Laptops

Today our Room 11 Buddies helped us explore KidPix, Room 1's favourite art and drawing computer programme. Room 1 are learning to use the laptop touch pads as well as a mouse.
We take turns to use the pod of laptops in our classroom.

Hatching a Monarch Butterfly

Over the past 3 weeks we watched our monarch caterpillar grow bigger and bigger and become a chrysalis. Last Friday we watched it hatch into a butterfly! We compared it with the picture in our butterfly book and took it outside to a bush to set it free. We made butterfly kites to take home.

Summer Swimming

This year Muritai school is taking part in the Kiwi Swimsafe Safety in the Water programme. We have swim school coaches helping the teachers and students learn correct technique. Room 1's goal is to have as many students as possible floating confidently on their front and on their back. We are well on the way to achieving this! All the students will be awarded certificates of achievement at the end of the course. Thank you to all the parents who are helping us get changed without losing any clothing!

Our Self Portraits

Room1 have been completing their self portraits using black pens, pastels and dye. They looked carefully at the size of different parts of their bodies and used the whole sheet of paper with their head at the top, feet at the bottom.
We hope you like them as much as we do!

The wonderful students in Room1!

We have 19 wonderful learners in Room1.
We have begun our reading, writing and maths programmes already and are working hard to be the best that we can be every day!

Meeting our New Big Buddies.

Today Room 11 met their new little buddies from Room 1.
We read books and talked together today and are meeting our buddies again next week for an activity.
Room 11 are lucky to be big buddies this year and are really excited about sharing with Room 1.

Welcome to Room 1 2011!

I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to returning to school next Wednesday!
Remember to wear your sunhat!

Christmas Party

We shared a super Christmas lunch with our Room 11 buddies to end the school year.
A special thank you to the big buddies who all made Christmas cards for us!
Thank you too to all the Room 1 & 11 parents who sent along the beautiful food.
Ex pupils Ella and Molly were a great help too!
Room 1 played pass the parcel and had a lucky dip as well!

I thank all parents and care givers for all your support this year and wish you and your children a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Classes start again on Wednesday 2nd February.
Kind regards
Barbara Ryan

Our Christmas Concert

Everyone in the Junior syndicate practised hard for today's Christmas Concert!
We all dressed in Christmas colours and brought some food to share afterwards.
We sang 7 songs and all the mums, dads and other visitors clapped and clapped. Everyone enjoyed themselves and it was great to have such a wonderful audience!

Playground Models

Today Room1 designed and constructed models of their favourite playground equipment.
The most popular items were high slides, climbing walls, trampolines, sandpits and swings.
We had a vote and would like a sandpit in our school playground. We will write to Mr Bird to tell him.

Avalon Park

On Thursday we visited Avalon Park as part of our Term 4 Inquiry Changes in our Playground. We had a wonderful time exploring and playing on all the equipment. We are designing our own model playgrounds this week!

Parachute Games!

Today we joined up with Room 3 to play parachute games as part of our EOTC week. We all had to work co-operatively to lift our arms together to capture the air we needed to turn the parachute into a giant tent. When we did we could all fit underneath and play games! Then we used the trapped air to bounce balls on the top! It was great fun!

Winter Wonderland

As part of EOTC week Year 1& 2 classes visited Winter Wonderland at Capital E today. We each wrote some wishes to post in the wishing tree in the enchanted forest! Father Christmas's elf Cinnamon told us a story, we climbed on the climbing wall, searched for 10 gingerbread men in the gingerbread house and made a felt mouse decoration with a candy cane tail to hang on our Christmas trees at home. Before we left to come back to school on the bus Father Christmas asked us what we would like for Christmas! We all had a wonderful time and thank you to the mums & dads who came with us!

Zebong-Teller of Tales

Today Year 1& 2 began Outdoor Education Week with a visit by Zebong, the Storyteller. He had a special backdrop which was painted with a spooky castle with special flaps on it. Under the flaps were pictures that helped tell a fairy tale with a wicked witch, a troll, a snake, a king, a queen, a prince and some naughty girls. Zebong chose some teachers and children to act out parts of the story. Esme and James were lucky to be chosen! We all enjoyed the show and the detailed questions the children had for Zebong at the end showed that everyone had been listening very carefully!

Dancing at Assembly

Last week we had our last dance session with Mrs Hooke. We performed a short dance at assembly to share our learning. We hope everyone enjoyed watching as much as we enjoyed dancing!

Creeping Caterpillars

This term we are exploring different printing techniques. Our creeping caterpillars are sponge printed circles with details painted on later with a brush. Our letter of the week was Ll, so we drew on the Ll shaped legs with black felt pens at handwriting time!

Milo Cricket

The Milo Cricket programme is in action at Muritai School this week.
Today Rooms 1,3, and 16 joined together to have a go.
We learned some cricket skills and how to keep safe when running with a cricket bat.
Watch us go!

At the Disco!

Today lots of children came back to school at 5pm for the junior disco. We had a DJ who played cool music for everyone to dance to. All the curtains were closed to make it dark enough for the disco lights and you could buy sparkly rings and neon bracelets that glowed in the dark! Mums and Dads were invited to join in too. At the end everyone had an iceblock to cool down. It was lots of fun.

Junior Athletic Sports

On Tuesday we held our Junior Athletic Sports. We had all been practising sprints, jelly shot put, quoit and tennis ball throwing, high jump and long jump for 6 weeks!
Thank you to Mr Skilton and Mr Hull who organised the day and set out all the sports equipment for us! It was a beautiful day and thanks to all the mums, dads, grandmas and grandads who came to cheer us on!
We all tried our hardest to do our best and it was a great morning!

Our Visit to The Nutcracker Ballet

On Thursday we went by bus into Wellington to see the ballet company perform The Nutcracker ballet.
Sarah's mum Lisa came with us. We were not allowed to take photos of the dancers performing so we all watched very carefully so we could draw what we saw back at school. Here are some of Room 1's favourite parts:

I liked the flying bed. Abby, Lachlan, James
I liked the dancers in the tutus. Esme
I liked the doctor's scene. Rory
I liked it when Fritz aimed his slingshot at Clara. Seb
I liked the snow scene. It was made of tissue paper. Alex
I liked it when the flower girls danced. Joe
I liked all of it. Poppy
I liked the crutches dance. Rose, Ruby, Kaya, William
I liked the ballerinas in the white tutus. Harriet
I liked Fritz being funny and flying around with his arms out like a plane. Sarah
I liked it when the bed went up in the air on ropes. Florence
I liked the girl in the blue skirt and the boy dancing. Mila-Rose