Pencil Drawings Of Our Shoes on PhotoPeach

Millie and Neve's Ballet

On Tuesday afternoon Millie and Neve shared their ballet dances that they had learnt for their ballet show at the end of the year. The dances were amazing - great footwork and carefully placed fingers!!! It was beautiful and it was easy to see that they must have spent a long time practising. Thank you girls for sharing with us.

Lesley Ottey Visits

On Tuesday Lesley Ottey came into our class to help spread the environmental message that we at Ashley School are so passionate about. Today's message was about plastic rubbish - how much there is and what we can help to do about it. Lesley also had the children hel p re-create the water cycle to help them to understand how important weather is in our world. Lesley also checked our rubbish bins to see how well we were recycling.

Touch Tournament On Sunday

What a fantastic day today down at Sheldon Park, Belfast. We had a very talented group of 14 Year 3 and 4 children from Ashley School representing the Southbrook Touch Wednesday night competition. Although all Ashley players they played as "Southbrook"

It was hot and then became a little windy - but the children played their hearts out. They made it into the finals for the second year in a row...and played the same team in the final as last year. We got second but what an amazing achievement.

Five games of touch on a full sized field in the space of four and a half hours. I know that every parent who was there was very, very proud of them all. Ollie, Ra and Millie from Room 4 were part of the team.

Problem Solving With Multi-Link on PhotoPeach

Maths Shelf Time on PhotoPeach

Happy Birthday Grace

It was Grace's 8th birthday on Athletics day. She had had a great start tot he day - opening some presents, and then she added to it by doing well at Athletics.

Junior School Athletics

What a fantastic day we had! It was such a beautiful hot day and the children all tried their hardest to compete. I got to see the children compete at hurdles, sprints and ball throw and there was some fierce, but fair competition.

Well done to everyone who competed and thank you to everyone who came along to support the children.

Thank you also to Millie for these great shots.

Natalie's Art

We have another budding artist in our midst. Natalie also goes to art lessons after school. She brought in her beautiful painting to share with us. What a talent!

Play Practice Written By Emily

Here is a photo of these guys practicing their play to show to the class. I think they are doing a good play. It's from a School Journal. There is also some photos here from when they did the play. It was awesome. Great job guys. Also other kids are doing plays for the class. Awesome.

Wow!!! Check this out!!!

Today Charlotte brought in her amazing painting of a bunny. She attends art classes after school and this is one of the many masterpieces she has created.

Happy Birthday TIm!

On Friday it was Tim's birthday. He turned eight. He said that he was having a great day. We all hope that he had lots of fun at his party on Saturday.

An Information Report About Dogs Written and Published by Georgia

Dogs

Dogs come in all shapes and sizes. Dogs come in different breeds. Dogs have four legs and a waggy

tail.They come in different colours. Police dogs help find bad people. Fire dogs help get people out of situations. Sheep dogs help round up the sheep to count them. Some dogs help blind people to walk. Show dogs do tricks in shows for people to see. Dogs kill wild rabbits from eating their vegetables. Pet dogs are play full dogs.They play fetch.Dogs talk by going woof.Wild dogs

could kill pet dogs.They eat dog biscuits and treats when they do tricks. Some dogs are jumpy and

some puppies are cute and some dogs are cute to play with at the dog park and at home.I don't

like dogs because I got knocked over by a big dog.

By Georgia.

An Information Report Written and Published by Neve

All About Dogs

Dogs come in different shapes and sizes. Some dogs are black, brown, white and spotty.

Some dogs have 4 legs. Dogs have long tails or short bobby tails. Some dogs help blind people cross roads and make sure they don't crash. Some dogs help people sniff out other people who are trapped under rubble. Sheep dogs live on farms. They help farmers herd sheep into different paddocks or to get shorn. Sledge dogs help people get through the snow by pulling a sledge.

