Fly free 'Precious'

Today Precious was very calm on the swan plant until midday.  Then she flew around the room and landed on the carpet.  She finally settled on Laura and even when Laura walked outside Precious stayed with us for quite a while.  We loved the chance to see her up real close.  Our Room 1 buddies came and saw her before she flew away.  Josh noticed that the body of the butterfly is similar to the body of the caterpillar.  We are still amazed at the miracle of the transformation.  

Writing purpose

Today we looked at the purpose for our writing.  We each got to present back to the class in our groups.  We know there are many purposes for writing.  We looked at different ways of presenting our writing.  Today we got to write an application.  Mrs K asked us to apply to present at the TED2012 conference.  This is the Taieri e-day conference.  The workshops are run by the learners.  Our applications could apply to present or attend the conference.  We had to think carefully about our reasons for applying and the skills and talents we have to offer!

Good fit books...

Today we got a whole new range of books.  We all tried out 'good fit' books.  Were we interested in them?  Did they suit us?  Did we understand them?  Were they comfortable?  Did we know most of the words?  Could we understand what we were reading?  YES - we are getting really good at picking 'good fit books'!

Good fit books and great learning spaces!  What more could we ask for?

...and do you know who I am?

My Name is …..

Creative, Wacky, Clumsy, unique.

Lover of Chicken, pineapple, Reece Mastin.

Who feels X factor should be in NZ, watery when I yawn, Happy when eating ice-cream.

Who gives time, Hugs, Money to the poor.

Who would like to be a billionaire, to meet Reece Mastin, solve world problem.

Who comes from Dublin, Ireland

Who now lives in Mosgiel, New Zealand

My surname is…

Who am I?

Who am I?

My name is ….

Chatterbox, Friendly, Positive, Funny

Daughter of Jenny and Gully.

Lover of pizza, animals, Reece Mastins Singing

Who feels sad for hurt or sick people, happy when eating pizza, bored when watching soccer.

Who needs friends, family, and food

Who gives old clothes to younger kids, everything to her friends and bubbly smiles to everyone!

Who fears massive ugly hairy trolls,

Who would like to be rich, get an apple mac book pro and to meet and greet Reece Mastin

Who comes from Fuzhou, China and now lives in Mosgiel Dunedin.

My last name is ….

Butterfly prayer

Dear God

                Thank you for all butterflies.

            Please look after our butterfly when

          We set it free. Help us to remember that

         the butterfly will be safe and it will lay eggs

    Amen

...and can you guess who I am?

Fast, fit, funky and fun

Daughter of Lockie and Simone

Sister of Saffron and Oak.

Lover of netball, ice-cream and candy.

Who feels happy, fantastic and guilty when she does something wrong.

Who needs ice-cream to eat, veggies to grow strong and parents to look after her.

Who gives money to the poor, smiles a lot and gives everything to her friends.

Who fears homework when too hard, big spiders, creepy crawlies and bullies.

Who would like a Rottweiler dog, a boat to go out into the lake with her friends and family.

Who comes from Mosgiel, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Another bio poem

WHO AM I?

Kind, musical, adventurous, funny

Daughter of Ann-Marie and Jeremy, sister of John

Lover of Cadbury chocolate, netball and shopping

Who feels happy when she sees her friends, exited when we go on holiday and sorry for poor people,

Who needs a roof over her head, a loving family and lots of friends

Who gives presents on birthdays, gives up her food during the 40 hour famine and helps when asked

Who fears spiders, zombie land and spiders

Who would like a dog, to go to France and to be able to fly

Who comes from London, England and lives in Mosgiel, Dunedin  

Bio Poem

Fun, fit, funny and smart

Daughter of Sharyn and Alister, sister of Riley and Jessica

Lover of chocolate, candy and rugby league

Who feels happy when the Gold Coast Titans win there rugby game, sorry when I hurt someone’s feelings and fantastic when I am in the pool

Who needs ice-cream to eat, people to look after me and energy to swim

Who gives love to her family, smiles and everything to her friends

Who fears big dogs and snakes

Who would like to see the Muppet Movie, a kitten and heaps of candy

Who comes from Dunedin in New Zealand and lives in Mosgiel

WHO AM I?

