Room 9 Clifton Terrace School

2009-11-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Last week the children had the opportunity to put the golf skills to the test. They learnt how to do the swing action, then tested it out of large rubber balls. Next they tried it on tennis balls and finally the real thing - golf balls! Some children are naturally gifted at this sport and I encourage you to get them down to the golf course one weekend soon to show you what they can do!

Book Reviews

2009-10-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

We started our book reviews at the end of Term 3 and finished them in our first week back. They did some really amazinglooking posters to promote reading to other people in ourclass. For some this was the first time they had done a bookreview so it was all a bit of a learning curve!

Our next goal is to do some for the school library to promote

some of the books in there.

BUSY START TO TERM 4

2009-10-19T17:27:00.001-07:00

The students have been doing some fantastic work and it is great to have it up on the walls on display. We have some very talented artists in Room 9. I am really impressed with what they have been producing! We worked on vivid and dye pictures with the intention of conveying mood and emotion through colour blends. Their silhouettes look very professional.

2009-10-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Parents/Caregivers

Where has the year gone?! It is hard to believe we are into the fourth term already and that Christmas is just around the corner.

IMPORTANT DATES THIS TERM:

23 October Tsunami Mufti Day & Cake Stall Fundraiser

Bring a gold coin and extra $ to buy treats!

26 October Labour Day Holiday

27 October Teacher Only Day - No school

28 October Golf Skills for senior classes (Also on 30th)

3 November Puppet Show 9:30am

6 November Gym Champs Standards

10 November Year 5-6 Puberty Talk

(parents welcome to attend this, too)

12 November* Nelson Intermediate Powhiri for students

13 November Gym Champs Levels

25 November Nelsom Int Extension Assessment (Yr6)

1 December Interschool Athletics

9 December Christmas sing-a-long/Kapa Haka

11 December Teapot Valley School Trip

14 December Year 6 Disco (7:00-8:30pm.Supper til 9pm)

15 December * Year 6 Farewell Assembly plus all

Room 9 & 10 Hydroslide visit 1:00pm

16 December Last day of school (12:00pm finish)

*Please keep these dates in mind as we will need transport and supervision for some of these activities.

Topic

Topic this term is initially focussed on Health. Students will need to research and do a presentation on health organisation of their choice and present this back to the class in Week 4.

They will also be doing a Technology unit on boxes in the last half of the term.

Extra Curricular

Your child may be involved in one or more of the following activities that are happening in the school over the term:

Ranzulli

Thinkers (Science extension)

Lexia (Spelling Programme)

Music (with Margaret)

Kapa Haka

Animal Husbandry

Students have already been selected and notified about these programmes.

Sports

This term Friday sport will be focussing on summer games. They will remain with Room 9 children but will be on a rotation so they are exposed to a range of small ball sports as a class.

Homework and Deadlines

Christmas is fast approaching. With summer sports and social and festive commitments on the increase this term the children will have lighter homework. Weekly spelling lists which will be recorded on a Monday and tested on a Friday. These will be practised in class daily. They should be reading 15 mins each night, four nights a week. Your child should also be regularly practising all basic number facts.

Maths

As in Term 3 the senior syndicate will continue streaming for maths with the children going to another teacher from 11:00 - 11:50am. This is done daily for the whole term. If you have any concerns about maths, please see me and I will refer you on to the appropriate teacher.

SOME AMAZING POETRY FROM YEAR 5 KIDS

2009-09-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

Poem About Sisters

Sisters are rather stupid creatures

Which come with many annoying features

When you want quiet they read aloud

They also scratch and hiss really loud

Painful scratches deliver the evil of sisters

What us poor older brothers have to endure!

To this day there is still no known cure..

They have floppy hair that they play with all day

In a most irritating over-brushing way

They don’t follow rules in games

They beat you up then let the boy get the blame

Almost always whining about things that don’t matter

Or yabbering on with gibberish chatter

They steal all the best treats from the fridge

They tell on you – they’re always snitches

They are real bossy britches.

