much different learning we do in Discovery Time.
We also decided we had learned lots at Athletics and looking at our voice thread on athletics learning would be a good idea.
Emma said that we are learning to estimate in maths. We have been finding out how long things will take. We used egg timers and tipped them upside down. We learned how long it takes to run and walk, or run up the stairs and down the slide.

We have made fantastic clocks and we have learned to tell the o'clock times.

Jocelyn went to i school and learned how to use keynote. It was fun! She made the poem on our blog to practice her learning so she doesn't forget!!!

Our poem for this week...

2010-12-01T21:27:00.002+13:00

Whte Hat Thinking at Discovery Time

2010-12-01T21:19:00.002+13:00

Discovery Time on PhotoPeach

At Discovery time we put on our white hats and thought about the facts and information we found out.
Fraser said, "The bubbles felt funny when we touched them. They felt soggy, wet and slimy"

Mitchell thought that we had added some chemicals to make the bubble mixture.

We all thought it was the soapy dish-washing liquid that made the mixture slippery.
Jocelyn did add glycerine to the mixture to help the bubbles hold their shape.

Then The Explorers showed what amazing scientists they were when they asked lots of questions...
*Would the mixture be as good if we didn't have glycerine?
*Would it work with glycerine and water?
*Would it work with glycerine and soap?

Ross found out that the bubble maker with lots of holes makes bubbles that stick together.

We found out how windy our classroom was when the door was open! Hannah found out the spiral moved when the door was open because the spiral caught the wind. If we shut the door, no air comes in and the spiral stays still.

Ruby said that hot air from the light bulb lifts up. It catches the spiral and the spiral spins around.

What else did you learn?

The Rocket!

2010-11-30T21:33:00.005+13:00

Harrison' Rocket on PhotoPeach

Harrison and Connor have done the writing for this post!

My mum came to school because she wanted to. People in Room 2 liked the rocket because they had lots of information about how rockets work.
Harrison

I think the rocket will go high. It will land in the ground. It makes a pop sound. The rocket was red. the rocket was very big.
Connor

Have a look at http://www.rokit.com/uk and you can see some pictures of the rokit working

Flight

2010-11-23T20:39:00.005+13:00

Some Great Writing to Share

2010-11-19T09:47:00.009+13:00

We have had fun using different ideas and the what do you see poem. This is called innovating on the poem. It is fun to do, maybe you could try it at home!

Here is some fantastic writing Sam did all by himself. He has written lots of very clear details so we can get a picture in our heads about how to go down the slide. Well done Sam!

Athletics Learning

2010-11-18T13:58:00.004+13:00

We have been practicing for Athletics sports. Here is our learning so far...

Mrs Wishy Washy versus Dirty Berty

2010-11-17T13:00:00.007+13:00

Mrs Wishy Washy lost the battle against Dirty Berty. We are sad Mrs Wishy Washy did not win. It was a close battle

We think Mrs Wishy Washy should have won. She is the best!!! But we tried our hardest to vote.
Here is the story we wrote about what really happened. It follows on from the story on the Library blog.http://bookapediabattles.weebly.com/

Mrs Wishy Washy appeared out of the commotion. She had Dirt Berty by the scruff of the neck. Mrs Wishy Washy threw Dirty Berty into the tub.
"Into the tub you go!" she shouted.
She scrubbed him with the scrubbing brush and slippery soap...
"Wishy, washy, wishy washy"
"Now you are all clean, sparkly and shiny!" she said.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrr" growled Dirty Berty.

Our Airport Visit

2010-11-11T15:24:00.003+13:00

At The Hanger on PhotoPeach

WOW! What a day! Thanks to Sarah, Justine and Daniel for coming along and helping out.
Leave a comment and tell us what you learned from our visit.

Making Our Helicopters Fly

2010-11-10T07:47:00.008+13:00

We made paper helicopters. We folded the paper into thirds then we cut it almost to the top. We folded the two outside "arms" the opposite ways. If we folded them the same way they did not work.
We put a paper clip on the bottom of the middle arm. If we didn't put a paper clip on it wouldn't spin. It needed the heaviness of the paper clip to make it spin. (Great thinking Harrison- it is actually called a counterbalance). If we put the paper clip in a different place, or you put two paper clips on it did not work as well.

Some cardboard is thicker. It did not work because it was too heavy. When the paper was thinner and lighter it could twirl down. It started off just falling down through the air and then it started twirling. It spun around really fast.

