Our resident ducks

These ducks visit us often when it rains.

Daffodil Day

Today we all wore something yellow for Daffodil Day. We also brought a gold coin to help the Cancer Society try and find a cure for people with cancer.

Questions for our Grandparents

This term our topic is about “How things have changed for kids over time”

How are the things we do different to what our grandparents / great grandparents had to do.

(these questions are on our class blogs, so you could copy and paste them into an email and send them to Grandparents. Thank you)

Questions we would like to ask our Grandparents

·       We have interactive whiteboards, computers, iPads, and projectors at our school.

How was your school different to ours?

·     

           For lunch we eat sandwiches, yoghurt, fruit and chippies.

What did you eat for your lunch at school?

·      We play tag, hide and seek, soccer, ice and fire, horsies (with hoops and ropes), and swing on the bars.

What games did you play at school? 

·      We have a sandpit, an adventure playground, a field, courts, trees to climb, and slides at school.

·      What kind of playground did you have?

·      We don’t wear a uniform to school – we can wear whatever we like. Sometimes the seniors wear a sports uniform for special occasions. Did you wear uniforms at primary school?

·      We walk, get driven to school and sometimes we scoot to school.

How did you get to school?

·      After school we have swimming lessons, dance lessons, gym lessons, have playdates, go to after school care, watch TV, play on our play stations or Xboxes, look at our class blogs on the computer, do our homework.

What did you do when you got home from school?

·      If we were having a treat for dinner it could be fish and chips, Chinese, McDonald’s, Subway, Pizza, or KFC.

If you were having a treat, what would it have been?

·      We have polar fleeces, hoodies and tights.

Were your clothes different?

·      We use a stove, microwave or barbecue to cook with.

What did you cook with?

Chameleons

We read Mr Haste's zoo blog about chameleons. We looked at some pictures of them and saw a video about them catching food.  Chameleon Tongue

We wrote stories about chameleons.

I like the chameleons tail. It is green. It has a curly tail.

Bailey

Chameleons have long tails and tongues. When they touch yellow, they change yellow. They love eating flies. They are fun to watch.

Alex S

A chameleon’s tail curls.

Matilda

The chameleon curls up her tail so she can protect herself, so no other animal eats them up. It changes colour. Chameleons are awesome.

Abby

I like the chameleons tail. Their colour  is whatever they touch so they can hide. I think chameleons are awesome. I like the chameleons.

Charlie

I like the colour of the chameleons. It curls up its tail when they get scared of people. The can change colour. They can stretch their tongue out a lot so it can get a fly and eat up the fly for dinner.

Theo

Chameleons change colour when they touch something.

Nadia

The chameleons change colour. It is cool.

Kelly

I like the colour of them. Chameleons are beautiful. I like that they can change colour.

Romy

Chameleons have a sort of spiral tail. It’s tail is bluey purple. It can change colours like purple and blue and green and grey. If its tail was stretched it would be very long.

Eva-Marie

A chameleon changes colour. It changes colour to any colour it sees to hide from his enemies. It curls up its tail so nobody pulls on it.

Calista  

I like chameleons because they are rainbow colour and I like the rainbow on them. I like the tail.

Grace

The chameleon can change colour when it touches something. It is chasing a fly with its tongue and it is sticky.

Alex D

Chameleons have very long tongues. It is longer than his body. It’s tail is like a koru.

Max

A chameleon has a very long tongue. It eats flies. His tongue is purple. It has a little round bit that catches its food. Chameleons are cool.

Sam

Pataka Trip Reflections

"I liked it when we dressed up," said Abby
Charlie liked writing with the slate pencil on the slate
Megan liked it when she listened to the music while she was watching Joseph Michael's pictures
"I liked it when I was drawing a picture in the gallery," said Ben
"I liked the story Bea read to us in the library," said Matilda
Max liked using the washing board and sunlight soap to do the washing
Nadia loved chatting on the bus while we were travelling to Pataka. Dressing up was fun too.
Sam dressed up in olden days clothes and shoes. The kids wore hats to school.
Tess liked doing the washing because it was fun putting clothes through the wringer to get the water out.
Alex S loved listening to the stories in the library.
Grace loved going to the library because it was fun reading the books.
Alex D dressed up in Dad's shoes and everyone laughed at him when he put on his costume.
Eva-Marie loved ironing the clothes with the old fashioned iron which they used to heat on the stove.
Bailey liked washing the clothes.
Hannah liked sorting out the things that were new and old.
Calista liked dressing up in a dress, a pinafore, and a hat.

Pataka Trip

Today we went on a school trip to Porirua. We went to Pataka, where we looked at how things have changed over time. We also went to the Porirua Library, where we had a story time. Last we went to the Gallery and saw an exhibition by Joseph Michael.

A very special BIG thank you to all the parents who came with us today and helped us have fun. 

