Friday, November 30, 2007

Our Podcast is a finalist in 2007 Edublog Awards

Our podcast is a finalist in the worldwide 2007 Edublog Awards- best educational use of audio. We need you to vote for us. You don't have to register or anything- just click on the award logo and click on Allanah's Appleby Podcast and then click VOTE!

We need lots of votes from lots of different computers!

I am so proud of us all.

Miss K

Georgina's half built house

This is Georgina's house that she built for homework. She made it out of balsa wood, paper and glue. It took a week to make. Her dad helped her with the measuring.
She made a plan of what the design was going to look like.
This is the inside of the house.
This is what it looks like from the outside.

By Braden, Tyler and Georgina

Athletics day

On the 26 of November the year 3 and 4 had athletics at Ranzau School. It was a boiling day. Appleby won the year 4 girls relay.
By Oscar and Kyle

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Georgina Goes To NZ Dancing Competition

I went to Nationals in Auckland with my brother, sister and my sister's dance partner. We were first on doing the samba and rumba. We got into the second round/Then we did ballroom and we didn't get any where but it was awesome fun.
PS Miss K thinks we are fantastic to get to go all the way to Auckland to participate in the event. Well done Georgina and Theo, Georgina's dance partner.

Amazing photos!

Kieran's Mum sent some photos to us. All of the photos showed interesting angles. This is a man standing in front of a oil rig burning off gas.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! That will crack up anyone.

She also sent us some painted hand photos. Here is a hand that is painted to look like a golden eagle.

by Amberley & Kieran

Monday, November 26, 2007

Pet Show Day



Last Friday it was pet day. We did six activities. They were photos, chalk drawing, sand creatures, dog video, Kid Pix drawings on the computer and animal stories. I like Tabby the cat. My favourite was the Lion in the Meadow and Walter, the farting dog. For chalk drawings Nicole did a snake with Emily. Shania did a dolphin with Georgia in Kahurangi.

By Nicole and Shania

Great Books to Read

Here is a great website for finding books to read. Although they are on the internet you can read the books just like you can a paper book- by turning the pages! The link to the Children's Library is in our Delicious as well. Click on the books to take you to the web page and look for a book that you like the look of to read.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Make the horses sing!

I just found this and thought I would share it. Click on the horses to take you to a web site where you can make them sing!!

Saturday, November 24, 2007

'The Lost Thing' Podcast

Josh, Zach and Kieran got together to make this podcast about 'The Lost Thing' by Shaun Tan.

To make the podcast they had to chose the book from our library, read it, decide on roles for the podcast, write and edit the storyboard script, take the photos, record and edit the script, add the photos to make the enhanced podcast and compress it for the internet.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Revolting Rhymes

Today while the Year Five children were at Inter-School Athletic Sports the Year Fours made a few podcasts.

In this one Georgina, Miriam and Amberley chose to share Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes with you.



Again you can just listen here or go to our podcast page to see the entire podcast with photos to support it.

A podcast with Grant- our bus driver

As part of our reading and learning about Money we have been learning about people's occupations. We thought we would interview Grant, our school bus driver. We found out a whole lot of new things about his job.

Click on play to hear our audio or go to our podcast page to hear the whole enhanced podcast with photo to go with it.


By Braden, Dylan, Kyle, Brittany, Jordan, Sam, Georgie and Nicole

Friday, November 16, 2007

Gym Competition: Part Two

GO APPLEBY

On Friday we did our level one gymnastics. We had so much fun. Here is a photo. The boys were amazed that Tyler came third out of all of the boys and Lara came first for the girls. How good is she! Well the day went so fast. Man that was a good day!

