WRITING - MY TRIP TO ITALY

I just landed in an airport in Italy.  I was on my way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa but I saw a shop with stuff from Leonardo da Vinci.  I spotted his catapult that was 50 Euro.  I bought it.  I said "Thanks" to the shopkeeper and to my surprise it was Leonardo da Vinci.  A few hours later I was at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

By Oliver H

In Italy I am going out for dinner and going to have pizza at a restaurant.  There pizza is yummy.  I like to stay in Italy.  Italy is a very big place.  Now I am going to Rome.  Now I am in Rome it is a very big place and it is night.  I am getting hungry.  Now I am going to a restaurant in Sicily for dinner.  I am having pizza.

By Skylah 

One sunny day I flew to Italy.  While I was flying to Italy I looked down and saw a country that was shaped like  boot.  Then I realised I was landing on the country shaped like a boot.  Phew!  I thought i was in the wrong plane.  Then I saw the Italy flag.  When I got to Italy it was nearly dinner time.  Then I went to the concert to see Pavarotti singing.  While he was singing there was folk dancing.  After the concert I went to the pizza shop and got cheese pizza.  It was delicious!

By Mika

Today we're going to the Tower of Pisa.  I got a pizza and I got a car.  It was an electric car.  I am going to bed.  It's morning.  Time for breakfast.  Yum!  Yum!  Time to go out and spend some Euro on pizza.  Oh so good!  "What have you been eating?" said Mum. "Pizza?" "Si" I said.

By Quinn G 

One day I went to Italy.  I said "I wonder what to do".  Suddenly I had it.  "I'll go get pizza".  So i went to the pizza shop.  I bought 2 pizza boxes.  When I was done I went to see Pavarotti at the Opera.  I loved the music.  It was very fancy.  I loved it.

By Keira.

Today we are going to Italy.  First we are going to drive to Wellington, then we are going on a plane to Italy.  The next day is here.  We're in Italy.  Yay!  Me and my family doesn't know what we are doing.  I said to my dad "I'm feeling hungry".  "Then let's get some pizza".   But my sister and my mum said "No".  But my dad did not know what that means.  Then we had a vote.  Boys verses girls.  In the vote i started crying because i knew the girls will win.  At the hotel we went and had alot of pizza ad pasts.  We went to our hotel room.  We watched TV.  On TV we watched the news.  One of the people on the news said Italy is shaped like a boot.  I said "Whaaaattt?  That is strange.  Now can we go to the  two islands?"  "Ok" replied dad.  A thte two islands we went to  concert.  WE saw Pavarotti and folk dancing.

By Kaito

LETTERS TO RAPUNZEL

Some of us wrote letters back to Rapunzel...


Dear Rapunzel

Thank you for your letter.  We made inventions to get you safely down from your tower.  We hope the evil witch is not bothering you.  We just love your paintings.  They are as pretty as a butterfly.  You pet Pascalle is cute.

From Charlie


Dear Rapunzel

Thank you for the letter.  Everyone was excited to help you.  My group did a pole.  You need paper but I think you should use iron.  If you hold tight, you will go down slowly.  I think you will be happy to feel grass again on your toes.

From Ava T

DRAMA - THE 3 BILLY GOATS GRUFF

Congratulations and thank you to Holly for creating a wonderful play for us today.  Take a look at these very COMPETENT actors from Piako Rua.  Well done!

READING - ITALY

Over the term Mrs Kenyon's literacy group is going to be learning about a variety of countries.  The children have chosen a great selection of countries.

Today we started learning about Italy.

 

This is what we've learnt so far:

• Italy is shaped like a boot.
• They have two island Sicily and Sardinia.
• Rome is the capital.
• They speak Italian.
• They eat lots of pizza.
• They do folk dancing.
• The currency is Euro.

We even watched the famous Pavarotti and some Italian Folk Dancing.

MAKE IT MONDAY - RESCUING RAPUNZEL

You will NEVER guess what happened today!  We got a letter from Rapunzel asking us for help!

How could we say no to Rapunzel?  She needed our help!  We said YES, we would LOVE to help!

First we had to WONDER about all the things we needed to know before we could get started helping Rapunzel.  We came up with lots of questions like...

• How tall is a metre?
• How can we make our invention move slowly?
• What safety features can we add in to our invention?
• How could we make our invention creative?

After we had brainstormed all our ideas and questions, we went into Wonderland to EXPLORE.  There were lots of activities set up so we could find out about time, length and more about Rapunzel.

Some of us put on puppet shows of the story of Rapunzel,

We learnt how to tell the time and to decide if something was fast or slow. 

We practised drawing the hands on clocks.

Look how busy we are interacting with our friends and learning new things!

One of the activities we could do during EXPLORE was to design a Princess Dress.  

We loved this activity!

Mrs Lunn printed out a story of Rapunzel.  She was a bit cheeky and mixed all the pages up!  We had to read the pages and put it back in the right order.

The kids played a game where they had to draw the hands on clocks.  We are getting pretty good at remembering that when it is something o'clock, the long minute hand touches the number 12.

Once we thought we had learnt everything we needed, we check-pointed ourselves to see if we were ready to go ACT.

During the ACT stage we drew plans of what we thought we would make to rescue Rapunzel.  Then it was time to make (we actually love that part the best)

 There were all sorts of solutions to Rapunzel's problem.  We made escalators, elevators, slides,  stairs, tunnels, ramps and Royce even made a plane for the Prince to fly up and rescue Rapunzel!

Ryla made some lovely clothing options for Rapunzel.

The boys were so hard to create their invention.

Oliver H and his group decided to act out the story of Rapunzel, the one that they had put in the right order from EXPLORE.  Mrs Lunn helped Oliver made a lovely Rapunzel wig.

After Mika finished with his group, he helped Mrs Lunn make a 1 metre tall tower for Rapunzel.  We needed this to see if we met the success criteria during the REFLECT part of the process.

We each got a chance to share our inventions with the class.  We were able to shared what we had made, how we had made it and whether or not it had met the success criteria.

  Mika was very helpful checking if it was the right height.

The boys shared their play with us...

 Rapunzel told us that she would look on the blog to see our ideas.  We hope you find something useful Rapunzel!

Love from Piako Rua

PIAKO RUA TOHUNGA

As you probably have seen, we earn pins in our Nga Matapono beliefs:  Self Manager, Creative, Competent and Effective Communicator.

Once we have reached Gold, we get a pin to put on the Rocket.  When we need to move our pin that is already on Gold, we move our Rocket pin instead and earn Jewels as we go up each level. 

EVENTUALLY we reach the Piako Rua symbol.  This is when  we become a TOHUNGA - a treasure. 

Mrs Lunn made the kids a special lanyard to wear to show that they are our Tohunga - they are experts in at least one of our Nga Matapono beliefs.

So if you ever need any help in Piako Rua, these are the kids to ask!

Welcome to Term Four

Kia ora whanau

With the end of the holidays in sight, I thought I would sent a quick email so you know what we will be getting up to this term.

We will be continuing with Make it Monday Challenges. We would really appreciate you sending along your boxes, tubes, containers and other bits and pieces on Mondays, so that the children can re use them.

We have Athletics Sports Day at Massey on the 21st of November. We will be training at school each day, so we would really appreciate you sending your child in suitable footwear for running.

In Maths for the first few weeks, we will be learning about Time and Temperature. You might like to watch the weather on TV with your child as this is a great way to help them learn about temperature. After that, we will me moving on to learn about Money.

We look forward to seeing you all on Monday.

Warmest wishes
Jo Lunn