Maths Models

This maths addition basic facts site is a good one if you like fashion and dressing up. The idea is that you earn items of clothes and at the end you get a full choice of clothes and hair to dress your model.

Care for the Hamster

This lively pet hamster will keep you company throughout the day. Watch him run on his wheel, drink water, and eat the food you feed him by clicking your mouse. Click the center of the wheel to make him get back on it.

The hamster is in the side bar as well so you don't loose him when this posts sinks to the bottom of the page.

Maths Magician

Here's another great maths basic facts site that I know you will like. You get the pick your level and then you race against the clock. All good fun and learning at the same time.

Garfield Stories

For people who like Garfield here a couple of Garfield Stories to read. To get to them click on the pictures or look on the reading links on the side of this blog.

Skype Call to Bangkok, Thailand

We are learning so much with our Skype calls to far off lands.

Skype Call to Bangkok, Thailand

Another great event we had today was our Skype call with students from the International School of Bangkok. We are getting better at asking a variety of interesting questions. Here is an edited version of our Skype call.

We help children in Hamilton to make Pivot Animations

Today we taught a class at Melville Intermediate, Waikato, how to make a Pivot animation through Skype and Adobe Connect- a screen sharing application. The children could see what was on our computer screen and George and told them what to do through Skype. How cool is that! After the event Mr W, their teacher, sent us this comment......

"I wanted to thank you and your classroom for our wonderful, wonderful learning experience this afternoon. Nick who was shown Pivot was absolutely thrilled with the experience as I was. I have never really considered Skyping with another class but suddenly it seems to be a hugely moving and motivating experience. My students were so excited they could hardly contain themselves! This has been an absolute highlight of the term and a wonderful experience. We can't wait to share our Pivots with you.

Thank you so much for a wonderful 'IT' moment!"

Mr W and Room 8, Melville Intermediate, Hamilton, Waikato.

Caleb Catches A Kingi

In the holidays Dad said how about we go for a night on the boat.
"Okay," we all said and went to pack. We went to D'urville Island. On the first day we just went snorkling and dad went diving. But on the next day it was way more exciting. We went trolling for the big fish. We only caught baracudas. On the way home dad said, "Let's do some trolling". When we were nearly home, when one of the rods screamed. "That sounds like a kingi".
I grabbed the rod and frantically started winding. As the fish got closer and closer it got harder and harder. When we could see it got so hard he was dragging me out of the boat. Then Dad had to take over. Dad had to let out line. After a grunty 10 minute battle we hoisted a 15kg kingi. We were talking so much about the kingi that we didn't notice that we were driving home. Zoe Zach and I were tired when we got home. The cats were there to greet us. We went into our cosey bed.

Around the World in 80 Seconds

I just came across this very cool maths game, Around the World in 80 Seconds, to help you learn your basic maths facts. It a race against the clock to see how many sums you can get right.

Introducing Kieran and his blog

Kieran is now in Year Six but he still likes to visit our blog and recently made a new blog of his own because his old one that he made when he was in Year Four was getting a bit cluttered. Kieran is managing his blog himself. I am sure he would love to get some more dots on his new live clustermap.

George Shows us Pivot

Today George showed us how he made his Pivot animation. Next week we are going to show children at Melville Intermediate how to do the same thing. We will share our computer screen with them and talk with Skype. Allanah has done this sort of thing helping adults before but this will be a first time when she has helped children teach other children in other parts of NZ.
It will be a fun challenge for everyone.

Homework

This week Maisie did a great job of her homework. We are focussing on reading and spelling this week. You can see all the great reading that Maisie did during the week.

St Patrick's Day

This week it was St Patrick's day and I had an Irish concert at the Rutherford rest home. There were only four people doing the dances because the rest were at another concert. The first dance we did was called Four Hand. The second dance was the two big girls dance and the next one after that was the big girls as well. The last one we did was supposed to be the same as the first one but it turned out to be a different one. I was going to go to another one but I did not because it was too late to be out on a school night.

By Emily R

George's Animation

Inspired by Kieran's animation George downloaded the software and taught himself how to create a Pivot animation. This creating things idea is catching on.

This time I added some copywrite free music from Freeplay Music. I think I will have to offer an after school computer club for keen computer enthusiasts.

Today we talked with Sparks, Nevada, USA

Today we chatted to students in Sparks, Nevada. Before the event we have a bit of a look around on Google Earth to fly between New Zealand and the place we are going to connect with. Then we brainstormed anything we know about the country that we are going to connect with. Before our Skype call- not a lot! We then designed fairly open ended questions and sorted out people to ask the questions.