If we made the helicopters arms too long they went all floppy like spaghetti (Great WOW word Jaiden), the helicopter took a long time to start spinning. Short arms were best.

If you held the arms at at the start of the spin it stayed in the air for longer.
Why do you think the helicopters worked?

Using the White Hat

2010-11-09T13:10:00.014+13:00

Today the submarines worked on using their white hat to gather information from the book they read on continents. They made a word cloud with all the information they found out about a continent.

What is flying?

2010-11-04T13:31:00.005+13:00

What can REALLY fly? on PhotoPeach

What do you think can fly?
What can't fly?
What can move through the air but it can't actually fly?

Flight

2010-10-26T10:30:00.007+13:00

We brainstormed what we already knew about flight...

Can you add more about what you know?

Bats

2010-10-22T11:29:00.002+13:00

Finally! The power point that shows our learning about bats!

WOW! That was interesting!What do you think?

Wonderful Writing!

2010-10-21T08:57:00.005+13:00

We are learning to write to describe.
When are learning this because good descriptions let the reader imagine the thing you are writing about.

Good describing...
*includes LOTS of detail about...
-what something looks like
-where you might find it
-what it might taste like
-what it might smell like
-what it feels like with your hands
-how you feel with your heart
-what it does
-how it is special

*Might mean you need to do a bubble map to help you plan your writing

Is the describing excellent enough so that you know what these explorers have written about?

Being safe with Matches, Lighters and Candles

2010-10-20T08:46:00.004+13:00

What are matches and lighters used for?

2010-10-15T15:23:00.004+13:00

Matches and lighters are used by adults to light safe fires.
Here are our ideas, click on the vocaroo button to hear them.

Lighters and matches are tools you use to do jobs.
Make a comment to tell us how tools and toys are different.

Thinking About Thinking

2010-10-11T21:35:00.008+13:00

Welcome back to Term Four! We had a great start to our term with Discovery Time today...

Today at Discovery time we were using "The Hats" to help us really think about Discovery Time.
When we put on the Yellow Hat we thought about the good points.
*Tasting the pikelets and spreading them with honey or jam
*Making pikelets because we had turns
*Painting the flowers because they were colourful
*Playing with the tyres because we made beds and castles. We used our imaginations
*Making the flowers because we made three different ones
*making transformers with the mobilo

Next we put on our black hat and thought about what was wrong with our Discovery Time...
*It was too loud, some people were loud
* I didn't get to make a pikelet or have many turns with the mobilo
I didn't like it when I fell over on the tyres
*I didn't get to make pikelets

So what can we do to make next week better?

Happy Holidays

2010-10-06T21:02:00.005+13:00

I hope you are all having a great holiday! Hasn't the sunshine been AMAZING!
Can you guess where I have been on holiday? There is a clue in the photo. This was the view out of the window of the house. It was like being on top of the world.

I found this interesting sculpture there too. Can you see how the sculptor has used halves in their art...

Have you guessed where I was yet? You are right...somewhere by sea! Leave a comment to guess.

Make the most of the last few days of the holidays. I look forward to catching up with all your news on Monday!

We went hunting for halves...

2010-09-24T20:44:00.003+12:00

We have been out hunting for halves with our classroom buddies. Look what we found! See if you can find some halves when you are out and about in the holidays!
Hunting For Halves! on PhotoPeach

More Lizard Measuring.

2010-09-23T13:13:00.004+12:00

Can you see how many lizards tall Haianh is? She is Sam's cute little sister who was visiting our class yesterday.

Fizzy Explosions

2010-09-22T10:31:00.006+12:00

Here are our questions after the fun with fizzy...

The BIG Mentos and Coke Day on PhotoPeach

-why don't some bottles fizz up?
We noticed that the orange fanta did not go as high. Did all the fanta not go high? Mitchell noticed that none of the fanta worked.
-why did some people put the mentos in a holder?
-what made each bottle different?
In our class the Sprite, the Coke and the diet Coke went high.
Maybe people put different amounts of mentos in. Maybe the ones that went really high put a lot of mentos in? All the classes put different amounts of mentos in

Fizzing Fizzy!

2010-09-21T14:47:00.007+12:00

In our first experiment the mentos had one of the smallest reactions.
Here are the suggestions we came up with to get a fizzier reaction like the one we saw on u-tube. We could...
-cut a hole (or lots of little holes) in the lid
-put lots of mentos in
-use a bigger bottle of fizzy, like 2.25 litres
-take the paper off the mentos first and hold the mentos in with some string.

