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!

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?!

The Holy Spirit Is Like The Wind

In Room Two we have been learning about the Holy Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit, is like the wind because we cannot see it but we can feel it. We went outside for a 'Wind Walk' and we felt the cold wind on our cheeks. That's how we knew it was there - because we could feel it. We could see it working too.

We saw the wind working when it made leaves and branches sway. We saw the wind working when it blew our friends' hair around their faces. Today we made paper planes and we saw the wind working when it blew our paper planes around!

The wind was strong, not weak. It helped some of our planes to fly and it blew some of them right back at us! We talked about how the Holy Spirit is strong too. At Pentecost it made the disciples joyful and brave, and it can help us, too.

The children in Room Two are bringing home their paper planes today. Have fun flying them at home (when the storm passes) and talk about how the Holy Spirit of God blows like the wind. We cannot see it, but we know it is there!

Room 2 at Kiwi Sport

Today we had our first of seven sessions of Kiwi Sport, Turbo Touch with our coach Trevor.

The children participated in some fun drills which are designed to build their skills in the game of Turbo Touch.  Turbo Touch is a relatively new game that combines Netball, Rugby, Rugby League, Hockey, Soccer, Basketball and Touch.  It is a fast-paced game in which the ball can be passed in any direction rather than in traditional touch where it cannot be passed forwards.  

Jumping over 'crocodiles'

Jumping over 'crocodiles'

Jumping over 'crocodiles'

Zig-zag running.

Zig-zag running.

Zig-zag running.

Circle running.

Circle running.

Circle running with the ball!

Circle running with the ball!

Playing Follow The Leader

We are looking forward to our next Kiwi Sport session already!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the special mums of our Room Two children. The children spent time this week thinking about why their mums are special to them and then they wrote and decorated cards for their mothers because...

...we love our mums to pieces! We hope you liked the cards and special messages we wrote to put in them. Here are some photos of us making the cards:

...and a special message from us:

Enjoy the rest of your day mums!

Pretty-in-pink

Two special visitors came to Room Two with their mums this morning. Helina and Aubrey joined us for the morning so we could introduce ourselves and get to know each other before they start school in the next few weeks. Some of you might know them already because Helina is Betty's younger sister and Aubrey is Ronnie's younger sister!

Two of our older girls offered to be Helina and Aubrey's buddies for the morning. Ayla paired up with Helina and Ashleigh buddied up with Aubrey. They had lots of fun together at all our reading stations including...

...drawing and writing on the small whiteboards...

...playing learning games on the iPads...

...and doing magic writing!

We are so looking forward to when Helina and Aubrey turn five and officially start school. Thanks for joining us today girls. Enjoy your presents from Duffy Books in Homes - your pink book bags look great; see you soon!

NB: If you have a child turning five soon and you'd like to come for a pre-visit before they start at Christ the King, just give our office a call on (09) 626-7123 to arrange a time that suits you.

If We Had Lived In Jesus' Time

This term in Room Two we have been learning about Jesus. We have talked about how some of the things in his life would have been similar to ours - and how others would have been different. When we learnt that Jesus didn't have electricity we were amazed that Jesus wouldn't have had a TV or a microwave or anything like that.

We have talked about food that Jesus might have eaten. We know he wouldn't have had lollies and fizzy drinks like we can have for treats. We also talked about how he didn't have a freezer so he couldn't have had ice-cream either.

Today, Miss McKenna brought in some food that would have been similar, or the same, as what Jesus could have eaten. When Miss McKenna uncovered the food we turned to our neighbour and told them what we could see.

We weren't sure of the names of the food so Miss McKenna told us what everything was. There were dates, grapes, olives, cheese, bread, honey, hummus and figs. The bread was a bit different to bread Jesus would have had because Miss McKenna had brought along rewana bread (which is a type of Maori bread made from potatoes). Miss McKenna explained this to us. 

We picked one thing we wanted to try first and put our hand up when we had decided. Most of us wanted to have rewana bread with honey and some of us wanted some grapes. They were yummy! We enjoyed eating them and then tried some other things.

