Discovery School Olympic Day!

On Tuesday Discovery School had a mini Olympic day to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics. Congratulations to Samoa who won gold medals! Below are some REPORTS about the day...

We Are Learning To: Write a report

Wow! We had an amazing day on Tuesday. We went to different classes. We had Olympic day. Travis won a gold medal. We had a final ceremony. I was excited when Travis got a medal. I was proud of Travis. The school was in groups. I was in Ireland.
Reported by Ariana

Tuesday was the best day ever. We had a mini Olympics. We went to different teams. My favourite sport was basketball.
Reported by Noah

Wow! On Tuesday Discovery School had a mini Olympic day. The children were divided into different country teams. There was an opening ceremony outside. All of the teams were on parade and then the games started. India won the bronze medal. Belguim won silver medals and Samoa won gold. The whole school listened to the Samoan anthem. Every one had a great day!
Reported by Bede and Keelan S.

England

Wales 

Australia 

New Zealand

USA

Japan

Canada

China

Wales

Samoa

Holiday Boredom Busters!

Happy Holidays!!! Click on the links below to be directed to each website. Perfect games for a wet and cold winter's day!

Literacy Games
http://pbskids.org/games/literacy.html

Maths Games
http://pbskids.org/games/math.html

Online books to read
http://www.magickeys.com/books/ or http://www.storylineonline.net/ and http://www.mightybook.com/

Also, check out these cool links:

http://kids.yahoo.com/ (news for kids)

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/ (national geographic kids)

http://www.funology.com/ (cool crafts, games, recipes)

Shared Writing

Today in AS Class we did shared writing about the sun and the planets. Shared writing is when we work with our learning buddy to brainstorm and write ideas together about a topic. Both buddies have to equally contribute to construct a story. One buddy is the writer and the other is the reader/checker. We all did really well at working together and listening to each other's ideas. Read on to see our awesome buddy writing!

Jupiter
Wow! This planet is cool! It has one storm and it has 40 moons! It is the biggest planet. It can spin the fastest. Jupiter has a big moon. It is orange like a fire. It lives up in space with all the other planets.
By Ella and Tegan


Neptune
Wow! It's different in Neptune! There are blue clouds in Neptune. It has the most storms in the solar system. It is 4498252900 kilometers from the sun.Neptune has white rings. It is the windiest planet and is really dark blue. 
By Bede and Logan


Uranus 
Uranus is the coldest planet in all the solar system. Uranus has got tipper over but no knows why! Uranus is blue. It is a cool planet with rings around it. The rings are made of dust. Uranus is an icy planet. It is a gas giant!
By Ariana and Sophie 


Earth
Earth is the planet we live on. Earth has water. Our planet is green and we have a moon. 
By Isabelle and Shanelle


Saturn
Saturn has rings made of ice and it is a gas giant! It is the second biggest planet and it is very colourful. No one has ever landed on Saturn. The colours of Saturn are blue and yellowy. It is the closest to Uranus. 
By Noah and Zachary 


Mars
Cool Mars, Cool Mars! It is rocky and red. It looks like fire. Yes, yes, yes! It is hot and it has two moons and the highest mountains. 
By Boh and Summer 


The Sun
The Sun is cool. It is a burning ball of fire. It is red. It does not have any rings. The sun is very hot! It is the only planet with fire. It is ginormous! The Sun is so bright. It has no air. We like the Sun 
By Baxter and Monique 


The Sun
Wow! The sun is a burning ball of fire. It is the biggest thing in our solar system. It is hot. No people have landed on the sun because it is made of fire.
By Sam and Keelan S

Mercury
Mercury is a hot planet. It's made from Iron. It's the closest planet to the sun. It's so tiny! Mercury spins the fastest!
By Ryan and Zayne

Venus
Venus is the same size as the Earth but it spins the other way. It is a brown planet. It has no water. Venus is the hottest planet. It looks like a brown dog.
By Keelan P and Travis 

Space!

Over the past 2 weeks we have been looking at SPACE; the solar system, the planets and the stars! We started by looking at different star constellations in the Cosmodome. This week we have focused on the planets. There is heaps of cool stuff we learnt...(even Mrs Saunders learned a few new things)!

Did you know that Pluto is no longer a planet? Scientists call it a dwarf planet because it is so tiny and insignificant! We learnt that Mercury and Jupiter spin the fastest around the sun. Jupiter is the biggest planet and is made of gas. Venus is the same size as Earth but it spins the opposite way! Mercury has no moon but Saturn has lots. Neptune has heaps of storms and Uranus is the coldest planet even though Neptune is further away.

We absolutely love these videos on space. Check them out below...

Wacky Friday!

Friday 22nd June was WACKY! We all had to dress up in a wacky way. Mrs Saunders was very impressed with all out wacky costumes and thought we all looked great. Just before lunch, every class at Discovery School got to dress up their teacher in a wacky way. Then the entire school went to the hall to watch all the teachers walk down the catwalk in their wacky outfits. Some were really crazy! It was lots of fun. Check out our weird, wonderful and wacky costumes below...

Matariki

We celebrated Matariki on Thursday with an early morning start to see the 7 sisters. We braved the rain and darkness but unfortunately Matariki was hiding behind the clouds. On Thursday we looked at different ways to celebrate Matariki. We learnt that it is a time to share stories with whanau about the past, to make and fly kites and to fish and gather seafood. We also learnt that Matariki is a time to make new things and plant trees and crops. To celebrate this wonderful day, we made sparkling stars, Matariki headbands, our own porotiti (Maori musical instrument) and planted seeds in our classroom. We can't wait to see what will grow....
AS Class set up a special Matariki area where we hung our sparkling stars. We even put up shining lights in our Matariki area so we can sit and watch the stars. It is awesome! 


