Halloween

Although we didn't do a Halloween library party this year, we are having a 'spooky' story this week by a New Zealand writer, Kyle Mewburn (one of our school favourites is, Kiss Kiss), we also have a cool Halloween pop-up book.

Check out the video clip below of The House on the Hill

And another cool clip of our pop-up book

Flashback to last year's Halloween celebration when we had eyeball cookies and all wore a Halloween wart

RED SHELVES

Have you checked out the books in our red shelving area recently?  This is where most of our 'series' books are, as well as easy readers and easier chapter books.  At the front of each series shelf is a small 'synopsis' (this gives you an idea about what the series is about), there is also a reading age guide - please note this is a guide only, and probably more useful to teachers than you!  Check out this area for all the usual popular series like Goosebumps, but also some new ones we have purchased this year like Babymouse.

We are famous

Posting a link here to a great article about things we have been doing in our library, written by Jeannie Skinner from National Library

Books to inspire maker space activities

Looking back at old photos from this year

I have downloaded lots of photos taken this year this morning, and found these photos from a class visit we did in Term 3 that was lots of fun with the Junior syndicate.

We read the Smallest Turtle by Lynley Dodd - The tale of a baby turtle and his journey down the beach to the sea.

Then we created these fantastic 3D turtles during our Library visit.  The students then took them back to class and wrote a story about the smallest Turtle.

Library class visit - Story

This week we have been reading a fabulous new book called Hippos Are Huge!  This book looks like a picture book, but it is full of Hippo facts so is really a Non Fiction book.

Did you know?
Hippos can bite a crocodile in half?
A baby Hippo at six months can weigh 500 pounds
A Hippo can hold it's breath for 5 minutes under water
When a Hippo yawns it means "stay away'

This was our favourite page in the book

We also watched this hilarious Hippo video.  We timed the Hippo fart at 10 seconds long!

STEM Challenge

This week we have taken inspiration from the internet and we have tested how strong an A4 piece of paper is.  Results of our testing were Square 6 Triangle 7 and Circle was 20!  I forgot to take pictures but here is a great video explaining the challenge we did.

Thanks Creek Side Learning for the idea!

Roald Dahl Day - Week 8 Term 2 2016

Last term we had the most fabulous Roald Day 3 day event. 

The senior classes did lots of research about Roald Dahl and created online timelines, we had quizzes, some Revolting Rhymes.  They created a wall version of a Roald Dahl poem and finished off the day watching The Witches with popcorn.  

The middle years focused on The Twits.  Over a week Whaea Marama read The Twits to 3 kids.  We then had a Twit Day.  We had a kahoot quiz which everyone aced, tug of war (aka Mrs Twit stretching), fabulous portraits of Mr and Mrs Twit were created, cold spaghetti eating contests, and we finished off the day with popcorn and the movie Matilda.

The junior syndicate focused on The Enormous Crocodile, which we read, then watched the story on youtube, we had pull the Crocodile's tail (aka tug of war), we made three types of crocodile art, had a kahoot quiz about The Enormous Crocodile (100%), sung our crocodile song and we finished off our day with popcorn, raro and the movie Matilda.

It was exhausting, but fabulous!

The Twits Quiz

The Enormous Crocodile Kahoot Quiz