We tried this and it looked really different!
-The coke went up into the sky!
the coke went on fizzing. Jocelyn squeezed some at David and it nearly hit him!
-It went much higher
-It made a fizzing sound

We think it went much higher because...
-we used a bigger bottle of coke
-the mentos were not in a packet. That made the reaction quicker
- we put the lid back on and the lid had a hole in it.

More measuring...

2010-09-17T13:44:00.010+12:00

We measured how many lizards tall we were. Shane was 7 1/2 lizards tall. He was the tallest in our class. When we measure how tall we are it is called our height.

Harrison thought it would be a good idea to measure how many lizards tall people were in his family. I have spare lizards at school if you would like to try this. Why don't you predict how many lizards tall people are over the weekend? By the look of the weather forecast it looks like a good weekend project!

Can you see how many lizards tall our classroom is so far? We might need to put some more lizards up to find out!

Thinking about Measurement

2010-09-17T12:32:00.001+12:00

Room 12 gave us this white stuff...

2010-09-17T08:31:00.007+12:00

A boy from Room 12 came and gave us some white stuff to play with. It was messy! It was gooey!
The Mysterious White Stuff comes to Visit on PhotoPeach

Here are some questions we are wondering about...

How do you make that stuff?
What do you put in it to make feel really weird?
Why is it gooey?
Is it a liquid? Or is it solid?

We are learning about measurement

2010-09-13T08:12:00.003+12:00

learning about measurement on PhotoPeach

Our goal is to find out how many so we can measure. This fits in well with "thinking like a scientist". Scientists need to measure.

To be successful at measuring we need to:
-think about what we know when we are predicting how many
-think about the measuring we have already done and compare
-Be accurate. Measure the same each time.
When we were measuring using ladybird steps we had to make sure we made our ladybird steps the same size each time.

Discovering Science

2010-09-08T19:44:00.009+12:00

We would love you to make a comment in OUR blog! to do this keep scrolling down past the slide show until you come the the bit that says "1 comment" (or more hopefully!), write your comment in the box. If you comment at the end of the slide show it goes to a different web site and it is a bit hard for us to read!
Looking forward to your comments!
That's Shane, or Student Teacher in the second slide. he is with the Explorers for two weeks.
Discovering Science on PhotoPeach

The last plant! Joseph and Jaiden's choice!

2010-09-07T09:39:00.007+12:00

We chosed this plant because it has different colours it has green, gray and red. We think the gray bits are dead.
The plant is beside the field and windows,
and the stairs too. It was black under the plant because it is dead. We found
it were we do fitness. It is where we come out on the stairs.

Why do bits of plants die?
How does the sun give the plants chlorophyll?

Ruby and Hannah's plant

2010-09-06T09:30:00.003+12:00

We Love this Plant because it has lots of green on it. It is by the Slide . It looks like a big green ball . It looks little going down. It looks like a plum too. Ruby likes the big bits of brown I like the big bits of green. It did not have flowers on it.
Why is the plant so green?

When hot and cold water meet

2010-09-02T15:13:00.002+12:00

When hot water meets cold water on PhotoPeach

Caidyn and Mitchell's plant

2010-09-01T14:14:00.004+12:00

This plant is by the steps where you walk by the driveway. There are a whole lot of plants there. We like the blue flowers on this plant. They look pretty. It has lots of green leaves on it. It has little buds on it. It is growing some baby flowers. It has some adult flowers. The flowers are on stalk. We saw a bee on it.

Why does it have blue flowers?
Why some flowers big and some are small?
What are the white bits on it?

The What Is it Bag

2010-08-31T20:35:00.004+12:00

Maraki did a FANTASTIC Job of describing the mystery object in the "What Is It?" bag today. Christina was teaching today and she was amazed at the clever questions that the Explorers could ask. Tino pai!

Amy and Sam found this plant!

2010-08-27T08:09:00.002+12:00

We chose this plant because it has lots of leaves on it. It has got pretty little purple petals on it. It smells like paper. It was growing where we found some snails. the snails don't eat this plant. We know this because it has no tiny holes in it. Maybe it is no good for them? Maybe the snails don't like the smell? We do!

Why does it have purple petals?
Why does it have so many leaves on it?

Ella and Ross found this plant

2010-08-26T07:48:00.013+12:00

I like the plant because its colourful. The stalks
are red and green. It has lots of green and a little bit of red. The ground under the plant has sticks on it.

