Finishing term 3 with a smile!

Hello to our blogging friends!

Today marks the last day of term 3 for schools in New Zealand. We made it! We have spent just under 7 weeks of school online this term (6 weeks and 4 days to be exact). That's 34 days of online learning!

 Well done to all the awesome learners who made the effort to attend (I know some days it was a struggle to get out of bed!) and a special thank you to those learners who had their cameras on! It was lovely to see you all each day (even if we do all need haircuts!😆) 

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, Paterson Class used Jamboard to brainstorm some ideas of how to be kind to others in our bubble, when we're online and what we could do once we move to alert level 2. It's a timely reminder for all of us as we continue with the lockdown in Auckland. There are some EXCELLENT suggestions here and so I challenge you to pick one and see if you can brighten someone's day!

Wishing everyone a well deserved break over the holidays. I'm keeping my fingers crossed we head down to level 2 so we can see everyone back at school for the start of term 4! 

Be kind to yourself and to others! See you next term!

Would you rather be...

 Kia ora bloggers,

The Delta variant of COVID-19 has hit New Zealand so we're in currently in lockdown and learning from home. 

Today's writing task is to share your opinion and explain WHY you have that opinion.

Our blog ponder for today is: Would you rather be...

Leave a comment below explaining which one you'd rather be. Remember to expand on your ideas by telling us why you'd prefer to be giant sized or ant sized!

Ako Hiko Poetry Slam!

 Namaste bloggers!

This week Phil has been hosting the Ako Hiko Poetry Slam! 

In class, we looked at Haikus and Kennings poems. Here are a couple of poems that some of our students wrote. You can check out Salote, Mina and Nasteho's poetry slam submissions by click on their blogs. 

We really enjoyed creating these poems - can you guess what animals or seasons our poems are about? We'd love to read your poems that you've created, so please leave us one in the comments below!

Rumble, rumble, rumble... BOOM!

 Hi fellow bloggers!

Another day of distance learning complete! We had a fantastic turn out at our google meet this morning and we looked at incorporating onomatopoeia into our writing task today. The challenge was to use some adjectives, WOW words and onomatopoeia to describe what it would be like if you were caught in a thunderstorm. There was also an extra challenge to include a simile or a metaphor!

Below is some fantastic writing from our Year 4 students:

I was sleeping in my bed  then suddenly I heard a kaboom. A lightning bolt cracked above my house then my bed started to rumble. I was terrified! My sister got a fright and screamed. Things crashed to the ground. It was so frightening. The window was left open and things were flying around the room like a tornado because of the howling wind and the rain was splashing so hard that I thought our roof was going to break.

- Written by Axel

I knew there was gonna be a storm today but since I had to pick up my kid and had NO car I had to walk. I could not take a bus because they were all full. The rain started to rumble. Rain turned into a storm then I heard a big BOOM! Then there was CRASH of the rain, into the puddles I went. Splish splash went the HUGE puddles. I could hear the PING SHING of rain falling on poles and water dripping onto peoples balconies. Finally I got to my baby and then… what happened next, well that's another story.

- Written by Karolina

When I was playing outside it was sunny, then it turned grey clouds really fast and then I got scared when I heard a loud rumble. Then boom the raindrops were falling hard on me pinging it hurts ouch. I went under shelter. I looked up and saw the flashing lights come down from the sky and made a loud bang sound. I got scared and ran inside.

- Written by Layla

As I was walking to school I heard a loud BOOM in the distance. Then a BANG came next. I could hear the pitter-patter of rain coming so I started to run. Splash went my feet as they hit the puddles. I was running so fast that I almost went CRASH in to my classroom door.

- Written by Mila

Can you think of any other onomatopoeia words that we could use when we are describing a thunderstorm? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Unpacking the Kawa of Care

 Talofa lava!

We're currently on day 3 of distance learning and we all have devices at home this time! Some students only received them on Monday so they've been thrown into the deep end and have been learning about the Kawa of Care at home. 

It's been super awesome to see the Year 4 students be able to learn how to use a chromebook and google drive so quickly. (They must have had some AMAZING teachers last year!) 

For our learning today everyone chose one rule from the Kawa of Care and created a google drawing about it. The challenge was to unpack what the rule meant and insert images that matched what they had written. Below are two fantastic examples created by Year 4's from Paterson Class. If you want to check out what the Year 5's and 6's created you can have a look at their blogs over here ➡️

Created by Axel

Created by Mila

What rule do you think is the easiest to follow from the Kawa of Care and which one is the hardest?  Is there some other advice you could give to help people look after their chromebooks? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a comment below!

We are... Paterson Class!

 Kia ora world!

This year we've had a bunch of awesome Year 4 students step up from the junior school to become part of our amazing class. We've kept ALL the original Tuffery Class students from 2020 (with the exception of our Year 6's). We've also had a couple of new additions with Akram joining from Pule Class, Martha joining from Wesley Primary and Marcus who is new to New Zealand! 

We had the option to remain as Tuffery Class, but we chose to come up with a new class name to celebrate all our wonderful new additions. We are now known as Paterson Class, named after NZ artist Reuben Paterson!  Paterson’s artworks are influenced by his Māori and Scottish ancestry. He is most famous for his large-scale glitter paintings and draws his inspiration from koru and kowhaiwhai designs combined with optical illusion art. 

Check out our new team for 2021!