A new arrival...

Room 6, St Mary's School, Mosgiel are very proud to announce the safe arrival of their baby girl butterfly, PRECIOUS, at 2.27pm on Monday the 27th of February.  All well. 

Within half an hour the wings were full of blood and she was flapping her wings and walking around the plant!

It wasn't long til we were able to tell that she was a girl butterfly, by the lack of black dot scent pouches on the wings. 

By the time I was leaving class she was flying around the room!  

PICK - Good fit books

On the 27^th of February Mrs. K brought in some shoes. She put a shoe on and asked if it was a good fit. It was a high heel shoe and we said it was a good fit but you can only wear it when you go out, not for a walk. Mrs K tried on six or seven different shoes. Some were her sons and she put on her slippers. Some shoes were too big, too small and the slipper had a hole in the toe. The lesson was make sure that the book you pick is a good fit. Some things we decided were the book is the topic you like, you must know most of the words and the book has to interest you. Some of us think the book should be a challenge for you.  We are going to take a lot more care when we PICK good fit books now!

Michaela's prayer

Prayer for the victims and witnesses of the Christchurch earthquake

Dear Lord,

Look after everyone who witnessed the earthquakes in Canterbury.

Help us to remember that we are lucky that we weren’t there and the earthquakes weren’t here. Protect the people of Christchurch, they have a strong heart and believe that things will get better; their hope is rising although they have lost many loved ones. I pray Lord that you will give them the strength they need to carry on their lives.    Amen

By Michaela 

Our identity...

We are thinking about our identity at the moment... With the help of James Nottingham we are discussing what it means to be me!  http://www.jamesnottingham.co.uk/sites/default/files/primary_concepts.pdf
As part of sharing our identity, we decided to make identity records!  We are sharing our life story through photos of our life to date.  It sure did take ages to scan in and print out all our photos but I am sure you can see it was well worth it.  We are sharing them on an LP.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record  Later we are attaching a CD to the LP to share our language and our culture!  Sam said this is like the evolution of the LP to the CD!
We had such an awesome funky Friday displaying our life to date!  On the reverse of the record we are displaying our life as we see it through a wordle or a tagxedo!  Check out our progress to date!

As you can see, the cuttle bugs were in use again!

Shared Silence remembering one year on for Christchurch...

We gathered together for a minutes silence at 12.51pm on Wednesday!  It was a very moving time with complete silence and respect.  Jaylah shared a very special prayer and we remembered all the students and families who joined us from Christchurch last year.  We remember all who lost and suffer and continue to be challenged!  You are all in our thoughts and our prayers.  
We used our prayer journals to record our thoughts.  We will publish some of these next week.

Take home literacy packs

We are loving our literacy packs.  We have four packs with four types of writing in each and we all get a turn to take them home and write.  This week we loved sharing our first writing.  
Zara shared an amazing job application complete with CV!

Mia shared a very entertaining 'wanted' story!

Kurt shared an amazing recipe for a Chocolate Cake!

Chelsea shared a wonderful autobiography!

We really love the take home packs.  We really enjoyed coming up with 16 different types of writing. We love the choice of writing and we love listening to each other's writing.  Maybe we will publish some of our writing on here for you next week!

Time to farewell some desks...

Last week we removed all the desk inners.  It is magic.  We are soooo much more organised with our literacy learning kits and our books on shelves.  
Today we decided to farewell a group of desks and use collaborative table space.  We are loving it.  We can now chose anywhere to sit and work.  We are really enjoying the flexibility and the extra space.

Xtramath

https://www.xtramath.org/

Have you practised your Basic Facts today?  I notice a lot of you are very close to a celebration!  YAY - well done.  I am very impressed with your efforts and the progress you are making.  I wonder if you can all have a couple of turns before Monday???

Caterpillar Excitement

Today before morning tea one of our class pets, (a Caterpillar) climbed up to the top of  the bamboo stick which was stuck into the soil beside our classroom swan plant. Everyone gathered around the plant to watch and find out what was happening. The caterpillar was moving into his new home, the Chrysalis. As the caterpillar was transforming everybody gazed with amazement. Mrs. K. recorded the stages while Mrs. F. took some close up photos. The caterpillar wriggled his skin off. It looked he was like wriggling out of his black and yellow striped sleeping bag. A green sheet came over the little wriggly caterpillar.  He was going into his changing room! Soon we will have beautiful Monarch butterflies fluttering around the classroom. I can’t wait! 