Why are the stalks red in the middle?
I wonder why it is different colours?

Maraki and Fraser's most interesting plant

2010-08-24T15:26:00.003+12:00

We like this plant because it had buds on it. They are going to grow into flowers.
It is going to grow more and more flowers when you give it water.
The buds are turning yellow soon they will be yellow flowers.
Why does this flower turn yellow and the other ones are not turning yellow?

Where Does All the Water Go?

2010-08-22T13:33:00.002+12:00

Some of us had been reading a book called "Where does all the water go?". It had been raining and the ground was covered in puddles...but it looked like it was going to be a sunny day!

We put 200 millilitres of water in a jar and put it in a container in the sun. At the end of the day we measured the water. Do you know how much was left?

Here we are talking about our learning...

Another interesting plant at Russell Street School

2010-08-20T10:40:00.003+12:00

Connor and Milania selected this an their most interesting plant. Connor likes it because it has got the pink flowers. Milania thought it looked pretty because it had lots of flowers on it. the flowers looked watery.

Milania wonders "why does it have flowers on it?" "Why was it planted there?"

Connor asked "who waters it?"

What Amy Noticed About Our Carrot...

2010-08-19T16:25:00.004+12:00

I love the carrots because they are great. They don't need dirt to grow. They grow with not any dirt. The carrots are growing small stems.

By Amy
Fantastic noticing Amy!

I wonder why only one carrot has grown roots?

Do you think the carrot would grow now if we planted it in the dirt? Why do you think it would or wouldn't grow?

Kylie and Emma's Daffodils

2010-08-19T13:08:00.002+12:00

We chose these plants because they are yellow. We like them because they have orange and yellow. They have two different colours

Why do they have two colours on them?

By Kylie and Emma

A few of MY favourite things!

2010-08-18T15:40:00.001+12:00

I have been doing some thinking about what I am going to draw for "me holding for my "favourite thing". I might draw myself holding my very fast ZIPP race wheel- because my bike is too big to hold!
Or I could draw myself holding my cat...
I will need to decide by Friday as that is when we are going to finish our special art.
What are you going to draw yourself holding?
What is your favourite thing?
What do your hands and arms look like when you are holding it?

Our Camera Challenge

2010-08-16T09:35:00.002+12:00

For the camera challenge we have to go and find a plant that is interesting and ask a question about it.

We took this picture because it had brown little leaves. The picture had a cool background.

Why does it have orange leaves? Why is it skinny?

By Harrison and Rosalind

We are learning lots about plants!

2010-08-11T16:41:00.008+12:00

Today Russell Kidd came and talked to us about plants.
What did we learn? Who can make a comment to tell what they learned?

We had an enormous surprise today when our white flowers turned pink in LESS THAN ONE HOUR! Here are some fantastic writers explaining what happened...

Plants are good suckers. When the dye goes into it. How does it suck it? Why does it do that? By Amy

The flower is already red. It did that fast. It did that in the middle of writing time. We were surprised that it turned red but the other one turned dark red. I liked it very much because I like dark red. By Rosalind

The plants are growing like a flower. The flower is coloured pink now. By Connor

Celebrating some great thinking!

2010-08-06T13:23:00.006+12:00

We are learning to think like scientists. One thing that scientists (and explorers) do is notice details.
After reading about honey bees we made a kid pix picture to show all the details we had remembered about bees.
After we had completed our picture we put on our yellow hat and thought about all the great things our buddy had done.
Then we put on our blue hat and thought about the sort of thinking our buddy might have to do next time.

Maraki talking about Fraser’s Kid pix

Yellow hat: He drawed the clouds and the sun and he did three little eyes and 2 antennae. He did six legs. He remembered to put in lots of details

Blue hat: He could do four wings and a bigger face. Do more remembering.

Fraser talking about Maraki’s Kid pix

Yellow hat: He did three body parts, antennae and four wings. His sting his hided but he still did a sting. He done some stripes that they are like. He did the inside of the hive.

Blue hat: he should have put his bee more upper.

Dear Rueben...

2010-08-05T08:39:00.004+12:00

On Monday we planted some plants. We had to wait for days. We need to give it lots of water to it. If you don't give it water it will die. If you don't give it dirt it will grow a little bit.

From Emma

We planted some plants on Friday. Jocelyn had some carrots that we put in water. they have some big shoots and little shoots too. I do not think they have arms or legs.

