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.  

Kikorangi's what am I stories.

Here are the last of our what am I stories, written and recorded by Kikorangi.  These ones are tricky, we hope you can guess them.

kikorangi what am I from East School on Vimeo.

The Wicked Witch, by Kaya

Kaya has written a scary story about meeting a witch and it doesn't have a happy ending!

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 Easter Egg Hunt, by Kaya

It sounds like Kaya was going to have an exciting Easter!  I hope you found lots of eggs on your hunt Kaya! 

A Close Call, by Kaya

Kaya has been working hard to write imaginative stories with more then two ideas.  Listen to the story he wrote today about a lucky escape to see how great he is doing at meeting his goal.  Well done Kaya.

Merry Christmas!!!

It was our last day of school for the year today and now we are on holiday until January 31st.  When we get back there will be a new bunch of children in A3.  It has been a great year and we have had a lot of fun together.  Thanks to everyone who has supported our blog this year.   Wally has promised to update the blog with tales of his holiday, so stay posted for his updates.  We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. 

Letters to Santa

Here are the last of our letters to Santa written by Deziah, Rishaad, Aliyaah, Kaya and Sandy.  We were very excited when he commented on our blog and we are looking forward to hearing from him again!

Watching the Rugby, by Kaya

Kaya has written a story about what he was doing last Friday, have a listen and let us know if you were doing the same thing.

High Wire Walk, by Kaya

On Monday we looked at a photo of Freddy Nock walking along a cable car wire in  Bavaria.  At times he was up to 3000 metres from the ground and it took him 90 minutes to complete his walk.  We thought the pictures were amazing and Kaya has written a story about what could have happened if Freddy had slipped!

Tui Garden Challenge

A3 and A1 have entered the Tui Gardening challenge and on Monday we started getting our gardens ready.  We pulled out all of the weeds and old plants from our garden beds.  As part of the garden challenge we were given new gardening tools and these were very helpful to pull out the plants.  

Ashley with some of our new tools

One of our gardens before we weeded it.

Take a look at this slide show to see the children hard at work.
   

Four of the children wrote and recorded stories about their gardening experience so far. 

Dinosaur Prints

Last week we were very busy working on  dinosaur prints. It was a lot of work but we love the results. We made two different prints.  For the first one we chose one colour of ink to use, then we used dye and creative glue to add detail to the picture.  For our second print we were allowed to chose two different colours of ink.  Take a look at our slide show and let us know what you think.

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

What's Behind C Block?

After lunch on Friday Rohit, Kaya and Amalani came back to class with a scary story.  Listen to Amalani and Kaya reading their stories about what scared them while they were behind C block. 

Maths Week

Last week was maths week.  Each day we worked in groups to solve a different maths problem.  Some of the problems were quite tricky and we enjoyed the challenge of solving them. 

Here is Aliyaah, Ofa and Noelani telling us how they solved the following problem:

Mother Bear is making her 5 bear cubs new coats.  The coats have 3 buttons each. How many buttons does Mother Bear need?

We also used paint to copy a picture of a robot using shapes.  Take a look at the slide show to see the results. 

Danger in the playground, by Kaya

Kaya was playing on the slide when something terrible happened.  Listen to his story to find out what was waiting for him at the end of the slide. 

Bye Bye Wattle

Friday was Wattle's last day in A3.  He has been visiting us from Australia for the last 7 weeks and now it is time for him to go back to his class Learning Together.  We have had lots of fun with Wattle and we are going to miss him, but we are looking forward to seeing our giraffe Wally again.  Take a look at the video to see what Wattle got up to while he was with us.  

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

Here is a video of us singing a goodbye song for Wattle.

Meeting the kittens

On Thursday we skyped with our friends in Australia, Learning Together.  We got to see their rabbit blue bell and her seven kittens.  The kittens have grown since we last saw them and Wally is having a great time playing with them.  You can see Wally playing with the kittens by clicking here.   

Wattle is saying hi to his classmates.  

Going to the zoo!

We went to Auckland Zoo yesterday and had a great time.  We were lucky the sun came out and all the animals were very active.  Wattle came with us and he had lots of fun and he made some new friends. 

Wattle met some friends at the zoo and he saw a real wombat's skull!  

Take a look at the slide show and movie to see photos and videos of the day. 

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

The Zoo

Kaya has written a story about what he thinks he'll see at the zoo next week.

Futuristic Transport

Once a week A3 goes to the library to work on the computers with Ms Clark.  Last week they were learning to use kidpix to draw futuristic transport.  Take a look at their amazing creations.