Check out the video of our Matariki festivities....

More reading awards

Pirate Week!

This week we have been reading about pirates because we are learning about words ending in -ate! On Thursday we made treasure maps just like the ones in our reading books. Today we made parrots to sit on our shoulders and then we used our best pirate skills to complete a treasure hunt! We had to count and find lots of things to complete the hunt. We had to find objects that started with different letters and different colours. We also needed to count how many tables, chairs and doors AS class has - we discovered that AS class has 5 doors! At the end of our treasure hunt we found some delicious treats to share - Yum!

Below are pictures of us with our treasure maps and parrots.

Welcome back to Term 2!

Kia ora and welcome back to school for Term 2!

We have had an exciting and busy first day back. We started our day with a powhiri to welcome new families to the school. Then we did some writing about our holidays. In Maths, we looked at patterns. We learned that patterns are everywhere, even on us! We made some patterns using children too - like boy, girl, boy, girl. See what patterns you can find at home. This afternoon we had syndicate assembly where we did lots of singing. Mr D taught us a new song called 'walk away.' It was really cool!! See the video/song below.



This week we are looking at the word ending -ate. We made a list of words that end with ate. Here is what we thought of:
late
mate
plate
gate
date
skate
pirate

A big congratulations to Travis and Zachary who have completed their 50 nights reading. Well done boys!

Also, kapai to Zayne, Isabelle and Sophie who have completed their 25 nights reading.

A special surprise for Miss Martin

What a special day we had on Friday 16th March!
In celebration of Miss Martin getting married on the 24th, we gave her a secret surprise! We all dressed up in white, black and pink. Mr D taught us a song called "we're going to the chapel" and when Miss Martin walked into the room we all sung her the special song while dressed in pink bow ties (boys) and pink hairbands (girls). We looked and sounded gorgeous!!! Miss Martin felt very special.


Have a look at some photos below...

Practising our song with Mr D.

Surprise!

AM Class

Beautiful Girls 

Handsome Boys

More wonderful readers...

Well done Summer, Boh, Ella, Ryan and Noah who have reached 25 nights reading. Here they are with their certificates.

25 nights reading awards

Today we celebrated our first readers reaching the milestone of 25 nights reading! We were all so excited for them and can't wait for everyone to reach 25 nights of reading! Congratulations Zachary and Logan. See the photos below of the happy boys with their stickers and certificates.

What's happening in AM class 8/3/12

Whew! It has been a fun and busy week. We have been working really hard on our topic study - We are Marine Biologists.

On Monday we had our first Syndicate Assembly of the Term, it was so much fun! We loved singing and sharing our work with other classes.

On Wednesday we worked in groups in our topic study. We had to sort and group animals then justify why we put them together. We had lots of ideas on how to sort and group the animals. Some of us grouped by colour, pattern, size, number of legs, swimming and non-swimming and where they live. Together we thought of 3 groups that we could put our animals into based on their homes - we chose the zoo, the farm and the ocean. Check out the photos below...

Island Bay Marine Centre 27/2/12

We are learning to be Marine Biologists! Today we went to the Island Bay Marine Centre to check out what being a Marine Biologist is all about! We had such a such a great time! At the Marine Centre we got to hold and feel special sea creatures like starfish, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers, snake starfish, kina and heaps more! We got to look at a HUGE octopus and fish as well as sea horses, turtles and King crabs!

After lunch in the park, we had a scavenger hunt where we had to find sea items like seaweed and driftwood. After we had collected all of the things on the list we made cool sandcastles using the items we found. Some of us even made sea creatures like crabs and turtles!

A big big thank you to all of those wonderful parents who helped us today! We couldn't have done it without you!

Check out the photos below.... (more to come)

Our guide Jules with a Kina 

Snake Starfish 

Octopus 

Seahorse

King Crabs

Fish

Turtles

Swimming Writing

On Friday we wrote about our swimming experiences at Ally Todd Pool. We are learning to start our story in an exciting way. Here are a few stories that we want to share;

I splash in the water. My togs get wet and the water jumps up with a splash. (Keelan P.)

Splash! The water went up like a fountain. I can hear bubbles in the water. (Bede)

Splash! Splosh! I can hunt for treasure. I can hear the waves. (Baxter)

The water splashed in my face. It got in my eyes. I didn't like it, it hurt so much. The water was wavy. I liked it so much. (Ariana)

Days of the Week

We are learning to recognise, read and order the days of the week.

On Tuesday we watched a cool video that can help us to remember the days of the week.

Check it our below:

Week 2 happenings and swimming details

Welcome to Week 2! We have an exciting and busy week planned.

On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday we will be swimming at Ally Todd Pool. We also start our Kapa Haka practises with Papa Murray on Thursday afternoon. On Friday we have school assembly and we will be hanging out with our big buddies from JB class!

Remember your togs, towel, cap and goggles on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday! Thank you to all the parents who have volunteered to help with swimming. If you could please be at school 15 minutes before our swimming time to help with getting children changed that would be great!

Swimming times are below:
Monday: 2.15-2.45pm
Wednesday: 10.15-10.45am
Thursday: 10.15-10.45am

07/02/12 - What's going on in AM class?

Our first day back for 2012 was great!

This morning we did a human treasure hunt. We had to find people who had done these things on the sheet during the holidays. 

We also talked about making our classroom a fun and happy place to be. We thought of some really good ideas. Tomorrow we will hang our rules up for everyone to see!

Kia Ora and welcome to 2012