Davey

My Sister

My sister is hot and cold, it seems

She can be kind but she can be mean

She likes to have things her way

Sometimes I like to try my way, so I say.

Then she doesn’t listen

She won’t let me get a word in

She won’t talk to me

It’s like I’m a rock or a tree

I get so annoyed and wound up

And I want to blurt it all out

****

When my sister gets home after school

Her moods changed from cold to “It’s all cool.”

She asks what I had for afternoon

(Her lazy way of saying afternoon tea)

I say sullenly “I had cookies.”

She asks if I wan to play ‘One Bounce”

Our game we made up and I say “..maybe once.”

It’s her way of making up

So I let my annoyance go and give up

She is my sister; hot and cold

But I love her the way she is.

Emma

Billy-Kart Club Prototype

2009-09-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

Billy-Kart Club on PhotoPeach

SPEECHES - WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY

2009-09-05T02:05:00.000-07:00

Room 9's class speeches were excellent. Judging them was very hard. I know some students were disappointed not to be finalists but I could only select 3 Year 5's and 2 Year 6's to represent Room 9 against Room 8 & 10. It was a tough decision, and I said to the kids that their marks were all very close. After much deliberation the finalists are:

Year 6

Tom

Emma

Year 5

Davey

Asha

Arlo

PUZZLING NELSON

2009-09-05T01:51:00.000-07:00

Monday and Tuesday this week the Year 6

students worked with Year 6 students in

Room 10 to complete puzzles and logic

games brought in by Steve. They had a blast

trying to solve the challenging puzzles!

CLASS-Y ART - Art by 9 and 10 year olds!!!

2009-08-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

Clubs - Thanks for all your help!

2009-08-31T14:49:00.000-07:00

We started these in Week 3 of Term 3. They are doing a whole variety of crafts

- knitting

- scrapbooking

- billy-kart making

- making wooden toy cars

- cooking

- music

- computer mapping

- model boats

- German language

- working with animals

SCIENCE FAIR MANIA

2009-08-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

We spent the first 5 weeks of this term working really hard on our science experiments. Children were meant to do these in the holidays but most of them just had a holiday so we had LOTS to do. Despite the pressure and a little bit of stress the kids were really industrious with creative ideas for experiments. Their boards turned out fantastically. I was super impressed with all the students level of presentation. I have done this with a Year 8 class and their boards would have been the same standard. Room 9 kids really did themselves proud!

s really did themselves proud!

SNOW JAM 2009 - IT WAS SNOW-TASTIC

2009-08-31T14:22:00.000-07:00

We went to St Arnaud ski field in the second week of term. We did survival skills before we went a

nd had an excellent day up the mountain!

Our thoughts on our day in the snow..

"It was fun. I had my first go on a T-bar!"

"I went on the T-bar the first time. It was fun going with Asha on it."

"Their was a ramp that Tom's dad made for the toboggans

to go down. That was cool!"

"I skied with Josh and Blair. We had lots of crashes!"

The bus trip there was slow

and boring but the day went fast when we got up there!"

"The best bit was when I ate the snow."

"Watching others crash off the toboggans!"

Ski Trip Wednesday

2009-07-26T17:26:00.000-07:00

The class have been learning about survival skills with an in class visit from Mr McCormack (a search and rescue policeman) in preparation for the senior school ski trip this Wednesday.

He brought a lot of gear for us to try on and also talked about how to survive if we get lost or trapped in an avalanche. He showed us the sorts of food they carry with them too.

SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS

2009-07-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

The kids are working hard on these both at home and in class time. They are looking great! These are due in Week 4 so I'm confident they will complete them in time. Keep up the fantastic work Room 9!

Welcome To Term 3! It's All Go!

2009-07-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to Term 3. All the children look like they have grown AGAIN over the holidays!

I hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable break (I know my cat did) and that the kids are fresh and ready for an industrious term!

I went to the Abel Tasman with my daughter and nephew to see some native bush and birds and meet some new people and came across ... lots of familiar Clifton Terrace parents making the most of the Scallop season! *I look forward to dinner with you later!*

A class newsletter has gone home today outlining what we are doing this term so dig through your child's bag because it will be in there somewhere!!

This term in brief:

**WE NEED YOUR HELP FOR ALL THIS TO HAPPEN**

Writing: Speeches

These have come early to coincide with interschool competitions this year. The children will work on this in school but will need to do work AT HOME on these, too!

Topic: Science Fair

This is BIG. Your child will need to do experiments at home and should have already!! The board they present on is about 1 metre x 1 metre so they need to have plenty of information and time to present this. We started this mid way through term 2 so your child should be well under way.

If not ... PANIC NOW!

Sport: The focus is on winter sports this term (continuing from last term)

Clubs:

We need your help with these.(Parents, aunts or uncles, grandparents, friend of the family...) If you are available on a Friday morning from 9:00-10:30 from 7 August to 18 September and have a hobby you can teach to a small group of children (about 6-10) or can supervise an activity in this time please call us at the school on 545 0532.

Ski Trip: Remember this is next Wednesday.

All children going need to be at school by 6:45 am AT THE LATEST.

Latecomers will be left behind because it is all timed to meet up with the shuttlebus to the skifield. Please check the clothing and food requirements so your child is properly equipped. An extra copy can be obtained from Room 10 if needed.

**WE NEED YOUR HELP FOR ALL THIS TO HAPPEN**

If you need any more information on any of the above things please call the school or call in to the class. I can't wait to see what the kids produce this term!

Regards

Hannah Moorhouse

2009-07-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we had Cinamin's leaving party. Miss Moorhouse bought Cinamin a netball and we all signed it. Then we played the chocolate game, the most chocolate eaten at once was 5 pieces. After most of the chocolate had been eaten Miss Moorhouse handed out the last of the chocolate. Some people just relaxed while they were eating. Then we watched a movie called Igor, it was very funny and exciting. We had a great morning and are sad that it is Cinamin's last day. By Melanie

A NOTE FROM CINAMIN

Thanks for the first half of the year. I had a lot of fun. I hope I get to see you again. Come visit me in Westport!

From Cinamin

HEAVE HO HUMPTY!

2009-07-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Humpty dumpty sat on the wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's h

orses and all the king's men

Couldn't get Humpty back over again.

Tuesday was the big day! We were going to see if our catapults could launch Humpty Dumpty back over the castle wall in his new costume since the king couldn't. We chose what catapult we wanted to use. We had 4 choices:

the peg catapult

the popsicle stick catapult

the coat hanger catapult

or one we had made at home with a little help from our parents.

Some of the home made ones were massive!!

We sat out on the wooden platform by the playground with our eggs. We had made a castle wall and propped it up at lunchtime so we were ready for action.

We did a shoot off with the small catapults first. We used plastic jelly beans from class and the seagulls came over and tried to eat them. We had to run round and flap our arms to keep them away.

Then we tried the little catapults with eggs. Some of them of them didn't make it over. One hit the wall and slid down leaving a big, slimy egg-y trail. Lots didn't have enough power to even reach the wall. One even went backwards and hit the person trying to fire it! That was really funny!!!

Then we brought out the big ones. The homemade catapults sent eggs flying everywhere. Just about all of them went over the castle wall. Some of us didn't

want to sacrifice out Humpty Dumpty eggs because they looked awesome in their outfits but in the end we all had a go! Some eggs didn't even break. Drew's went over 3 times and bounced every time!!!

We had a lot of laughs and a very fun afternoon. Afterwards we got some people to be gong farmers and pick up all the broken eggs. Then we went back to class. The people whose eggs went the furthest got "showered with gold" (Crunchie bars) and the rest of us got chewy snakes because we all put in so much effort with our catapults.

