Reduce Reuse Recyle

We had a visit from Briony at the council. Here are some of the children's responses to that visit.

When Briony came to Highfield School to tell us about what goes in each bin, she said, “We have to keep our Earth nice and tidy.”

We can keep our Earth tidy by putting things in the bin and in the dump. We do not put things on the ground because otherwise we will be littering, so I put things in the right rubbish bins.

At the end, when she was finished talking to us about the bins I said, “Thank you for teaching us about the bins.”

Abby

OUR PLANET IS SPECIAL

When Briony came to Highfield School she told us what goes in what bin and how our school is unique for separating our rubbish. She showed us what the earth’s beaches look like when they have a lot of rubbish from people littering on the beaches. She also shared with us what amazing people could do with scraps and she asked us what is going on in the world that is not good.  An  example of this is all the trees that are being destroyed around the world resulting in some animals not having a home or food to eat.  We enjoyed Briony’s visit to our school because she was very interesting and we hope she comes to visit again.

Nova 

SAVE THE EARTH

Once upon a time there lived a nature woman and she was the Mother Earth.  She was very sad because people were littering and treating Mother Earth horribly.  She was so sad she went to God straight away.  God suggested “Make some signs”.  So she made signs all night.  12 hours later she woke with a start.  Then she started to stick signs up all over Earth.  But it didn’t work and the humans just ignored the signs.  So she went to God again and he said “Invite all the Presidents, Kings and Queens to a meeting”.  So this is what she did.  Lots of them were there and here are some of their names :USA (President Obama), Australia ( Prime Minister Guillard), New Zealand (Prime Minister John Key), France (President Hollands and Prime Minister Ayrault), England (Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Cameron).  Then she started to speak.  She said “Stop this mess”!  “My rivers are running rotten. My skies are being polluted.  My animals and birds will die.  So tell your country or I will”.  But it didn’t work so she went to God again.  And God said “Show them how to look after you, Mother Earth”.  “OK” she stuttered.  So she went to every house in the world, lifted a roof tile off each house and she put pictures of what was happening to her.  Then when the people woke up they saw the pictures and they thought let’s change the world so they did.

THE END

 Jessamy

What are the chances of that happening?

      We have been finding out about probability. Is an event likely, unlikely, certain or impossible.
       First we came up with some statements.

 For example: the sky will rain fish.

 It will snow somewhere in the world today.

 Mrs Roxburgh will win lotto this weekend.

Then we worked in groups to decide the probability of such events happening.










And we made charts to show our thinking.

A Visitor

                  Look who came to see us last week. Charlie!!!! Thanks to Brooke and her mum.

Gardening

            Room 13

Creating a no-dig garden.

             18.10.12

First we weeded the garden area.

Then we put down layers of newspaper.

Here comes the potting mix.

 

We added a layer of potting mix mixed with wild flower and sunflower seeds. Then we watered it.

We covered it all with straw.

Now we will stand back and watch it grow!!!!!!!

A New Book

Room 13 had an awesome visitor today. Her name was Maddy. Maddy read us a cool story called 'Where the Giant Lies' by Mem Fox. She brought the book over from Australia as a gift for our school from her school. Thank you Maddy and Our Lady of the Angels.

Maths time

Some of us have been learning about sharing and dividing.

We are getting better and better at it.

                           There are different ways that we can work out the answers to problems such as, "The class had 24 seeds to plant and had to put them into 6 rows. How many seeds would be in each row?"

Sometimes we share out the "seeds" one by one into each row. Sometimes we share them out in groups of two or three.

Sometimes we can work out the answers using number facts.

For example, we know that 8 + 8 = 16 and 4 + 4 = 8 so the answer to 16 divided by 4 must be four.

It makes us think. Especially when we get given mean ones like, "24 divided by what = 6?"

Our Futures

As part of our "Yes, No, Maybe" news discussion, we explored the idea of being taken away to a specialist school to train from a very young age as they do in China.

Interestingly some children thought it would be a good idea and all had ideas about what they might like to train as.

Here are some of their ideas.

Mufti Day

After a week of lunchtime sports activities, Friday was the day we dressed up as our favourite Olympic sports competitor.
Look out for Equestrian, rhythmic gymnasts, soccer, netball and hockey players, a tennis player, BMX riders, spectators and Highfield Olympians along with many others.

Gymnastics

Over the last three weeks we have been spending some time each week using the gymnastics equipment. We have challenged ourselves and each other. We have pushed ourselves further than we thought we could go. We have felt threatened and proud. As you watch these photos, ask us what was hardest, what we got better at, and what we felt proudest of achieving.

We Love Constructing

Any chance we get, we like to build, create, design and construct fabulous structures. Then we like to photograph them before we put the blocks away. When we are constructing we are often sharing and co-operating, talking about our designs and making decisions about how to improve them. All great Highfield Learner skills.

Here are some of our constructions so far this year.

Reuben Paterson Inspired Artworks

Here are samples of out artworks from last term.
There is a twist in these images: they only show part of the piece.
Can you find your work? How many other pieces can you identify?

                        http://quietube2.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yaqa5NBn700

Holiday Diaramas

Here are some of the holiday diaramas that we have been working on this term

World of Wearable Arts

        Jessie and Rebecca organised a Wearable Arts exhibition for their Highfield Learner Challenge.

Three girls from our class entered. Lili, Jessamy and Ana did an awesome job with their costumes and with their appearances on the catwalk on Wednesday night. Ka pai, girls.
                      
                          Jessamy's theme was "Not of Nature". Ana's theme was "Papatuanuku".

                                        
                                      

 Lili's costume told us about how nature needs bees.

            Lili, and her brother, Caleb, came first in their section too. 

       Congratulations!!!!

