Spelling City

On Friday we started spelling homework. We have been learning with Spelling City at school. To use it we start by going to the site and clicking on add five more words so we have ten words to learn.
Enter in the ten words from your spelling notebook. Check that you wrote them in correctly.
Then click on TEACH ME. It will spell out the letters for you. Click the little arrows to the right of the box to move on to the next word.
After you have spent some time learning the words you can click on PLAY A GAME to take you to a heap of games you can play to help you use the words and remember them.
After you think you know your words really well click on TEST ME and see how well you go.
When you are done click on CHECK ME and it will tell you how many you got right. If you got any wrong go back and learn them again. Well done.

Let us know how you got on in the comments.

Swim Advertisements

Today we thought of some quick audio advertisements to get people swimming safely in the water. Press play and turn the speakers up!

Water Safety Voicethread

This time we had more of an idea how to use our strong voices to get our message across.



We would love to hear some feedback from you as well.

Water Safety Voicethread

Today we had the first day of our Swim Week. We looked carefully at the drowning statistics and recorded a Voicethread to share what we had learnt. It is all a bit soft so you will have to listen carefully.

Compound Sentences

Today in writing we are learning how to write brilliant compound sentences. Here are some goodies.....

This week is swim week so I am pretty nervous because it is my first time. Keeley

I want to improve on my backstroke because it's a bit crooked. Zoe S

I am a pretty good freestyler but I am not good at backstroke. Luc

I hope to do my very best but then everyone usually does. Caitlin

I have to have a shower but I don't want to. Summer

Dad went to the North Island while the rest of the family stayed home. Sean

Appleby Tryathlon

In our school Tryathlon we had to block the sheep into our goalpost because they were in the way of where we had our bikes and they sometimes butt us.

Tommy is sprinting as fast as he can.

We had to tag each other after the swim onto the running.

Who pooped!

Allanah showed us this web site based on who pooped. She showed us that web site because some body pooped in the school pool. You have to tell the difference between the ostrich, zebra and giraffe poop. It is quite fun.

Interesting Sentences

Today when we were writing we were looking at making our sentences really interesting by expanding our sentences by adding interesting words and phrases.

I shared this web site above where Joe makes a simple thing like making tea really interesting. Give it a try yourself and see how you go.

Here are a couple of examples that children thought of...

I kept yawning and getting the chords wrong so I decided I need to go back to bed.

I stumbled to the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I could make out the toaster.

Soon he was crunching away like someone popping bubbles.

I go outside into the freezing black night to get the smelly dog biscuits.

Tēnā koe, tēnā kōrua, tēnā koutou

We had more fun than usual in class today as we were learning how to say......

tēnā koe - hello to one person
tēnā kōrua - hello to two people
tēnā koutou - hello to a group of people

We Skyped a class of children in Room 8 at Melville Intermediate and we played peek-a-boo. To play we hid from the camera and then groups of us popped up in front of the camera and if, for example, two Appleby students wanted to say hello they would say, Tēnā kōrua, and if a group of Melville students popped up we would say, Tēnā koutou. It was good fun, we all laughed and practised Te Reo in a meaningful way. Thank you Melville Intermediate.

Our First Podcast of 2010

We are concentrating on making our voices the best that we can. To do that we record ourselves, play it back and discuss how we might improve and then re-record. Here is our first attempt for 2010. It is based on a poem, My Other Jandal' by Don Franks.

My Other Jandal by Don Franks

Have you seen my other jandal?
I had it just before.
It shouldn’t be too hard to find-
It’s somewhere on the shore.
It disappeared all by itself
When I was in the waves,
And that’s the way my other jandal
Usually behaves.

The jandal photo was taken by Michael Fawcett.

If you search for Allanah in the iTunes Store you can see our past podcasts or you can click here to see each podcast individually.

If you subscribe to our podcast you can listen and watch them on your iPod. How cool is that!

Tommy Makes Great Swimming Progress

Tommy has been making great progress with his swimming even just over the last four days- he is putting his head in the water, taking his feet off the ground and kicking like crazy. Isn't he doing well.

Splash City

Swimming is great at Appleby School. We get to swim every day.
We are improving on our swimming. Sharks are trying to keep the water boiling when we kick. Dolphins group are looking to use nice long arms and breathing smoothly.

Keegan's Teck Deck Video

Keegan and his brother, Quinn, made a very cool video in the holidays. Keegan brought it to school on a flash drive to share. It is a great movie but it could not be put on the blog- I will explain why to you, Keegan, when you get to school tomorrow.

We have started

Here we are- Moturoa 2010. We had a brilliant start to the year- I was impressed by how positive and keen the children were in learning new things. There are 24 of us including me and I can see we are going to have a great year as we learn together.