Humpty's Hot NEW Outfits

2009-07-01T16:42:00.000-07:00

On Monday afternoon Room 9 did Humpty Dumpty designs and costumes. We had to get the material, the masking tape and sellotape and cotton and eggs. And wool as well. We got like a piece of paper with 3 blank eggs on it. Then Mr Schneider gave them out and we did designs with pencils really.

We made one design each on the real egg. You wouldn't believe in the morning most people didn't bring eggs. We were told to bring them on Friday but lots forgot. Only 6 brang eggs!!

Our teacher raced down to the store and bought dozens of eggs for us.We put newspaper on the desk first.

Then we drew on the egg with a vivid just for the face; eyes mouth moustaches and stuff like that. Then we got material and cut the costumes out and carefully dressed him up! Michael cracked two eggs!! Arlo poked a hole in his in the eye by mistake. I broke one on the floor.

When we finished we put them in a container and left it on the teachers desk. Some kids made boxes out of Clicko and put tissues in so it was soft like a nest.

By Jack and Jordan G.

Coat Hanger Catapults - Prototype 3

2009-06-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

Well first you need to have a coat hanger, a plastic spoon and two normal rubber bands. Bend the coat hanger so it looks a bit like wings poking upwards. Then put your arm in the middle of both the wings so it's straight. Bend the front part of it into a 'v' shape. Then once you've finished the wire body, get the first rubber band and put it over each arm and stick the spoon through it and twist/wind it up in the direction away from the hook. Once you have turned the rubber band with the spoon in it as far as you want you need to slide the first rubber band down further so that the second rubber band can go about 2 inches. Wind up the second rubber band with your hands but still leave a hole in the middle for the spoon head to poke through.

Once you've finished that you are ready to fire. We took our catapult to our school hall and brought jellybeans marshmallows with us to fire. The first marshamallow went about 6 metres. The jellybeans rolled too much so we had to mark the distances from were they landed.

The best bit was probably eating the giant jellybeans after we fired them. Our group only got one jellybean so we had to split it in half and share it.

By Arlo

Catapult Craziness

2009-06-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

When we made our popsicle stick catapults we fired Jaffas and marshmallows in the hall. We lined up along the blue line . Mr Burt stretched out the tape measure from the blue line to see how far they went.

A lot of jaffas rolled a long way. Some jaffas cracked into little pieces when they hit the floor. Mine cracked into 5 little pieces, and mine cracked into thirds.

I think the popsicle stick ones fired further than the peg catapult because the lever was longer and it had more power because it was bendy. A lot of them hit the wall so we couldn't tell whose went the furthest. Others hit the ground and rolled but no one measured from where it hit. They measured from where they stopped rolling to.

By Lily and Amelia

2009-06-30T12:22:00.001-07:00

Ah, Jordan! It's a hard life isn't it?! Room 9 misses you. Have fun in Dream World. We launched our "Humpty Dumpty" eggs yesterday. Made a real mess but I will let the kids blog you on that. Glad to hear you got there safely.

Miss Moorhouse and class

PRODUCTION OF THE POPSICLE STICK CATAPULTS

2009-06-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we started making our popsicle stick catapults in

groups of three. They are much trickier to make than the peg

catapults. We did a lot of gluing and taping. There were so many

instructions we had to read them off the projector in Room 1!

Looking at the prototype the teachers made it has a lot more

power than our peg ones.

We are about half way through making them. We will finish them tomorrow and hopefully launch our jaffa lollies from them

after that.

By Phereyn.

LEARNING IN ROOM 9!

2009-06-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

I just want to say how thrilled I am with all you guys. I was so impressed when a teacher came in and asked you what a first design was called. About 10 of you knew it was called a prototype and remembered this from their chapter book reading tasks you did three weeks ago. Good to see the information is sticking and useful!