Last week of Term 2

It is the last week of term. We are very busy trying to complete our Reuben Paterson style pictures and our articles and models about places around New Zealand.
On Thursday afternoon the whole school has a hockey tournament up at the stadium.
We are having our last week of PMP and we are having some hiphop dance lessons.
No wonder the week is rushing past.


We are sad to read that Mrs Elrick's class is finished for the year. We have enjoyed reading their blog and admiring all their work. We wish them all the best for their holidays and for next year.

Book Week

What a week we have had: quizzes in the library, teacher swapping for Read and Feed, visiting readers in the library at lunchtimes and today, dress up day for book week.


We had characters from Little Women, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter, Fantastic Mr Fox. Can you spot them? And the witches, princesses, cats, pirates and fairies? 

                                               Lined up ready to go to the Grand Parade.

                                                 With most of the school at assembly.

                                                           The three Snow Whites.

                                                  Prize winning costumes from the school.

Jump Jam Competition

Today we went to a jump jam competition. There were lots of people.  We had lots of fun. We got three lollies each and we did our song, Candyman. We performed as part of a team of Year 1 - 3 dancers.

Jessamy said, that she was thinking about what France looks like and choosing the words that would go in my story and help to bring it all alive.

                   Five Senses

I like the look of dresses swaying on the ground

J’aime the smell of perfume floating through the air

I love the taste of chocolate and banana rolls churning in my stomach

I enjoy the sound of music drifting through my ears

I admire the feel of silk brushing against my skin

PMP

We do PMP three times a week in the afternoon.

It is fun. 

We learn new activities and different ways to use our bodies.

We have objects to move around and use and obstacles to negotiate.

We work in a team without arguing. We enjoy having fun in the hall.

Alphabet Soup

Thanks to The Deans, some of us have been writing our own Alphabet Soups.
Here is one by Jessamy and Sophie.

A is for apple

B is for ball

C is for cat

D is for dog

E is for egg

F is for fish

G is for goat

H is for house

I is for ice

J is for jelly

K is for kangaroo

L is for letters

M is for monkeys

N is for nana

O is for octopus

P is for princess

Q is for queen

R is for rabbit

S is for snake

T is for teddy

U is for umbrella

V is for violet

W is for whales

X is for x-ray

Y is for yellow

Z is for zebra

Cross Country 2012

Every year, the whole school goes down to the local park and participates in the Cross Country. Each age group runs a different lap. Year 2 run round the field. Year 3 run round the lake. Mrs Roxburgh was on duty half way round the lake and took these photos of some of our Year 3 runners.

 

The Dark Blue 100 Ride Bus Ticket

                                 I  like when the slug pirates got on the bus.  I  like  the  party.  Eli

Cross Country

We were so lucky with our Cross Country today. The weather was perfect. So, this afternoon, the whole school walked down to the Scenic Reserve and took part in our annual race.

Lined up ready to leave school.

Year 3 students waiting to start.

Year 2 students waiting to start.

              Well done to all our class who took part, especially Lili who had her birthday today!

Questions for The Deans

We just googled your school. After we looked at it we wondered: do you have an adventure playground? Do you have a swimming pool? We liked all the drawings on your playground.

Friday's Assembly

We went on a school trip around historical sites in Timaru with the South Canterbury Museum last term. This week we have written a song about it that we shared with our school at assembly.

We hope you enjoy it.

Some of us are chapter book geniuses

At school some of us are writing chapter books, at writing time.We started them at the start of the year. Some of us started at term 2. Savanna's chapter book is about Marshmallow Land. Savanna, Nova and Jacob.

Harold

Harold is a giraffe that teaches life education.  We learn about body parts, energy, oxygen and making friends. He makes movies and he explores in them. Harald is the coolest giraffe we ever met.

Quadblogging

We have joined a new, for us, initiative called Quadblog.

This means that we link to three other schools around the world via their blog sites. We can "meet" the children and find out what they do in other schools. The groups can change throughout the year.

Here are our Quadblog schools for this round.

St Teresa's United Kingdom

The Deans Primary School United Kingdom

Taipei European School Taiwan

Last Day of Term

What an awesome last day.

We had a shared lunch in our house groups.

We got to say goodbye to Jani and wished him all the best for his shift to Wanaka.

We got to say hallo to Elizabeth, who left earlier in the term. Great to have her visit us for the afternoon.

We got to go home for two weeks of holiday.

Be safe and enjoy your break.

Welcome!

Last Week of Term 1 2012.

A big welcome to our newest classmate, Mya. Mya has come back to Highfield School from Australia so some of us already know her. Welcome to Room 13, Mya!

A Special Visitor

Miss Kerse came to see us today. Otago schools all had Anniversary Day to she was free to visit us. It was great to see her and to share our reading and writing with her. We saw photos of her school in Alexandra and the children in her class. We all miss Miss Kerse because she was such a fun teacher so it was great to catch up with her.

Friday is Discovery Day

 We have Discovery time every Friday. Sometimes we have it in our class and sometimes we have it with Rooms 1, 2 and 3. We love Discovery. We get to choose what we want to do. We learn about getting on with other people, managing ourselves and sharing, as well as cleaning up.
Sometimes we have a theme. This picture relates to the theme of aeroplanes: some of us made planes, some of us tried to fly them, some of us pretended we were travelling on a plane. It was great fun.

Museum Trip

Last week we got to go on a walk around the centre of Timaru. We were EXPLORING our own town. We had great fun on the trip.

We found out that this is where the first house was built in Timaru. The house isn't there any more but there is a plaque on the wall to remember it.

Welcome to our Blog

Here we are! Room 13, Highfield School, Timaru, New Zealand.

We are a class of 6 and 7 year olds who really enjoy the fun things we get to do at Highfield School.

Our school is going to be 50 years old this year. Pretty special, aye?