Self-Portraits

Yesterday we created self-portraits.  First we practised drawing ourselves a few times with a pencil.  Miss Ahn timed us each time so we would not focus too much on the details but the whole picture.  We also practised non-stop drawing.  Non-stop drawing is when you draw an entire picture without lifting the pencil until the drawing is finished.  This made our portraits look pretty funny.  For our final copy, we used vivids without drawing a pencil sketch.  It was hard because we could not make any mistakes, but it made us think about our picture on the paper before we started drawing.  Here are the finished products.  Click on the picture to see the larger version of it.  Enjoy!  We are very proud of our portraits.  

Mean, Median, Mode

Today in class we talked about what mean, median and mode are. Then we played some games to help us understand what they are and how to work them out. Here is the game:

Christchurch Earthquake Recounts on Glogster

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at different articles and video clips of the Christchurch Earthquake.  We spent some time thinking about how scary it would have been for the school children during the earthquake.  We imagined ourselves in their shoes and wrote a recount about the earthquake experience.  We published them on an online tool called 'Glogster.'  Please visit the student pages on our wiki to have a look at them. To see the full view version of it, you must put your mouse over the word 'Glogster' and click on 'View Full Size.'

Here is a sample of the recount written by Paige, Kate and Kaitlin:

Travelwise Week

Here are Brooke and Robyn holding up their certificates for Travelwise.  

 

This is our progress chart.

This week our school is participating in Travelwise Week. Everyday of this week, our teacher checks whether each student has walked/biked/scootered to school or took the car to school. We are encouraged to walk to school so that we can prevent pollution in New Zealand, save petrol and to keep ourselves fit. So, this week, everyone in our class is going to try and walk to school and walk home after school. There is a prize for the school with the highest number of walking students. We are going to try hard to win this prize.

Year 5 Blogger in America

Hi Eighteeners! 
I(Miss Ahn) was perusing many student blogs today and came across this fabulous blog by a boy named Isaiah in America.  It's called the Mental Weight.  He is in the fourth grade which means he is the same age as Year 5 students in New Zealand. 

I wanted you to go and have a look at his blog because his blog is a great example of blogging about what you're passionate about.  A blog is like a personal online space for you to share yourself and respond to what's happening around you.  Isaiah has done a very good job of sharing about things that interest him like history, books and current events.  He has shared some very strong opinions about the government.  We don't want to be too negative towards things but showing passion for something always challenges us.

Go and check out the blog and tell me what you think in the comments below! 

Sincerely,
Miss Ahn

Multiple Intelligence

 

Today during topic time, we learned about different learning styles and that people have different ways of learning.  We did a self-assessment of which learning style we all are.  It was quite fun learning about ourselves.  Here are the explanations for each of the intelligences.  In class, we used the word 'wise' instead of 'smart.'

Word Smart:

• I love to read books.
• I like writing stories and poems.
• Word puzzles and games are fun.
• I am good at spelling.
• I enjoy telling news.
• I like learning new words.

Body Smart: 

• I like playing sport
• I find it hard to sit still at my desk.
• Drama is lots of fun.
• I like to know what objects feel like.
• I like making things with my hands.
• I prefer to 'do' rather than watch.

Logic Smart:

• I like to know how things work.
• I love board games like chess.
• I enjoy science experiments.
• I like puzzles that make me think.
• I like trying to solve problems.
• Number games are fun. 

Picture Smart:

• Art is my favourite subject.
• I like to do jigsaw puzzles
• I am good at drawing I can read maps easily.
• I enjoy making models.
• I often have vivid dreams.

 Nature Smart:

• I have a collection of shells, rocks or other natural objects.
• I like to care for animals.
• I enjoy gardening.
• I love to visit museums or zoos.
• I prefer to be outdoors rather than indoors.
• Looking after the environment is important to me. 

Music Smart:

• I like to sing.
• I play, or would like to play, a musical instrument.
• I enjoy listening to music.
• I know lots of songs off by heart.
• I enjoy listening to rhymes/raps.

 People Smart:

• I enjoy team sports.
• I like to work in a group.
• I like sharing my ideas with others.
• I have more than three close friends.
• I find it interesting to meet new people.
• When people around me are happy it makes me feel happy too

Self Smart:

• I do my best schoolwork on my own.
• I often think about what I will do when I grow up.
• Staying home is usually more fun than being in a crowd of people.
• I have one or two close friends.
• I like to think about how I feel.
• I write in a diary in my free time. 

Quality Commenting Continued

After our lesson on quality comments, we tried using what we learned and wrote comments on each others' blogs.  Here are a few examples of our comments.  Do you think these comments achieved all the success critera of a quality comment?  You can find the original posts on our student blog.

We are just beginning bloggers but we are proud of our progress with blogging.  Miss Ahn is also very proud of our achievements.

Quality Commenting

Today we are learning about writing quality comments on blog posts.  Miss Ahn found a fabulous poster and a video created by Year 4 students (Third Grade in America!) about quality commenting.  Are you writing quality comments?

Red and Black Day

Today was a special day for New Zealand.  We declared this day the Red and Black Day to remember all the people who have suffered from the tragic earthquake of last week.  The day is signified by the colours red and black because those are the colours that represent Christchurch.


Our whole school dressed in red and black today to participate in this important event.  We all had to donate some money to go towards the Christchurch relief.  Some of us brought extra money so that we could give more.


At lunchtime, we had many parents and even teachers who brought some of their tasty baked goods to raise money.  We also had the school council organise face painting.  We raised over $3,000.  We are very proud of ourselves today. 

Our principal, Mrs Parr, in red and black

Mrs Wakefield's enthusiastic participation of Red and Black Day

At our school assembly

C for Christchurch!

Maths: Column Graphs

In maths, we are learning about statistics.  Yesterday, we chose a question to survey the class.  We used tally charts to collect the data.  Then we went on the laptops and used an online tool called Create A Graph to create some column graphs to present the data.  Below are a few graphs created by some of us.  

  

Christchurch Earthquake: 2 Minutes of Silence

Today at exactly 12.51pm, the entire country of New Zealand spent two minutes of silence to remember the victims of the Christchurch Earthquake last week.  Today was the one week anniversary of the devastating event.  Before the two minutes of silence, we looked at some posts written by children who experienced the earthquake in Christchurch.  We also looked at some video clips of the city.

During the two minutes, our class put our heads down and sent out prayers and thoughts to everyone who was affected by this tragedy.