Friday, May 31, 2013

Student of the Week - Amber-Rose

Super well done to Amber-Rose for working really hard at making sure she understands what she is reading and answering lots of comprehension questions about texts read.  It is great to see students working so hard to achieve their classroom goals.  Top job Amber-Rose!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Front page news

Wow - look who is on the front page of today's Clutha Leader!!!!! Ryan and Alesana from Room 4.

Student of the week - Ryan

Congratulations to Ryan for being awarded 'Student of the Week' in Room 4.  We are especially pleased of the progress that you are making in writing Ryan - keep it up!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Happy Birthday Lanie

Happy Birthday Lanie!!!

Today was Lanie's 8th birthday, and her mum treated the whole class to a very special birthday cake.
It was DE-LIC-IOUS!!!!

We all hope you had a truly wonderful birthday, and we were glad to be a part of it with you. :-)

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Oliver in the garden

As this has been BOOK WEEK at Lawrence Area School, our latest art work is based on the book 'Oliver in the garden'.  Mrs O read two Oliver books to us and we took particular notice of the silhouettes used in the illustrations.


We were then given limited colour choices - mostly black with a very little bit of white, silver, yellow and red paper.  We had to re-create a scene of Oliver doing something in the garden in the evening e.g. playing with the hedgehog, chasing moths, creeping through the fence, climbing the tree, hiding in the grass, waiting at the back door....
















Thursday, May 16, 2013

Author Kyle Mewburn visits again

How lucky were we at Lawrence Area School today?  Not only NZ famous, but WORLD famous author Kyle Mewburn visited us for the second time, as part of our Book Week.
He had us all in fits of laughter as he told us about how he became an author - no he was not born an author!  Surprisingly he has only been a published author for the last ten years, but he has had many story ideas that have been 'on-the-go' for years.  Kyle showed us lots of his published books - his first one, 'The Hoppleplop' only took three hours to write, however it took him three years to write 'Melu', his latest nomination in the NZ Post book awards.
We were lucky enough to be the first school EVER to catch a glimpse of his latest published work - Dinosaur Rescue 'Book of Stuff' which has a dedication in the front to several dinosaur mad children, including Toby from our school!  Here's Kyle showing Toby his name in print!  How exciting - the book isn't even available to buy yet, but we've seen a sneak preview.  

 Kyle showed us how his Dinosaur Rescue books are printed.  On the three large pages above is the complete first book in the series, all 96 pages.  Kyle told us how it was essential for these books to be exactly 96 pages to help with the printing.  A machine in Asia prints and binds his Dinosaur Rescue books before they are shipped to NZ and other countries around the world to be sold.

After talking to the whole junior school and judging the best-dressed book character for each room, Kyle made a special visit to Room 4.  And boy were we lucky again!!!!  He read us his latest 'book' (which was written on one piece of paper).  It is called 'The House on the Hill' and is written as a poem.  It is a bit creepy..... until the last page.  Unfortunately the illustrator is too busy at the moment, so this book won't be published until 2015 so we will have to wait another two years before we will see it on the book shelves.
Mrs May entered a competition recently and won a copy of Megasaurus Mash-Up (books 1-4 in the Dinosaur Rescue series) which Kyle autographed for us and presented to Room 4.  His handwritten dedication reads.....
To Room 4
Where the kids are very evolved,
and the teachers are NOT neanderthals,
and nobody picks their nose...
unless they are very hungry.
Best wishes
Kyle Mewburn

Book character dress up day

Meet Room 4's book characters for today....
What an amazing job was done by all of the students who dressed up.  It was great to see the variety and thought gone into these costumes.
Sasha Silver (a.k.a Rubie)
Captain Hook (a.k.a Ryan)

Jade from 'Jade and the Stray' (a.k.a Lucie)

Felicity McApeline from 'The Girl from Snowy River' (a.k.a Kate)

Witch from 'Room on the Broom' (a.k.a Jenaya)
Thumbelina (a.k.a Amber-Rose)

Captain Haddock from Tintin (a.k.a Toby)

Billie.B.Brown (a.k.a Josie)

Milky the cow from 'Stuck in the Mud' (a.k.a Jessica)


Vampire (a.k.a Alesana)


The white princess (a.k.a Paris)

Red Robin (a.k.a Blake)

Cinderella at the ball (a.k.a Emma)

Winnie the Witch (a.k.a Mrs O)

Alex the horse rider (a.k.a Lanie)

Cinderella before the ball (a.k.a Connie)


Slinky Malinki (a.k.a Samara)

Veronica from Saddle Club (a.k.a Alyssa)

Kitty Cat (a.k.a Venessa)

Surf Girl Lucy (a.k.a Lucy)


Saucepan Man from The Faraway Tree (a.k.a Abby)


The witch and her apprentice!

The winners from each class as judged by Kyle Mewburn.
Anastaja, Regan, Toby, Kurt and Sofia

Did Kyle get it right?  Which one is your favourite?