Being a good friend

Today I saw saw Zahra and Nathan showing what it means to be inclusive as a friend.  Here they are to talk to you about what makes a good friend:

• They share toys
• They say nice things
• They play together
• They help each other
• They look after each other
• They include other people as well

Hub One Herald - the first ever copy!

Extra, extra, read all about it!

Some of the learners in LH1 have become journalists.

We're very proud to be able to bring you the first ever edition of the Hub One Herald.  We put a lot of time and effort into writing our stories and took awesome 'photographs' of our stories.

What do you think?  Would you like to see the next edition of the Hub One Herald?

Click on the newspaper to read it - once it loads, you'll be able to flick through the different articles... click again to zoom in on the ones you'd like to read.

Easter Egg dyeing

This morning I was exited to come in and see these fabulous pictures of Charlie and his mum making Easter decorations.  Here's a link to come tips on blowing and decorating eggs for Easter... you might like to have a go at home.

Martha Stewart: Egg Dyeing 101

Performing a play (with feedback)

Homophone Matching and Memory

Did you know that some words sound exactly the same, even though they're spelt different and have different meanings?

Mina, Carys and Emily L. have been learning about these words called homophones and started by matching them up in a game... now they're stretching themselves by playing homophone memory!

If you'd like to learn how to play, you might like to ask them to teach you!

Alphabet Search

Emily's been busy making good use of her spare time... she's been building her capacity in literacy!

Would you like to try the same activity at home? Write down all of the letters in the alphabet and see what words you can come up with that start with those letters. Good luck!

Easter time is almost here!

In literacy time we've watched this video about making a ginormous Easter egg.  You might like to play this video with your child and talk about your plans for this Easter weekend.

Remember that we're off school this Friday, Monday and Tuesday.

Home Learning Challenge: Finger Print Pictures and Squishy Bags

My travels on the internet took me to this fabulous blog...

Deceptively Educational

This site has lots of neat ideas and things that you can do at home with your child (though many of them will need to be adapted to suit each individuals needs - the blog is aimed at learners who are a little older than the majority of ours).

This week we have two Home Learning Challenges.  The first of which is to make finger print pictures... by creating creatures, people and things with our finger prints and a pen, you'll be able to springboard into some neat oral language and/or writing with your child.


The second challenge has come through

Mama's Style

Her post gives instructions to allow you to make your own 'squishy bag' out of hair gel, food colouring and glitter... what a fun way for your child to practice their alphabet!

We'd love to see your creations - have fun!

Break Through with LH1 today

 

I played with my people today at Break Through time.  I was imagining things with them.  I think they were playing with each other and me.  By Caleb

I was building with the blocks.  It was hard and fun.  By Angela

This is me and I am playing with the circles.  I was moving them.  There are yellow, green, blue and red circles.  By Kyle

 

We were making a tower out of bricks, like the tower of terror from Rainbows End.  It was hard because some of us kept breaking it down!  We had to work together.  By Devynee and Zhara

 '

I was playing with the girls because we always do numbers.  I like numbers.  I was cheeky, cheeky.  By Nicolas

Assembly tomorrow: Learning to Type & Phonics

We have been learning how to type using Dance Mat Typing on the computers.

It is lots of fun and can be quite hard and stretchy.

Miss Holland helped us to make a video about it for you to watch.  If you come to assembly tomorrow (and you should, if you can!) you might even see us up on the big screen.

Some of the other learners in the hub will be showing off what they've learnt in phonics too.

We'd love to see you at the assembly tomorrow at 9 o'clock!

Independent Learners

Did you know that in Hub One we're becoming leaders?  We've been focusing on saying a lovely goodbye to our mums and dads (and grandpas and everyone) at the door and then popping all of our things away in the morning without help.  There's lots to remember but most of us are doing a great job.

Here we are having a go by ourselves... what independent learners we are!

Hub One are Journalists!

