Congratulations Rocio and Alexus!

Our first certificates of this term went to Rocio and Alexus - congratulations girls! Rocio gets her certificate for an excellent effort in writing. She has been working independently at writing time and finishing her work quickly. Well done Rocio!

Alexus' certificate is for an excellent start to Term Four. Alexus has begun the term with such a happy, positive attitude to school and it is great to see the joy she is showing for learning. Keep up the great work Alexus!

Exploring volume in maths

This term in maths we will be spending some time focussing on Measurement.  Today we explored the concept of volume, through the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

The children listened to the story and then afterwards we looked at three bowls of different sizes.  The children made predictions of which bowl belongs to Papa Bear, which bowl belongs to Mama Bear and which bowl belongs to Baby Bear.

  




The children agreed with Cyprus that the red bowl was Baby Bear's bowl because it was the smallest.  They agreed with Nathaniel that the black bowl was Mama Bear's bowl because it was the next biggest.  And they agreed with Timnet that the brown bowl was Papa Bear's bowl because it was the biggest.

Ms Chan filled the red bowl with rice bubbles.  The children said that this bowl was the smallest.

Ms Chan asked,  How do you know you are right?  How can we check?

Cyprus explained, 'Measure the rice bubbles to see whose (which) is the biggest (bowl).'

Ken poured the rice bubbles from the red bowl (Baby Bear's Bowl) into the black bowl, Mama Bear's bowl.

Rosina commented, 'Looks bigger than Baby Bears'.  Cyprus added, 'Baby Bear's size is up to here (points to the top) and Mama Bears is only up to here.'

Next Helina poured the rice bubbles from the black bowl (Mama Bear's bowl) into the brown bowl (Papa Bear's bowl).  Helina commented, 'Tiny . . . looks little.'

Elena added 'The rice is not full because there's more space.'

After they had finished comparing which bowl could hold the most and smallest amount of rice bubbles, the children drew the different bowls to help strengthen their understanding of what had been experienced.

On their finished drawings, each child pointed out which bowl could hold the most rice bubbles and which bowl could hold the smallest amount of rice bubbles.

 


We look forward to exploring measurement further and seeing the childrens' ideas and understanding develop through more hands on experiences such as this one, that allow plenty of opportunities for the children to demonstrate, discuss and share their thinking with each other.

Congratulations Ken And Ceazah-Blue!

At the end of last term Ken and Ceazah-Blue got certificates from Mr. Hadnett. Mr. Hadnett had counted up all the Values Vouchers students had got for Term Three. In our class Ken and Ceazah-Blue had earned the most so they got certificates!

Congratulations boys and keep up the great attitudes!

Let The Games Begin!

Today we had the Christ the King Catholic School Mini-Olympics! We had an early lunch and then we all lined up behind the flag of the country we were representing. Miss McKenna and some students from Room 2 and Room 4 led us in a prayer. Then we sang the National Anthem. After that, we marched around the top court behind our team flag while Mr Tyrell played his guitar and we all sang the Christ the King school song.

Then, the games were open and we were off to our first activity! Miss McKenna's activity was Beachball Volleyball and she took some photos of us playing. Check them out in the collage below!

It was great to see so many of the teams embracing the Olympic, and our school, values as they worked together as a team during Beachball Volleyball. There was some fantastic communication and encouragement and Miss McKenna was pleased to see so many groups ensuring justice by taking turns and sharing the ball. Many of the older children were fantastic coaches of the younger students. 

A big shout-out to the fantastic parents who came and supported us. It was great to see so many whanau of our class! And an extra shout-out to those of you who were game enough to join us for a game of beachball volleyball. It was so cool to see you working with your tamariki and we hope to see you at our next school event sometime soon.

Nathaniel Came To Visit Today!

Today Nathaniel, Jacob and John Paul's little brother, came to visit us in Room Six. Nathaniel has just turned five and he is going to start school next term.

At morning tea time Jacob, John Paul and Nathaniel's sister Miriam all helped to look after him. What lovely brothers and sister you have Nathaniel. We are looking forward to you starting school Nathaniel. Thanks for coming to meet us today!

