Researching our Questions

We have been working on our INQUIRY learning topic about OUR CONNECTIONS. This week we were doing a google search to learn the about the places where the early settlers came from so we can show how Nelson is connected to other places in the New Zealand and the world. Each person in our teams had a special role. There was an organiser, a reader and a writer. We learnt that Ngati Tama and other iwi came from Kapiti and Wellington and won the battle because they had guns. Nelson is connected to France because Dumont D'Urville came to Tasman Bay from France. Nelson is connected to England because ships brought settlers from England to Nelson. One of those ships was called the Fifeshire like Fifeshire Rock. Nelson is connected to Germany because some settlers came from Germany then went out to the Moutere. Nelson is connected to Italy because some settlers came from Italy and they grew tomatoes right near Nelson City. We worked in the library yesterday and we finished off in our classroom today.

Eli has been in our class this year while his family are on sabatical. His last day was on Friday and now he is returning to Alaska. He took Rachel the Room 5 ambassador with him. She is Riki's sister. Dr Potaka took Riki with him when he went travelling on his sabatical but we haven't heard how Riki is getting on for a while. When Eli gets back to Alaska, he will be on holidays for a few weeks and he has promised to take Rachel out with him when he goes to different places. We hope he sends photosto us so we can see them both having fun. Maybe he will even take Rachel to school with him for a while. We are going to miss Eli but we will be able to keep in touch if he emails us about the things he is doing with our little kiwi.

Museum Trip

Yesterday we went to the museum to learn about the six iwi who lived in Nelson in our early history. We were put into groups and did lots of different activities. We scraped flax with mussel shells until it was white and ready for weaving.
We wove some chord to make a line of weaving.
We listened to a legend and copied some pictures so we could learn how to do maori patterns.
We matched photos of taonga with the iwi they belong to.
We heard stories about the ancestors from different iwi. Some of us liked the one about Mr Hippolite and his taxi business.
We learnt lots about maori culture and the history of Nelson.

World Environment Day - June 5

The theme for World Environment Day is about leaving a small carbon footprint by not being wasteful.
We can do this by;
Saving electricity,
Turning off the lights when we leave a room,
Using energy efficient
bulbs,
Using bikes and buses when we can instead of using cars,
Not littering because it rots and makes carbon dioxide,
Recycling,
Composting our food waste,
and stopping pollution.
Room 5 people all made posters ans we are going to display them on the school fence on June 5 to encourage people in Nelson to think about this. The posters will be judged and the class that has the best posters will win a great morning tea.
We hope we WIN!

Conal Teaches us Some Skills

Conal came to school today to teach us soccer skills. He said we should call it "Football Skills." We have had Conal teaching us before so we are getting quite good now. First we practised dribbling and changing direction. We played Highway. When Conal called, "Roundabout," we had to control the ball and run arouund in a tiny circle. We practised using our head, knees and chest for passing the ball. Last of all we played a game where we had bibs tucked into the waist of our clothes and we had to try to protect our bibs by turning away while everyone tried to catch the bibs. It was great fun.

Hooray! Our first BLOG PARTY

We had a BLOG PARTY today because we have reached our first goal of 500 hits on our Blog. We had a yummy shared lunch to celebrate. The next party will be when we have 1000 hits so we hope you keep reading what we are doing.

Central Rocks!

Our topic last term was Central Rocks! We were asked to create a display for our school to show what Central School means to each of us. In Room 5 we did lots of thinking about what was special about our school and we made clay tiles to show our ideas. After we had created the tiles Esther from the Suter Art Gallery fired them for us and we painter them. We have displayed them in our new corridoor and they look lovely. We also wrote labels to explain our tiles. If you would like to read what is on the label, look on our individual blogs because we copied the information onto a posting. Our Syndicate is so pleased with our presentations we have invited parents to come on a tour with us so we can see the work everyone has been doing.