The ANZAC Poppy

That lonely poppy standing in the centre
Of the smoky battle feild,
Scarlet petals drifting down.
The wind blows against the lime green stalk,
Which makes the rosey red poppy sway.
The green leaves cover the red blood,
Over the dead soldires,
In the dark, black battle feids.

The poppy crinkles as a sign of bravery,
And a symbol of the tragic war.

Gregor Findlay ( aged 8 years)
1st place ( Wanaka Library Poetry Competition)

Soldier in the War

Soldier in the war, what do you see?
Gunfire soaring over the sandy trench,
Blood and mud dripping on me.
Green foes with guns sprinting,
Canons stay standing in front of red, yellow and orange explosion.
Russians lie dead or crying for help
As planes fly by.

Helicopters hover above us,
Torpedoes glide like seagulls,
Through the dark murky sky.
Puffs of smoke go up towards God,
As soldiers receive white bandages.

Jake Nicholson (aged 8 years)
Second Place in Wanaka Library Poetry Competition

Earthquake!

I felt a violent shaking beneath my feet, then the house started to sway. Things fell to the floor and smashed. Mum was screaming for us to get under the table. I heard the baby crying as I ducked under and held tight. When it was over, we listened for Civil Defence on the radio. Slowly, I crawled from under the table. It was a horrible sight, the kitchen was a bomb site. There was a gaping hole and rubble on the ground, the pots and pans were everywhere. Glasses were smashed and there were bits of glass all over the floor. I walked to my bedroom. It was worse than the kitchen. My wardrobe was flat on the floor, my bunks were on their side and it's blankets eyerywhere. My version of the family crest was smashed on the ground. I ran to the window and the footpath was piled high with rubble!

Introducing and Thanking a Guest Speaker

Today we have Brenden Winder talking with us. Welcome Brenden. It is great to have you with us. Brenden works for the Queenstown Lakes District Council talking about earthquakes and Civil Defence. Would you like to start your talk now.

Thank you for coming and sparing us some of your time. I now know much more about Civil Defence and I'm sure the rest of the class does too. Your speech was very good and it inspired me.

By Grace

Thinking

Each week I will add a photo to make you think. You will find it in the sidebar. Vote on the poll below it. If you would love to read some of your comments so please give your reasons and thoughts.

Cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") - René Descartes


We all want our children to be able to analyze information, make decisions, come up with creative ideas and solve problems - to think rationally and logically. Thinking skills are essential in our rapidly changing global information age. We need to be able to make sense of information, adapt and be skilled in identifying and solving problems. As a result, the development of thinking skills is one of the most valuable gifts we can pass on to children. Thinking is motivated by questions. I plan to use a photo or question to encourage this, to challenge ideas, engage with issues and to show feelings. Watch out for these!

Disasters (Non-natural)

Today we looked at non-natural disasters. These disasters are caused by human activity and include things like...

Terrorism (bombs, threats)
Wildfires ( bushfires)
Pandemics ( swine flu or avian (bird) flu)
Biohazards ( chemical spills
Transportation Accidents ( trains, aeroplanes)

These hazards may be limited to a small area or their effects may be widespread.

Cinderella

Today we had a performance to go to at the MAC gymnasium. It was called Cinderella. It was based on the traditional fairytale and was a musical pantomime. There were only 3 actors who played nine characters. It was very funny and we all laughed from start to finish. We bused up there and walked back to school.

Educational Wisdom: Timeless Lessons for Educators

Earlier in the year I put a link to the Animal School movie. Here is another on educational wisdom. It is worth a look for anyone who teaches - parents, teachers and anyone else in a teaching role.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day. Cliclk on the man on the right to find out more about this day. On Friday we wrote metaphors about our Dad's. We will share some with you on Monday. They will bring tears to your eyes. We alson made cards and gave fift vouchers of our time rather than presents that cost money. Leave messages to let us know how you celebrated Fatehr's Day.

Here are some famous Father quotes...
When I was at school we had to walk home in the snow!
Go ask your mother!
Just wait until I get you home!
No of course I'm not crying - there's something in my eye
My father used to tell me...
When I was your age....