Your spelling results from last weeks test have been awesome! Some of you have improved by up to two year levels in one term! Kudos to you! I'm also thrilled to say that all those spelling below their age level made a huge jump, too. With PERSEVERANCE as a key for learning comes PROGRESS, and that is what we are looking for! Keep up the fantastic work.

You have all come up with fantastic array of project topics for the term 3 Science Fair. I can't wait to see the results from your experiments! All very exciting!

Miss Moorhouse

MARSHMALLOW PEG CATAPULTS

2009-06-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

Room 9 have been busy little bees making peg catapults and firing marshmallows. First we had to take a guess if the super pegs or the power pegs would go further.

We made a catapult by gluing the peg and the wood together. We glued the little block of wood on top of it. Then we glued the iceblock stick on top of it. And the milk bottle top on top of that.

We loaded them up with marshmallows and fired them. Our

partners measured them to see how far they would go.

They did it two groups at a time. We found out that super pegs went further than the power pegs because they had a tighter, stronger spring in them. Arlo and Davey's catapult went the furtherest. Me and Amelia got 1 metre something, and me and Izzy got 2 metres something as our shortest shot. The best bit was eating them after we fired them! By Asha and Lily

FUN FRIDAY SCIENCE

2009-06-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Every Friday R9 are having fun in science. These are some of the things we have done. We poured warm water into freezing cold dry ice then it steamed up so fast and so hight it was unbelievable! Sterling came round and put food colouring and dishwashing liquid in. When he put the liquid in it started bubbling up like a corn cob. You could catch it in little cups. And so fun!

Another thing we did was Rockets. We made paper rockets to see how far they could fly. We also did, another day of pa

per rockets. Last Friday we made them. We tested them by putting them on a pipe. H

e pushed a pump and button thing and then it went flying. Arlo, Liam and Jack won out of the class. They won cos' theirs went the furtherest. This friday that I'm talking about we tested them at lunch time to see which class had made the best one. Room 9 didn't win. It was another class. You will hear about them more in the next part of the true story.

Today at lunch the science man tested the rockets on the wooden platform. I saw one and it went really high but it didn't come back. It went over the school fence in pieces! Sterling the science man did his one and it went real far over

the fence.

Today we did electricity. He threw party popper confetti over the table. Then he got a pipe and started rubbing it with some kind of rag. When he took it off he waved it over the table and the paper bits attached to the pipe. That was called static electricity.

Then we did these little set circuits but we couldn't get ours to work. Some people made electricity out of lemons, some just used wires. Some used a battery, another had some kind of light and Melanie's had cars. we had the radio that didn't work. We can't wait for next week!

By Hannah.D Jordan.L

THE SPENDING SPREE

2009-06-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Our Room 9 Pizza competition winners Emma F, Izzy and Cinamin with

their "just desserts". They spent Wednesday afternoon shopping at New

World with their $50 prize voucher. They even managed to squeeze in

some treats into their goodie bags for the head cook, the judge and their

teacher! Well done girls. You deserved it!

Pizza Making

2009-06-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday we made pizza's. Each group created and designed a pizza in the Clifton Terrace staff room. We all brought our own ingredients. After morning tea the class started making them. Our group the Veggie Deluxe went up at 12:00.

With only ten minutes to make it we had to work fast!! We got our base, then spread it with plum sauce.We put the purple onion rings on top. We grabbed the blue cheese and it kind of crumbled when we tried to grate it so in the end we gave up and just crumbled it. We tried cutting the broccoli but Izzy did them in huge, massive chunks so they didn't cook as fast. Then we sprinkled the blue cheese on the pizza then we forgot the capsican so we chopped it up and placed it on top. Then it was ready to cook.

Glenys carefully picked them up and put it on an oven tray then placed it in the oven. After they were cooked Glenys scooped up the pizza and put it in our pizza box then Miss Moorhouse took it down to our judge Mr Wemyss. Then after lunch Mr Wemyss announced the winner Target pizza won the most creative box but over all Veggie Deluxe won with the score of 92 out of 100. The winner won a 50 dollar voucher for New World.

