Happy Birthday Lee, Johnny, Josef and Thomas

Today we celebrated the upcoming Birthday's of Lee, Johnny, Josef and Thomas, who will all turn 6 years old during the summer holidays. Happy Birthday!

Merry Christmas Room 7

Today we enjoyed "Merry Christmas Snoopy!"
Charlie Brown realised it's not what's under tree that matters, it's who's around it.

Thank you to all the wonderful parents of Room 7 for making this year wonderful. It has been a pleasure to be apart of your child's learning journey. Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and lets hope summer graces us with its presence very soon. 

Stiil going to the Grotto

We have a wet weather plan. We will return to school after the Grotto for morning tea and travel by bus to the Transitional Cathedral later in the day. We just won't be able to have our picnic morning tea.

A light weight rain coat would be ideal to pack

See you all this morning

Oral Language

Where did it come from?

Who does it belong to?
Who made it?
How was it made?

What are they for?
Who uses them?

Our Class Relay Team

Well done team 7, Mrs. Robertson was so busy that not many photos were taken during our athletics day

Elf on a Shelf has arrived in Room 7

Father Christmas' scout elf has arrived in Room 7 and will fly to the North Pole each night to report to Father Christmas. Our Elf is scouting for kindness, we are working on talking nicely to our friends when we have a problem with them.

Our Elf, By Emily

Today Elf on a shelf arrived in our classroom. He came from the North Pole where Santa lives. He clapped his hands three times and he was here. I am very excited. We haven't decided what his name is yet. I hope he comes back tomorrow. I love Santa.

Elf on a shelf, By Lachie

Elf on the shelf came to my classroom. I like the Elf on a shelf. He was fun. His name is Leo (still yet to finalised). He is cool.

Elf on a shelf, By Johnny

I saw the Elf on the shelf and I think he came from the North Pole. I think he really came from the North Pole. I think his name is Knife (name still to be decided).

Elf on a shelf, By Isla

...He flew with magic powers. Santa got us a boy Elf. We haven't decided what his name is going to be. I really like the Elf.

Introducing our weather reporter, Mr Lachlan Fletcher.
Lachlan loves being up to date with the weather forecast and any news events involving the weather.
Today Lachlan created his own weather chart for the week.
Lets hope the weather is wonderful for our trip to the beach on Friday

Week 7 update

First up, THANK YOU to Kevin and Mel Maxted and everyone else who made the mystery bottle stall a huge success at this years Monster Fair. I wanted to pick a stall that wasn't going to be too daunting for parents who are new to the school this year ;)

Athletics day

• We are set for a fun day on Tuesday. The norwester looks like it will be turning up in the afternoon. We often complete all the events before 3pm and your family are welcome to exit school early on the day.
• Half filled water bottles iced in the freezer the evening before can be a nice treat during the heat of our athletics day. The tip is to avoid filling the bottle completing the night before and then completing filling the bottle the next morning with tap temperature water. I have seen too many children waiting until the middle of the day for the contents of their drink bottle to melt. It's a South Island issue ;) The children will have their drink bottle with them at each activity.
• Parents get to race in the afternoon.

Ladybird Maths

fun counting and matching games

Oral Language Activity / Lets talk and talk and talk

This morning we worked in small groups and rotated around the classroom to read and discuss the pictures and questions that Mrs. Robertson had prepared. Each card contained a who, when, why, what or a, how question

Johnny - To bring some flowers to a wedding.
Gabby - Because they are beautiful.
Thomas - Mum would plant them.
Tyler - They might go a shop and sell them.
All great, valid and creative ideas. Children need opportunities to develop their oral language. Strong oral language skills help develop great writers. We all need to discuss what it is we are going to write and as adults we manage to do this in our heads.

Room 7 Presents Artwork to Mrs. Warren

Room 7 was selected to create some artwork for Mrs Warrens office.
Each child created a flower and we collaged these to the canvas prepared by Emily, Matthew and Dakota

Off to see Mrs Warren

Mrs Warren was busy so we waited in the staff room and shared which teacher we were pretending to be

Perfect position sought.

We hope you like the artwork Mrs.Warrren and back to Room 7 we will go.

Monster Fair Roster

There is now a roster up in Room 7 for parents to fill in when they can help during our Monster School Fair.

A great way to build your child's understanding of place value

Children need to be exposed to this concept quite a few times. Today we added up our house points and we looked at the difference betwen the green and blue house totals. We are building our understanding of H=hundreds, T=tens and O=ones.

Room 7 Reviews, Friendship is Like a Seesaw

Today at our weekly library visit Mrs. Robertson shared a new book called "Friendship is like a Seasaw" Read what Room 7 thought about the book...

It is a good book about friendships and friends agree on the rules, they do nice things for each other. Sometimes one friend can be up and one friend can be down. When the seesaw is out of balance there is a problem. We can fix it by taking a break from a friend for awhile or working it out and doing nice things for each other.

Mystery Bottle update

Tomorrow the Room 7 class newsletter will come home in child's communication book but for now here is the update regarding the mystery bottle stall....

Mystery bottle/bottle storage and sharing the love, we need the families of Room 7  to take container lots of 20 – 50 bottles to wrap and store?

Over the next few days we will work on making funky, colorful wrapping paper from donations of paper for families to use for wrapping the bottles up, making them attractive and fun.