By Brittany

S Matchbox Competition

Kiwi reading group did a competition. They had to find as many things starting with the letter S over night and it had to fit in a matchbox.The person with the most things wins an ice-cream. These are all the things that Zach and Kieran found. They found 41. Here are some of the things that were in Zach's matchbox...

silk, stick, soap, stone, staples, sticky tape, stamp, straw, sawdust sultana, sinker, sacking, shell, doll's shoe, shark, screw, Subway voucher, spring, salt, sewing needle, salt, safety pin, salami, soot, salad dressing, sand, sauce, seed, soil, sunblock, sesame seed, star, sad face, sugar, sticker, doll's shorts and a scrunchie.
These are all the things that Eliott found. He found 33.
These are all the things that Miriam and Georgina found. They found 30.

by Nicole and Shania.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Midnight is back

Midnight is back at school. Midnight is sitting with the swan plants. Midnight is happy to be back. He had a great holiday at Miss K's house. We are going to have a fun time with Midnight.
In the foreground is the swan plants. We first blogged about the swan plants in April and they have grown up really big. Miss K gave us all one to take home and plant in our own gardens to attract the monarch butterflies in summer.

By Shania and Nicole.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Gym

On Friday was it was the gym competition. Georgie, Zach and Georgina went. They did the beam, floor and vault. There were people from other schools.
This is Georgina F on the beam she looks very good at it.

By Shania, Nicole and Georgie

Friday, November 09, 2007

What have we learnt from using computers in our classroom

Yesterday we had the Waimea South ICT Cluster Expo where children from our area get together and share what they have learnt using ICT in the classroom. Moturoa started the ball rolling by recording what we had learnt this year.

To see the Voicethread in a large version click here!



I was so proud of the comments that my children made as they moved beyond basic skills and talk about how the use of ICT has helped them with personal goals that can be transferred to all of their learning.

Other schools in our cluster have recorded what they have learnt as well.

And other children and teachers from around the globe. Have a listen to the voices from around the globe.

Miss K

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Racing Ferrari


Today Josh brought his collection of Ferrari cars for news. We raced them. You will find out who wins when you play the video.

by Sam and Jack

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Cefn Fforest makes a Voicethread about Cuddly Kiwi

This week Cefn Fforest School made us a wonderful Voicethread that shows the adventures of Cuddly Kiwi, a small toy that we sent to them last year. Paul H, the Cefn Fforest teacher, is starting a new job in December so is intending to send Cuddly Kiwi back to us. It will be great to see him back in New Zealand for a warm Kiwi Christmas. Have a look at all the wonderful adventures Cuddly Kiwi has had and listen to our comments at the end. To see the full screen version click on the photo below.
by Miss K

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Keeping Ourselves Safe Animation

Today we had some visitors from the North Island come and look at the exciting things we are doing in our classroom. They loved to hear Miriam sing and wanted me to share the Keeping Ourselves Safe Animation that the year fives and sixes did and I realised it wasn't on the blog- only in the podcast so here it is to make it easy for them to find.



It is quite long so I wouldn't try to watch it unless you have fast internet access.

12MB 3 minutes long

Miss K

Monday, November 05, 2007

Animation vs Animator

I shared this animation with the class today. They thought it was mint.


You may like to try your own animation using Scratch or Pivot. Scratch is recommended by other teachers but I have had a bit of a play with Pivot. If you do have a try it would be great to see how you go.

Miss K

Mousetrap- the play

Last Weka reading practised a play called Mouse trap. They practised so hard that they got to do it an assembly. The play was performed by Jordan, Sam, Brittany, Braden and Nicole. They performed fabulous to the class but when it came to assembly we ran out of time and they didn't get to perform their astonishing play. WHAT A PITTY! But at the Monday assembly they performed their wonderful play! It was a laugh.
By Dino and Tyler

Friday, November 02, 2007

Miriam Shares Her Voice

Today for our homework we shared the music that we like- either talking about it, listening to it, playing it or singing it.

We all knew that Miriam took singing lessons but we had never heard her sing before. Today she brought along a CD that she had recorded with her singing teacher.

We knew real talent when we heard it. Awesome, Miriam. Thank you for sharing your voice with us.

Link to Miriam Singing

2.6 MB 2 minutes 17 seconds Miss K