From Hannah

The plants are growing. Do you think that is good? cos they grow food for us. Plants don't have legs or arms but they might. We planted carrots too. It was exciting when we did it. The carrot started like a seed.

From Rosalind

We are learning to write to explain. Haven't these explorers done a great job?

Look at our Plants Now!

2010-08-04T08:52:00.014+12:00

The carrots are growing because they have got some spiky shoots coming out of their tops.
Why didn't they grow a tail like the other plants?
Why did the biggest carrot not grow the biggest shoot?
Why do plants grow roots?
Do all plants have roots?
Why do the carrots grow in water?
Is the carrot going to get bigger or is just the green top going to grow?

The plants that are not in the dirt are growing. We know they are growing because we can see some roots growing out of the seed. Only some are growing roots. They are not growing as fast as the plants in the dirt
We wonder why the seeds change colour? Or do they actually change colour?

The plants in the dirt are growing very big since Friday. The roots are white. the shoots are green. There are little brown things on some of the shoots. Harrison wonders what they are. Sam noticed that some of the plants have grown leaves.

Our seeds on Monday

2010-08-02T09:38:00.004+12:00

The seeds in the dirt have turned a bit yellow. They are going to grow. They are sprouting. We noticed they have a little tail coming out of them. Sam had a good question. He said "Do all of the seeds have a tail?" We looked at the seeds with the magnifying glass and we saw most of the seeds in the dirt have white tails but not all of them.

There are only four seeds on the paper that have changed colour. None of them have shoots yet.

Seeds

2010-07-30T13:06:00.006+12:00

Fraser said, "The seeds in the dirt will grow because you need water and seeds and dirt for plants to grow""
Mitchell said, "The ones in the water and the paper won't grow because they need dirt"

If A Tree Could Talk

2010-07-29T16:14:00.000+12:00

Listen to our imaginative writing...

Buzzing About Bees!

2010-07-22T20:46:00.004+12:00

Today we were thinking about honey bees after we read one of our class books.

These were the questions that we came up with. Can YOU help us with the answers?

Why do bees fly?

Why do bees have wings?

Why do bees have antennae?

Where do bees get honey from?

Why do bees make honey?

How do bees make honey?

Why do bees sting you?

How do bees fly when they have a heavy body?

TERM THREE UPDATE

2010-07-19T16:26:00.002+12:00

Welcome back to Term Three. What an exciting start to the term we have had!

DISCOVERY TIME is now on MONDAYS

LIBRARY TIME is now on WEDNESDAY.

We began "thinking like scientists" at the end of last term. This was the starting point for our Discovery Time today.

The focus for our discovery time is CURIOSITY. What is curiosity? What does it mean to be curious? What do you think?
WE LOVE COMMENTS OR ANSWERS TO OUR QUESTIONS!

Why do the pins stick to the magnet?
What do magnets stick to?

Being curious about marshmallows and fruit...

Why does the fruit all taste different?
Why are marshmallows different colours and do the colours make them taste different?
What is a marshmallow- could we make them?

Spiral time...

2010-06-27T20:36:00.002+12:00

Look what Rosalind found...good noticing Rosalind!

Our Maths learning

2010-06-24T11:02:00.003+12:00

The circles have been learning how to find the answer to subtraction problems by separating the sets and counting the objects.
They have been using double sided counters to work on this. The set that has to be seperated out are the red counters...

To see all the examples click on the little pictures in the right hand corner.

The squares and triangles have been learning how to solve addition and subtraction problems using groups of five. The problem they were working on is 12-5. In this voice thread you can hear and see the squares...

FIVE!!!

2010-06-23T16:06:00.003+12:00

In maths learning the Triangles and the squares have been learning to use groups of five to help them solve addition and subtraction problems effectively. So our camera challenge has been 5. Some of the explorers have gone out and found pictures of five. Can you look around and see where you can find groups of five when you are out and about? You can send any photos you take to Jocelyn.

Amy's Spirals

2010-06-20T19:50:00.011+12:00

Thanks to Amy for finding some more spirals. Look out for a new blog camera challenge this week!

Diversity at Discovery time

2010-06-18T13:11:00.005+12:00

At Discovery Time this week we have been learning to value differences.
We said it is good to say "I like this cool picture" because all our pictures are different.
Mitchell said, "sometimes you might want to play a different game, you just need to talk about it and choose".
Mitchell also said, "You don't laugh at other peoples differences"
Javed said, "if you laugh at a kid they would definitely cry"
Jaiden said, "if you laugh at your friends they won't be your friends"

Kylie's Spirals

2010-06-17T21:28:00.002+12:00

Tino pai Kylie!
Kylie and her mum Kelly have found all these spirals at their house.
Do you think spirals are everywhere?
Leave us a comment to answer the question.

