Days of the Week from around the World

In First Language Group this week we looked at the days of the week in all the languages our children can speak. First, we each made a chart showing the days of the week in English and our language. Then we shared it with all the other children and our classroom teachers.

Peace at Last - Green Hat Thinking

This week we read the book 'Peace at Last'.  We felt really sorry for father bear so we put on our green thinking hats to come up with some ideas for helping him.

Dear Mr Bear

Yesterday we read your book ‘Peace at Last’. We are very sorry that you couldn’t get to sleep.

We put on our ‘green thinking hats’ to come up with some ways that you could get to sleep when it is noisy.

• Maybe you could wake mum up and say, “Stop snoring”.

• Roll Mrs Bear over.

• You could just sleep, stay in bed in the morning.

• You could close your ears.

• You could make some noise so that the owls go into their houses.

• You could cover your ears.

• Sing a song to baby bear until he goes to sleep.

• Why don’t you get up and watch a movie until your eyes fall asleep.

• Mr Bear, you should go to your room and tell Mrs Bear to stop snoring.

From 

The English Language Learners, Addington School

We received a letter from Mr Bear.

We posted Mr Bear our ideas and were very surprised to receive a letter back from Mr Bear. Here is our reply from Mr Bear.

Dear ELL Students at Addington School,

It was so great to hear from you. Thank you for the great ideas and solutions to the problems I have been having getting to sleep lately.

I have tried some of your suggestions and let me explain how they went......

You said to try rolling Mrs Bear over. I tried this, but Mrs Bear accidentally fell out of bed!!!!! She was not very impressed with me.

You said  to just stay in bed in the morning. I wish I could, but I have to get up to go to work at 6:30am and if I didn’t go, I would get fired.

You said to sing Baby Bear a song, but Baby Bear loves singing so he sang along with me!!

You also said to close your ears. Now this got me thinking. How could I close my ears???? Then I realized that I could get some ear plugs from the chemist and that’s just what I did, now I can’t hear anything. 

I have now slept all night long without waking and am feeling refreshed in the mornings.

Ahhhh, peace at last!!!!

Thank you all so much for your help.

From Mr Bear

We drew pictures of Mr Bear

Anzac Day Remembrance

On Tuesday some children from our school laid crosses as a field of remembrance. Today the children put the poppies and the wreaths that they had made and placed them around the crosses. 

Colours from around the world

Last Monday we made colour charts in our home languages. We were all very busy. Our finished charts went back to our classes to share with our teachers and friends.

First Language Group

Last week we made counting posters in our first language. Then we shared our work by counting in Tongan, Samoan, Cantonese, Fasi, Hindi, Fijian, Afrikaans, Cambodian and Filipino. 

Where the Wild Things Are - 6 Hat Thinking

We read ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ again today. Some of our foundation learners then played a game of Bingo based around this wonderful book. The other children coloured masks for our wild rumpus next week. 

While we were working we did some 6 Hat Thinking around Max’s visit with the ‘Wild Things.’

First we did some yellow hat thinking. What were the good or positive points

• Max was happy he had friends
• He was really happy when he left
• Max was glad when he was made king
• He liked playing with them.
• He got to be their king.
• The ‘Wild Things’ listened to him.
• He got to ride on the ‘Wild Things’ backs. He didn’t even have to walk
• Max liked being at the wild rumpus

Then we used our black thinking hats and looked at bad or the not so good points. 

• The wild things made him cross.
• Max was frightened by them at first.
• Max was sad because he missed his mum.
• He was alone and really hungry.
• Max might get super hungry.
• The ‘Wild Things’ are creepy. I would scream.
• The ‘Wild Things’ might eat you up like a hamburger when you are sleeping.
• They might eat you up in one go.
• They might throw you in the water or break your boat

• 
   

'Where the Wild Things Are'

Today we read ‘Where the Wild things Are’ by Maurice Sendak.  Then we put on our ‘Red Thinking Hats’ to talk about how Max was feeling throughout the book. 

Here are some of the feelings the children came up with. 

• When his mum called him ‘Wild Thing,’ Max was mad and grumpy. He was angry at his Mum and said, “I’ll eat you up.”
• Max was sent to his room and this made him angry. He was mad and hungry because he had no supper.
• When Max first saw one of the ‘Wild Things’ he was scared. His face looked terrified.
• The ‘Wild Things’ made Max their king. He was very proud and happy.
• Max felt very happy and excited when he took part in the ‘Wild Rumpus.’
• When the ‘Wild Rumpus’ stopped, Max felt upset. We think he was tired and hungry and missed his home.
• When he got home, we think he was glad to be back. He was happy and relieved to be in his own room. 