By Izzy, Cinamin and Emma.

GO BLUE DAY - SOME HIGHLIGHTS

2009-05-31T21:45:00.000-07:00

We had a really fun day seeing each others costumes and getting into the blue face-paint (Thanks Mrs Goodman!) to get behind Heart Children fundraising this year.

Heart Children raises money to help children with heart problems get the surgery and treatment they need. Did you know? Every week 12 babies are born with a heart defect. More than half of these need surgery. Sadly, some can not be fixed. Over 1000 children a year are treated for this in Auckland hospital! Childhood heart disease kills more children than all of the other childhood diseases put together so it is an important charity.

Your donation is going towards suport and care of these children. Thanks heaps for your support. The school raised $224.20!

GO BLUE DAY

2009-05-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

--THE 3 WISE PIGS PLAY--

2009-05-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

We did a play called The 3 Wise Pigs. It was five characters in that, I think. Jack was the first pig. Kiri was the second pig. Michael was the third one. Jordan L, she was the wolf. Jordan G was the police woman. He was funny!

It felt like my face was going bright red but it didn't matter because I was under a mask. Michael had stage fright. Kiri got up scared - just a little bit. We practised about once a day. We had one whole week to practise. Then on last Friday we had to act in front of 20 people.

Making the mask.

First we did a circle, some ears and a nose. And eyes. We cut the noses out of egg cartons. I put the sticky tape on the brown paper.

I made the wolf out of cardboard. I got a piece of cardboard and traced the outline of the face. I cut it out. Then I drew the mouth piece and cut it and taped it to the other piece. After that i painted it.

It's hard to talk when you have something over your mouth.

By Kiri, Jack, Michael, Jordan L and Jordan G.

2009-05-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Wow! Where has the term gone? We are nearly half way through term 2 already!

You will have to excuse my tardiness in blogging. I was never a pen pal sort of person in the traditional letter writing days (my overseas friends cheered if they got a letter once a year) , and my father sends me an email every two months to prod me to send him one, so regular blogging and diary writing is not natural for me! Do get your kids to remind me to do this, and I will get the kids to prod me into doing this regularly, too.

We have been studying food and nutrition this term. Harold the Giraffe came to school in the first week and taught the kids about their body and what the organs do, and we looked at the food groups, and what quantities we should be consuming of each. Your children were very knowledgable about this.

Harold also strutted his stuff round school on the day so kids could come and ask him questions, hug him and shake his hoof... Just like Hollywood and Bollywood, we now have Giraffe-hood!

Rebecca McNaughton is a food nutritionist who works at New World in Nelson.

She visited our school and talked to the children about 'secret sugars' and how to read the packaging to find the quantity and content of ingredients in products. We found some surprising results when we compared two boxes of cereal. Muesli and fruit bars that appear healthy actually have lots of 'secret sugars' in them.

We followed up Rebecca's visit with a class trip to New World where the children examined the labels on a range of products and compared the data to see which products were the healthiest option. They worked in small groups on this and discovered some new fruits in the process..

Next it was off to Domino's pizza to meet Chris and see the process they go through to make pizza. We all squished into the tiny premises but none of us touched the $100,000 oven that was 400 degrees and could burn you!

We looked at the way they fold the boxes up from flat. Chris told us why they used cardboard. It is good for the environment because it can be recycled, soaks up the grease and steam easily so you don't get soggy pizza!

We looked at the advertising they did, what worked best and at the information they put on the box. He also talked to us about health and hygiene and what they need to wear as well as how they check the temperatures. They use water bottles with thermometers to make sure it is an even temperature all the time.

Next it was down the back to the dough department. They make their bases fresh daily.