Spiral Blog Challenge

2010-06-16T20:27:00.003+12:00

The blog challenge for today was to go and find as many spirals as possible. Javed and Jaiden did a great job of finding spirals. Here are some of them. Can you find some spirals at home to take a photo of? You could email them to jocelyn@russellst.school.nz to add to our slide show.

Matariki Monday

2010-06-15T15:46:00.004+12:00

Matariki Monday

2010-06-11T15:26:00.002+12:00

What a great day we had today with our buddies learning a new song for our Matariki celebrations on Monday.
Have a look to see what we our new learning will be on Monday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMGMK02x5n4

WOW! Listen to Connor's Reading

2010-06-11T11:43:00.004+12:00

Listen to Connor's reading. can you hear how he is scooping up the words and making his reading sound like talking? He was also doing some great fixing up. Ka pai Connor.

Our special Visitor

2010-06-11T11:04:00.005+12:00

We had a special visitor at discovery time. Thanks Charlotte for sharing the new addition to the family with The Explorers!

Explorers; can you write your own story about Crash in the comments part?

Gymnastics learning

2010-06-10T16:06:00.003+12:00

We talked about the learning we were proud of and what we thought our next learning was.

Jocelyn said, "I have got good at teaching forward rolls because I asked Renee the best way to do it. Renee is a gymnastics coach so she knew! Next I need to learn the best way to teach backward rolls, I think I will ask Renee again because she is an expert!"

Mitchell said, "I am trying to get better at forward rolls because I am good at the beam."

Javed said, "I am good a bouncing down the tramp. I want to get better at the beam."

Shareef said, "I am good at balancing on the beam because I put my hands out that helps me balance. I want to get better at doing four steps when i walk on the beam."

Jaiden said, "I am good at forward rolls because Jocelyn said I am good because I don't put my hands on the mat to get up. I want to get better at the beam because it is fun."

Kylie said, "I am good at skipping. I want to get better at skipping because I can't skip in the little ropes."

Ruby said, "I am good at skipping. I want to get better at the beam"

Milania said, "I am good at going on the beam. I need to get better at going on the forward rolls."

Connor said, "I am good at skipping. I want to get better at going over the box."

Ella said, "I am good at skipping. I am really good at skipping. I want to get better at skipping because I want to skip faster."

Fraser said, "I want to get better at bouncing on the trampoline because I want to bounce faster."

Sam said, "i am good at forwards rolls. I want to get better at skipping."

Emma said, "I am good at the beam because I practice at home. I want to get better at the beam because I like the beam, I think the beam looks like me."

Ross said, "I am good at forwards rolls. I want to get better at rolling."

Harrison said, "I am good at balancing on the beam because I got my arms out that is the way how I can balance and I want to get better at doing forwards rolls."

Rosalind said, "I am good at skipping because I practice on the school holidays. I can walk on the beam. i want to get better at the beam. I think it is fun to practice things I don't know."

Levi the Strongman vs Room 6

2010-06-04T15:29:00.003+12:00

What a way to end the week explorers! We did our world famous assembly THEN we got to see Levi the Mitre ten strongman having a tug-of-war with Room 6.

Thanks to Kylie, Harrison and Eva for helping with the captions.

We are great writers!

2010-06-03T13:12:00.005+12:00

It is fantastic to celebrate the progress people are making in their writing.
Listen to these great stories!

Caidyn said " I left finger spaces all by myself, I made sure it made sense"

Javed said "I said the word slowly, then I knowed the word I was stuck on. I listened to the sounds, I did it by myself!"

Mitchell said "I wrote lots of ideas because my brain thinks"

We have been invited to a puppet show!

2010-06-01T20:22:00.003+12:00

The explorers have the best buddy class. They are the Digeridoos next door in Room 3. They have offered to come and perform their puppet show for us. Here are the letters we wrote to them. We do hope they might answer us!

