Robin's holiday

Lucky Robin! He got to go on a trip around the northern part of New Zealand with one of Room 27's students. You might remember that Robin came all the way from the U.K. to learn about New Zealand. He thoroughly enjoyed his trip and got to see lots of new things!

Life Education

This term the Life Education Caravan came to Meadowbank School. Harold the Giraffe lives in there, and he taught us all about healthy eating! We talked about how important it is to eat a balanced diet. We need to eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables daily, as well as rice, cereals, bread and pasta. We also need to make sure that we eat nuts, eggs, beans, fish, meat and milk products. We also discussed how we are allowed to eat treats, as long as it's only occasionally! We had a great time visiting Harold, and hope that he enjoyed meeting us too!
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Tie-dye

We wanted to explore how we could change the colour of a piece of fabric, so we did some tie-dying. We each had a piece of calico, and first of all we scrunched up our piece of fabric. We then wrapped elastic bands very tightly around parts of the scrunched up fabric. Next we dipped the fabric into buckets of cold water dye. After a couple of minutes we took the fabric out and removed the elastic bands. We wanted to see whether the fabric that had been covered up by the elastic bands had remained the same colour, and sure enough it had!
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Weaving

We practised weaving using strips of different types of fabric, and created these colourful works of art!
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Tapa Designs

As part of our "Fabrics and Fibres" Topic we have been finding out about tapa cloth. We looked at some examples of Samoan tapa cloth to see what sorts of designs might be used. We then created our own patterns by cutting out and tracing around our own shapes, and then flipping or rotating them. Can you work out which designs have been created by flipping shapes? Can you see which designs have been made by rotating shapes? Which designs have some uniquely Kiwi pictures?!
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Comparing two stories

In Term 2 we have been reading a variety of traditional tales from around the world. Close to the end of the term we read "Rainbow Bird," which is an Australian folk tale, and "How Rabbit stole the Fire," a North American story. We were looking for similarities and differences between the two stories, so that we could compare them. To help us organise our thoughts we used a SOLO compare map to record the ideas that we brainstormed. We found out that both stories have FIRE in them! Here are some of the other similarities and differences that we noticed:

Hessian Bags

We made some cool hessian bags! First we chose the materials that we wanted to use from a collection. There were different coloured pieces of hessian, pompoms, small wooden shapes, rhinestones and sequins. Next we experimented with our materials and drew our bag designs. After this Miss Brookshaw helped us to glue our materials onto our fabric using the hot glue gun. We then had to sew our pockets on. We used large needles and wool for this. Once the pockets were on we were able to sew the sides together. We put velcro fasteners on the flaps to keep the bags closed. Finally the bags were finished!! We talked about all the different things that we can use our bags for, and had lots of different ideas, for example; money, pencils or small toys.
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The Paper Bag Princess Storyboards

In Term 2 we read a big book called "The Paper Bag Princess." We were learning how to retell a story in our own words and be engaging storytellers by using lots of expression and interesting words. We made these storyboards so that we could retell the story to other people. First of all we made some maps of the different settings in the story. We used pencil, crayon, vivid and dye. Next we used felt tips to draw the characters on cardboard, and then cut them out. There are three characters in the story - Princess Elizabeth, Prince Ronald and the dragon. We ended up making two Princess Elizabeths - one wearing beautiful clothes, and the other in a paper bag! We stuck the characters onto the maps with blu-tack, so that we are able to move them around as we tell the story. Finally we added some captions with key words and important events in the story. These act as prompts if we get stuck! We all had a go at retelling "The Paper Bag Princess" using the storyboards to a partner in the class, and then our buddies from Year 5 came to visit us and we were able to retell the story to them too. Some of us have been over to the New Entrants class already to tell them the story, and some more of us will also go next term. Here are a few examples of the storyboards we created.

Playball

We recently had some visitors from Playball at Meadowbank School who came and taught us lots of different ball games! We got the chance to practise some soccer and hockey skills, and had great fun learning how to play "Here comes the wolf!" Here are a few photographs of our session!
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Making Pom Poms

This term we have made some pom poms. First we needed two cardboard rings and lots of wool! We put the two rings together and wound wool around them until the hole was almost closed. That took a long time! Then Miss Brookshaw and Jan cut around the outside and then tied the pom pom together with another piece of wool, and they were finished!
We then decided to be enterprising and make the pom poms into toys. We chose different materials such as feathers, googly eyes, pipe cleaners and mini pom poms. Then we experimented with our materials and drew some designs. Miss Brookshaw and Jan helped us to glue our chosen materials onto our pom poms. We created all sorts of interesting animals and aliens!
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Room 27's Tour of Meadowbank School

Room 27 have had a special visitor all the way from our buddies in the U.K. Robin arrived recently from Woodford Infants School in Plymouth. To make him feel welcome we took him on a tour around Meadowbank School and introduced him to some important people on the junior site! Mr Kinane helped us to do the filming! We hope that Robin will enjoy his stay with us here in New Zealand while his friend Kiwi is off visiting the U.K. We are going to help him collect lots of information about New Zealand so that he can share some of his experiences with the children at Woodford Infants School.

