Room 31 Celebrate Queen's Birthday

On Monday we are all having a holiday to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. Today we are all feeling rather royal be wearing our adorable crowns and using wool to make royal bracelets.

Zircus Circus Come to Visit Owairoa

After a week of suspense the school finally found out what the big surprise everyone was talking about was. The whole school waited in anticipation in the hall then finally we found that the circus had come to perform for us. There were amazing contortionists and hilarious clowns. What an awesome start to a Friday!

Kia Ora Everyone!

Mrs Tavita teaches a group of children from Room 31 in the Kapa Haka Group. They Learn lots of different songs and dances and the boys get to do the traditional All Black Haka. They are training to do a performance in front of the school at at a festival later in the year.

By Andrew

Room 31's Crazy Mini-Beast Creations

Room 31 Thanking Incredible Sponsors of Our School

Room 31 were asked to make some wonderful thank you card for those companies that sponsored the new layout of the Owairoa Observer. We really appreciate what they do for our school so we drew some outstanding pictures and tried to use our best presentation skills in their cards. We hope they enjoy them.

We learn from Specialist Teachers

Every week on Wednesday's a special group of kids from Room 31 go to a special language class held by Mrs Wilson. Mrs Wilson teaches us about instructions and tenses and how to write amazing stories. She lets us play games and do puzzles. We have gone to these lessons since we stared school when we were 5.

By Hamza

We Learn Top Quality Values in Room 31

Every Wednesday morning an amazing lady called Lisa comes to teach the children in Room 31 about Christian Living. Every week the Middle School have the opportunity to learn about God's Word and being a good person and being kind to one another. Lisa and the other Christian living teachers give us fun activities to help us learn and we play cool games as well. Lisa is a nurse and she comes in as a volunteer every week. We all love her coming and the fun things we do. We have an awesome time. One important value I have learnt is how to be a good friend, and how to make others feel welcome in the class. I hope we learn lots more.
By Breanna Room 31

A small group in the class have been learning ukulele during lunchtimes with Mr Barrett. He has taught us C, Am, F and G and soon we will learn a Jason Miraz song to perform. We are only a small group at the moment but hope that more students will bring their ukuleles to school for a jam next Tuesday.

Whistle a Merry Tune

Today in Music Miss Hargraves has been trying her best to teach us recorder. We are learning the different notes and the song Mary had a Little Lamb. We know that to get better at anything we have to practice really hard. We look forward to learning new songs in the upcoming lessons.

Awesome New Teacher Comes to NZ!

Hi New Zealand! My name is Kyle Dean Smith and I will be student teaching with Mr. Andrew Barrett at Owairoa Primary for 10 weeks. I am so very excited for this experience and look forward to meeting Room 31 students and working with Owairoa Primary. I am from the United States of America, where I live in the state of Georgia. I attend the University of Georgia where I am majoring in Early Childhood Education. I enjoy singing, writing, and snowskiing in my free time. I am a very dedicated individual and look for every opportunity to grow as a person and also as an educator. I am so blessed with this opportunity and can not wait to make many memories!

Room 31 Gets a Special Visitor

This morning Jacqueline came to visit us in Room 31. She was a student from Mr Barrett's first EVER class back in 2001. She is now 20 years old, which makes Mr Barrett feel REALLY old. She read us a story called Dr Hoof and showed us a photo of her old class with Mr Barrett.

By Kody and Maria

Ni Hao Everyone

Every Friday we learn how to speak Mandarin and about the Chinese Culture. Miss Ge comes and teaches us all the things we need to learn. We are learning about the 12 Zodiac animals and that this year is the year of the Dragon! We also know now, how to count and some greetings in Mandarin.
By Cameron and Liam

Getting a Jumpstart on the Day

On Friday morning Laura and Eshaan got chosen to lead the whole of Team 3 in Jump Jam. They enjoyed getting up in front of all the classes and dancing. We got to dance to all our favourite songs including Shrek Funky Town!

By Laura and Eshaan

Room 31 Flips into Action

Every Thursday over the past 5 weeks we have been learning gymnastics with Miss Whatman, our specialist sport teacher. She teaches us how to do flips on the bar, hang on a rope and do a candlestick on he matted area. We have learnt so much doing gymnastics and can't wait to learn more skills when we are with her again next term.