In writing some of our learners have been writing newspaper articles about the things they're good at (like being a good writer, an artist or being a caring friend).  They've all been really focused on their writing... today I caught up with Charlie and he managed to spell an entire line correctly!  He used his knowledge of sounds and his memory to get them all right - Go Charlie!

Haoun and Kate have been showing amazing determination in writing.  They're learning to have a go at writing words using the sounds they know.  We know that it's fine if we don't know how to spell a word because it means we'll be able to learn it together!

Why we love Jump Jam...

The group writing with Miss Holland wrote explaining what they liked most about Jump Jam... here are some of their ideas (though you'll find lots more in their books!)

How do like to stay fit and healthy?

Jump Jam from Sarah Holland on Vimeo.

List words at the Beach!

Joe is such a super star learner that even when he goes to the beach, he is thinking about his list words and his learning!  Here is is to tell you about it:

When I went to Devonport Beach, I practiced my list words with a big stick but it broke but I didn't care because on the other side it wasn't broken.  I used the other side to write my list words.  Some of them were tricky and when I wrote 'Mum' and 'Dad', they were hard.  'Can' and 'the' were quite easy.  Mrs Jackson told me today that she thinks I'm doing great at writing.  She said I was making connections between phonics and my writing.  That makes me feel good and happy!

Cows in the Garden read by Bella, Dinesan, Lily D and Ashlee

We've been busy doing lots of amazing learning here in Hub One!  One of our blue groups have been learning how to read with expression and character voices, and how to know when to use those voices.  They turned this book into a play to practice.

What do you think?

A visit from Maya's Dad!

I wonder who noticed a visit from San Francisco this morning?

Maya's Dad left a message for us all from America!  Do you have family either living overseas or visiting a different country?

Let's keep an eye out to see if we can spot their dots too!

Writing to describe our colour mixing

This week in writing we have been learning how to say sentences to describe our colour mixing. We counted the number of words that we wanted to write. Then we used our list word knowledge to write the words I am. We have begun to make connections between our phonics knowledge to help us hear the sounds in the words painting, mixing and happy.

Santiago and his Awesome Writing!

Satiago has been learnings lots in writing with Mrs Jackson and the other learners.  He was so proud of his learning, that we thought he should pay a visit to Rocky!!

Listen to how he has been building his learning capacity....

Scooter Training today

Today some of us were very lucky to be involved in scooter training!  We all had a great time out there learning more about how to use our scooters safely.  Do you know how to ride a scooter?

Our Amazing Tower!

Look at our amazing tower that we made together in Break Through time.

By Carys, Sadith, George, Flynn and Thomas

Flynn - “It’s huge we are making a tower. It’s like a Sky Tower.”

Sadith - “We could make a window making cameras.”

George - “We are making a video camera to see if there is danger over night.”

Sadith- “This could be the big ball.”

Thomas - “It could be a camera.”

Sadith peers through the windows at Thomas and was laughing.

Dance Mat Typing

Whilst our other fabulous learners are getting their teeth into phonics, Emily L., Carys and Mina have been building their learning capacity in a different way... they've been learning to type on the computer using Dance Mat Typing.

Maya's Gold Star Learning Challenge from home!

Maya's Mum and Dad set her a maths learning challenge.  They asked if she could work out the answer to

14 + 1 - 3

She was really determined and reflected on her learning and her answers and got it right - Go Maya!!

Here's Maya with her thinking:

Creating Electrical Circuits

Over the past few days, Emily has been reading a book called 'Electricity Makes Things Work'.  She showed a lot of determination in reading a scientific text and today we borrowed the electrical gear from LH3 and had a go at marking circuits ourselves.  We had to use diagrams to find the different pieces we needed and we had to follow picture diagrams to put our circuit together.  Then we experimented with making our own circuits and seeing what worked, and what didn't.

