Hi Room 8 - from Sydney

Hi Room 8. I'm having a great time in Sydney with Mr Thomas - and learning heaps too! Yesterday was a busy day traveling by road, air, train and boat!
We have spent a busy day checking out some of the local sights including the Sydney Opera House! Sydney is a very cool place, and we found out that it has about the same amount of people in it as the whole of New Zealand! On Tuesday, we are starting at the conference. We are looking forward to learning lots of new things and getting excited about what we can get up to at Selwyn Ridge.

Hey don't forget to get your permission slips back for our Big Day Out! And do we have enough transport for our class? Someone might want to check this out and make sure we are good to go!

Hey I would love to hear from you over the week, so please leave some comments on this blog letting me know what you're up to and I'll keep watching! Hope you're having a great week.

Yesterday I have learnt all about a new system for producing blogs and wikis in the school.  I am excited about giving this a go next year.  What do you think are the positives and negatives about blogging as part of our learning?

Last night we went on a cruise with all the people from the conference.  It was a rainy night, but the harbour in Sydney was amazing anyway.  We had to walk quite a long way to the boat, and it started to rain.  Luckily we found an umbrella dumped in a rubbish bin.  It was a little bit broken, but we didn't mind....it kept us dry until we got to the boat in Darling Harbour.

HI AGAIN....One of the places I have been is the Apple Store here in Sydney.  This is a really cool place where people who love apple computers come to hang out, buy stuff and sort out problems at the Genius bar.  The photo about was taken there on our first day.  We are back today and I thought I would show you this Simpsoms clip about it!

Mr Norrish

World Toilet Day

Did you know that today is World Toilet Day? Is this a strange thing to celebrate? Here's a challenge. Find out about this celebration and publish your findings on this blog? Why do we have it? Where did it come from? What do you think about it? How do you think we should celebrate.

This is a picture of a house that has been built like a toilet seat to celebrate World Toilet Day.

MADE Awards Here We Come!

Yay! We are excited in Room 8 as we have three of our entries into the finals of the MADE Awards. The Shepherd Who Cried Wolf (which you can see in an earlier posting) and Robins butterfly photo have both made it. Our weather poem animation has also made it to the finals. The poem was collectively written by Brie, William, Robin and Kyle, while the animation was also a group effort. Have a listen and see what you think. As always we would love to hear from you.



The MADE Awards finals evening is being held at Baycourt in Tauranga on Wednesday 22 October. For more information go to www.madeawards.com

Dino Horn by Reiden

Reiden has been working on designing and building his own dinosaur. Now Reiden is writing about his creation. Watch this space for his wonderful writing.

Room 8 - Break 21 WINNERS!!

BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.

It came down to the final round. Room 8 had steadily made its way from second-to-last, to go to the final round with a one-point lead. Charlotte was our final player and waited nervously for the draw. The entire High Flyers held their breath as she spelt her word. And finally Mr C announced that Room 8 were the champions! It was a fantastic celebration of the spectacular spelling that has been going on in the High Flyers this term. To wrap a an exciting day, Room 8 went on to take out the final round of the Flags competition too. Go Room 8!

Friday Options - 'Parents with a Passion'

The High Flyers have just started a 3 week programme where we have invited parents to lead a small group in an activity that they enjoy. We are lucky to have so many enthusiastic parents who have hobbies and passions that they love to share with others. Check out our poll to see what options we had to choose from and vote for the one that you would like to do it you had the chance!

This is a chance for kids and parents to tell us about their experiences during Friday Options. What did your group actually do, what did you enjoy, what are you looking forward to doing, and share something that you have learned.

We also have a small group of roving reporters putting together a short video presentation about our experiences, so look out for this coming your way soon.

What do you think?

We have all heard about the little girl who was singing at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, but got replaced by another girl who they thought had a more pretty face.  The girl we saw on TV was asked to lip sync to the song that the other girl had recorded.

What do you think?  Do you think it is alright for the people organising the Olympic Games to make this decision, and why?

Brain Squeezer!

You are standing outside a closed door. On the other side of the door is a room that has three light bulbs in it. The room is completely sealed off from the outside. It has no windows and nothing can get in or out except through the door. On the outside of the room there are three light switches.  Each switch controls a different light bulb inside the room.

Your challenge is to work out which light switch controls which light bulb. You are allowed to enter the room only once, and when you come out, you must be able to say with 100% certainty which light switch controls which light bulb.

Black Gold, by Julia Owen

William, Kyle, Briearnah and Robin are reading Black Gold.  This is a place where we can talk about the book.  We are also writing some questions to ask the boy in the cave.  We don't know his name yet but we do know he has a scare in the shape of an 'X' on his back.  