Smarties Reading Group

Ngaio, Jake, Riley and Dara have been researching Polar Bears. They are presenting their inquiry on an ActicInspire flip chart. They have had to learn lots of new skills. The flip charts look amazing. They have presented their learning in a new and different way. The flip charts contain lots of interactivity, such as web sites, and videos. They have inserted photos to back up their writing, using the pen tool, text tool and the floating keyboard. They have used colour to enhance presentation. They had a few teaching sessions on the basics of presenting a flipchart and after that it was just-in-time learning and lots of experimentation and problem-solving. Thesy are going to be teachers to another reading group. They will share them with other classes and their parents soon.

Our ski trip to Cardrona was postponed so we have a new date. Friday 11 September. Try out this jigsaw in the mean time.

Cause and Effect

We have been learning about cause & effect and after assessing our explanations we relaised that we need to do some more. We have done some extra work in reading. Go to these sites and practise at home.

Find out how to do cause & effect(information)




Play this matching game





Another matching game - find the matching pairs of cause & effect

The Breathing Earth

Take a look at this site. We all must do our bit! This makes you think and for this reason, I have included it on our blog.

The Breathing Earth simulation
Welcome to Breathing Earth. This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates.

Please remember that this real time simulation is just that: a simulation. Although the CO2 emission, birth rate and death rate data used in Breathing Earth comes from reputable sources, data that measures things on such a massive scale can never be 100% accurate. Please note however that the CO2 emission levels shown here are much more likely to be too low than they are to be too high.

The Environment and Climate Change
Global warming (aka climate change) is probably the most important issue to face our generation, and quite possibly any generation in history. The worldwide scientific community is virtually unanimous in its agreement that global warming is happening, that that it's our fault. If we let it get out of our control, the consequences - which will already begin occuring in most of our lifetimes - will be catastrophic. Just some of the consequences that can be reasonably expected are rising sea levels, more frequent and more severe natural disasters, large-scale food shortages, plagues, massive species extinctions, unprecendented numbers of refugees, intensified ethnic and political tensions, and a global economic depression the likes of which no one has ever seen.

The situation is still within our grasp, but we must act now, we must act strongly, and we must act together. Individuals, companies, and governments across the globe must each do what they can to reverse climate change. We will never get a second chance.

Weloming and Thanking Guests

We have a guest speaker coming tomorrow so we have been learning about introducing and thanking quest speakers.

We need to thank someone for something that they have done.

Our task was to present a prepared thank you speech and present it to a partner

Introducing a guest speaker

Our introduction speech needed to cover:
• a welcome for this person
• who the guest is and why they are here
• a personal comment about what you hope to learn
• the 'handing over' of the visitor to the audience.

Thanking a guest speaker

Our speech needed to cover:
• what you are thanking the guest for
• one or two points on what you gained or learnt from the guest
• a closing statement

Annie will pick 2 people to introduce and thank our guest, Brendon Winder, from the Queenstown Lake's Civil Defence.

Food For Thought

Oppps!!!We forgot the camera today for the our supermarket visit. We worked in groups and we had questions to complete. We went to different aisles to measure two things in the shelves. For example biscuits and crackers, water and fizzy drink, bread and pikelets and vegetables and fruits. We had to draw a picture of a food that you have not seen or eaten before. George chose rhubarb. Sam liked the biscuit aisle because there was more work to do, like finding the fat, sugar and dietary fibre on the labels. Sam & George loved the visit and learnt lots about reading labels and nutrition.

Sam says...
"When we got back we played a game of hangman Mary made a word . We were hopeless at it at first but then we got on the roll . The word was carbohydrate. "

George says...
" I liked the fizzy drink aisle because it was a sweet type of aisle. we got put into different types of groups and we went to different topics at different times. We had a lot of fun at New World."

Thank you to Rebecca and New World.

