Times Tables Challenge

Eleven times twelve equals... one hundred and thirty two!

Go! The hall went silent and the finalists were off. The only sound was the scratching of pencils writing.

STOP

Round two start!

BEEP!

Now it's time for the Room 23 oral challenge.

Room 23 Oral Challenge

In the end Caleb won on 4 and moved to the top 8 and came 5th= out of all the Year 4-6 children. Well done!!

X-Country Super Stars

Last Wednesday was our school X-Country day - a day loved by some and loathed by others! Despite this, the Room 23 children participated in the race with good sportsmanship and great determination. It was fantastic to see so many people pushing themselves to run the whole way. I was proud of all of your efforts. Well done. Special congratulations to Jordyn and Michael for making the Year 5 Zone X-Country team.

CRUSADERS!!!

Today we got blown away by some exciting visitors. It was Zac Guildford and Tom Donnelly from the Crusaders. Toby and Finley got to meet them, ask some questions, get signatures and play a game of touch. They did this because they are doing Rugby Ready on a Wednesday afternoon. The Hagley rugby team got to meet them and Ms A was pretty excited as well! Here's what Toby and Finley thought:

Toby - It was awesome that they were able to come and play touch with us. It was interesting to find out that before their match on game day they just rest and relax.

Finley - It felt like I was in dream world when they came through the door. I learned that if you follow your dreams and work hard you'll get to where you want to go.

Rachel King came to school!

Today Rachel King came to school. She told us about her two adults books: the Sound of Butterflies and Magpie Hall. She also told us about her first kids book: Red Rocks. Then we got to listen to a bit of Red Rocks.

Listening to Red Rocks

After that we asked her some questions, some popular ones were: what is it like being an author and how long does it takes to write your average book.

Asking the questions

Rachel is an awesome author. Here's some things RM23 kids have to say about her:

After meeting her I really want to read her books.

(Joshua)

It's really awesome that we got to meet an author at school.

(Swastik)

It was interesting how she got her ideas for Red Rocks.

(Toby)

It's great that she lives on my street.

(Caleb)

Thanks Caleb for writing up this post. :-) 

May The Force Be With You!

Beep beep, the truck honked and started moving. Today St Albans School started our Science Inquiry - a truck pulling contest! The winners got to do a tug-of-war and the losers have to wash Heather's truck!

First up the junior teachers, senior teachers and finally the student council all had a go. The student council smashed the teachers times and did it in 9.1 seconds. That became the time to beat.

Later in the day we finally got our turn to pull the truck with Room 5. We pulled like rampaging bulls but our best time was only 10.8 seconds. This was the slowest time. Do we care? No! We want to wash Heather's truck.

We are excited about completing our task and we're planning on getting very, very wet with Room 5! May the force be with us!

Big event starting

Junior teachers pulling

Senior teachers have a go

School council smashes the record
(9.1 seconds)

RM 23 pulls the truck

Lets go group two

Don't stop Josh and Robert!

Everyone pull pull pull!!!

Our New Room - Explaining the madness!!

This term in Room 23 we are trying out a new learning environment. We had a think and a talk about where we each learn best, as well as what size groups work best for us in different curriculum areas. We realised that there are times when we work best in a big group, a small group or a pair and other times when we need to be on our own.

So we got rid of messy desk trays and individual desks and we changed our room around. The Room 23 children planned how the desks would go together, moved the furniture and set up a completely new and exciting layout. Now, each time we begin a new task, each child thinks about which learning area will work best for them. This is a step towards managing our own learning in the ways that suit our learning styles. And so far we love it!!!

Here are the names we gave our new learning areas:

Single desk - a cave
Two desks - an office
Three/four desks - a cubby house
Six desks - the conference room
Under a desk - a burrow
Moving from space to space - the gypsy caravan
Our equipment area - the smiggle shop / the stuff boxes

We can also work in the library corner, the computer lab or on the floor.

Jada-Lee and Charlotte in an Office

Niamh, Grace and Jordyn in a Cubby House

Toby in a Burrow

Libby in the Corner Cave

Quillan and Kairau in an Office

Josh in a Cave

Caleb in the Art Cave

The Library

THe Smiggle Shop / Stuff Boxes

The Conference Room