It was a fun day.

writing on slates

Bea is reading us a story

washing using sunlight soap and a wash board

matching old and new items

Swimming Showcase

Thank you for coming to watch us in the swimming pool. We liked showing you what we could do, and all the things we have learnt.

Also a BIG thank you to Jac for your super organisation. You are a star.

Grace thought the best part was going under water to pick up the dive sticks.

Hannah says "Swimming is fun."

Romy did a handstand under the water.

Abby liked the races.

Tess liked the end bit when the sprinklers came on.

Max liked going down the slide.

Alex D liked diving for the dive stick because he was first.

Getting up close with nature

Looking closely at our lovely daffodil flower

Reflections about the earthquake

On Friday there was an earthquake. We were in the library. We knew it was an earthquake because the ground was shaking and our teacher called out, "Earthquake". We all dropped, covered and held onto the table legs.

We lined up quietly at the door, and we walked to the court. The teachers called out our names to see if everyone was there, and alright. We waited for our mums to come and pick us up.

We weren't frightened or scared because we knew what to do, because we have been practising and having drills. Our teachers were proud of us all.

There was another earthquake when everyone was at home. We saw the lights moving in our house.

By Room 4 children

Mr Haste's Zoo Blog

Mr Haste has begun a blog to share what he is doing at the zoo, and also to challenge us with some questions about the animals there. 
I have added it to the Blogs we follow on the side bar. Check it out.

 

http://fromonezoo.blogspot.co.nz/

Numeracy Links

Check out the new look 'Numeracy Links' on the sidebar.

Numeracy Links

Click on the picture and you will find a lot of new activities and fun games.
Keep coming back to check these links as I will be adding more as I find them.

Literacy Links

Check out the new look 'Literacy Links' on the sidebar.

Literacy Links

Click on the picture and you will find a lot of new activities, stories to listen to and fun games.

Keep coming back to check these links as I will be adding more as I find them.

Practise Makes Perfect

WOW - you were all fantastic yesterday when the earthquake struck. Everyone knew just what to do and went into a turtle immediately. We then walked out quietly onto the back court and waited for your parents to arrive to take you  home.

Everyone reacted really well, and there were no dramas!! I am proud of you all as you listened and did as you were asked, very sensibly.

In all the years I have been at Normandale School, that is the first time we have had a real earthquake where we evacuated and waited for our parents.

I am sorry you did not get to get your library book, but we will go to the library first thing on Monday morning.

This photo was taken during one of our drills. We are turtled under our tables.

Swimming

This week and next week we have swimming lessons at Huia Pool. We go down to the pool by bus and have our lessons. We have instructors who teach us, and then we have some fun. We go down the slide and play games.
We think we are getting better at swimming already!

Trip notice

Dear Parents

As part of our topic, ‘How Has it Changed?’, Rooms 1, 2, 3 and 4 have organised a trip on  Monday, August 26^th to visit Pataka in Porirua.

We will be splitting our day into 3 parts:-

a)    visiting Pataka and having a workshop called ‘Where do I Plug in?’

b)    visiting the Porirua Library for a story time

c)    visiting the Gallery at Pataka and viewing the Joseph Michael exhibition entitled ‘Dark Cloud/White Light’ and then an activity

We will rotate around these activities during the day.

As part of this trip, to get the best out of our workshop, ‘Where do I Plug in?’, we need to have parent helpers for each class.

Unfortunately this trip will not be suitable for pre-schoolers.

If you would love to come on this trip with us, please fill in the form at the bottom and return it to your child’s classroom. There will be room for you to travel on the bus.

We will leave school promptly at 9am and will return by 3pm.

The cost is $7 per child which will come out of the activity fee. Your child’s full activity must be paid for them to participate in this trip.

Sue Morgan, Ann Silcock, Amy Head, Jenny Schroder and Anne-Marie Gordon

I am able to come and parent help on the Junior Trip to Pataka on 26^th  August

Name _______________________________    Phone _________________

Childs name ___________________________    Room _________

Swimming

On Monday 12 August, we start our swimming programme at Huia Pool. Every day for the next 2 weeks you need to bring your towel, togs, goggles, swimming cap (if you have one) and a warm sweatshirt to put on after swimming.
They all need to be named and brought to school in a bag big enough to put your clothes and shoes in when you take them off. A reusable supermarket bag is good for this as it fits all clothes etc. in easily.

Look at my smile!!

Look at my lovely smile. Do you notice anything different?

Cats

Last week we drew pictures of Greedy Cat in black crayon. Next we painted them orange.

 We also made pictures of cats with shapes. We used circles and triangles.

A visit from Lower Hutt's Mayor

Today Normandale School had a visit from our Mayor, Ray Wallace. He was wearing his special gold Mayoral chain which is 122 years old.
He talked to us about his job and about earthquakes. He asked us if we had a plan of action for our family. He suggested we talk to our parents about this and work out what we should do in an emergency.