Congratulations To Our Budding Authors!

A big congratulations to Rosina and Aubrey who today received certificates for some fantastic writing they have been doing.

Room Six have been learning to write instructions and Rosina and Aubrey both wrote an excellent set of instructions about how to make jelly on Monday. Your instructions were simple, clear and ordered. Well done girls!

Painting Still Life Flowers in Room 6

This afternoon, the Room 6 children were invited to paint spring flowers - daffodils and freesias, from Ms Chan's garden.

The children were encouraged to look carefully at the flowers and paint what they could see.  Some of the things the children noticed were:

-Daffodils have yellow petals and are orange in the middle
- The white freesias have yellow in the middle
- The freesias have little green buds
- The daffodils and freesias have long, green stems
- There are no leaves on the freesias or the daffodils

Come and visit Room 6 to see our finished paintings!

Working Together To Make Jelly

This term we are learning about justice. Part of justice is ensuring things are fair and everybody has a turn. Today with Ms Chan Room Six made lemonade jelly. We worked together to mix the ingredients by taking turns and making sure everyone had a go; we made sure there was justice!

As the bowl got close to Trelia she exclaimed "It smells yum!". Miss Eileen took the jelly and put it in the fridge for us. We are looking forward to eating it!

Do you want to make jelly at home? Rosina wrote some simple, clear instructions for you to follow which you can read here.

Thanks SKIDS For Our Cool Prizes!

This week Trelia and Deevon were two of the lucky five students who had their names pulled out of the Values Voucher box for prizes - well done you two!

Trelia and Deevon got to go to Mrs Kopua at morning tea to get their prizes...and they came back with these cool volleyballs; woah - what a great prize! Thanks SKIDS for donating them.

Has your child received a Values Voucher lately? Ask them what they got it for and have a chat at home about the values we hold special at Christ the King Catholic School - respect, love, service, justice, peace and joy. And maybe they'll be one of the lucky winners to get their names pulled out of the box next!

It's Science Week!

Today is the first day of Science Week at Christ the King Catholic School. During writing time today Room Six did an experiment with Ms. Chan. It involved mixing different items to get a reaction. The reaction we created was making a volcano erupt - a pretend volcano that is!

After we had fun doing the experiment we wrote instructions for how to make a volcano erupt. Here are the instructions we wrote:

Look out for more experiments each day this week! 

Teaching More Monsters How To Read!

Congratulations to Rosina and Tevita who both completed the first Teach Your Monster game. They have been working hard during reading time to complete the game and are excited to now be on game two!

Don't forget that you can help your child with their learning by setting them up to play the game at home. Ten minutes each day at home would really help boost their learning...and it's fun too! 

To access the FREE game online go to: http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/u/275052. Then help your child enter their name as their username and ask them what their password is and help them type that in too. (If they can't remember, just pop in and ask me!)

Showing The Values Of Our School

Congratulations to Timnet, Ceazah-Blue, Joseph and Cyprus who were all lucky enough to get their names picked out of the draw today to win Duffy books. The four of them got their names in the draw by earning values vouchers during the last week or so. 

Values vouchers are given to children who are showing one or more of our school values, which are:

...respect, love, service, justice, peace and joy.

Each values voucher earned gains one entry into the prize draw. Well done for showing our school values Timnet, Ceazah-Blue, Joseph and Cyprus!

Room Six Students Showing The Key Competencies

Congratulations to Trelia and Joseph who receive certificates this week for participating and contributing well in class discussions. Trelia and Joseph have made a great start to Term Three by being diligent during class discussions. Both Trelia and Joseph always pay attention during class talks and add meaningfully to our learning by contributing thoughtful ideas and interesting questions.

Some of the questions Trelia and Joseph have been wondering about include: Did the Olympic flame come to New Zealand? (Trelia) and What was Mary MacKillop's mum and dad's names? (Joseph)

We've been reading 'Six Little Stories about Mary MacKillop; For her youngest friends'. When we read one of the stories we found out that Mary MacKillop's mum was called Flora and and her dad was called Alexander. We still haven't found out if the Olympic flame came to New Zealand on its way to Brazil. Do you know? If you do, maybe you could comment below and tell us!

