Welcome Stephanie!

We gladly welcomed Stephanie into our classroom today Stephanie and her family have come up from Christchurch, after the terrible events. We are so glad to have you with us Stephanie! We hope you have had fun in Whio today, and stay with us for as long as you need to.

Its so good to be able to help.
Welcome to Whio and to St Paul's XXXXX.

Making Flax String!

We decided to make flax fibre plaits for our fish hooks that we made at Mapua. We were inspired by what we saw and wanted to have a go.
First we said a Karakia then cut some flax at school.

We used a mussel shell to try to cut the flax just like the Maori's used to, but we found it too wet to get the fibre out. we decided to let it dry for a day or so and try again.

We tried again the next day and it was a little easier but only little pieces. We decided to leave it another day.Finally we got some long flax fibres and we started to plait them.

When the plaits were finished we tied them to the hooks.

By Shannon, Poppi, Leigh, Tom and Ben


Tom is now very interested in investigating how strong the string is- next week we might try to test out different types of plaits with weights... Watch this space!

We have finished our placemats!

Here is a slideshow showcasing our finished placemats!
Well done Whio- very cool!
Our Kowhaiwhai Inspired Placemats on PhotoPeach

James' new baby brother!

On Friday at 4.40pm my baby brother was born. He is really small and cute! He cries all the time and he sleeps a lot. Here is a special poster I made about him using pages.

I have printed these off to send to my family.
James.

John Keys Speech

This is a really inspirational speech John Key made yesterday. Write your thoughts on it by writing a comment

Christchurch Earthquake

Here is a video from some of the first footage of yesterdays earthquake.


We are shocked about the Christchurch earthquake so we decided to write some prayers
for the people in Christchurch.

We are all thinking of you down in Christchurch,we are currently brainstorming how we can help.Watch this space...

Mathletics Madness!

For the last 3 weeks we have been using Mathletics at school and at home as a way of learning and practicing our maths in a fun way. Each week if we get 1000 or more points we get a certificate. This week all these children got one!

Go Whio -Maths Superstars!

This is what one look's like close up

Bailey's Certificate

Jordan and Julia did really well this week and scored over 3000 points each. They received an extra prize from Mrs T. Well done girls.

Jordan and Julia- Superstars!

We interviewed a few students to see what they enjoy about Mathletics;
Jordan -'Its a fun way to learn Maths!"
Julia- ' Its easy if you know what you are doing and it makes maths fun!'
Holly- "It has helped me learn my positive and negative numbers"

Bailey- I like to earn credits on Live Mathletics so I can buy my avatar new things!"

Bailey's Avatar

Mrs Thomas " I love the way everyone is so enthusiastic about Maths- So often when they have finished a task in class its; "Can I go on Mathletics?"!!

Week 3

Maori fishing hooks and sinkers

Hi!! Julia and Chloe here to tell you about our third exciting week in 2011. We went on a science trip to the Mapua Aquarium and to the McKee reserve in Ruby Bay ( see photo's) to find some shellfish and some little beach animals such as a variety of crabs and shells, little shrimps and cats eyes. In the aquarium we fed the fish since it was feeding day. Then we went to the discovery room and Richard, a man who works at the aquarium, thought us all about the Maori and the early fishing that they did.

A Maori drill we used to drill holes.

A huge stingray we saw in the aquarium.

Our class also got to keep a huge cray fish shell that a crayfish sucked it's body out of to be able to grow bigger.

A crayfish we caught on a Maori inspired hook.

We also tried to fish with a flax net but we didn't manage to catch anything because the fish broke the net.  It is really interesting to be able to learn about the rocky shore since it is very important to New Zealand and also because you get to learn about all the little creatures under the rocks and in the rock pools.

1. 

Our rocky shore searchers at the McKee reserve

Finding rocky shore creatures.

 


Here are some facts we either heard from Richard or facts that we found in the aquarium:

• An octopus only lives for about 18 to 24 months; The red eared turtle is native to Southern U.S.A 
• There is more oxygen in cold water than in warm  water.

In the afternoon we went to the McKee reserve to observe little sea creatures such as: crabs , starfish, worms, anemonies, barnacles shrimps and sponges, mussel shells, limpets and seaweeds. We then put everything we found together and shared  all the different 'stuff' we found. From this I learned that there are about 5000 tiny animals under a single rock.

  We had swimming every day of this week at the ASB Aquatic Centre to improve our swimming skills for swimming sports.

In class we have carried on with our novels, Silverstream, Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins. we are now up to chapter 3 and we are getting to know the characters more and more.

We have nearly finished our placemats with the Koru designs as a border. It has been a very cool week with the field trip  and we hope we have some more field trips over the year.