Video of our Great Cathedral

Hi Everyone!
There is a video of our Great Cathedral Assembly, unfortunately it is far too large to get onto utube and the blog but if you would like to see the video please bring a USB stick into school and Mrs Stewart will copy it onto that for you!

If it is too difficult for you to do this, this year please bring it in at the beginning of 2012 and it can be done then!

OUR GREAT, GRAND CATHEDRAL ASSEMBLY!

Yesterday we had an assembly to reveal our Great Grand Cathedral, we had Dean Peter Beck, Mr Craig Dixon from the Cathedral and Mayor Kelvin Coe with us to celebrate!
Here are some photos of our assembly

Alara's Letter to John Key

Dear Mr John Key, I am Alara and I am emailing you here from Rolleston in Christchurch on behalf of my classroom at Rolleston Primary School. About a month after the Feburary earthquake our classroom wanted to do our part to help Christchurch. This was when our journey started. Our learning system was called Reggio. This is when we chose a Subtopic that we where interested in. Our classrooms main topic was Natural Disasters. Some of us chose to study the Pacific Ring of fire. Others were interested in the Japan disaster. Some people did a project on predicting earthquakes and the plates under the ground. But the biggest group was the Christchurch group. Some of the group wanted to research the damage of christchurch and some of us wanted to do the rebuild. We did one school term of research and then we had to start deciding what our project was going to be. When it came to that, the Damage of Christchurch group had major troubles; how do you make something that resolves and fixes the damage of Christchurch? They thought and thought and thought and in the end the Rebuild group and the Damaged Christchurch group would join together to both make a BRAND NEW Cathedral for our city! With the knowledge of the Damaged Cathedral group and the Rebuild Cathedral group we could possibly make the best model cathedral in all of New Zealand. Some of our best pieces of research were that wood and steel were the best remedy for building a strong structure. On the very last week of term we would get a wriggle on; We started to make a Cardboard cathedral. Our base was about a 2.3 x 2.3 square piece of cardboard. We made walls for it and we had very daintily stuck them onto the base but that was when disaster struck. Somebody leant and fell back on one of the walls we hadn't fully secured yet. Then we thought, How are we going to get this out of this classroom? Since our journey was still young and our model Cathedral was still reasonably small we thought we could still get it out of the class room. We thought wrong. We got the Cathedral totally squished and thats when we took a step back from our creation and we decided to get some parent help as our teacher, Mrs Stewart couldn't help us and the other projects all at the same time. One of the children in our class offered to see if their Father could come in to help out and give us a little bit of advice. Mr Tikey took the offer up before you could say "We can do it!". Once he came everybody started working harder than ever! With his help we had to make the biggest decision ever; Are we going to get rid of the Cardboard cathedral? The reason we had to do this was; 1) Mr Tikey had bought some ULTRA strong polystyrene that we didn't know what to do with and that would be perfect to build a whole cathedral with. 2) Once we had carried the massive cathedral through the door it had been squashed so badly that we couldn't fix it. We all had a major descusion and in the end some said that if we were going to spend all year making this we had better make it good. Others said this is what makes us come to school every day and we want it to be the best creation we have ever made and maybe one of the last creations we will ever make in 2011. With that we pulled down the cathedral and had our minds set on a new cathedral that people will come from miles around to see. We slotted the pieces of polystyrene and got to work. Now, thats all we want to tell you. The reason my classroom, 8B7, is emailing you today is because we want to ask you a big favor. On Monday the 5th of December 2011 we are having a major assembly to reveal Our Great Grand Cathedral. We have so far invited the Dean Peter Beck, Christchurch press to do a story on it, 3 News to report, TVNZ to report, Bob Parker and a few other people that provided us with a few things along the way. Another reason for coming to our Great Grand reveal for our Cathedral would be that you can hear the rest of the story and look at a Cathedral that our whole school thinks is one of the most amazing things that you could ever imagine from 26 Year 6 pupils. We hope you could consider this A.S.A.P. If you could contact us us on topdecklearners@gmail.com Yours sincerly, Alara