Earthquake Safety Brochures

Writing - Brochures

WALT... inform people about how to be safe in an earthquake

You are working for the Civil Defence in Wanaka. Your boss has asked you to create your own “Earthquake Safety” brochure to help inform people of what to do in an earthquake and how you should prepare. Your boss would like you to include at least 4 eye-catching, colorful pictures in your brochure. You must include the following information

You must include:

1. A list of Emergency Supplies/items every home should have
2. A description of what an emergency plan is
3. Safe places to go (indoors/outdoors)
4. A list of things you should do to make your home safer (Fix, Fasten & Forget) and give examples
5. Three things to do before an earthquake
6. Three things to do during an earthquake
7. Three things to do after an earthquake
8. Community Efforts (suggestions for how a community can prepare)

Use the 'What's the Plan Stan?' web site to find NZ information to help you write your brochure.

Click on the icon

Disasters (Storms and Volcanoes)

Disasters

Today we looked at 2 more disasters - storms and volcanoes. We added these to our table that we started yesterday.

Volcanoes
New Zealand is situated on the 'Ring of Fire', a geographic belt encircling the Pacific Ocean, containing about 90% of the Earth's volcanoes. There are six active volcanic regions in New Zealand.

Storms
New Zealand is particularly prone to storms as it lies in the 'Roaring Forties', where mild-temperature air from the north meets cooler air from the south. Hazards include loss of power and communications, falling trees and poles, fast-flowing currents in streams and rivers, snowstorms, landslips and flooding.

Food For Thought

Welcome to Rebecca McNaughton
Rebecca is a nutritionist for Foodstuffs South Island. She is running a programme in the middle syndicate called 'Food For Thought'. We looked at healthy foods last term so this was a good chance to revise and refresh or thinking. Today she helped us understand the food groups and food labels in more depth. Reading labels is an important skill. Tomorrow we are off to the New World Supermarket to learn even more. We will have photos from our visit for you tomorrow.

What is an Earthquake?

We looked at lots of models for explanations from reading books and exemplars.
Then we wrote success criteria we wrote for our explanations..,.

• I wrote a title (a question)
• I wrote an introduction - said what an earthquake is
• I used paragraphs to organise my ideas
• I used cause and effect
• I used an ending (summary)- include the main points or an interesting comment about earthquakes
• I used different sentences and sentence beginnings
• I used earthquake words - eg faults, S-waves, p-waves, tremor,
• I used verbs (doing words) like shakes, trembles, rumbles, clash
• I wrote in present tense - now
• I used capitals, full stops, commas, question marks in the right places
• My explanation was clear and easy to read
• I used a bibliography ( a list of books, web sites)
• I sampled and corrected some words on my own
• I checked my explanation ( proof-read)
• I changed some sentences to make them better (edits)
• I self or peer assessed
  

Types of Disasters

Today we began our investigation into the different disasters we might experience in NZ.

These are the disasters we came up with...

Floods
Earthquakes
Tsunami
Volcanoes
Storms

We then went to 'What's the Plan Stan?' CD and found out there was one more called non- natural. We are going to investigate this further later in the week. We then looked in depth at tsunami and floods by looking at a fact sheet, photos and a video on each disaster. Then we completed a quiz. Our next task was to complete a table with the following headings.

Disaster Type & Cause
Similarities
Differences

Floods
Floods are one of New Zealand's most frequent hazards. Flood waters can ravage the land, destroying roads, bridges, railway tracks and buildings. Crops can be inundated and livestock drowned. Human lives are also at risk, particularly in flash floods and tsunami, where fast-flowing water filled with debris can sweep people away.
Tsunami
New Zealand is a country surrounded by water, so many coastal communities are at risk from tsunami. In a near source tsunami the water level may fall very quickly past the normal low tide mark, then return just as quickly. If this happens, there won't be enough time to issue a warning and it is important that you know what to do, and that you act quickly.
Earthquakes
New Zealand experiences thousands of earthquakes every year. Most are either very deep or centred well offshore, causing little damage or injury. However, a severe earthquake can occur at any time with devastating effects.

We used a model Annie had completed on tsunami and discussed each heading. Then we completed our own for Floods. Tomorrow we will move onto Volcanoes and Storms.