Police dogs work at the airport and other places and sniff at peoples luggage incase they have something that there they shouldn't have. A lot of people like to have dogs as pets. Dogs eat dog biscuits and if they've been good they might get a bone. I don't like big dogs that much, because I'm small and their almost as big as me.

By Neve

Maori and Spanish Websites

Check out our new "Useful websites". They include links to fun games for learning some Spanish and Maori.

Searching for Gold

On Friday Harri brought in some very interesting sharing news. It created so much excitement and discussion. Harri brought in a "gold finder", some photos and some real gold in a gold pan. He was very proud to share what he knew and the children loved learning about mining for gold.

Thank you Harri.

Go-Cart Fun!!

Thank you to Jack and Paulo for letting us use their go-cart. Jack's Dad had made it for the boys to use at the Soap Box Derby where they raced well enough to receive a prize.

Jack and Paulo, together with Flynn's help, let everyone in Room 4,6 and 7 have a turn on the go-cart. Thank you boys for you patience and caring attitudes when helping the younger children.

The Richest Girl In The World

Last week the Kakapo reading group practised and performed a play for us. They read with great expression and fluency and entertained the audience with their confident and enthusiastic performance.

Happy Halloween!!

Today at school the children were allowed to come dressed in Halloween Mufti as a PTA fundraiser... and as a bit of fun.The children had a lot of fun. Thanks parents for your help. Emily even brought us in a Jack-o-lantern. Very cool!

6 Thinking Hats

Throughout the year we have focused on de Bono's white hat (facts or the truth about things). We have used the white hat when we are researching and writing reports from our reading material.

This term we are going to re-look at the other 5 de bono thinking hats to see what the children remember about them from their time in Room 6 and 7. The aim is to start using them more in our everyday programme. The thinking hats promote higher order thinking and are a first step to other things like Bloom's Taxonomy and Thinkers Keys.

The "hats" help the children to look at pieces of information in different ways...

White - the facts

Black - making judgements

Yellow- the benefits

Red - feelings

Green - creativity

Blue - thinking about thinking

Happy Birthday Neve

On Wednesday Neve turned 8!! Here she is with her birthday present - a guinea pig named Fudge. Fudge was very happy for all the children to stroke his fur. Thank you Neve for sharing him with us.

Welcome Back

Hi everyone and welcome to the last term of 2011. It will go so fast as it is such a short term.

This term we have some changes in Room 4. We had a new Year 3 boy start on Monday. Tim - from Queenspark School has moved into the district... and today Mareta is leaving us to move back to Christchurch and go to Fendalton School. We look forward to getting to know Tim and are sad to see Mareta go.

This term we also have a new student teacher in our room for four weeks. Her name is Jess A'Court and she is a first year on her first placement. Please pop in and introduce yourselves as her time here will go very quickly.

Art work by Room 4 on PhotoPeach

Peaks Of Achievement Badges

At the Peaks of Achievement Assembly on Friday Room 4 had a number of children receiving their badges. Congratulations to Gemma and Maia for receiving their BRONZE badges and to Emily, Jayden, Harrison, Natalie, Grace and Reily for receiving their SILVER badges.

What a great effort!!!!

Happy Birthday Ollie and Celeste

Well- it seems to be "birthday season" in Room 4. On Friday we celebrated two birthdays - Ollie's and Celeste's- as their birthdays were today. Thank you to Ollie's Mum for making a gluten free birthday cake for us to share. It was delicious!!! I hope both Ollie and Celeste had a great time on their birthdays.

Pyjamas At The Pool!!!!

Thank you to everyone for remembering to pack pyjamas for the pool today. It caused great excitement... and a little bit of trepidation for the children as they were taken to the big pool, without goggles and in their PJ's.

The object of today's lesson was to teach survival/safety in the water skills and to get the children aware of how hard it is to swim in clothes. They had to do safe entries, step in, swim to an instructor and some got to use the noodle for confidence when faced with this situation.

