What a term!

We have been reflecting today on all the cool things and cool learning we have done during Term 4 this year.

Just have a look at our mindmap (made using the free online programme Mindomo) to see what we've been up to - click on it to get a better view.

Well done to Josh, Thomas and Rohan for completing the mindmap online using all of Room 9's great ideas!

Our prizes have arrived!

On Friday we finally got our prizes!!!

We got them for wining the Web Challenge. We won a destop computer, books that were called "Amazing Alphabetical Adventures", a HUGE Colour printer!!!, a Sanatarium class breakfast! and software for the computer.

We unpacked it all. We opened the books first, there was one for each of us.

Before lunch two ladies from The Nelson Mail came to take photos of us and the prizes we won. One of the ladies talked to Josh and wrote down what he said.

We are going to be in the newspaper!

By Jonti and Thomas

Winners!

On the 12th October two students representing all of Room 9 were lucky enough to go to Auckland for the prizegiving of the TVNZ Net Guide Web Challenge. We only knew that we were finalists along with Auckland Point School (also from Nelson) for the primary class category. The prizegiving was at the TVNZ Atrium building on Hobson Street right in the middle of the city.

Kerry and Josh got to meet Helen Clark (the Prime Minister of New Zealand) as well as Matt and Dayna from Studio 2. We won first prize for the Primary Class Category!! Later that night we were also on the TV1 news too!

Here are two of Josh and Kerry's stories about going to Auckland...
movie and more photos coming soon!

On Friday, Kerry, Rachel and I went to Auckland. We went there because it was a prizegiving. We came first place in our division. I met Helen Clarka and shook her hand, she said congfrtulations to me and Kerry. Matt from Studio 2 gave me his signature. I was so lucky to go to Auckland. Yippee! We won a computer and computer security software, Student 2006, hard drive and breakfast and some alphabetical adventure books. We see our prizes on Monday. By Josh

*************

On Friday I went to Auckland. I went on two planes to Auckland and one on the way back. I went to TVNZ and we found out we came first place.

By Kerry

Reading Explanations at Assembly

Today some people in Room 9 got to read their explanations out at assembly. I got to take photos of them to put on the blog. Their explanations were really good.

By Kerry

Here are two of the fantastic explanations:

The Dental Nurse
The Dental Nurse is someone that cleans your teeth and checks up on them and makes fillings. Most of the time you have to wear sunglasses. They put a big yellow light in front of you and at the end they give you a sticker. It is at Nelson Central School by the office. All the time that you are there you can look at soft teddy bears. If you are going to go you have a book that someone gives you. You go every 2 or 3 months.
By Josh

The Dental Nurse
The Dental nurse is someone who helps look after your teeth. What happens is you get to lie on a bench and keep your mouth open. The interesting part is at the start you get to wait but when you wait you get some toys to play with. At the end you get a sticker, a picture or a toothbrush.
By Brianna

Fire @ Walter's Blufff - Current Events

Today Josh and Jackson presented their newspaper articles for Current Events. Coincidentally they both brought the same article!! - so they ended up telling Room 9 about what happened together. We also got to ask them lots of questions at the end.

Well done Josh and Jackson for finding and preparing your current event to share with the class. You knew lots about the topic and were able to share it with us!

You can listen to Josh & Jackson's Current Events as a podcast below (by pressing play) or on our podcast page (click the badge).

Room 9 SKYPES Auckland!

Yesterday, after much technical difficulty (Skype was overloaded), Room 9 got to "skype" our buddies - Room 18 @ Meadowbank School in AUCKLAND!

We used a special thing on the computer called SKYPE which lets you call people worldwide who also have skype, using your computer... for FREE! Both Room 9 and Room 18 also had webcams so this also meant we could SEE our buddies!

Watch the movie below to view the highlights!

Next term, we are going to fix our audio problem and then skype Meadowbank again to ask them all the questions we have about how they deal with rubbish, recycle and reuse things.... they are our EXPERTS!

Our Brilliant Idea!

Yesterday when we watched all of the school newsletter and notices get handed out we had a brilliant idea!

We wrote a shared story in the form of an argument today to let people know our great idea. Some children then used our brand new DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER to record parts of the argument for our podcast!

