Show don't tell - Watermelon Writing

At the student conferences a few weeks back your child talked about using, 'show not tell' in their writing.  We have been working on this in class and we wanted to share some of our work with you.

The first thing we did was taste a watermelon (for some children it was their first time tasting one!)  We then brainstormed lots of juicy adjectives.  This made it so much easier for our writing.

The line was - The watermelon is delicious.  (We wanted to show you the watermelon was delicious rather than tell you it was).

Tayla
Chomping into the fresh, shimmery, peach, pink flesh I taste Summertime.  Juice is cascading down my chin and hands.  My tastebuds celebrated every bite as I crunched into the luscious watermelon flesh. Oh so nice!

Ava
Slowly crunching into the pink, juicy flesh I tasted all the fruity goodness!  Juice quickly dripped down my chin onto my arms, it left a sticky mess.  Everytime I bite it felt like my taste buds were having a party.  Oooh yum, Summer!

Gabby
Crunching into the juicy, pinky flesh I tasted the goodness of Summer!  Juice ran down my chin like a waterfall.  Now I was covered in a sticky mess. Yum!

Sophia
Hungrily crunching on the ripe, peach coloured skin  I tasted Summer.  It tasted like liquid sugar but healthy as runny mess oozed down my chin.  Ah I think to myself, Summer is good.

Maya
Crunching into the beautiful, rosy, red flesh.  Sweet juice poured down my chin and arms like tears, leaving a sticky mess.  My taste buds sparkled, ahhhhh Summer.

Jack's baby sister

A few weeks back Dad and Jack bought in their newest addition to the family, Pipi.  She is beautiful and has made Mrs DG and Mrs Hapur very clucky!!  We can tell you're going to be a fantastic big brother Jack.

Happy Easter!

We hope you all have a happy Easter holiday.  The children have worked so hard I'm even letting them have Tuesday off as well.  Hope you all build lots of great family memories.

Check out our cute Easter craft.  I was so impressed with the way you helped each other out and were super patient waiting for your turn.  Keep it up team!

Here are some pictures of us busy at work.

Giant basketball skills

Last Thursday we had a very, very tall Giant's basketball player  come and teach us some basketball skills.

He taught us some different passes, how to defend and pass while someone is defending us and how to shoot.  We finished with a shoot off (first to 10 won).  This was really tricky but it was surprising how quickly our accuracy improved.

The losing team had to do press ups but then everyone wanted to have a go!  Good on you Harakeke!

Practising our bouncing skills with both our left and right hands.

Improving our Netball skills

Dayna Whiting from Nelson Netball has been working with us this week.  We have had two sessions. In the first session we learned about different Netball passes.  There is the chest pass, bounce pass, over head pass (this is tricky) and the shoulder pass.

Today we were taught the technique for shooting.  We could either hold it in two hands or one hand with the other guiding it in.  We learned that we need to bend out knees and have the ball high above our head.  Quite tricky!  We then played Golden Child to test our skills.

Our last session is next Monday which is when we can put everything together and play a game.  We're all looking forward to that!

Perfect 'W' for throwing a pass.

Great stepping forward!

Warm up, catch the dragon's tail.

Bounce pass.

Food Detectives at New World

Last Thursday Harakeke walked to New World in Stoke with some very kind parents accompanying us!  When we arrived we were greeted by Rita from The NZ Heart Foundation.  She sent us off in our groups to be food detectives.  We tried to find an everyday food and an occasional food in every category, which ranged from drinks to snacks.  It was quite hard finding snacks that fit the criteria.

Below is a video clip of Jade sharing what's she's up to at New World.  She's an awesome teacher and she certainly knows what she's talking about!  Good on you Jade.

IMG_8244 from Fleur Harpur on Vimeo.





Here are some others snaps from our trip.

Which bread is the healthiest?

I wonder if those Pringles are going to be an everyday item!!

This is Rita working with some children in the snacks aisle.

Maya is looking for a rainbow of colours in the fruits and vegetables section.

What are you holding Charlotte and what does it taste like?

Working hard team, keep it up!

Healthy Living

On Monday we had Rita from the Heart Foundation come in and chat with us about the Healthy Food Pyramid.  We learned so many amazing new things.

We learned ...

Fibre does three things.  It cleans out our intestine (can you believe this is 12 metres long!), it fills us up and it makes things easier to go to the toilet.

Vitamin A helps us see better (orange foods).

We need to eat 5 plus handfuls of fruit and vegetables a day.

Carbohydrates give us energy.

Vitamin C, keeps us well and helps heal our scrapes and injuries.

We only have until we are 25 years old to build strong healthy bones (sorry Mums and Dads it's all about us).

Iron keeps us alert and awake

These are just some of the things we learned.

Today we looked at what's in our food.  There is far more sugar than we realised.  Mrs Donnelly Greep was amazed at how much sugar their was in the drink, Lemon Lime and Bitters.  Infact for it's size it's worse than coca cola! Wow!

Make sure you check out the amazing display in the office area.  It may shock you what's in the food we eat.

This Thursday we're heading to the supermarket to be food detectives and learn more about ways to keep healthy with what we eat.  We are going rain or shine so fingers crossed for sunny weather.  Might be wise to throw in a raincoat just incase!

Kiwi Kids Tryathalon

Below are some quick snaps that I took today at the Kiwi Kids Tryathalon.  They're not brilliant as everytime I tried to take a photo the children kept moving ... but I guess that's the whole point!!  Anyway,  I know they'll give you a taste for what this event is all about and that's getting out there and trying something new.

It certainly ties in nicely with our, 'Together We Grow' topic which is all about developing healthy practices.  Finding time to be physically active can be tricky especially with life getting so busy so it's great to see Sanitarium sponsoring this event and really making an effort to help Kiwi Kids get healthy!

Kiwikids Tryathalon - Kizoa Online Movie Maker

Who deserves a pot of flowers?

A few weeks ago we decided to think about someone who we thought deserved a pot of flowers.  We created some flower art and wrote a note to them telling them why we thought they deserved a pot of flowers. (They'll be coming home soon.)

 Mrs Harpur's daughters Lily and Neve read through all the notes and decided on four they thought were pretty special.  These were the four winners below, they were able to give their special people a real pot of flowers.  Well done Vinny, Joel, Mason and Hadlee.

Who did you write the note for?  Why did you think they deserved a pot of flowers?

I wrote my note to Lee Burke because she put flowers around the school, I think that it's hard work and it's nice :). By Joel

I wrote my note to my Great Grandma because she is getting really old now and she's taking care of me and my brother lots so I thought she really deserved a pot of flowers.  By the way she thought it was really nice that I got them for her and she had a really big smile on her face.  By Mason.

I wrote my letter to my Nana because she's nice and caring and she feeds me well!  She thought the flowers were beautiful and she said, 'thank you! and wow!'  By Hadlee

I wrote my letter to my sister Sammy because she is kind, caring and she is very smart.  She helps me a lot even though she's only 5.  She said thank you for the flowers when I gave them to her.  By Vinny.

Perspective Art - a challenge for you all...

For Art this term we are looking at perspective.  We saw some amazing photos on the internet showing different perspectives.  Some of them were mind blowing and many made us laugh.  They certainly got us thinking that's for sure.  To see these photos have a look at this link:  Perspective Photos

We decided as a class that we would have a go at creating our own perspective photos.  Hope you like the ones below.  Our challenge to you and your families is to try and create your own and send them to us!

This giant foot came from no-where.  Watch our Harakeke!

One big blow and we all fell over!

Mrs Harpur's so strong ...    :)