The Heart of the Matter - Reggio Discussion

Lochlan started the discussion by saying... "We shouldn't have a broken heart, cause it's a new cathedral."
The conversation continued...
Oscar: Hearts were broken because of the earthquake but now they are
not cause the cathedral is new. What if you missed the words?
Travis: the broken one will make people sad.
Laura: I think its fine, maybe we could change the words to we did fix
this.
Zane: I don’t know why we need a heart.
Alara: We would put something along the lines of kia kaha let’s build our new city together. I saw that in the
red zone.
Zane: What will we do then cause we have fixed the thing.
Laura: I don’t think its fair on Natasha. She spent ages on the broken heart.
Molly: We can keep the broken heart & have a picture of the old cathedral above it.
Josh: With the broken heart we are stuck in the past.
Molly: Don’t you want to remember though?
Josh: Yes cause its been there for years.
Travis & Conner: Its life move on...
Josh: we could have a full heart.
Oscar: maybe on one wall we could have one broken heart and the old cathedral but then on the other wall we
could have a full heart
Natasha: Put the whole one on the wall rather than painting another one.
Emily: You could have one half full and one half crushed.
Zane: you could put it around the rose window.
Oscar: that would look weird
Alara: Emily’s idea is good but you don’t want to forget the past.
Josh: But we are not talking about the earthquake it’s about the cathedral.
Oscar: We need to say kia kaha because we don’t know what we will go through in the future.
Zane: maybe we should start now!
Oscar: Maybe we should draw up idea’s on the board and put names under the idea’s we want and have a vote.
6 children go to the whiteboard and get started.

"

Hearts for Christchurch

Hearts for Christchurch.

I love the new fresh feeling of children singing and dancing to my choir and organs. Sing songing to the squeals of laughter, prayers of happiness and my world back to the way it used to be but only better this time.

I was crumbling, all lonely and weeping to the ghostly sounds of the fading city all around me. The lights of hope slowly fight their way through to become part of what Christchurch used to be. I was sneezing the dust of my broken city that must and would be fixed.

The earthquake alarmed me, hearing the curdling cries of death and panic and the clouds of dust invading my worried city.

My eyes were blinded by the unbelievable loss of my soul mates, friends and family. It was bringing me down. I could be restored but there would always be a lonely ache in my heart for the loss that can never be replaced.

Already, the ground beneath me feels stronger. I thought my tradesmen would take longer to do their necessary repairs- but no- just like you and I, they felt the time was right to restore our city’s heart.

Our grand museum trip!!!

It was the best day ever for a class trip to the Canterbury museum!It was the sunniest morning with no wind at all!It was perfect!

Our class, 8b7, drove to the museum with help from some of our parents and grandparents!In front of the museum there was some amazing photos of all around the world!There we had some morning tea!We also saw there was a window similar to the rose window on the front of the museum too!

Once we finished our morning tea, we silently crept into the museum and we were taught about photographers and how to take portrait pictures with our camera that they gave to us to borrow.We were taught by a lady who's nickname was 'Whea'.We took portraits of each other and she printed them out for us.She also talked to us about Brian Brake (photographer) and focusing with a camera and also the lighting. The reason for this was because we wanted to take good photos of our Cathedral building.

After the lesson was over, we had a walk through the Botanical gardens.We saw the peacock gardens and the beautiful flowers. Near by the playground we ate lunch.

Then we got a choice of staying and having the look around in the gardens or going and having a look around in the museum.My group and I chose to look around in the museum.We all had a go on the horse and the bike with the big front wheel!We had lots of fun, we even pretended to be a mummy!

At 1:30pm when we all finished looking around, Mrs Stewart called us in and we walked in groups up to the gates in front of the Cathedral.We couldnt see the Cathedral too well because of a red dome blocking it but i could see a huge hole in the Cathedral and it was very upsetting.We got a class photo and got back to school.It was a fun, wonderful and awesome class trip to the museum!

Mr Dixon

Mr Dixon came in to help us with our Reggio by giving us information about the old Cathedral, which we all found very exciting. He also gave us the plans for the new cardboard Cathedral and about where the new cardboard Cathedral will be. Mr Dixon knew all this because he works at the Cathedral as the marketing and development manager. He helped us make a wooden effect for the model of the new cathedral we are making by painting the cardboard a dark brown colour, waiting until it dries and then painting over in a lighter colour and while it is still wet get a pencil or the tip of a paintbrush and make little lines going over the place to make it look like good wood instead of just plain brown! Mr Dixon has been very helpful and we hope to talk to him again.
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Christchurch Rap by Scribe

Some Photos of Our Reggio Project - The New Cathedral (and also some of our Ring of Fire Project)

Newspaper Link

A number of children would like to focus on Non-Fiction reading for their goal this term, here is a link with some great articles for you to read and discuss with your family



http://www.dogonews.com/

Homelearning Term 3

POHUTUKAWA HOME LEARNING TERM 3 2011
The smarts are the different ways in which children learn. This homework helps to develop the smarts children have strengths in and those they need to develop.
This term you are to choose 1 activity from each of the Smarts, and then complete 3 other activities of your choice. Remember to do your maths, spelling and reading and that they are signed off each week.  After each activity is completed, write down the activity and a short reflection on how well it went.  You will present your outcomes to your class in wks 5 & 8.