                        

My Avatar

My avatar’s name is the Rein-fro-guin-monarch butterfly. She lives in the jungle on the edge of a cliff. Her friends are the Bis-pol-at-tiger, who belongs to Anahera.  The Bis-pol-at-tiger lives in the forest, which is down the road. They meet up in the forest for a feast every Tuesday. They eat grass, meat and leaves. Her antlers fall off in the spring and summer. Don’t worry they grow back. She lays eggs in the winter. When I whistle she flies straight to me, which is in New Zealand. She lives in Australia. She climbs trees with her giant tree frog arms. She is half penguin and part monarch butterfly. I think she is the best creature in the world apart from a unicorn.

Dunedin Metro Trials

1^st trial: On Sunday Sam, Josh, Mason and Thomas went to the first metro trial at the high performance centre. They were looking to see our technique for batting and bowling. We were very nervous.  All four of us bowled for 20 minutes. We batted for about 5 minutes each. Mason ran Thomas out about five times.

2^nd trial: on the next Sunday Thomas, Sam and Mason got through to the second trials. Sam hit a couple of fours. Thomas got 15 runs then Mason bowled him out. The green team batted and Mason got about 14 runs and then Thomas gave revenge to Mason and bowled him out sadly. Sam was next bowler and he got a hatrick off the same person and then about 2 balls later Sam caught a brilliant catch.

We all got in to metro and first game is against south Canterbury on 4^th of March at Logan Park.

Butterflies Butterflies Butterflies

Caterpillars get big and fat and then hang upside down for a wee while and then they go into a chrysalis. About two weeks later it has changed into a butterfly and then it is ready to come out. Its wings are tiny and its body is fat and full of blood. Next the butterfly waits until its wings are dry before it flies away.

A caterpillar miracle

At morning tea on the 20^th February one of our caterpillars shed its skin and went into a chrysalis. It was amazing. It was such a wonderful thing to watch. It is on top of the bamboo stick. It was whirling, swirling and twirling round in a circle. Everyone was watching. It is really cool how they shed their skin. That is our caterpillar miracle.

22 February 2012 - How will we remember?

What are we going to do on Wednesday to remember all of those who suffered in the Christchurch Earthquakes?  Let's talk about it tomorrow and decide on what we can do as a class and as a school.

Miracle

Service

On Sunday Bridget and Chelsea did Altar Serving. Altar Serving is choosing to go on the Altar and help Father Michael and that is a sign of Service. Service is volunteering to help out and do marvelous things.

Our value this year at St Mary’s is Service so we all are going to try and do what we can do focusing on our value. Different things you can do to show service are helping everybody, looking after somebody, showing respect and doing your chores. Service is a very good thing. We love it.

School Vision

Our school vision- Confident, Reflective, Risk-Taking, Life long learners in a catholic school.

Confident- Confident means you’re a bold speaker. You’re not afraid to burst out. You always seem to know what you’re doing!

Reflective- Here we like to reflect on things. We look back and think about things!

Risk-taking- We like to take risk. We are not afraid to risk it all. We try new things all the time!

Lifelong learners- here at St Mary’s you will learn forever no matter how old or young.

In a Catholic School- Our school is a catholic school. We have Mercy Values. We also have a special uniform.

         THIS IS OUR SCHOOL VISION!

Fantastic Funky Friday

Last week it was a totally Fantastic Funky Friday because we got to have fun making Valentine's day book marks and cards. We all helped each other and enjoyed making them with all our imagination. We used Mrs.K's cuttle bug and Georgia's cuttle bug. We rolled it through and brought out the awesome pattern.  Now they all look great.

I can't wait till tomorrow.          

Skyping with Rosmini College

To finish a MAGIC day we had a MAGIC skype session with Rosmini College.  We are working with this class for the year on Health and Safety messages.  It was exciting for our two classes to meet and introduce ourselves and our classes and schools.  Each Monday this term we will be skyping.