Rata and the Waka

We are star performers in Rata Whitu! We worked very hard on our Rata and the Waka play this term. Thank you so much for coming to watch us. Here is the video for those who were not able to watch on Thursday.

We were all very excited to be on stage doing our play. Some of us were a little bit nervous too but that didn't stop us getting up there and doing a brilliant job! We should all be very proud of ourselves.

Here are some more photos from the concert and practises. Well done to all of Rata, Rimu 3 and Rimu 5.

Descriptive Writing and a Quiz for you!

We have been learning about using details in our writing to make it more interesting to read. Details help the person reading our story to picture what we are writing about in their heads.

Last week Miss Parker read a description of a monster that she had drawn to us. As she read the description, we all drew what we thought the monster looked liked. We had to listen carefully to the details so we knew what to draw and what colours to use. After we had drawn these, Miss Parker showed us her monster picture and we saw how close we were.

Wow! We were pretty close! We discussed how we were able to draw a monster that looked close to Miss Parker's because we listened to the details in the writing.

Next, we drew our own monsters. We were challenged to write about them as descriptively as we could.

Here is a link to a quiz so you can match our writing to our monsters: https://www.qzzr.com/c/quiz/286914/monster-match

Thank you!

A big thank you to Charli, Pelé and their families for kindly bringing in some of their Little Garden seed kits from home for us to grow in Rata. We are so excited! I wonder what seeds there will be!

Rata Whitu's Fitness Circuit

Last week in Rata Whitu we designed our very own fitness circuit. We wanted to make good use of the space and the markings on the ground on the netball court outside our classroom.

In pairs, we brainstormed some ideas for what we could include in the circuit.

 We put our ideas together to create our circuit. Some of the steps include, jogging, high-knees walking up the stairs, follow the leader and star jumps. As we continue to practise the circuit we can think of new ways to improve it.

Some of the different ideas

Then it was outside for a trial walkthrough of the circuit.

We like it!

Here is a short clip of us from today:

Our Class Garden

This term for our Inquiry focus we will be learning about the environment and in particular how things grow in gardens. On Friday during our M.O.O.T. time with Rata Rima and Rata Ono, we had the choice to plant some Little Garden seedling kits.

For each kit we:

Measured 50ml of water in a measuring cup.

Then we placed the seed tablet in the middle of the bowl and poured the water on top of it. 

Watch what happened to the soil tablets:

Next, we mixed up the soil and filled the pot with it almost to the top, placed the seed mat on the soil and then put the rest of the soil on top to cover the seed mat.

Last of all, we placed the label in the soil so we know which plant is which. 

We will need to make sure we water our seeds everyday so that they can grow. 

Ruru artwork

Our final piece of artwork for Term 3 was a watercolour ruru. We enjoyed seeing the ruru in The Little Kowhai Tree puppet show and learning all about how it guards the kōwhai tree at night.

We used blue, red and yellow watercolours to create a sunset background.

We used a combination of watercolours, pastels and vivids to make the ruru. Then we cut out a branch shape and pasted this onto a background with our ruru perched on top.

Don't they look great!