People/Self Smart
Use your self smarts and plan an overseas vacation for yourself.  Design and write your own postcards to friends and family back home.  Don’t forget to describe the sights and all the activities you are doing!
  Find a picture of a house in a magazine or book.  Label the features, and create a list of 10 reasons why it would be the perfect house for your family.
Imagine you are old enough to flat with some friends.  Work with your friends to create a list of ‘house rules’ for your flat, and write up a duty roster.

Number/Word Smarts
Choose one letter to the editor from The Press.  Use your word smarts to write a reply (agree or disagree), clearly stating your arguments.
Create 5 sudoku/word find puzzles and ask a classmate to complete.
Design a NEW maths game to help juniors learn their addition and subtraction facts.

Music / Picture Smarts
Choose a photo from the past (Ask your parents) and create a story based on that picture.
Create a ‘hidden objects’ picture - hide various objects in plain sight.  Don’t forget to add a key!
Find an instrumental piece of music from your favourite movie, and find out 10 facts about the song/composer/movie.
Choose a song and re-write the lyrics to it.
Design your own adventure forest on an A3 piece of paper.  Label the features.

Body and Kinesthetic Smarts
Choose two sports and merge to create one new game ie: Socceriscus (Soccer + Discus)  and teach to a group of friends.  Get them to write two sentences on what they thought.
Create a fun game that can be used to help people in wheelchairs exercise.

Nature Smarts
Imagine you are stranded in the wild with nothing but the clothes on your back.  Create a brochure sharing how you would survive.
Build a bird-feeder and record (using pictures/writing) the level of food/attendance of birds every day for one week.

Top Deck Learners News

Dear Parents and Caregivers

As you may be aware the children in 8B7 are undertaking a project looking at rebuilding the Cathedral.
We are making our new Cathedral out of a number of materials including: cardboard, bottles, polystyrene and paper mache.  The children are currently looking for polystyrene for this project, as well as items to enhance our classroom environment such as plants, coloured glass, flowers, cushions, material and vases.  If you are able to provide any of these things the class would greatly appreciate it.  Also if you have skills in stained glass window making, mosaic making, paper mache, sculpture or if you are just keen to join us for a lesson we would love your help! We are having a lot of fun and any assistance would be of huge benefit to the children.

If you are able to help please fill in the slip below and send it along with your child.

Thank you

The Top Deck Learners and Aimee Stewart
_______________________________________________________________________________

Yes I would love to help! Name:____________________________________________________.
I am available in the following ways_________________________________________________.
I am available at these times________________________________________________________.

Reggio Discussions, our work of art

We talked about what a work of art was and how we could turn our cathedral into a work of art

Question: What is a work of art? – the children wonder on this question

Alara:  It’s amazing

Rania: Made by hand

Josh: It’s really artistic

Travis: It’s fancy

Emily T: Something remembered forever

Josh: It is the use of different things, like materials

Zane: It means something, it has a reason for what it is

Natasha: something that has a lot of thought put into it.

Emily T: It is something people can be proud of.

Alex: It takes time to make.

Grace: Something that is shown around the world as a memory.

Emily T: It could be a treasure or something special.

Molly: You need to take the time to make it look real.

Alara: We would put some real things into our cathedral like clay.

Zane: We could make a bottle wall, they do that on grand designs

Alara: On grand designs they use polystyrene to make it strong.

Josh: We need to use the correct colours.

Emily T: We could have a picture of the old cathedral around the walls.

Natasha: We could use pirctures of the old cathedral on the stained glass windows. We could include parts of Christchurch in our design.

Homelearning

POHUTUKAWA HOME LEARNING TERM 2 2011

The smarts are the different ways in which children learn. This homework helps to develop the smarts children have strengths in and those they need to develop.

This term you are to choose 1 activity from each of the Smarts, and then complete 3 other activities of your choice. Remember to do your maths, spelling and reading and that they are signed off each week. After each activity is completed write down the activity and a short reflection on how well it went. You will present your outcomes to your class in wk 5 & 10.

People Smart

Cook 2 dinners for your family. Write down what you cooked and have two family members critique each of your meals.

Choose a different culture to your own, learn how to say three different commands in their language eg hello, how are you and goodbye. Find out what the country celebrates and how it celebrates.

Discuss with parents and do some voluntary work for an organisation eg SPCA or for someone in your neighbourhood.