The students told us a little about living in the high desert of Nevada and we sung our National Anthem for them and they sung for us and we learnt heaps.
We have now visited 4% of the world through using the internet.

Next stop Argentina.

Read and Write Your Own Story

One of our reading choice activities in the classroom is reading things on the computer. We enjoy reading and making good choices. Here is a fun reading activity for strong readers.

The idea is that you name your characters and choose where you would like the story to go. I hope you manage to end the story in a good way. If you don't like it you can even re-write the ending.

I Don't Know What To Write!

Today a teacher friend showed me this fun idea to help get you started on writing when you just can't think of what to write about. To get to the site click on the screen grab.
You can either spin the plot levers one by one or go totally random when you click on spin.
After you have chosen the plot you can write a notebook entry, a letter, a newspaper or a postcard.
It sets up a writing template for you and even leaves a space for you to draw your picture. All you have to do then is print it off and share it with everyone.

All very cool and noisy!

How cold is it in British Columbia?

When we were talking to the children in Prince George, British Columbia, we were in awe by how it was snowing there. Their teacher made this Voicethread to show us. It was -31º when they filmed it. Play the Voicehread and leave a comment telling us what you think is happening to the glass of water when it is thrown in the air???

Another animation from Kieran

Kieran's animations are coming thick and fast with the encouragement he is getting through the comments. This one all flew by a little quickly so I took the liberty of slowing it down and adding a sound effect.

Skype Call with students in Canada

Today we had fun with our first Skype call with students in other parts of the world. We talked and learned with students from Prince George, British Columbia, Canada.
We had brainstormed some questions to ask the children and they had done the same for us. It was lots of fun and we learnt from each other. We learnt that it was snowing in Canada and it was yesterday there and they have seen wild bears!!!!

To see the video of of our conversation just push the little arrow on the bottom left of the video player.

AllanahK on Skype if you want to find us.

Kieran's Pivot Animation

If you have been following our blog for a while you may remember Kieran who is now in Year Six. He has just started a new blog and thought he would make a Pivot animation to add to it and asked me to help him. It took a bit of fiddling about as Pivot is a Windows only programme and we have Apples but when there is a will there is a way.

Here is Kieran's animation.

Great work Kieran. I will show you how we can do it at school.

Middle School Swimming Sports

On Thursday the year three and fours went to Wakefield swimming sports.
Here are the the year fours getting ready for the flutter board.
This is the flutter board race up above for year four girls.
Here are Alex and Jemma getting ready for the race.
Kiera is really good at breastroke.
Look at the great way that Keeghan does his backstroke.This is the starfish. Everyone can do a starfish!
Alex swum really well in the noodle relay.

20,000 Views

On the 12 of November, 2005 this blog was born. I never realised when I started where this journey to write on the web might lead us. Over the years we have learned and collaborated with children and classes all over the world. People know that we are here and we have a voice.


These children have all now left Appleby School and many are now in secondary schools. Some still come back and visit from time to time- both virtually and face-to-face.

Camp Gear Checklist

Here is a list of all the things you are going to need to take with you on camp. If you want to get a copy you can print out click here.

Live Cluster Map

Last week just before assembly we were looking at our blog and we saw that there were two other people looking at our blog in other parts of the world at the same time as us. You can tell where people are watching because the little star on the map glows on your part of the world.

There was one person in Africa and another person in the middle of America. It would have been great if they had left us a comment.

Class Camp to Canvastown

On Sunday Allanah, Jenny, Paul and Mr L went to Canvastown to have a good look around the place where we are going have a class camp in week nine. Paul knew lots about the area and we went on a couple of fabulous walks that I know you will love. Here is the view down to the Wakamarina River from the track to the glow-worm walk. It looks magnificent.
Wakamarina is an old gold mining town. Paul taught us how to pan for gold and any gold we find we get to keep. How cool is that! This is an old goldmining mill wheel.
If you are in Moturoa class write a comment on this post telling us how you feel about going on camp to get a golden reward! Remember to write your first name to tell us who you are when you write it.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

We are about to start a chunk of learning about recycling and found a series of videos about the topic which will be good to watch. To see the videos click on the picture or link here.

Portraits

When I was at the conference last week Megan helped the class make these wonderful portraits that I wanted to share before they go up on the wall.

Bread and Honey

We read a book today that was really funny about a little boy who painted a picture and he stopped to show different animals his painting. The elephant wanted it to have a long nose, the crocodile wanted it to have a big mouth.

The story made Allanah think of a very cool website where you can do that for yourself. To get to the web site click on the picture.