Our Trip to the Pacific Arts Centre

Room 27 and the rest of Year 2 recently visited the Pacific Arts Centre to find out more about how fabrics and fibres are used in the Pacific Islands. We have used the programme Photostory to make a video clip about our trip.

Iron Brion Visit

Yesterday Iron Brion visited Meadowbank School and did a special presentation for the Year Ones and Twos. We talked about how important it was to eat a balanced diet including fruit, vegetables, cereals, dairy products and meat or meat substitutes. Iron Brion then taught us how to do a little dance! Finally we had some Iron Brion burgers which were prepared by some parent helpers!

Grasshopper Tennis

At the moment we are taking part in the Grasshopper Tennis Programme! Here are some photos of us enjoying our tennis lesson!

Testing Waterproof Fabrics

As part of our new topic 'Fabrics and Fibres,' Room 27 have been testing different materials to find out which one would be the best to use for making a raincoat for our class alien Zook. We decided that the fabric needed to be waterproof and that it also needed to be comfortable to wear.


We brainstormed ideas on how we could test the fabric to find out if it was waterproof, and decided that we would use spoons to drop water on each fabric to see whether the water came through the other side. Room 27 worked in groups of three to carry out the experiments. We tested six materials - cotton, hessian, plastic bags, tarpaulin, umbrella fabric and wool. We found that the tarpaulin, plastic bags and umbrella fabric were all waterproof. In our groups we then had to discuss which one of those would be the best for a raincoat.


Here is a black graph of our conclusion! 17 children thought that Zook would prefer the umbrella fabric as it was waterproof, light and comfortable to wear. 6 children thought the tarpaulin was better as it was waterproof and strong.

WYNZ Soccer

Today the Year 1s and 2s had some visitors from WYNZ soccer, and we had a soccer lesson on the senior field. We practised some dribbling, kicking and jumping! Here are some photos of our lesson!

The world of worms

Room 27 have been investigating about different types of worms. We found out through reading and by looking on the internet that there are in fact many, many different types of worms! Here are a few facts that we found out!

The School Gully

In I.C.T. we have started learning how to record our voices using a programme called Voicethread. We recorded some descriptions that we had written about our school gully, as part of our topic 'A worm's eye view.'

Our Assembly

Last Friday Rooms 27 and 28 did their very first assembly of the year in front of the school. Lots of parents came along to see it. The children had lots of information to share about their topic 'A worm's eye view,' as well as poems and songs to perform! They did very well indeed!

Rainbow Song

We have been learning a song in music with Miss Smol! We hope you enjoy listening to it! Maybe you can join in with us!

Our U.K. Buddies

Room 27 will be working with a Year 2 class at Woodford Infants School in Plymouth, U.K. this year. Yesterday we went on a magic carpet ride to find out where in the world the U.K. is. We used GoogleEarth on our smartboard to locate Plymouth and get a bird's eye view of the school and surrounding area! We also learned that Plymouth is by the sea, just like Auckland. The capital city is London, and when it is summer here in New Zealand it is actually winter in the U.K.

We have also been writing letters to the children in the Robins Class, and are going to be sending a special Kiwi explorer friend over to the U.K. with our letters so that he can find out more about it for us! Hopefully he will return with lots of information!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

As part of our topic we have been learning about the lifecycle of a caterpillar. We also read the book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar,' wrote some recounts of the story and made these beautiful caterpillar collages!


First we painted big sheets of paper in various shades of green, red, yellow and brown. Then we cut different shapes out of the paper, and stuck these onto black sugar paper to make the body, head, eyes and legs. Here are just a few examples of our work!

Worm Farming

Room 27 have been learning all about worm farming with Mrs Elmore, the Environmental Education teacher, and we now have our own worm farm just outside our classroom door. We need to put food scraps in our worm farm each day to feed the worms. We made a little video clip to show you what we did! We hope you find it interesting!

The Travelling Bears

In Room 27 we are going to be finding out about different places around New Zealand and the world with the help of our special team of travelling bears! Barnaby, Gertrude and Basil are three teddy bears with very itchy feet who enjoy getting out and about. Children in the class who are going on a trip somewhere in Auckland, New Zealand or overseas are able to take one of the bears with them. Their mission is then to take photos of their bear friend at their destination. Upon their return, they share their news with the rest of the class. We then find where they have been on the map! So far the bears have been to several places in New Zealand. Keep tuned in for updates on future trips!