Music / Picture Smarts

Take photos of your top 5 places in Rolleston and record why they are your favourites.

Make a dance up for your favourite song to perform in front of your class (can work in groups).

Make an instrument from recycled materials.

Draw or paint a piece of classical music as it plays.

Make a garden, bedroom, park etc in a shoe box.

Number/Word Smarts

Complete two science experiments and record what you did, how well did it work, what was the science learning involved?

Complete 5 soduko and glue into your homework book.

Complete 5 crosswords and glue into your homework book.

Body and Kinesthetic Smarts

Develop a two week fitness plan and complete.

Learn to juggle and share with the class.

Learn how to knit and make something to share with the class.

Get creative with wood and nails, bring in your end result to share.

Nature Smarts

Do some gardening for your family or neighbours. At least 1 hour.

Go on a bush walk with your family and take photos and record what you observe.

Make a chart to identify native birds or trees. Take photos or sketch, name specific features and name to bird or tree.

Do something in your community to enhance nature. Eg plant some plants, pick up rubbish on the street, write to the council about lack of rubbish bins.

8 Block Closure, Learning for Top Decklearners on Studyladder

Dear Parents and Caregivers

As you will be aware, the 8 Block will be closed again on Thursday 16 June. My suggestion to caregivers and children is that the children use Studyladder on this day to practise many of the skills that we have recently been learning in class. I have updated our Studyladder today and the link to this and other educational websites are down the right hand sidebar of our blog, so there are tasks everyone!! Mackenzie is currently our class winner on Studyladder, as she has a Bronze Medal, well done Mackenzie!!

Stay safe everyone

Mrs Stewart

A regular school team

In a school there are a number of people who help run the school easily with no glitches along the way.

At school there are many people who help so here are a few and one of which is a principal Mr Morall. Mr Morall is nearly and almost the heart of the school. He is the one who does the news letters, arranging guests to come to the school and he is the one you go to if you get in really big trouble!

Another person is Mrs Tucker who is a Financial Controller and she is the one who is in charge of all the money and some of the notices.

Mr Treeweak is in charge of many many jobs so we have to heartfully respect him. He is the caretaker, the rugby coach, and a main role of a school.

The teachers and the children are the ones who bring it all to life. The teachers have all this knowledge stored up in their brains ready to teach the children.

A whole bunch of people are the ones that make a miracle school and miracle people live life to the full extent.

Reggio Discussions

We have been discussing a number of interesting ideas during our Reggio time!!
Mrs S has documented some of the things we have been saying, we are then going to highlight the bits of our conversations that are relevant to help us plan our next steps for our project. See the pages opposite to view some of the great conversations we have been having!!

Multiplication

Flash Games for Kids

Flash Games for Kids

September Earthquake

It was 4.35am and I was fast asleep then all of a sudden my bed started shaking.I was still half asleep and then I realised it was a earthquake. I started screaming and then my dad picked me up and cared me to the door frame. when I got to the door frame,the earthquake had finished and I saw my mum at the door frame with my sister under her door frame. We all stood under the door frame for about an hour while still having aftershocks. My mum and dad went to get a torch and we stood for another 15 minutes still under the door frames with our touches. We all went into mum and dads room to sleep.when we woke up we went to have a look at the damage. were broken pieces of glass off mums vases that her gran gave her. we went to have a look in the in the the pantry and we couldn't even open the door because everything had fallen on the floor -what a mess with food broken crockery and it smelt. there was a shelf in the in the garage and it had buckets of paint and it fell on dads truck.luckily only one bucket opened but there were lots of dints on dads truck. Later on that Saturday Natalie my friend came around with her dad.her dad spread chicken manure on our paddocks in a big. Natalie and I were talking nonstop about the earthquake we still had no power and they said we were going to have another big aftershock so we packed up including our dogs and left for Ashburton to stay with our Nana.

Tekon-tustle-toor

Today while I was slowly nevertheless carefully creeping up the steep rock about two metres away from the top of Jelly mountain, something pounced at me and all these thoughts suddenly rushed through my brainy head and, honestly, I thought I was going to die! the creature slowly eased away from me as I eased away from him, terrified. Meanwhile the strange mammal was smiling at me from ear to ear and thats when I realised it was not smiling at me, it was smiling at Maria's dairy which I happened to be holding at the time.

It must have thought I knew Maria because it suddenly did the strangest thing.I held out the diary thus it was in the creature's reach and it took the book by its mouth, put it on the ground, later that moment it came and amusingly fell asleep on my lap.