Who got the most values vouchers in our class in Term Two?

Congratulations to Valentino and Ayla who got the most values vouchers in Room Two (we used to be in Room Two) last term!

The values we have at Christ the King Catholic School come from God. They are...

...respect, love, service, justice, peace and joy.

This term our focus will be on justice. We will be looking at what justice is and how we can play fairly. Part of our study will involve looking at the Olympic games and how fairness is shown in sport.

Help your child at home by noticing the Olympics in the news (papers, television and radio) and talking to your children about what you see and hear!

'Reading and writing float on a sea of talk'. 

- James Britton, educationalist

Deevon's Been Teaching His Monster To Read!

In Room Six we have been creating monsters and then teaching them to read! We are using the computer programme called 'Teach Your Monster To Read'. It complements our classroom programme by helping teach us all about letters, sounds, words and sentences. When we first went on it asked us to create a monster. Then we have been teaching our monster letter names and sounds. This is part of the first Teach Your Monster game called 'First Steps'. There are three Teach Your Monster games altogether:

1) First Steps

2) Fun with Words

3) Champion Reader

We work on the Teach Your Monster game during our literacy tumble after morning tea and we sometimes work on it during other parts of the day too. We love completing levels on it and are working towards completing each game.

A super-dooper congratulations to Deevon who has completed the first game and is now working on 'Fun with Words'. He receives a certificate with his monster on it - well done Deevon!

Encourage your child to work on Teach Your Monster at home. It's free, or you can download an app if you want to. Use this link and then your child can enter their username and password. Then they're off! (Their username is their first name, with one capital at the beginning and their password is a basic sight word which they all should know...and we've been learning should be kept secret! If your child has forgotten his or her password get them to come and ask Miss McKenna what their password is.)

Welcome Alexus and Rocio!

Yesterday we welcomed two new students to Room Six. That's right, Room Six, we moved in the holidays! You might know the children who started yesterday because they are the younger students of two of our existing students - Kori and Rafa.

Kori's younger sister is Alexus and Rafa's little sister is Rocio. All the children in Room Six were excited to have them join us yesterday. In fact, so were other children at morning tea and lunchtime!

Thank you to Rafa and Kori who came and looked after their younger siblings at breaktimes. It's great to see you showing love and service for your whanau members by helping them settle into school. We look forward to your exciting learning journey ahead at Christ the King Rocio and Alexus - welcome and enjoy your Duffy activity books!

Kia pai tou tatou Matariki!

Did you know it's the Maori New Year? Matariki is the Maori New Year and it is celebrated each year when the group of stars called Matariki reappears in the sky.

Towards the end of the term we learnt about Matariki by reading some picture books about it. We learnt that Matariki is a good time for being with family, eating yummy foods together and remembering people in our family who have passed away. It is also a good time for planting some different kinds of plants.

Elena and Trelia planting their seedlings and watering them.

In Room Two we each got to plant a seedling. Miss McKenna had bought some potting mix and some different flower seedlings for us to transplant into our own containers to take home. We put on gloves to protect us from the soil and then Miss C. helped us put our plants into our pots. There were three types of flowers to choose from - primula (pink), viola (yellow, white and purple) and antirrhinum (red, yellow, peach and pink).

Our class with our plants. "Happy Matariki!"

On the last day of term we took our plants home. Please help us to water them and take care of them so that we can help them get bigger and stronger and watch them flower. What will the flowers look like?! You could take a photo and email it to Miss McKenna to show her when yours flowers. I wonder how long it will take?

These are some of the picture books we read which helped us learn  about

Matariki. You can find more at your public library!

Term 2 Disco MOVIE by Melianna

Some Of The Royal Family Visit CTK!

Last week we had some special visitors come and visit our school. Iliyas (Room One) and Vincent's (Room Six) eldest sister, Azaria, came with her dance group to perform for all of us.