It is put through a machine to make it flat. We weren't allowed to touch it because it makes fingers go flat too if they get stuck in it. Sometimes it will pull them right off so we just watched.

Then we got to watch an assistant make a pizza but we weren't allowed to eat one in case any of us had food allergies (Management said if any of us got sick or died there it wouldn't look good for the company.) We had a great time and learnt lots even if we didn't get to eat a pizza.

Back in class we were given a "Pizza Brief" for making our own pizzas. We were told about oil use and how it is a finite resource. It may be all used up in our generation so it is important to reduce the amount of oil we use. A lot of oil is used in fuel in transport so part of our criteria is that we can only use pizza toppings that can be grown in the Nelson region. As part of food nutrition our pizza can only be vegetarian or fruit or a mix. We have to have 5 different food colours and our challenge is to make it healthy!

We are working in groups of 3 on this. We create our own brand name, box and recipe. We are looking at original sauces and toppings to get extra colour and flavour into it. One group is using orange marmalade as their sauce. Another is going to mash kumara and spread it on. Our topping don't have to be cheese either. They can be like crumble topping on fruit desserts.

Mr Wemyss is going to judge our box design, creativity and taste test them all. The winning group gets a $50 voucher to spend at New world and will have their recipe published on the school website!

Next week we start cooking them so it is all GO!

Ketes

2009-02-15T15:12:00.000-08:00

In Room 9 we have been making paper Ketes (Maori woven baskets). Inside them we have put goals for this year such as "Can Do"attitude, Respect and Personal Excellence. They have been put around the classroom. Room 8 have put seven Keys for Learning in the foyer.

Some people from ERO in Wellington have come to Clifton Terrace School this week.

And we had a writing test today.

Tom and Kayla

2009-02-02T18:39:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2009 in Room 9.

It was great to meet the children today. I am looking forward to getting to know them and their individual strengths and talents better. Our whole class had their stationery ready on the first day which was awesome! It makes getting started much easier.

I have been teaching since 2003 in a wide range of schools from rural Maruia, to Taumarunui and Taupo in the North Island. It's amazing how geographically challenged people can be until you visit the other island. One North Island radio station said Hanmer Springs was between Christchurch and Dunedin.(??!!) I have travelled to Australia, America, Dubai, England and Samoa as I enjoy experiencing new cultures. I also have a 12 year old daughter, Sasha, of Ngai Tahu descent. I descend from Ngati Tuwharetoa from a long line of Te Heu Heu and Grace's.

I draw pencil portraits in my spare time, enjoy all forms of sport. I even tried skim boarding these holidays (jumping on a moving board and planing across the water). This is far more complicated than it sounds, and as the water is ankle deep when you crash their is not much to break your fall!!

This term is going to be very busy! We have a great topic coming up in the last half of the term looking at insects. The kids will be out in the school grounds digging, sieving and observing them. I, myself, climb walls to get away from spiders, cockroaches and other bugs so it will be a great opportunity for me to overcome my little phobia. If you are an expert in this field I would love to hear from you. The children always enjoy speakers coming in and sharing their knowledge.

This term I have produced a 10 week homework book so there will be homework EVERY week. It is divided into weeks so students can clearly see what they need to do. The only week there will be no homework is Week 7 while we are on camp.

We have school camp in Week 7 with the Year 5 & 6's. There will be a meeting about camp after the 'Meet the Teacher' evening on Wednesday 11 February. A notice with times will come home shortly. Megan (R10) and I encourage you to come to this camp meeting as it will outline what happens on camp and our expectations.

Please feel free to pop in an introduce yourself to me. I do forewarn you, I can remember a class of kids names in one day but I am abysmal with adults names so please excuse me if I ask you to re-introduce yourself! (It's a bit like that dvd "50 First Dates")

2008-09-17T20:22:00.001-07:00

Room 9's New Blog Site

Welcome to Room 9's new blog page. This is Miss Moorhouse's first blog ever so it's quite exciting!