Thats when I realised the mammal was a Tekon-tustle-toor!The creature was not fierce,it was as calm a an enraged fish!
Therefore when you go to Jelly mountain,DO NOT kill, treasure, these endagered species. What exeptional animals we have got!

Alara

My night on Jelly Mountain

As I slipped out of the back door I felt a twang of sadness as I looked up at the home I had known as a child. But that was behind me now. I tiptoed to the back of the house where my quad bike was kept. I turned the ignition key and the engine started up in a soft low purr. Swinging my leg onto the bike and hauling myself up, I pointed my bike away from the house. Soon I was heading towards the entrance to Jelly Mountain.

Half an hour later I was crawling through the tunnel to the top of Jelly Mountain. As I reached the top I was almost blown over with the force of the wind. It was a very chilly wind and I was only wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. I tried to make a fire but the wind kept blowing it out as it roared around me like a pack of hungry lions. Suddenly I heard a commotion that (surprisingly) was louder than the wind. As I entered the tuatara clearing an amazing sight met my eyes. A young huia was surrounded by the Jelly mountain tuatara and was making an ear splitting racket. I rushed into the clearing, scooped up the little huia, and ran out again. I had completely forgotten about the wind and it nearly blew the tiny bird out of my arms. Suddenly my common sense kicked in. I lowered myself into the pit that I had had to climb up earlier that evening. As I plopped the little huia onto the ground my stomach growled. I pulled a cheese sandwich out of my pocket that I had nicked from the pantry earlier. I sighed and looked at the half-starved animal. He probably needed it more than I did. I held out the sandwich to him. He snatched it from me and began to devour it. I piled some leaves together and lay down. Pretty soon I was asleep.

The next morning I woke up and it looked like it was midday. The sun was blazing and it was extremely hot. I went off in search of food. I found a refreshing looking bush with juicy looking raspberries that were just ripe. When I returned I shared the berries with the huia who I named 'Hu-hu' Later that day I discovered an old well and got some surprisingly fresh water. I made up my mind right that instant to live on Jelly mountain for the rest of my life. Who knows? Maybe, when I'm older, I might write about this adventure. I'll call it: My night on Jelly Mountain....

Red & Black mufti Day

Our mufti Day

On friday 11th march 2011, Rolleston School had a mufti day to raise funds ,for the refugees of christchurch who have lost so much due to the 6.3 earthquake on 22nd Feburary. the organisers of this day would like to say thank you to the people who have made this day about the people of Canterbury who have lost so much. we are proud to say we raised 800 & 52 dollars to help in the re-build of our lovely city.

School Mufti Day

On Friday the 11th of March there was a mufti day to raise money, and collect food for the refugees of Christchurch city. They have lost so much due to the 6.3 Earthquake. Everybody came in Red and Black mufti and brought either:
1. a gold coin donation
2. a non perishable food item (canned food)
3. old school uniform for the city children to use while at our school.

The organisers for this day were
Deena, Caitlin and Charlotte K-S 6B6
Elizabeth 6B3

We were quite impressed when we heard how much we had raised. We raised $852.60.
Mrs Stewart got a photo of us all after assembly and we all looked great in our red and black mufti.

We had lots of canned food and money to give and it was great to have a mufti day to help out.

It was a lovely day and we had great fun. On Friday the 18th of March we have the day off as there is going to be a ceremony held in town to remember those who have passed away in the 6.3 earthquake.

Earthquake, thoughts, feelings and reflections

I think tones and tones of people will be effected by what has happened, lots of buildings and houses will be damaged. People could be trapped in elevators. There has been alot of liquafaction. Families will be devastated if their loved ones have died. I feel sad and sorry for those who had loved ones who had died. I am very grateful that I am safe and I am happy that some people got out.

Christchurch Earthquake

I think... that people in Rolleston are lucky that no one was killed and that we don't have liquifaction out here because we live on rock and that some people are really lucky because even though they were in buildings that collapsed and they have cuts and bruises and had to have their arms and legs cut off that they are really lucky to be alive.

I feel...happy to be alive, but sad for those that were in the CTV building,the cathedral and pine guiness building and other buildings that collapsed and for those that died.

Natural Disasters - Tornado Drinks, a real whiz

In 8B7 we have been learning about cyclones and earthquakes and the power that creates them, which led to tornadoes and other natural disasters . We have made some tornadoes in drink bottles. Look at these pictures we took ...

WELCOME FOR 2011

Welcome to the Top Deck Learner's Blog for 2011

Feel free to have a look around.  Make sure you make yourself familiar with the blogging rules and check out the links to fabulous websites to make your learning even better!

Mrs Stewart