Our Aesop's Fable Productions

During Term Two Room 8 formed movie companies.  Each company was commissioned to turn an Aesop's Fable into a script and then present it as a short film.  As discussed in an earlier posting we used High Five short stories as motivation for our presentations.  Our first company to complete their work was 'ROCK KIDS PRODUCTIONS LIMITED'. They presented 'The Shepherd and the Wolf.  The second company was 'BLUE DOLPHIN PRODUCTIONS' who presented 'The Lion and the Mouse'. 

Learning Intentions:

Our main goal was to communicate the moral of the fable to our audience clearly.  We wanted to achieve this by having a script that made sense and then using our filming and acting skills effectively.  We were trying to make good use of voice, expression, actions and sound effects to support our message.  

We would love to hear what you think about our short movie.  

School Holiday Catch Up Spot!

Hi Room 8,

I am looking forward to having a couple of weeks break in the holidays and know that you will hanging out for it too.  We will all be doing different things over the two weeks and I thought it would be fun to stay in touch over that time.  How about keeping in touch by checking into this blog a couple of times and letting us all know what you have been up to.  You might have gone to the movies, explored something around Welcome Bay, been on an out of town trip or have just gone shopping at Bayfair.  Whatever it is, how about sharing it with us in the comments section and we can keep in touch with what we are all up to!

The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson

This week we have been reading a book called The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson.  I think this book is cool but there is one thing that I think is not so good.  The mouse in the story tells a lot of lies and I don't think that's good.  In the story he tells lies to three animals to try and not get eaten.  Tell me what you thought of 'The Gruffalo' and if you thought the mouse could have done something else rather than lie to avoid his problems.

By Laura

When I read this story I thought about the fables we have been reading which taught us that "Liars are not believed even when they tell the truth".  In 'The Gruffalo' the mouse got away with lying.  What do you think about this and could this ever backfire on the mouse?   Are there any times where it is ok for us to lie?

Mr Norrish

Brain Teaser No. Two

Two convicts are locked in a cell. There is an unbarred window high up in the cell. No matter if they stand on the bed or one on top of the other they can't reach the window to escape. They then decide to tunnel out. However, they give up with the tunneling because it will take too long. Finally one of the convicts figures out how to escape from the cell. What is his plan?

Brain Teaser Challenge

Hi Room 8.  Be the first Room 8 student to answer this brainteaser correctly online and win five Prize Draws!

You are on an island in the middle of a lake.  The lake is in a remote part of the country and there has never been a bridge connecting the island to the mainland.  Every day a tractor and wagon gives hay rides around the island.  Puzzled as to how the tractor had gotten onto the island, you ask around and find out that the tractor was not transported to the island by boat or by air.  Nor was it built on the island.

Explain how the tractor got there.

Two Scared Boys

I've been working on a fable with the moral 'A strong man stands up for himself, but a stronger man stands up for others'.  The story is about two boys (Mike and Mitchell). One day their soccer ball got kicked over the fence, but they were too scared to get the ball.  Listen to my podcast to hear what happens.      By Kyle.

 

Learning Intention:

Kyle has been learning to communicate a message to his audience.  Do you think he has shared his moral well through the story?  He was also practising using expression in his storytelling. How do you think he went?

Belling the Cat - A Room 8 Production

Room 8 has been reading and writing fables this term.  We will soon be filming our own original fables, but as a practice we have worked together and created a retelling of Aesop's Fable, 'Belling the Cat'.  We have made a few small creative changes to the script.  

Our Learning Intention:

We are learning that writing and visual language has a message for its audience.  Have we clearly communicated the moral of this story?  'Easier Said than Done"

We would love you to leave your comments, letting us know what you think and how we could improve our work for when we produce our own short movies.

Our inspiration has come from High 5 and their stories.  We have been watching their retelling and looking for ideas that we can use in ours.  

Monarch Butterfly Discovery

  Today we found a Monarch butterfly in the playground.  We saw that it was tagged with a sticker that has a web address on it - www.mb.org.nz.  That reminded us of when we went to Te Puna Quarry Park earlier this year where they were tagging butterflies.  We followed the link to the website and reported our sighting to the Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust.  On this site we found a video of a "Munching and Dancing Caterpillar".

Last week Briearnah brought a cocoon into school.  While we were in assembly it came out and we looked after it until it could fly away.  It was very exciting.  We are also working on some butterfly art, so it has been a butterfly crazy time around here recently.