Dance and Ball Skills

Today Miss McCloy took the children for dance where they were learning to move their bodies in different ways - rolling, creeping, in pairs, sideways, in a circle, backwards and many other things. The children worked well and seemed to enjoy the chance to learn a different form of The Arts. Afterwards they moved on to ball skills which this week was basketball skills where they practised their ball control, dribbling technique and played a game. As you can see it involved great concentration - but was a whole lot of fun.

Department of Conservation Visit

Today we had Helen and Tom from D.O.C visit our school to talk about native animals and plants and the pests that harm them. We talked about how some birds are becoming endangered because the ferrets, stoats and weasels are eating the baby chicks and the eggs. We also looked at how the native animals in the waterways are being hurt by the introduced pests like Rudd and Koi Carp and the "rock snot" and other noxious weeds. The children then went outside and had to practise finding and cleaning nets and shoes and other things that we might take to the river to rid them of the noxious weeds. We also saw inside a wild cats stomach and saw rabbit ears, feathers, a rabbit's nose and other things it had been dining on. That - I must say - was a little gross! - and something we will all remember for a long, long time.

More Swimming Photos

Swimming at Dudley

After our second week of lessons we seem to have the groups sorted and the children fully focussed on what they are to do in the pool. It is so nice to be able to go to lessons in Rangiora rather than making the extra long bus ride to Kaiapoi. The pools are also very well set up for our needs and the learners pool is a much better layout for having multiple groups in the pool for lessons at a time. The children are split into 6 different ability levels which means that they are getting taught at a level that suits their needs. Take a look at the many happy faces . . .

Well done Kyran!!

As you will have seen from the newsletter Kyran has received his yellow belt in karate. I would like to start adding to our blog examples of the childrens' learning outside the classroom. So - if you have any photos and/or things you can tell me about your child that I can add to the blog then please let me know- it might be in sport, drama, dance, or something else entirely. Please eMail me on: lhorne@ashley.school.nz

So - well done Kyran. What a great achievement.

Maths Time - it's multiplication time!!!

This term our focus is on multiplication - and grouping numbers to work things out. We learnt today that multiplication means "groups of". So . . . three groups of two is the same as 3x2. By the look of some faces the whole ideas of "doing multiplication" is a big deal and maybe a little scary.

First off I need the children to be able to skip count quickly and automatically in twos to 20, fives to fifty and tens to one hundred. So if you are looking for anything extra to practise that would be the thing to focus on at the moment. If they have it sorted forwards see if they can do it backwards.

Ball Skills

On every second Monday we are lucky enough to have some tutors from the North Canterbury Sports and Recreation Trust come and work with us. For the first part of the term the focus is on ball skills and for the latter part of the term they will be focussing on athletics. Today Ryan and Fraser taught us some skills for soccer - how to dribble and stop the ball and aim it at a target. We then played a very cool game called "traffic light".

Most of the children wished that they could come back every day. Here are some photos of us in action.

Welcome to Term 3 and to Miss McCloy

As you will have seen from my term newsletter I have a teacher trainee in our room for the next five weeks. Her name is Miss Kate McCloy and she is in her final year of training (next year she will have her own class). She is required to have 3 weeks full control of the class and will start this next week. While she is doing this I will be working with small groups - some on social skills and respect for our friends, some on academic skills in reading, writing and maths. So... if you come in please introduce yourselves.

Welcome to Our New Blog

Well - I tried using a wiki - and it was hard. It was hard to update - and I think even harder for you guys to find what exactly had changed each week on the wiki. So... I have decided to change to a class blog. The blogs worked so well for our Wearable Arts and animal inquiry (this blog will continue to be updated as we are still working on this topic in Term 3). They were easy to add to and it was easy as a follower to see the new information. The old Room 4 wiki has been set up as a link so you can still access it - all the websites that were on there have been put on to this blog.

I hope you enjoy following our blog - and I encourage you to write comments - it is exciting for the children to read what you all think.