Art Canvases

Our canvases for the PTA fete looked great. Take a look at them as they were displayed in the hall for everyone to see. Thank you to those of you who purchased your child's art. They are very proud of what they have done.

Life Education on the second day was all about emotions and how to read them. We had lots of fun sorting out words for emotions and we also looked at body language. Harold sang us a song about good friends and the things that make him happy.

This unit of work was very timely as we are getting a new boy in our room next term, named Tim, and we were all thinking of good ways we can make him feel welcome. Harold was very impressed.

Life Education

Today we had our first lesson in the Life Education classroom. Our theme is "Happy and Healthy" and today we looked at emotions and feelings when put in new situations. We also looked at some of the organs in our body - the heart, lungs, brain, stomach and small intestine and learnt about where in the body they are.

Tam the doll came out (Tam is a plastic life sized doll that has had her skin removed) and she showed us where in our body the organs were.

The highlight, of course, was seeing Harold the giraffe. Harold wanted help to do his homework on his friend Billy and how he would be feeling going from a one teacher country school to a huge city school.

Happy Birthday Jordan

Today Jordan had her seventh birthday. She brought her new erasers and beautiful address book to share with us.

Happy Birthday Jordan!!!!!!!!!

Our LEARNZ Fieldtrip

We have been on our LEARNZ fieldtrip to look at Rowi Kiwi on the West Coast. We have watched videos, looked at photos and researched Kiwi. We loved checking out what our Ambassador Ash got up to on his trip.

Here is a photo of our display of Kiwi information that we have learnt.

Our Art for the PTA Fundraiser

This week we have been hard at work on our canvases for the PTA art sale fundraiser on the 2nd October at school. In our class we decided to use canvas and the children are allowed to paint something of interest to them.

Please come in next week and see the finished products - there are helicopters, rabbits, kiwi, flowers, rugby fields and many other things. Each canvas will have a set value decided by the PTA. You can buy your child's artwork before the actual art sale on the 2nd and then it will still be displayed on the Saturday.

Harry's Chickens Visit

Today Harry's Mum brought in some 4 day old chicks for us to look at. They are very cute black and white ones. We learnt about what they eat, how to hold them properly and that they keep warm by a special warm lamp/heater.

Thank you for sharing them with us Harry.

Happy Birthday Gemma and Maia!

On Friday we had a double celebration with Gemma and Maia's 7th birthday. They were both very excited to share part of their day with us. Thanks to Dad for making the cake, Georgia-Mae for decorating it and Mum for bringing it down to share with the class.

The verdict was that the cake was DELICIOUS!!!!!

Shared Lunch

Thank you to those of you who contributed to our yummy shared lunch on Thursday. This was a lovely way to say good bye to Liam. I know he will be missed by his friends and me alike. We wish him well at his new home and hope we hear from him soon.

Grace's Ballet Award

Well done to Grace who has received a "Primary level In Class Award" at her ballet school. It was lovely to see the medal and certificate at school.

LEARNZ Fieldtrip

This week Room 4 and 5 are going on a virtual field trip to look at Rowi Kiwi on the West Coast. This means that we will be listening to audio conferences where experts will be asked questions by pupils from schools around New Zealand (Room 5 will be participating in a live audio conference on Wednesday at 9.15am).

We will also be getting video updates from our LEARNZ teacher - Andrew Penny (a parent and BOT rep from our school), and we will be following our LEARNZ Ashley School ambassader - ASH the sheep - as he gets up close and personal with the Rowi Kiwi Project on our behalf.

If you wish to check out the website and look at any of these things with your children at home you can by logging on to the website listed below and then using the username and password:

http://kiwi113.learnz.org.nz/controller.php?vft=kiwi113

username: room4ashley

password: room4wha

Thanks to Charlotte's Mum for making Ash a cool school uniform to wear on his trip. Here he is with Room 4 and Andrew before he left last week.