Please bring a large container with your family name on it to school on Wednesday and I will put a sticky note on it to indicate how many bottles you can store and then at school pick up time your container and some wrapping paper made by Room 7 will be ready for you to collect.

Thank you

Mufti Day - Wednesday 22 October

Families are asked to bring along a bottled item for the Mystery Bottle Stall that will be set up by Room 7 at the St Albans School MONSTER fair.

A good, short article to read over the weekend

http://www.essentialmums.co.nz/little-kids/preschool/development/10598368/Five-secrets-I-learnt-from-early-childhood-educators

I can easily relate to the first point of this article. When I was a Kindergarten Teacher in South Auckland with lots of behaviour problems a sociologist had us remove a lot of equipment and each week reintroduce something and teach its purpose. It was an amazing experience with great results.

Welcome to term 4

This term we will leave our lunch boxes in our bags and put our reading folders in the box by the classroom door that matches our house colour. This new routine means the children in Room 7 are free to work at any work space in the classroom as the little compartment in the desks will be neutral and free of any reading folders. Our reading folders are still very important and allow children to safely put away any notices and continue to use the folders to protect their reading books.

We are underway with planning for the monster fair. Here are some examples of some of the things you need to be putting together for the hoopla stand. We are aiming for 90 fantastic jars filled with little treasures.
Mystery Bottle Class Organiser Needed
We need someone from Room 7 to step forward and organise the stall. This includes the wrapping of the bottles that will come to school in week 2. There is a mufti day planned where children will bring a bottle instead of a gold coin. Parents will need to go and collect the bottles from classrooms and maybe work at someones home wrapping them or work in the art area of Room 7 and be able to store over 500 bottles off site until the day of the fair. Used wrapping paper and newspaper is urgently needed in Room 7. Our wonderful person managing the stall will need to create a roster of parents to help on the hoopla and mystery bottle stall.

We now have a small work space set up in the foyer/cloakroom. This will be a great space for children to work from as our days become warmer. We also plan to  use our outdoor area more as the weather improves.

Our Inquiry this term is titled; Learning Beyond the Classroom and we will be involved in athletics practise and we will have the opportunity to demostrate our skills at our athletics day. We are planning to visit the Transitional Cathedral and participate in a Beach Education day at North New Brighton Beach this term.

A calendar involving school events is now available for you to view on the Room 7 notice board.

Looking forward to a busy, fun and exciting time ahead in Room 7 this term.

Best wishes,
Mrs. Robertson

Wishing all the Room 7 families a fun filled Spring Holiday

Mrs Robertson would love the Room 7 children to bring in a photo, theatre/movie ticket or a drawing of one of their holiday adventures next term - Monday October 13
:)

Our Amazing Biscuit Houses

Letters From Our Buddies

Mrs Robertson invited our buddies to share in eating our biscuit houses but they were required to write to us and persuade us first.

Dear Isla,

Hi buddy, I hear you have been making a biscuit lolly house and I think you should let me help you eat your lolly house because I really care about you and so you don't get a tummy ache and so you don't get cavities so please let me have some of your biscuit house.

Love from,

Emma

Dear Johnny 

I think you are a great buddy to have and we love all the work you have done. We would love to come and eat your awesome biscuit lolly house because we are happy to share your biscuit lolly house with you.

From Anton and Eden

Biscuit houses, please contribute

Remember we are making our biscuit houses tomorrow and we need contributions of plain biscuits, small candy/lollies, chocolate buttons, finger biscuits :)

A Step Back in Time at Ferrymead

Ferrymead Photos

Please bring in a named memory stick if you would like the Ferrymead photos. We were dressed up and looked amazing. I have played around and the photos look great in black and white. The photos might great Christmas presents.

Exploring Ferrymead

Rooms 3, 5, 6 and 7 all dressed for 1914.
More photos coming soon

Time to wash with Mrs Gray

A few notes for the last week of term

Coming up

Tuesday - our trip to Ferrymead. Children need to wear their school uniform. Children also need a packed lunch and drink bottle. 
There are still permission forms that need to be completed. Forms will be sent home today. Please complete over the weekend and return on Monday. I apologise that there have been a lot of different forms to complete this term and hopefully next term we can look at streamlining the paper work that is sent home. I have my own three children at different schools and lots of forms that come home. I understand that sometimes we don't make it easy for families to keep track of the forms we need completed.

Thursday

• morning we have the St Albans Montessori visiting 

• after morning tea we will make our biscuit houses. So far we have Becky and Lisa helping us. Can you help supply?
• Plain rectangle biscuits
• Waffers
• Chocolate finger biscuits
• Small lollies, such as pepples and m&ms

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend

:) Dahl

Family Event

Facebook tells Mrs Robertson that there is a great event on this weekend that relates to our inquiry; "this weekend in West Melton we are having the Time After Time Field Day. Going to be a ripper, pop out and visit. We have built a replica village with attractions from the late 1800's. We will have 12 traction engines, antique cars and tractors, blacksmith, Clydesdales, farmers market, food, a dixie band and heaps of other attraction. Come on out! 454 West Melton Road, West Melton!"

Our Folk Dancing Celebration and Grandparents Morning

Old fashioned marble games

Working with others and scoring was fun. Great team work and competition this afternoon