17 June 2016

Races, Raps and Rubbish Free!

What's been happening in Room 2 this week you ask... Well let us tell you!

We have continued on explanations in Writing.  This week we started writing explanations about the water cycle. We enjoyed singing along to this fun water cycle song. Some of us even made up some actions for it!


This week we finished off and presented our Inquiry Projects.  We developed our vision for what we would like to see happen at NCS now that we are an EnviroSchool.  Many of us focussed on just one element.  Check out the videos and presentations below.




We also had our whole-school cross-country.  Whilst we have already made selections for the Inter-School Cross-Country we still got in the whole-school spirit and joined in with the cross-country today. Well done to Nils who once again won the Year 6 boys race and the open race!

09 June 2016

A short action packed week!


It may have been a short week but it sure has been an action packed one!

On Tuesday we carried on with Mahi Toi - A Totara Syndicate Arts Interchange Programme.  The students with Sally have been working on a collaborative piece of art work.  Each student was given a small piece of the artwork below to then enlarge.  Look at the masterpiece we created when we pieced it all together!

As part of ICT and Inquiry we have been working collabortively with a buddy to create a Google Slideshow presentation.  Below you can see Josie and Grayson both working on the same document but on separate computers!  Sally has been very impressed by the we have worked together on these.  Look out for the completed projects on our blogs soon!

On Wednesday we had our Totara Syndicate Cross-Country and boy did Room 2 dominate!  Students from Room 2 won three out of the four races.

Year 5 Boys
1st - Nils
5th- Koebi
7th- Zai
10th - Michael

Year 5 Girls
7th - Rosie
8th - Emma

Year 6 Girls
1st - Floss
7th - Hannah

Year 6 Boys
1st - Ruben
5th - Max
6th - Ryan
9th - Sam


Thursday ended up being a bit of a foodie day!
We kick started the day by making popcorn as we have just begun a new unit on explanations.  As part of this we are going to be explaining how popcorn pops! Check out this amazing slow motion video below of popcorn popping!


On Friday to celebrate Matariki the Totara Syndicate shared kai together for lunch. Room 2 were amazing and iced and decorated 120 star cookies to share with our friends!


Also on Thursday many of us were involved in the Water Safety programme at Riverside Pool. This week we had the challenge of jumping into the pool, putting on a life jacket and then forming a huddle.


03 June 2016

Week 6!


It's been a week full of variety in Room 2!

On Tuesday we were lucky enough to visit Founder's Park to have a clay session run by Esther from the Suter Art Gallery.  We each made a wall hanging inspired by the historic buildings at Founders.



On Wednesday as part of the EnviroSchool focus Mel came and spoke to us about how precious water is.  She showed us a model of a local landscape and the negative impacts that our choices can have on our water.  We also got to have a look at some of the critters she captured from our local Brook Stream.


On Thursday a number of us partook in a big inter-school hockey tournament.  Congratulations to the boys team who placed third overall and to the girls who placed 4th.  They were up against approximately 20 other teams! 








27 May 2016

Singing and Summit

On Sunday our school choir is participating in a special fundraising 24 hour concert called 'Sleeping with the Steinway'. This is a fundraising concert for the redevelopment of the Nelson School of Music.  Our choir is lucky enough to perform with the group called 'Off your Rockers'. They are a group of elderly singers.  We will be performing songs from both their era and our era. Check us out practicing below!


Today half of our class enjoyed a walk up the Centre of New Zealand as part of our Syndicate Sport. Aren't we lucky to live in such a beautiful part of  the world!



20 May 2016

Food, food, food!


What's been happening in Room 2 this week you ask?

Well in writing we have carried on our Advertising theme.  As part of it we designed our own Cereal box. We had to think about the use of colour, names, slogans and gimmicks.   


In Inquiry. We investigated where the food in our lunch boxes came from and then designed a lunch box menu with low food miles. Check out more about food miles in the video below.



Last week in New Zealand we celebrated Sign Language Week.  So this week in reading we made our own videos in sign language. Check out Floss and Alex below.



13 May 2016

If the earth were an apple...

This week we carried on with our Enviro-Schools themed inquiry unit.  Sally shared with us an illustrating example using an apple. We decided that our earth is very precious and we should look after it as only 4% of earth is suitable for humans to live on.

This theme was carried on in Reading. We read about a couple of different EnviroSchools in NZ and some of the projects they have organised.  See below for some of the ideas we think NCS should try



Half of our class were lucky enough to go to Riverside to participate in some water safety lessons this week.  Many of us were not looking forward to this but afterwards we reflected that it was pretty awesome!

