Earthquake Stories

Addington children returned to school on Monday 13 September. They began the week by catching up with friends, sharing stories and practicing their "Drop, Cover and Hold" moves. Here are some of their stories...


We got in our car and drove and drove and drove. We were looking for a safe place.

My mum was saying “God please stop this” in our language. We didn’t know what was happening. We slept in our car. Our car kept rocking. I saw some smashed roads and houses.

I didn’t know what was happening. I was shaking and couldn’t stop. I thought a monster was coming to get us. I sleep under the table with mum every night now. I don’t like sleeping in my bed anymore.

When the shakes come my mum cuddles me.

My big brother jumped out the window and cut his arm. 

We put our mattresses all in one room and sleep together now. We like sleeping with mum and dad.

We know what to do if it shakes in our classroom and if we are in the playground. We are good at being Tommy Turtles.

My friends house fell down but ours is OK. It just shakes some times. We don’t like that. 

My chimney fell down but only on the outside of our house. 

Since the 7.1 original earthquake we have had over 700 aftershocks. 

School Re-opening after Earthquake

School will re-open tomorrow - Monday 13 September. We look forward to seeing you all again. 

Earthquake - School Closure

School closed until Wednesday at least because of the earthquake. Things look OK but waiting on all the buildings to be checked over by the experts.

Cultural Festival Dress Rehearsal

On Friday the children from Te Tipuranga and Nga Matikao got together after lunch for a dress rehearsal for their performance at the Cultural Festival next week. They were all very excited. 
They will be performing at the matinee on Thursday 2 September. 

Cultural Festival 2010

YOU ARE WARMLY INVITED to CULTURAL FESTIVAL 2010! Over 3,000 children are getting ready to ‘make a splash’ at this year’s festival which explores the wonders of one of our most precious resources – water. Showcasing a fresh lineup of multicultural performances, visual art and wearable art pageants from some of Canterbury’s most talented primary and intermediate schools, Cultural Festival 2010 is not to be missed! Tickets @ Ticketek or check out www.culturalfestival.co.nz<http://www.culturalfestival.co.nz/> In the words of one of last year’s attenders - “…absolutely fantastic, the standard of performance was extraordinary!” 

Addington ESOL Television presents...

This week we have been reading Fairy Stories. Yesterday we read the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Then made up some questions to ask the characters. We put them onto a big chart using ‘post-it’ notes.

Today we pretended to be in a television studio. Sofi was the first to be the television interviewer and asked a very funny grandma Kabir some of the children’s questions.

We then all took turns at playing the different roles. 

Digital Dialects

We have been using Digital Dialects in our first language programme. It is a website that features lots of free interactive games for language learning.  It is a great way to learn new vocabulary or to just practice what you already know.  Our Tongan children really like the 'Numbers Game', they like to try and beat the timer. 

We are now patiently waiting for them to add Samoan to the growing list of languages available.

Check it out at http://www.digitaldialects.com

Diving, Dancing Raisins

Materials

Raisins

Lemonade

A glass jar

First we half filled a jar with lemonade, and then we added a handful of raisins. We then waited to see what happened. 

The raisins danced around in the jar; floating up to the top and then diving down to the bottom again. The reason the raisins floated to the top of the jar was because the bubbles in the lemonade, stuck to the sides of the raisins. This made the raisins more buoyant. If things are buoyant they are able to float more easily.

Once the raisin coated bubbles reached the surface of the lemonade, the bubbles popped, and the raisins sunk down to the bottom once more.

Magic: Run Away Pepper

We used a bowl of water, a sprinkle of pepper and detergent to experiment with surface tension.

We put some water in a bowl and then sprinkled it with pepper. Next we put a drop of detergent into the centre of the bowl. What happened?  Did the pepper change?

Yes. The pepper zoomed away from the detergent.

This is because the soap breaks the surface tension of the water and the tension on the rest of the water pulls the floating pepper away from the soap. 

Using our Prior Knowledge

This week we have been learning about using our prior knowledge to help us with our reading. Using the information that we already know helps us to understand new information in our reading books. Today, before we began reading ‘A quilt for Kiri’, we looked at the cover and some of the pictures. Then we recorded all our thoughts and ideas: “what we already knew” onto a chart. Using prior knowledge made the book easier and more interesting to read.
Tasi, Rachana, Line and Ahsan

What is Change? What Makes Things Change?

Our topic this term is "Sharing our Stories" and learning how these stories have changed over time. 

As part of this topic, we are learning all about change. We will be learning what is change, and what makes things change. We are beginning by observing some very simple science experiments that show how things change.

 (Thanks to Mrs Douglas from Room 4 for sharing her experiment information with us).

Swirling Whirling Milk Patterns

For this experiment you will need

Whole milk at room temperature

Food colouring

Dish wash Detergent 

A shallow dish

We poured some whole milk into a shallow dish

Next we added a few drops of food colouring into the milk

Then we added in a drop of dish wash detergent

What Happened!

The fat in the milk is broken down by the detergent. This caused the food colouring to swirl and whirl and make amazing patterns. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope. 

Wow!

Compound Words

Rachana, Tasi and Line have been 

learning all about compound words. 
They have to match the two word 
cards to make up a compound word. Once they have done this they then have to make up sentences using the words. Big ups to Cherry Carl for her wonderful resources. Check out her resources on the link above.