Azaria's dance group is really good and they are going to perform at the World Hip Hop Dance Championships later this year. We watched them dance and then they invited some children and teachers to come up and have a go!

At the end of their performance we took a photo with all the dancers and their coach. We used our hands to create crowns like they do. When we went back to our classroom we were talking so much about the dancing. We were so excited after seeing the performance and decided to write about our experience to tell you all about it.

Here are our stories:  

This morning we went to the hall to watch the people dancing. I saw Itu and I saw Isi when we got out of the hall when the people were dancing. By Aden

Today Azaria's Royal Family came to Christ the King Catholic School. I like the girl who was wiggling fast. By Ashleigh

Today we had a surprise. The man did a flip. By Valentino

I like the dancing. By Elena

The girl is dancing because they practise. By Aubrey

The girl is dancing faster. By Helina

Today we saw people dancing in the hall. It was cool. By Deevon

I like the dancing. by Ken

Today at school we went to watch a dance group and there were cool dance moves. By Rosina

I like my mum and my baby. My mum take a picture. By Ceazah-Blue

Azaria was dancing with her friends. By Tevita

Ashleigh and Ken worked hard on their stories and remembered their learning goals. Ashleigh spent time making sure her story made sense and used interesting punctuation in it (capital letters, full stops...and an apostrophe!). Ken carefully worked on his story - finding words on the word card and putting finger spaces between words. Well done Ashleigh and Ken!

As the best writing of the day, Miss McKenna chose Ashleigh and Ken to share their work with Mrs Kopua. They read their stories to Mrs Kopua and she wanted to give them a Principal's Award but didn't have any stickers left - so she gave them seven stars for Matariki instead. Cool!

Thank you to the parents who stayed to watch the show. I bet you enjoyed it just as much as we did?!

And The Principal's Award Goes To...

Congratulations to Rosina and Trelia who received Principal's Awards yesterday for their great stories about everyday heroes in their lives.

Keep up the good work girls!

Celebrating Vaiaso O Le Gagana Samoa

This week is Samoan Language Week so in class we have been doing lots of Samoan-themed activities. Each morning we have been calling the roll in Samoan and we have been learning to say the Sign of the Cross in Samoan too.

(Can you see which teacher photobombed our picture?!)

On Monday we made Masi Samoa (Samoan Coconut Biscuits) with Miss Chan and on Wednesday, for our P.E. lesson, we got together with Miss Goodier and Room Five to play kilikiti (Samoan cricket). It was fun to wear lavalava while we played and the Room Five girls were so great at helping us to have a go at batting and fielding.

  Click the triangle play button to watch a slideshow Miss McKenna created of our week!

We also had some fun beginning to learn some Samoan songs and dance moves. Thank you Christina for sharing your expertise with us!

Writing For A Purpose

Did you know there will be a disco later this term? Miss McKenna told us about the disco and we were very excited! We thought about what theme we might like the disco to be. Some of our ideas were:

• a Disney theme
• a superhero theme
• a Michael Jackson theme
• a Superman theme
• a onesie theme

or...

• a Wonder Woman theme.

As we have been learning to write letters we decided to write letters to Mrs Kopua to persuade her to have the theme we each wanted. After we wrote our letters Miss McKenna published them for us and then they got put in envelopes.

Today we went to post the letters in the school mailbox. We wonder what Mrs Kopua will say and we're excited to find out! Will we persuade her? Keep an eye on our blog and we'll let you know...

Making Connections Like A Spider Makes A Web

During group reading time yesterday Deevon's group read the book 'Sausages'. In the book Tom and Dad see Mum sleeping and dad says 'Sh-sh-sh!' as they sneak past her to find the sausages in the fridge.

Nobody in Deevon's group knew what sound s and h make when they go together but then Deevon did some great thinking. "It's sh!" he said. "Like 'sheep'." He pointed across the room to a poster Miss McKenna had put up of sounds different letters make when they go together.

Well done for making connections Deevon - that was great thinking! Just like a spider makes connections when it lays out its web and joins pieces of silk together to make its web strong - you were pulling together pieces of information together to help your brain get stronger and learn. And you helped your group with their learning too!