 Wow! 
What Great Red Hat Thinking.

Art Attack

This year our art attack was based around water. We found all the words for water in the children's first language and made a big wall display in our school hall.

Rosie's Walk

This week we read the book called 'Rosie's Walk'. It has a lot of prepostions in it. Then we watched a video on teacher tube. It was a funny video about Rosie and the fox. 
Then we played a Bingo game that used all the prepositions from Rosie's Walk. It was from Sparklebox. 

Prepositions

Dino the dinosaur came to school with his beautiful pink bucket to tell us all about prepositions. He is a great teacher.

Dino is on the bucket.

Dino is in front of the bucket.

Dino is behind the bucket.

Dino is next to the bucket.

Dino is in the bucket.

      Where is Dino? 

Lazy Ozzie Black Hat Thinking

We read Lazy Ozzie and then put on our 'Black Thinking Hats'.  Here are some of the things that might happen if Ozzie doesn't learn how to fly.

• he will fall and get hurt
  
• no dinner
• the other birds will be mean to him
• he will get hungry
• he will never get a friend
• his owl friends might not play with him
• he will be sad

Lazy Ozzie Green Hat Thinking

Ozzie is a lazy little owl who likes to sit around all day and doesn’t want to learn how to fly. We used some green hat thinking to come up with some ideas to help him to get down from the high beam.

• he could use an umbrella and jump
• he could jump on the hay piles
• he could get a big, big ladder
• he could just slide down the horses back
• could he just jump
• someone could to push him
• he could ask someone to teach him

Caring for the Earth

This week we have been learning some new vocabulary for our topic ‘Sustainability is Forever’. 

We used some pictures about taking care of our earth.  Today we took turns to talk about each picture. Pavi has just finished her turn and is letting the others know by putting up her thumb. Pavi talked about picking up rubbish and keeping our playground clean and tidy.

Samoan Language Week

Manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa!!
Happy Samoan Language week!!

Today was the first day of Samoan Language week. All the samoan children were given a 'Samoan Week' booklet and one for their classroom teachers. The children are going to be the teachers this week and teach their teachers and the other children in their classrooms some Samoan words. Well done to Victory and his teacher Ms Blackburn who have already taught all their classroom how to count from 1- 10 in Samoan.

The Night Iceberg - Red Hat Thinking

 We read The Night Iceberg... then we put on our red thinking hats. We wanted to find out how Tofta was feeling...

• She was grumpy because she didn't want to share
• She was not happy with her little brother
• She didn't want to share
• I think she would be sad by herself on the iceberg at bed time
• She didn't want to share the iceberg with penguins
• She starts to like playing with the penguins and that makes her happy
• She was happy on the iceberg
• I think she is sad and misses all her family
• She is wanting to go home. I think she is feeling sad.
• I think she will share things with her brother and not so grumpy

The Night Iceberg - Green Hat Thinking

What would you take if you went to visit an iceberg... we put on our green thinking hats to think up some interesting ideas.

• Chocolate fish... then you wouldn’t have to fish
• Fishy flavoured ice-cream for the penguins
• My wind up torch... we got it for when the lights go out in an earthquake
• A soccer ball so that I could play soccer with the penguins
• Some fish fingers
• My big boots that are real warm
• A coat and my new beanie
• Some fishy stuff

Living On An Iceberg

We read 'The Night Iceberg' then we put on our black thinking hats to think about what might not be so good about living on an Iceberg.

It would be...

• really really cold
• freezing

We would have...

• no t.v
• no bedroom
• no house
• no swimming - too cold

We would get sick of eating fish, fish, fish all the time.

The Night Iceberg

We read 'The Night Iceberg' by Helen Stephens and then we used our yellow thinking hats to think of all the good points about living on an iceberg.


We could ...

• wear fluffy clothes
• meet penguin friends
• catch fish
• slide on the ice
• build a snowman
• build an igloo
• have a snow fight
• look after a baby penguin
• look at the sky

Pita the Penguin

Pita  the penguin came to our assembly at Addington School and talked to Ms Heath and all the children. He wanted to know what was so special about our school. 
Here are some of the things that we think are special about our school...

Pita and Ms Heath 

• We know how to look after things
• We look after new people
• We have lots and lots of big trees
• We have people from all around the world
• We like learning new things
• We have the Addington Attitude
• We know all the Addington qualities.

Myspace Stuff

International Race Relations Day

Today is International Race Relations day. We are celebrating the day by trying to greet each other in all the different languages spoken by the children of our school.
For more information visit http://www.hrc.co.nz/2012/celebrating-race-relations-day