Today I learnt that electricity goes in a direction, because when I put the battery in the  wrong way, it didn't work.  When my circuit got really big it went down (the volts on the volt meter) and the light stopped working because it didn't have enough power.  When I made a little circuit, it went bigger (the measurement on the volt meter) and the light was bright.  The red bulb was brighter than the yellow bulb and the green one didn't work at all.  I used a switch to turn the light on and off.  It worked when I pressed down on the switch because it wasn't connected together, until I pressed it, and then it was and the light worked.  When the light is going, it is a closed circuit and when the light is not going, it is a open circuit.   It was exciting making circuits because I could find out about things.   By Emily 

Home Learning Challenge

Your challenge for this week (and it might take longer than that), is to be able to spell and write your first and last name.  If you're able to do both of those things, you might even try writing your middle name if you have one!

You can ask someone at home to help, as they'll be experts at writing their names.

Why do you think it is important that we know and can write our names?

Writing

We used story starters today in writing. Follow the link that we used to create your own made up stories using the starters. What's the funniest one you can find?

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/

We got into groups to share our ideas:

Tomorrow we are going to add more detail to our ideas to make up our sentences. Great new learning!

We Like Writing

When I went to leave for morning tea today, I saw that Dan and Charlie were so focused on their writing, that we just had to share with you what they were doing.  Here they are to tell you about their writing:

We have been concentrating on our writing and we have been learning to write down the sounds that we can hear in words.  It can be tricky but but you can sound it out and be determined.

By Charlie S. and Dan 

Tomorrow they will continue on their writing and we'll update you on their progress!

Here's Charlie's update...

Silas and Bodhi sharing their drumming

Today when we were in the hall, we were lucky enough to hear Silas and Bodhi practicing on the drums.  They have both been spending lots of time practicing and learning how to play new rhythms on the drums.

We gave them some positive feedback.  What do you think of their talents?  What learner qualities do you think they used?

Do you play a musical instrument?  What would you like to play?

Poetry

Each Friday we get into our poetry groups and learn a new poem.  This is something we look forward to!  We've been learning about things like rhyming words and adjectives.

Do you have a favourite poem?

Alex reads to Loeki

Today we were lucky enough to have our big buddies come in - here's Alex sharing a collection of pirate poems with Loeki!

Global Read Aloud Day

Our fabulous friends in Wellington decided to act out one of their favourite picture books for us.  Aren't we lucky!



You might like to ask Mum or Dad (or whoever would like to help you) to visit their website here and say a great big 'thank you' to them and share what you liked most about their acting.

Isn't that a nice thing for them to do for us!

Welcome to the Collaboration Assembly

Hi parents,

It's Ashikka, Isabelle, Lily and Joe here.  This Friday is the collaboration assembly and we are doing the mirror collaborating with each other.  We have been building our learning capacity by talking and copying each other.

This is us practicing:

We would like it if you could see the whole thing on Friday morning.  If you come, you will also see Shayan in assembly.

By Isabelle, Joe, Lily D. and Ashikka

Ashlee at the Beach!

Today in reading time, Ashlee chose to write a book!

She wrote a fabulous story about her time at a beach in Wellington.  It sounds like she really enjoyed her visit there.

What learning do you like to do in your own time?

Using the writing progressions

 Emily L: We used the progressions to help us know what we can do and we highlighted the ones we can do

Kush: I was doing evidence and highlighting the words that I sounded out

Bella: When you say you can do something to someone you have to show them the evidence that you can do it!

Eugene: I was highlighting the words. It helped me to think about  writing

Ashlee: I was highlighting words in my book so that I know which words I highlighted

We talked about the importance of using evidence in our learning and so we made a video to make sure we could show it to anyone who asks!

We love giving and receiving Feedback!

In Learning Hub One we've been talking about feedback.  Here Miss Holland's writing group discusses feedback.

What is feedback?

Why is it useful?

How do you like to get feedback?

Who gives you feedback?

Oral Language

Every Friday the children all get the opportunity to share with their guardian group either some home learning or celebrate an out of school accomplishment, or bring in a favourite toy or treasure. Last week we were learning how to listen actively and we learned what this looked like. This week we had to remember how to listen actively when our friends shared their news.

Over the next few weeks we are going to learn how to ask questions.

Can you remember what you have to do to be an active listener?