Miss McKenna asked if anyone was going to be brave enough to try the figs and dates. So about half of us did. We didn't really like the figs but some of us, like Deevon below, enjoyed the dates.

Have you tried a new food lately? It can be fun to try new things! 

Swimming Diaries: Days 6 and 7

Today is our last day of swimming. Most of the children have greatly enjoyed their time in the water and we were really lucky, with our small class, to have such great instructor:child ratios.

This meant that we got lots of opportunities to practise our developing skills each day.

We practised our starfish/floating on our backs. (We do this while our group counts to ten!)

We practised kicking on our backs: 

We practised blowing bubbles as we play with the colourful balls:

Swimming has been so much fun!

Did you know Auckland Council has a 'Kids Go Free' policy whereby all children 16 years old and under get free entry into Auckland Council pools all the time? Make the most of this and take your children swimming this holidays - it will help them continue to grow their confidence and develop their skills if you play with them in the water - the more, the better!

Swimming Diaries: Days 4 and 5

Room Two is continuing to have so much fun swimming at New Windsor School's pool. We are really developing our confidence in the water and learning good techniques for swimming.

Rosina, Ashleigh, Joseph and Ceazah-Blue are learning to point their toes when they kick. They practiced this both in the water and by sitting on the side of the pool to kick - so the instructor could really help them focus on their toes.

The three instructors use the coolest swimming aids with us. You can see Joseph in the photos above using a foam frog to learn the proper body position for swimming and practising kicking. The novelty is really keeping us engaged!

We haven't had any parents come and watch our swimming yet. We'd love to have you along and there's lots of space on the bus! So you could either meet us at the pool at 11:30am or meet us at school at 11:10am (the end of morning tea time) and come with us on the bus. Just show up - there's plenty of room!

Congratulations to...all of us!

Last week at our morning assembly Mrs Ashe stepped forward to award her certificates and gave one to...Room Two! Can you see Ashleigh holding it? She went up with Miss McKenna to accept the award. Mrs Ashe was impressed by our class blog and gave us the certificate for sharing our learning. She even gave us a special treat too (Tevita is holding them in the picture below) - yum. Thanks Mrs Ashe!

We hope you are enjoying reading about our learning in our blog. Please do leave us comments and Miss McKenna will read them with us. Have a great day!

Bluey the Budgie

Yesterday Mrs Stoddard told us she had brought something beginning with 'b' to show us. We thought of a few things beginning with 'b' but thought it was probably a bird because Miss McKenna had told us we were going to be learning about birds for the rest of the term.

We were correct! Mrs Stoddard had brought her father's budgie 'Bluey' to visit our class. It was so exciting! Mrs Stoddard told us a little about Bluey and gave us some time to look at him. We asked lots of questions about what was in his cage.

"What's this?" asked Trelia, pointing to a piece of hard chalk on the side of the cage. Mrs Stoddard told us what it was and that it was there for Bluey to rub his beak against to keep it sharp. "What's that thing beside the bird?" asked Ashleigh. "A mirror so he can look at himself", said Mrs Stoddard.

Mrs Stoddard told us that Bluey is different to us. When we look in the mirror we know what we see is just our reflection and not another person, but Bluey thinks it's another bird! This means that he won't get lonely and that's why the mirror is in his cage.

Valentino asked "What's that colourful thing?". Mrs Stoddard said it's a toy so that Bluey doesn't get bored. Wow! He has toys just like us! "What's that?" asked Aden pointing to a container of seeds. Mrs Stoddard said it's food for him to eat. "What's that?" Joseph asked pointing to a long piece of a plant hanging from the top of his cage. "More seeds for him to eat", said Mrs Stoddard. "What's that one?" asked Rosina, pointing to something colourful. "Another toy", said Mrs Stoddard.

We were so excited about Bluey's visit and enjoyed spending time looking at him so much. After Mrs Stoddard left Bluey stayed the night in our class and we drew pictures of him. We talked about what we could see before we drew him. We saw feathers, a long tail, a beak, eyelashes and wings. We noticed that he was blue and white, and had little bits of black on him. We concentrated hard and drew him.

Thank you Mrs Stoddard for bringing Bluey in to visit!