Our Other Blog!

Room 9 is learning to type up their thoughts and opinions and post to a blog independently.... we certainly are very capable year 2 & 3 students!

We now have a WRITING SPOT blog where students will independently making postings of their own!

It is to be a special place where freedom and experimentation reign... all posts will be as the student typed them (spelling & grammar included). We hope you'll see a huge improvement in our writing over the year. Feel free to hop on over and leave us a comment :)

Anzac Day

On the 25th April it is ANZAC day.

We read an ANZAC story and then worked in groups to write about why we thought ANZAC day was important. Here are what the groups thought...

We celebrate ANZAC day because people died in the war. You wear poppies to remember the soldiers.
By Thomas, Brianna, Molly & Donovan

We celebrate ANZAC day to celebrate the soldiers who gave their lives to make our country free.
By Rohan, Victoria, Kerry & Louie

We think that ANZAC day is about the soldiers who fought in the war.
By Josh, Tayla, Joseph, Quade & Daniel

We think that ANZAC day is all about the army and to remember the New Zealand and Australian soldiers.
By Zoe, Jaime, Jonti, Jackson & Lochie

We think ANZAC day is about people who died in the war. We think they maybe died in a poppy field?
By Kyle, Sam, Darcy & Jessie

We also made some great ANZAC artwork... check it out!

Thinking Hat Tuesday - if no one could read

Our Thinking Hat topic today is:

If no one on Earth could read... how would life be different?

Put on your different thinking hats and type your thoughts as a comment below: we can't wait to read all your fantastic ideas.

Our first day of Term Two

Today was the first day of Term Two!

Firstly we had news. We talked about the holidays. I went to Kaiteriteri. We looked for crabs.

Next we did a P.M.I activity on our holidays. My Plus was about finding a live crab. My Minus was falling over at the skating rink.I thought that having dinner at Kaiteriteri was Interesting.

By Zoe

Our Learning about Butterflies

During the last week of Term our reading has been based on the fantastic Go Zone newspaper for kids that came out a while ago - "Amazing Butterflies".

We have had a great time finding out about the parts of butterflies, the life cycle of butterflies and different species of butterflies.


Today we took all our butterfly knowledge and compared and contrasted butterflies to moths. We had to consult all of our fabulous books from in the library and our go zone to check (validate) what we thought before it went on our venn diagram. (Rachel has used Kidspiration to type up our ideas for the picture here)

We learnt that moths also have a proboscis (straw like tongue) and they have a similar life cycle to butterflies too!

Look at what Lochie learned about butterflies and moths and their similarities and differences:

Our Podcast Reflections

These are our thoughts about our first ever podcast (click the picture to see it bigger).
We will use our reflections to do better next time!
Stay tuned for more!

Our Favourite Places @ Nelson Central School - a podcast

Today we found out what a "PODCAST" was... and some of us made one!

A podcast comes from the words "ipod" and "broadcast" - we talked about ipods being to do with music and broadcasting being to do with the news and radio - so basically talking. We listened to some taped stories and thought about how we were going to speak when our voices were recorded.

We decided our voices had to:

• sound interesting
• sound exciting
• be loud
• be not too fast
• be expressive!
  

Last week we wrote & edited some brilliant stories about our favourite places at Nelson Central School. Today most of the class brought our stories to life by recording us reading them using the computer and a special programme called "Garageband". We then took digital photos of our buddies around the school in our favourite places!

We made a podcast using our voices, some music and the digital photos that we took.
When we put it all together it sounded amazing! When each child speaks their digital photo comes up! This is actually called a "VODCAST" as it uses video/still images.

Click on the badge below to listen to our AMAZING PODCAST... we are sure you'll love it!

Featured children on today's podcast are: Victoria, Josh, Thomas, Tayla, Jackson, Joseph, Sam, Kerry, Rowan, Jonti, Louie and Darcy. WELL DONE!

Our Trip to Cable Bay - the rocky shore!

On Friday Room 9 and Room 16 went to Cable Bay to look at the rock pools.

I went with Molly and my Mum in the car. When we got there we had lunch on the rocky beach.

My favourite creatures were the sea anemone, blue crab and cushion star.

By Kerry

On Friday we went to Cable Bay. I caught some rockfish.

My favourite creatures were the crabs, the fish and the starfish.

The crabs moved fast. The starfish clung onto the rocks. The fish could go under small rocks. I caught three fish for my group.

By Lochie

On Friday Room 16 and Room 9 went to Cable Bay to see the rock pools. I went with Ben and Penny.

When we got there we had lunch. Then we went an explored the rock pools.

My favourite creature was the clingfish. It looks like a rock. The mussel was bright and the starfish clung onto me.

By Sam

On Friday Room 16 went to Cable Bay. I went in the car with Nano, Darcy, Jaime and myself.

When we got there we had lunch.

My favourite creatures were the fish because it was all slimy, the crabs because they have cool shells and the starfish because it had tentacles.

By Jonti

More photos of our Cable Bay trip are on our flickr photo page - feel free to browse, download and print these gorgeous pics!

Farewell Nicky

On Thursday we had some "alone time" while Nicky was visiting another classroom.

We used our class digital camera to record short video thank you and goodbye messages for Nicky.

On Friday we shared our surprise with her in a DVD that Rachel put together. It had our videos as well as a slideshow of all the photographs Rachel has taken of Nicky teaching us. We got to choose the music that went with the DVD title page and for the slideshow... we chose "Popcorn" by Crazy Frog and The Bird Dance! We think Nicky liked her DVD a lot... and now she has something to take away with her to always remember us!

Thanks Nicky! We have really enjoyed the last 5 weeks that you have spent with us. We know that next year when you have finished your teacher training you will be a fantastic teacher for your very own class!

Enjoy the video we recorded below: press the play button in the middle of the video :)

NB: Be patient if you are on a dial-up connection, it pays to press play and make yourself a cup of tea etc until the red line has "buffered" right through the whole video. Remember also that the video's sound is not perfect as we recorded it using our digital camera. We hope you enjoy it anyway. Please post your comments below by clicking on the word "comments" underneath this posting. You can write your comment and use "anonymous" to sign in: JUST REMEMBER TO PUT YOUR NAME in the comment box so we know who it is from!