East Idol

On Friday we held the finals of East Idol and two of the groups in the final were from A3.  It was great to see them singing and dancing in front of the whole school and both groups did a great job.  Take a look at the video to see some of the performances and performers.  

More 'As I Was Going Out One Day'

Here are Hayzel, Katie and Jerome using fluency and expression to read a poem to the ipad.

listen to ‘Hayzel’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Katie’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Jerome’ on Audioboo

Katie's First Chapter Book

Katie has written her first chapter book.  It is about a girl called Amelia who gets in trouble at school and finds out her teachers are really mean.  Read her book to learn what happens to Amelia.

Open publication - Free publishing - More school

The Queens Party, by Katie

It was the Queens Birthday last week and Katie has written a story about what sort of party she might have had.  

Untitled from East School on Vimeo.

Our Botanic Garden reflection

After our trip to the Auckland Botanic Gardens I gave the children the option of using the ipad to record themselves sharing what they learned and/or a question they would like the answer to.  They were able to do this when they had some spare time and had completed their set work. This is the first time they have used the ipad to record themselves and here is a video of the results. 

Now our challenge is to answer some of these questions.  Share your ideas about how we could find the answers by leaving a comment.

The little thing, by Katie

Last week Katie wrote a funny story about a little thing that was spying on her.  She carefully planned her story to include a beginning, middle and end and she has written a very funny story.

Welcome Back!

We are all back at school for the new year and it is very exciting.  This year the children in A3 are year 2s, so we are a little older and there are alot more of us! Take a look at the slideshow to meet the children who are in A3 this year,  you might recognise some of the faces.  We are looking forward to sharing our learning with everyone.

  A3 Children 2012 on PhotoPeach

Concert Video

Take a look at the videos of our end of year concert.  We had a great time so we hope you enjoy watching them.

The year ones

The year twos

The year threes

A roaring good time!

Today the junior school had our Christmas concert.  All of the year ones had their face painted as lions and we sung 'In the Jungle'.

It was a lot of fun and the children did a great job performing their songs!  Take a look at our photos and stay posted for a video of our performance.  

Christmas Concert on PhotoPeach

Exit, stage right

We have been practicing hard for our end of year Christmas concert.  Yesterday we had our first practice on the stage and some of the children have written stories about what we did.  

Alex has written a story about someone that couldn't stop practicing.  Listen to his story to hear what happened.  

Goodbye Nanas

It's time for Nanas to go back to his class in Christchurch so we decided to give him a farewell party.  We had a treasure hunt and played some games then we made banana splits! Yum!  We will miss Nanas, but we are looking forward to seeing Wally again.

Nanas Big day at the museum!

Yesterday A3 and A4 took Nanas on his first adventure into the big city.  He went with us to the museum and he got to see lots of interesting things, like dinosaur bones. 

Nanas on looking at the motorway on the way to the museum

Nanas looking at some cockroaches in the weird and wonderful exhibition 

Take a look at this slideshow to see what else Nanas and A3 got up to:

Here are some stories that the children wrote about their trip to the museum.  It is Tevita's first video since starting in our class, well done Tevita! 

First Contact

Yesterday we had our first ever skype call with the Springston Explorers in Christchurch.  We got to see Wally and ask them questions about what he was doing down there.  They asked us some questions too!  It was very exciting.

Nanas is waving hello to his class.

Asking questions about Wally

A3 and A4 go bananas for Nanas

Nanas has arrived and everyone is very excited.  He has spent the day meeting the children, reading books and playing games.  It's been great and he even came out to fitness with us.

Where's Wally?

Yesterday our class mascot, Wally left us to go on a trip to Christchurch.  He is going to be staying with a class who we meet through blogging!  We are a little sad, but we can't wait to see what he gets up to while he is down there!  The Springston Explorers are going to send us their mascot, hopefully he gets here in time to go on our trip to the museum!  

Happy Diwali

On Friday it was Diwali, the Indian festival of light.  We decided to celebrate it by making Barfi and Rangoli patterns.  Take a look at our video to see the what we did.

Trick or Treat

It was Halloween last week.  We decided to make some scary halloween food.  We got together with A4 and made marshmellow ghosts and fingers covered in blood!  It was fun making them but even better when we got to eat them.

Gardening

On Wednesday we started to get our garden bed ready for the plants.  First we took out the weeds, then we put newspaper down and wet it.  This was to stop more weeds from growing.  Once the newspaper was really wet we started to fill up our garden with dirt.  It was a very messy job but lots of fun.  We were all very tired at the end but we can't wait to start growing strawberries so we can eat them all up! Alex wrote a story about what we did to make our garden, have a look:

Take a look at this slide show to see what we did.

The snail. By Katie

We have been looking at snails this week.  Here is Katie reading a story about a naughty snail.

Our puffer Fish

We have been working hard for about five weeks to make these wonderful puffer fish.  First we had to cover our balloons in layers and layers of newspaper and glue. After that we had to cover the balloon in white paper and wait for it to dry before we could begin painting it.  It's taken a long time but the results are great and all of the children are very proud of their fish.