06 May 2016

Fantastic Room 2

We have begun Term 2 with a fantastic week in Room 2.  Sally has been really impressed by the way we have focussed and worked hard this week. Way to go Room 2!

We kick started our  week by beginning our new EnviroSchools Inquiry topic called 'Me in my Environment'. As part of this we were given a map of the school. On it we had to map a number of different features including our favourite place, quiet places, noises places and places that need some attention. During this topic we will begin to develop our vision for the school as we are now an EnviroSchool.

On Monday we were very proud of our very own Floss. She led our whole school assembly. Way to go Floss!

On Wednesday we met with our little buddies. We helped them create their own word clouds using a programme called Tagxedo. We also enjoyed sharing books with them.


This term we are learning all about Advertising as part of writing. We explored branding through logos and really enjoyed a quiz using the programme Kahoot. We also learnt about target audiences and analysed who we thought the target audience was in magazine adverts.

Today we wrapped up our week by playing in the Syndicate Final for G-Ball(Rounders) against Room 1.  We sadly lost 7-5, however, we have written a petition to Sue due to a late rule change that we were unaware about. We'll keep you posted!




15 April 2016

Treasure and treats!

We have had a great week in Room 2 this week.  On Tuesday we had an outdoor experience with the Suter. We went to the banks of the Maitai and painted our own water colour landscape pictures.  Some of us really loved this experience whilst some of us found it a little more challenging. 

On Wednesday we were treated to our very own lunch time concert by Zoe's music students. This featured our very own Floss and Charlie.

Sadly we had to farewell Charlie today as she moves back to Christchurch.


Today we ended our week with some fun learning activities.  We have been learning all about position and orientation in Maths. As part of this we drew our own birds eye view maps of the classroom. Then we wrote instructions for a buddy to find some treasure that we had hidden in the classroom.


Today we also presented our plays that we have been practicing all week as part of Reading. 




08 April 2016

Tracking, Trading and Creating

The term is quickly drawing to a close but we have still been busy, busy, busy!

In Maths this week we have been learning all about scales, co-ordinates and compass points when using a map. This couldn't have been timed better with the International Godzone Adventure Race that was going on this week.  We loved tracking the teams online throughout the day and seeing the amazing progress they made. We were especially excited because Ruben's Dad Dan was a part of the winning team Yealands.  


This week we also had our famous Totara Trading.  During the term everybody earns Dojo points which are then turned into Totara Dollars for our market day.  Students then set up their stall hoping to earn more Totara Dollars. At our first Totara Trading was a huge success with stalls selling everything from baking to smoothies, book marks, homemade lemonade and Grape Juice. Their were also games like a sponge toss and guess the number of jellybeans in a jar.




As part of writing we have been writing character descriptions.  We each created our own Wild Thing Character and then described them.  Check out our individual blogs next week to read them all. In the mean time here is Sylvie's.

Simon the wild thing

Simon the wild thing is a kind, soft, gentle wild thing and he is as tidy as a perfectionist (thats because he is one) and he cant have a single strand of fur out of place. He bathes twice a day in the water from the lake near by after his long bath he, he straitens his hair and fur. He also polishes his horn and tusks twice a day after his bath and cuts his nails to the EXCACT length that it should be. He has small ears that hide beneath his hair and he always wears a suit and he is two and a half metres tall. He has big black and white goggly eyes with no eye lashes or eye brows and underneath  his fur is thick leathery skin.

Simon the wild thing does a lot of house work and tidies up after his pet frogs. When he vacuums he is very cautions because he is aware that it could suck up his frogs. He doesn't talk much he just does what he is told. He would never disobey or disagree with his many friends.

Simon is adventures, extreme and most definitely fearless he loves to go mountain biking and sailing on his home-made raft. When Simon is climbing trees, he would go as high as he feels like because he jump from tree to tree like a monkey. During the night he decides whether he would like to sleep in his hut or hangs from a tree like a sloth. Simons weakness is mornings. He is NOT a morning person. He gets up at about one in the afternoon.

That is my wild thing


01 April 2016

Swimming Sports

This week Floss, Jasmin and Ruben represented our school at the Inter-School Swimming Sports.  Each of the performed extremly well. Floss was part of the winning Year 6 girls relay team. Floss also came 4th in the freestyle final. Jasmin came 2nd in the breath-stroke final. Ruben came  3rd in the finals for backstroke.