Kiwi Pride

This needs no explanation.... enjoy!

Squash! Squash! Squash!

This week at school we have a 'mini-squash' court set up in the hall. We are learning to hold a squash racket, balance a ball and have a go at squash!

It is lots of fun - some of it is tricky, but we don't give up.

We get to go every day this week and we can't wait!!

Did you also know... squash is a homograph. This means it is a word that has different meanings. 

It could be squash the vegetable.

You can squash stuff into your school bag.

You can play the sport squash.

We are noticing homographs and homophones in our books and when we speak.

Can you think of some? 

Pear, pair, peer...

sea, see....

Write some more in the comments!

Publishing Our Books

We invite you to visit our school library and read our published stories about "Hatupatu and the Birdwoman".

Bring along a pen - so you can leave a comment.

Testing out the Paper Brick

Last week Ben took home one of our damaged paper bricks - it was nearly breaking in half. He took it home to see how long it would take to burn.

Ben told us what he did...

I put the paper brick in the fire. We took some video and photos. We timed how long it took. It took 21 mins to burn. I think a good brick would burn much longer. At the end it was all ash. The flames got bigger as the paper brick burnt.

Thanks to Ben and his whanau for sending us the photos so we could all see the paper bricks burn.

Now we need to decide how much to sell them for? What does your family think? Would you buy some?

Mr Dog's New Scarf

Mr Dog is our friend in Ruma Ruru. He goes home with one of us on the weekend to explore the world. We all get turns.

This weekend, Mr Dog went to Rainbow's End with Ashleigh. Ashleigh's Nana knitted Mr Dog a beautiful red scarf to keep him warm during the winter.

Thank you Ashleigh's Nana.

Exploring at the Fieldays!

Some of us are not at school today! Some of us are off on an adventure at the Fieldays.

Lachlan and Max are sharing their knowledge about tractors and farming with others. They took the time to send us these photos...

Here is Lachlan enjoying all the John Deere tractors.

 Here are Max and Lachlan talking to us on the phone.

In the big Case tractor!

We are so happy to had a wonderful time Max and Lachlan, we can't wait to hear all about it on Monday.

Ruru Artwork By Ruru!

We love being Ruma Ruru. We love learning about Ruru. Annelise knows lots about the Ruru and some of us have bags, pj's, socks, pillowcases and T-Shirts with Ruru on them.

Today we created some Ruru artwork using collage. Collage is ripped up pieces of paper/magazine glued on overlapping to create a block of colour.

We used black paper for the background as Ruru are nocturnal.

We are like our name Ruru, because, we like them are wise, we soar to great heights and we are special! Wouldn't you agree?

Who is in charge around here?

We are! We are in charge of our own learning and we love it.

Here we are being 'teachers' with the class at the beginning of writing time. Blends help us to read and write. We are able to 'spot' them in all kinds of places and hear them in words - we are now learning to write them in our stories.

Ms Copping thinks we look fun teachers!

What is your favourite blend? Do you have any blends in your name? Where do you see blends when you are out exploring in the world?

Italian - o and Pizza

Last week was Italian - o week. This all started because so many people love Pizza in our room.

Our Mums and Dads helped us learn all kinds of things about Italy. We also looked at some you tube clips about how to pronounce some Italian words. We collected all this information and wrote about our findings all week. We compared ideas about Italy to New Zealand - sports, flags, landmarks and food.

Some info we found out...

If you look on a world map, Italy is easy to spot... because 'big footed Italy kicked little Sciliy into the Mediterranean Sea.

Ciao means hi or bye. Siesta is a sleep or a moe (Maori word for sleep). Arrivederci means goodbye. Buongiorno is how you say Good Morning. Belissmo! (with hand actions) is beautiful.

We found out about Lire (old currency) and Euro compared to NZ dollars and cents.

We looked at food - pizza, pasta and gelato.

The only way to end Italian - o week was by making PIZZA.  Thank you to Kelly and Kelly!

Reaching Out

Our school is looking at 'Reaching Out". In our class we looked at some pictures of reaching out and what that might look like, sound like and feel like to us. We found ourselves thinking about all kinds of shelter.

We kept coming back to talking about Animal Shelters. We decided we wanted to ask some questions about Animal Shelters. We knew about the SPCA and how they help some mistreated animals.

We had lots of questions about Animal Shelters and the SPCA.

We have taken our questions to make two BIG questions.

We are making lists of things we need to know and do in order to find answers to our questions. We think we will contact the SPCA, survey some tamariki at school and some adults we know to see what they know about the SPCA and ways to help mistreated animals. We have quite a long list.

We are keen to know if many hands do 'make light work'. We also want to know how we can make a difference for animals that are mistreated in our area.

We have some investigating to do as a starting point!

Look at the links below - what did you already know? what did you learn? what questions do you have because we need to learn/investigate more? do you have some ideas on how we could help?

Waikato SPCA

Auckland SPCA

Happy Reaching Out!

Celebrating the Queen's Birthday

We know this about the Queen...

She is the Queen of England.
Her name is Elizabeth.
Her real birthday is on 21 April. We celebrate it in June.
England had a big celebration for her birthday - all the boats were on the water and they had a big concert.

Can anyone else tell us any facts about the Queen?

These are the things we did on the long weekend...

I went to a bonfire to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. I saw Emma at the bonfire - by Annelise.

I saw a festival in Christchurch for the Queen's Birthday - by Lucy.


I saw the festival but I didn't go there. We got to go on the farm with Dad on the tractor - by Lachlan.


I went in my Dad's truck in the weekend. In the middle of the night I had subway for lunch and dinner. It was good - by Jonte.


I went to the Whangamata and Lochie's dog got run over, however, his dog is okay. My Dad caught a mako shark and it snapped off the line and got away! - by Luke.


On the weekend I went to Rotorua and I had an ice cream (gelato). It was orange chocolate chip - it was delicious. I didn't go for a swim because it was too cold. I went to the $2 shop and the Warehouse with my Mum and Dad and Jamie. - by Jess.