By Cora

Assessment by Room 31

Here is the second in our series of videos about our learning. This one is about assessment and the different types of assessment we use in Room 31. Assessment in used to find out how where we are on our learning journey and find out our next learning step.
By Heidi

Our Learning Process by Room 31

Room 31 have been discussing their learning and made a video about our learning process. Here is the first video in the Series entitled Clarity... enjoy

Playing Hide and Seek in Science

During Science today we studied camouflage and the way insects use camouflage to protect them from other insects and predators that will eat them. We coloured in insects and played hide and seek with them amongst the bushes, gardens and trees. They were REALLY hard to find.
By Ella

Mr Barrett visits Mission Heights Primary

Mr Barrett took off today at lunch to Mission Heights Primary for a rugby game and was lucky enough to meet Miss Gage the teacher of LZ5. Room 31 were excited to hear that we could work with another Year 3 class from a different school and share each others learning experiences through blogging.

Working Hard for our Environment

We needed some help today to move all the trees we had grown for the Trees for Survival Program. We called on Room 25 to lend us some muscle and moved hundreds of trees on a trailer to be relocated to farms that suffer from erosion. In a few weeks Mr. Barrett will be taking students from the school to go and plant these trees.
By Ayla

Learning Tennis at Owairoa

Lately we have had Ian and John from Howick Tennis Club come and spend time with us teaching us the fundamentals of tennis. We have learnt how to do a forearm stroke and backhand stroke and some warm up exercises to practise at home. If anyone is interested in taking their child to learn tennis Room 31 would recommend going for coaching at Howick Tennis Club.Howick Tennis Club.

By Isabella

Miss Lostetter writes about her time in Room 31

I have spent time as a student teacher at Owairoa Primary School in Room 31 under the guidance of Mr. Barrett since February 20. The opportunity to travel from the United States has been fantastic and I am forever grateful. The staff and students have all been so warm and welcoming, making me feel right at home. The students have been wonderful, whether during instruction or in a conversation at lunch, they remind me each day of the reasons I went into the teaching profession. 

Having spent four weeks in the classroom, I have become familiar with routines and teaching practices taking place each day. In particular, a teaching practice that is most impressive to me is the differentiated instruction in reading and writing. For the last few years, I have been reading and studying about it, but for the first time I am seeing it practised. I feel that this practice will continue with me as a teacher, because the instruction is suitable to the needs of each student and the teacher is able to scaffold the students appropriately.

           

In addition I will take with me the impact of the classroom environment. It has made an impact on me because is it set up to scaffold the students as well as display the work they have completed. It is enjoyable to see that each poster on the wall has an effect on the students, learning. The display of the work also fills the students with excitement to express their accomplishments to their parents each morning.

           

I have truly enjoyed my time here at Owairoa Primary School throughout the last few weeks and am looking forward to the remaining weeks. The time has gone by so quickly, and I have cherished each and every moment. Although it has not been a large amount of time, I have learned so much and am looking to carry it on in a future classroom. I will be saddened when returning to the United States, for Owairoa Primary School has providaed an extraordinary opportunity of a life time!

We Love Play-Doh

In Room 31 at the moment we are learning how to write procedural text. Here we are trying to write, in detail a method and ingredients so that any reader can follow it and have a successful outcome.

We started by making our own recipe for Play-Doh. We researched on the Internet different recipes and modified one to make what we think is the BEST way to make this fun and creative product.

How to Make Perfect Play-Doh, by Room 31,  2012

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups of plain flour
2/3 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 1/3 cups water
Food colouring

Method
1.     Add all the ingredients in a bowl
2.     Stir until the dough is firm
3.     Cut into parts and add food colouring to make different colours
4.     Knead the dough to mix the colour
Store using a container or glad wrap  

Shared Writing on Fitness Trail Opening

Last week on Friday the 11^th May at 1:30pm we attended the grand opening of the Owairoa Fitness Trail. It was a glorious affair and took place on the bottom field of Owairoa Primary. Many people attended including students, PTA members, Board of Trustees personnel, Management and Teachers, even Batwoman and some mysterious clowns were there.

Mr Barrett was the M.C and invited many people to speak to the students about the Fitness Trail and those who had helped fundraise for such an amazing resource for the school. There was the official cutting of the ribbon and unveiling of an official plaque.

The highlight of the event was the race between the students and the teachers. This brought everyone to their feet cheering and clapping for their favourite team. Eventually the students won and were handed gifts by Mrs Steffany, much to the delight of all the students watching.

We all had an amazing time and Team 3 would like to thank the Board of Trustees and PTA for allowing the best school in New Zealand to have the best fitness trail imaginable.

Howick Historical Village Photos

We had an amazing time at the Howick Historical Village learning how early settlers used to live in our area. We were amazed at how the School was set out and the rules that the students AND teachers had!

Photo of the Team!

Room 31 is excited about our new Blog and can't wait to share our new learning with everyone.

Here we go...

Room 31's first Blog Post

After looking at Mission Height's LZ5 Blog Room 31 decided to make their own Blog to share their learning with the World! Please enjoy reading about our learning and our success as we travel on our learning journey.