Click on the podcast badge to hear our podcast - look for the "play button" once at the podcast page.

We hope that Mr Potaka, our Principal, will listen and tell us what he thinks of our idea! We wonder if we will convince him that it is a good idea for us to start investigating?

Students featured in the podcast listed below:

Rubbish Detectives!

Remember last week on the 7th of June; Thomas and Josh took all those photos of rubbish that they found around our school?

Well I have put the photos to music and made it into a movie! Do you know that I actually had to delete some of the photos as there was far too many?!

Well done Room 9; I can see that you are on the right track with convincing people not to drop rubbish in our school... it's great that you are working hard to reduce and eliminate our problem.

So here is the Rubbish Detectives Movie.... you can view it below.

Special thank you to our Rubbish Detective Photographers: Thomas & Josh!

The Rubbish Audit

On Tuesday afternoon ALL the rubbish from EVERY bin @ Nelson Central School was taken and put into the hall.

On Wednesday the seniors went and helped sort it into 4 piles: paper, cardboard, food scraps & plastic. We could see all the rubbish that our school makes in a DAY!

At 11am we were lucky enough to visit and listen to Sarah from the Nelson City Council talk about rubbish and recycling.

Photos by our Official Photographers: Jackson & Josh - well done :)

Here are some of Room 9's fantastic recounts of the visit!

Today Room 9 went to the hall. Sarah, a lady from the council came to tell us about rubbish. I looked at the rubbish. It was on the floor. I learned about the rubbish that it goes to the recycling place or the dump. By Donovan

Today we went to the hall to see all the rubbish from the bins at Nelson Central School. We saw some paper and cardboard and plastic and food. Sarah talked to us about where rubbish goes before it goes to the dump. By Jaime

Today at school I went to a rubbish audit. A lady from the council told us about rubbish. The seniors sorted it all out on a big tarpaulin. It was in th hall. There were lots of stuff. Part of the Kahikatea syndicate went. I learned where the rubbish goes at our school. By Rohan

On this Wednesday I went to a rubbish audit. They collected up all the school's rubbish bins and put them in the school hall. It was yuck and it smelled! We got to look at the school's rubbish. By Jackson

Student Voices: Blogging

Let US teach YOU!

Still confused about WHAT a blog is or WHY we love them?
Well listen to this! We recorded it today with Rachel.

It's going to be shared with other teachers from all over the world!
Primarily it's an AUDIO file so you'll be doing more LISTENING than LOOKING!

Enjoy.... unscripted and candid 6 & 7 year olds doing what they love best.... TALKING!

Featured students: Josh, Joseph, Lochie, Jessie, Ben, Tayla, Jonti, Darcy & Kerry.

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!

Oobleck!

This afternoon Room 9 was lucky enough to make "oobleck" with Nicky!

Oobleck is a strange kind of solid/liquid.
When you touch it, it feels hard like a solid. When you press your finger in it is squishy like a liquid.
Sam thought it was a bit like "sinking sand". You can pick up oobleck and it becomes drippy like a liquid!
The only ingredients we used to make it was cornflour, water and green food colouring.

Here are some photos and comments from Room 9:


Today we made oobleck. It felt smooth it looked like snow it smelled salty.
By Tayla

Today we made oobleck. It felt silky, it looked like slime and it smelt like playdough.
By Zoe

Today we made oobleck. It felt like snow it smelled like nothing it was soft. It looked green.
By Josh

Today we mad oobleck. It felt like slime it looked like snow and it smelt weird.
By Jackson

Today we made oobleck. It smelt like salt, it felt like hard rocks, it looked like alien blood.
By Darcy

Our Favourite Things!

Today we had our ICT computer time in the library. We worked with our buddies on Kidspiration which was the programme that Rachel used to record all of our learning for our audio conference.

Today since our topic is "All about me" we did a mindmap of all of our favourite things!

First we wrote our names in the middle. Then we chose some pictures that were of things we liked. Underneath each picture we had write the name of our picture. We had to find 5 things we liked with our buddy or by ourselves. Then we used the pointy arrow to point to all of our pictures. Monique and Rachel printed our pictures out and helped us save them. Tayla and I printed our own pictures! By Josh

This is what two of them looked like:

Well done Josh for uploading these images for us!