Dear Laura,
The puppet show sounds funny.
From Ruby

Dear Laura and Anna,
We will like you to show your show. In Room three? Or in Room Two? Is it going to be inside? Or outside?
From Emma

Dear Laura and Anna,
We will look forward to your puppet show. Thank you for writing us a letter. Will it be funny? if it is funny I will laugh. If it is funny.
From Rosalind

Dear Laura and Anna,
We will look forward to your puppet show. is it going to be scary? What things are there going to be in there?
Love from Hannah in Room Two

To Laura and Anna,
We would love to come to your show. What characters will be in the show?
From Amy

To Laura and Anna,
I hope it is going to be fun. We are going to see the puppet show.
From Milania

Dear Laura and Anna,
We would like to come to your puppet show because puppet shows are fabulous it will be cool.
From Shareef

Dear Laura and Anna,
I hope it is a great puppet show. we hope that it is a great show. What kind of puppets are there?
From Jaiden

Listen to what the submarines are learning to do in reading...

2010-06-01T13:19:00.003+12:00

Watercress Tuna and the Children of Champion Street

2010-05-26T19:52:00.006+12:00

We have been reading the story Watercress Tuna and the Children of Champion Street by Patricia Grace.
Milania and Rosalind are retelling the story...

We talked about why Watercress Tuna pulled out a different thing for each kid. We decided that
*The kids were all different, they are not all the same, so they chose different things
*Watercress Tuna did not want everyone to dance with the same thing because it might be boring
*It was because Watercress Tuna had lots of different things to give them

How to Make Everyday Writing Exciting

2010-05-20T10:45:00.001+12:00

Our Discovery Time Stories

2010-05-19T14:01:00.003+12:00

We are learning to write clearly. Can you tell what we were doing and learning at Discvery Time from our stories?

Our questions about worms

2010-05-18T12:25:00.003+12:00

The Waka group have been reading about worms. Here are their questions. Can you leave a comment and help answer their questions. Thanks!

Kylie: Do worms eat bugs?

How do they get around without looking?

Mitchell: How do worms get into the garden.

Everyday Poems

2010-05-18T09:39:00.001+12:00

We have been writing everyday poems so we can learn how to make our everyday writing interesting to read.
We need to add people talking in our stories
We need to use words that tell what things are really like- not just say they are fun, or great or fabulous!

Our Learning In Handwriting

2010-05-10T21:15:00.005+12:00

In our handwriting we are learning to write our surnames. So at the start of the day we are writing our surname as well as our first name on the computer.

This is what we said we could do to get better at writing our surnames:
*practice at home on a piece of paper or a whiteboard
*practice on the computer at home or at school
*Look at the roll and copy the name, ask someone to tell you the letters

Thanks Rosalind for being such a great computer buddy.

We love learning

2010-05-10T20:58:00.006+12:00

This is our discovery time this week. What do you think we learned?

Some of the explorers shared what they learned about this week...
Mitchell said "I learned about hundreds. I learned to find the numbers fast. You have to think of a quick way.

Shareef said "I learned about teen numbers. I learned that if we have ten and two more it is twelve. I used my fingers and the tens frames to help."

Jaiden said " I learned about counting in my head to say teen numbers. I know 15 I counted 3 more to make 18.

Sam said " I learned to share. You need to ask "please can I have the paint". I learned it when we were painting pictures.

Harrison said "I have learned about teen numbers, like 9 and 10 is 19 and 8 and 10 is 18. My fingers help me.

Ruby said "I have learned to put the counters away when our group is finished"

Our Cross Country Writing

2010-05-06T07:59:00.010+12:00

In our writing we are learning to be clear writers so other people can read and understand our writing.
We decided that we needed to...
*leave finger spaces
*write in clear sentences.

To write in clear sentences it helps if we...
*think of the whole sentence before we start to write. We can even say it to ourselves
*Put a fullstop at the end of our idea and a capital letter at the start of the next sentence
*re-read our story to see if it makes sense, fix up our story so it does make sense.

Does this writing give a clear picture? Leave us a message to let us know!

Running The Cross Country

2010-05-05T17:11:00.012+12:00

This is a story we wrote together...

First we sat on the steps.
Next we did exercises with Julie.

David clapped the wood so we could start running.

We zoomed off. In the middle we all got very puffed! We had to run around the corner.

We finished when we saw the end writing on the ground.
Some people got a block from Elly because they ran so fast.
After that we got a colourful jelly bean. we went for a walk to warm down.

Then we sat on the steps and had a drink.

