New Sand for the Sand Pit

 At the beginning of term three some of the children in Room 4 noticed that the sand in the sand pit was beginning to get a bit low. It was not as much fun to play in any more and it was a bit tricky when there were lots of people wanting to play.

 Luckily Room 4 had just begun a unit of learning about 'persuasive writing' so the class decided to put their new powerful skills to use and they wrote a letter to Mr Auld and Mr Healy, explaining the troubles that they were having with the existing sand, and the benefits there would be if there was to be some new sand.

 You can imagine the delight on the faces of all of the junior school when they arrived on Tuesday mornign to see that a large mountain of fresh sand had been dumped in the playground over night.

 Unfortunately the delivery truck could not get close enough to the sand pit to actually deposit the sand in its true destination. 

 However, this did not phase the children of Room 4. They set about immediately to the task of shifting the sand to the sand pit.

They used ice-cream containers, lunch box lids, rubbish tin lids, plastic bags, handfuls....whatever they could find...to get the sand moved from one spot to the other, and what a lot of fun they had. (More-so, possibly, than if the sand had been put directly in the sandpit!!)

The children were thrilled to see that their letter had paid off, and it was terrific to see them work so well together as a team, even enlisting chidlren from other classes, to get the

sand-shifting job done!!!

You make us proud every single day Room 4!!!

Extra special awards - University of New South Wales Competition

A huge congratulations to our Year 4 students Rylee, Mac and Lucy who participated recently in the ICAS assessments based out of the University of New South Wales.  It was a great achievement just to be selected to take part in these assessments, along with students from schools throughout New Zealand, Australia and other participating countries.


Today at presentation assembly these students were given their results and presented with their certificates:

Mac  - credit in Spelling (top 30% for his age group) 

Lucy  - participation in Writing

Rylee  - participation in Spelling and distinction in Writing (top 9% for her age group) 

These are outstanding results and we are EXTREMELY proud of you!!!!
We look forward to receiving the results for the Mathematics assessment.  These can't be too far away.

Balclutha Gymfest

 Today we sent two teams of gymnasts down to the Gymfest competition in Balclutha. We sent Lucie, Jenaya, Rubie, Jessica, Rylee, Connie, Kate and Venessa.

 They competed in three different events each and were given a mark for each event. The marks were then averaged out to give an overall team score. Both teams were awarded a bronze certificate for their amazing efforts. The girls have been training with Maria Jopp in their lunch hours for the past three weeks.

 Each girl had to learn a beam routine, a floor routine and a vault. They had a lot of fun learning the routines and really enjoyed the opportunity to compete at gymfest. Thank you so much to Maria for all of her time and effort in helping the girls prepare for todays event.

 Connie

 Jenaya

 Jessica

 Kate

 Lucie

 Rubie

 Rylee

Venessa

Otago Rescue Choppers Visit

 On Friday afternoon we were visited by the Otago Rescue Helicopter. It flew in just after lunch and landed down on Simpson Park.

 It was pretty windy as it landed so we were lucky that they were still able to make the flight.

 Lucy, Lucie, Jenaya and Alex are waiting patiently as they watch the helicopter land.

 Hamish, Toby, Blake, George, Emma and Paris all watch on. Jessica takes some photos of her own in the background.

 William and Mac bracing against the cold wind created by the helicopter.

 Alex and Rylee.

 Lucie and Jenaya.

 Kate watches on.

 Emma and Paris enjoy the excitement of the helicopter landing.

 Finally it has landed.

 Part of the proceedings was the Lawrence Lions Club handing over a donation to the 'Splash Out' pool committee.

 The pilots and paramedics answer the children's questions about the helicopter. There were heaps of really cool questions.

 The reason for the helicopter coming in was to collect a donation from the Lawrence Lions Club. They had helped Bill and Sharyn Bazley to run the Lawrence 'Stars in Your Eyes' competition. On the night the community raised $35,000 which was donated to the Otago Rescue Helicopter Trust. The rescue chopper is vital to our community, which was made clear by the number of students who knew someone who had ridden in the chopper due to accident or illness.

 Jenaya waits in line to have a look at the back of the chopper.

 Room 4 has a look in the back of the chopper and has an opportunity to ask some questions about the helicopter or about rescue missions.

