Week 7!

This week we have been thinking about Christmas because there are only 3 weeks left until the end of the school year!
We made some advent boxes and have filled them with lollies, Xmas poems and a mini-origami Xmas tree.  We are going to take it in turns to open the boxes.

We have also been filling up our portfolios with all the tests and interesting work from throughout the year.  The portoflios are nearly popping because they are so full.  Some people naming no names, couldn't even get all their stuff into their portfolio!  We have also been making starts using a compass - some people found this easy, some hard and some medium!
We are also getting ready for the end of year Prize Giving at the Cathedral by doing lots of carol singing

Movie Magic

Room 11 have spent some time over the last couple of weeks learning how to make movies.  First, we wrote some recounts about camp.  We tried to write them so that next years year 3s could read them and learn about what camp was like.  Next we picked out some music and some pictures and created a powerpoint from them.  We are really good at making animations and transitions too so that was easy.
Finally we recorded ourselves reading our recount and we added that into the Powerpoint.  We rehearsed the timings of the slides and put it all together!  We haven't finished because it is so much work, but we will finish them next week.  In the meantime here is Jonathan's video so you can get an idea of what the finished ones will look and sound like!

Going...Going...GONE (nearly!)

Today we saw a partial solar eclipse!  A solar eclipse  is when, in the middle of the day it gets dark.  It doesn't happen much.  For this to happen the moon moves between the earth and the sun and blocks out the light.  We were very lucky that the moon moved in front of the sun where New Zealand is.

During the solar eclipse it was dark, a little scary.  You couldn't look straight at the sun because it can damage your eyes so you have to use special glasses.  We thought it was funny that the birds stop moving during the eclipse because they think it's night time.  We saw a video of a full solar eclipse and we thought it looked like a black hole.

This afternoon we made our own solar systems with just the sun, the earth and the moon.  We used compasses to draw the circles.  Many of us had never used them before.  We can turn them two ways.  You can turn the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth.  We can even line them up to show how a solar eclipse works.

 

C Minus 2 days

We are all very excited in Room 11.  That's because on Wednesday we are going to go to Shakespear Park!  The activities that we're doing are: Sailing, kayaking and orienteering.  Please remember all of the items on your gear list.
This afternoon we were visited by a real author.  Her name is, Julie Scott.  She wrote a book called, 'The Chittens' which is all about a girl called Millie who had a really messy room. One day she founnd some creatures called Chittens living there.  A 'Chitten' is a made up creature but it is basically a baby griffin.  A Griffin is half eagle and half lion, so a baby griffin is half chick and half kitten!