Look at our funny pictures

2010-04-30T11:01:00.006+12:00

Our photos look funny. They look funny because they are symmetrical. We made the pictures using photo booth. We had to click the camera. We had to use the mirror effect to make our pictures look symmetrical.
Sam said "Ruby looks like a giant!"
Everyone was laughing!

Haere Mai Reuben!

2010-04-28T18:45:00.002+12:00

We are lucky to have Reuben in our class for four weeks. He is going to help us with our learning. He is a student at Massey University.

What Are We Learning at Discovery Time?

2010-04-28T08:03:00.006+12:00

We are learning to get on together

These explorers are being kind to each other.
"We had to share and take turns and say please can I have this and not be snatching off people

"We had to share the trains and make the track together and share the track with the trains"
"We had to say excuse me and could you please back up your train"
"I said please move your train because my train is coming out"

"We were being kind to each other because I was putting the belt on"
"it made me feel good because I couldn't do it by myself"

We are exploring shapes

2010-04-25T17:34:00.002+12:00

Look what we made!

Symmetry

2010-04-23T10:05:00.008+12:00

We are learning about symmetry.
Rosalind said "symmetry is about matching. If you fold the shape in half it should be the same on each side"
Emma said "symmetry means that the two halves are the same"
Amy said 'Shapes can have 1 line of symmetry or two or three or lots!

Discovery Time 19 April

2010-04-19T16:13:00.003+12:00

Our first Discovery time! Our focus was on getting along together. We decided that we would see people sharing, listening and taking turns if we were getting along together. We thought we would hear people saying kind things to each other. Our voices would be quiet. People would say things like...
"Can I please have a turn?"
"Excuse me..."
"Please..."
Guess what? We all remembered to use our words and our listening skills and we all worked really well together!

Play the Simon Game

2010-03-26T15:29:00.000+13:00

Simon Gamegreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

Try this for your listening skills...

Marvellous Maths

2010-03-26T08:02:00.000+13:00

The squares group have been learning to solve subtraction problems in maths. Our mini bowling game gave us real life maths problems to work with.

10-?=2
10-8=2

10-?=1
10-9=1

Jaiden said "I knew this because 1+9=10, he used his fingers to help."

Visit to the Ashhurst Domain. 18 March

2010-03-18T16:50:00.000+13:00

We had a great day learning about getting along together on our day out! We all liked playing on the playground. We had an exciting day. We would all like to go back to Ashhurst Domain again!

Here are our stories about our trip. We are learning to write clearly so others can understand our writing.
Do you get a clear picture of how exciting our trip was?

Me and Mitchell were on the swing. We went high in the sky.
By Sam

I went on the steep hill.
By Ella

We went on the bus with a different class. There were four classes and different types of classes. It was the best day because there was different types of things like the parachute.
By Emma.

The best activity was the egg race. The egg fell down on to the grass and it was a tennis ball and it didn't break.
By Harrison

I liked to play with my friends. I liked to play tag. It was fun. I ran around on the grass.
By Jaiden

I am on the bus and it was fun. I can see everything. I can see windmills
By Ross

I saw a slide. Me and Sam were on the slide. It was a little slide.
By Mitchell

I went on the bus and on the slide.
By Caidyn

I am playing with the parachute. I went under the parachute. I saw other people.
By Kylie

I was on the bus and it was fast.
By Fraser

I like playing on the swing with Bella. I went fast because I pushed my legs. I copied Bella.
By Rosalind.

I am having fun on the slide.
By Ruby

I went on the slide. You have to put your hands up and you have got to put your legs on the slide.
By Amy

We talked about the pine cones Amy found at Ashhurst. Jaiden wrote some great information about them he used really clear sentences to write his ideas. can you see the WOW words he used too?

The pine cones have seeds in them. The pine cones will turn into a tree. The pine cones came from Ashhurst. The pine cones are lovely. The pine cones are spiky.

By Jaiden.

Swimming

2010-03-13T10:29:00.000+13:00

Our last swim for this term was on Thursday. We had a great time with our buddies from Room 3. We showed them all the fantastic thing we have learned to do in swimming time. Troy took some photos with the underwater camera, we will put them on the blog too!

A special Visitor

2010-03-13T10:18:00.000+13:00

Next week we have a Graduate Student from Massey University College of Education helping us with our exploring. Her name is Carmen Wilson. She will be here for three weeks. Haere Mai Carmen.

2010-03-09T10:35:00.000+13:00

Kia Ora,
We are the Explorers of the World! We are starting a blog to share some of our explorations. We hope you enjoy sharing our thinking.