 Students get a chance to ask some more questions as they look around the chopper. They were fascinated as some of the important features were pointed out to them.

 We had a close inspection of the cockpit and got to ask the pilot a few questions too.

It was a real treat to have such a cool visit from an amazing team of people. They left us with some posters to remind us of their visit.

Mrs May and the Huntsman Spider

While Mrs May was away she had an 'encounter' with a huntsman. She showed us the photo of the spider and then we had to write a 'quickwrite' where we guessed at what might have happened to Mrs May.There were lots of suggestions so we have selected a few to share with you.....

“La, da, da, de, da. AHHHHHHH!” I, I, I, I screamed, horrified, my heart pounding as fast as a rocket jet. A spider, a spider that could put me in a hospital. I better take a look and get some notes. It takes up a quarter of the brick. I’m busy examining it, then suddenly...Ouch, I pass out!!!!

Lucy W

Ahh! I scream as a huntsman spider crawls on my arm. ‘Ok, stay still.’ I think I’ll grab a piece of paper and slip it under the spider. I got the spider off and the spider lived happily ever after.

William

A spider jumps off one brick to another brick, then finally to the ground. Teeth ready, all eight arms ready. Mrs May walks along the grass. She does not see it. It leaps up on her arm. It creeps away slowly while Mrs May stays in pain. It was the bite of a huntsman.

George

As I walk into my brother Mark’s house I say to him,
“Is that a hunstman?”
“Yes” he said, then...

Rubie

The spider climbed up the wall and turned to face me.
“Is it poisonous?” I asked.
“No,” came the reply, “but it has a fierce bite,” he said.
“Ow!” I shouted.
“I should have told you before you did that.”

Lucie

As I place my hand on the wall I feel a pain in my hand. I slowly take my hand off the wall and there I see a huntsman spider. It’s crawling around the walls.
“Ahhh,” I say in fright. I step back, back, far away from the spider. I wish I never, ever meet a spider like that again. What a scary day.

Connie

Mum was walking outside and there was a huntsman spider.
“Ahhhh!” she screamed in terror. With that scream, Uncle Mark raced through the door, grabbed the brick and quickly flipped it onto the other side, squashing the spider.
“Thank God,” said Mum. Uncle Mark just smiled.

Rylee

PLOP! Something dropped squarely on top of my head, then it tumbled down toward my forehead. It trickled down my fringe then dropped to the ground, where it lay writhing in the pain of its fall. I looked down to see what it was that had fallen from the door frame onto my head. My jaw dropped open as I stared at the ground, horrified. Lying at my feet, with its 8 long, spindly legs squirming, was a large, grey huntsman spider. My heart skipped a beat as I tried to remain outwardly calm. Inwardly I was screaming a thousand screams. It took every ounce of self restraint not to squash the spider with my foot.

Mrs May

Student of the Week - Toby

Congratulations to Toby who was the Room 4 student of the week this week. He is being recognised for always being focused on the task, and also for always listening to instructions well and following them very carefully. These are wonderful qualities Toby and you are a good role model of someone who is ready to learn and keen to work.

Party Pack Maths

In Room 4 we have been learning how to undertake statistical investigations.  Mrs O set the class a challenge today involving something we all love....LOLLIES!!!!

She wanted to know if all Party Packs of lollies had the same number of each type of lolly, because Mrs O does not like milk bottles and wants to know if there will always be the same number of milk bottles in every packet.

Also, Mr O'Connell always leaves the green lollies, so Mrs O also wanted to know if there were always the same number of each coloured lolly in each packet.

To begin with, we were split into three equal groups.  Each group had to sort and tally their lolly types, then draw a graph to show the types of lolly contained in their pack.  Every group worked super well, sharing turns at counting the lollies.

After graphing the results, we shared them as a class.  It was interesting to find out that NO there are not the same number of each type of lolly - one group had only 7 milk bottles while another group had 14 milk bottles!  We decided that it was just luck as to whether or not Mrs O gets lots of milk bottles in her next packet.
We also found out that not all bags have the same TOTAL number of  lollies.  The bags are packed by weight, so one group had a lot of small lollies (jellybeans) so their total number of lollies was higher than another group who had more of the heavier lollies (jet planes and snakes).

 

  

 

  

 And finally came the best part.... sharing out the lollies equally and eating them!!!