It's Book Week!

It's Book Week again at UHPS! This is always one of our favourite times of the year as we have lots of fun opportunities  to read and celebrate books. 

Today we were lucky enough to have Mr. Millett come to our class and teach us about how to write a really good story. He told us about the most important parts of a story and gave us lots of tips and tricks. We're now looking forward to using some of his ideas in our story writing- he certainly got us motivated! Thanks Mr Millett!  

We've got lots of other fun things happening this week including a dust jacket competition, daily quizzes and of course a book parade for GPK day on Friday! I wonder what everyone will dress up as?

Teach me Tuesday- Week 8!

Today we had a great time on "Teach me Tuesday!" Amie started by sharing some great science facts and experiments. Her first experiment demonstrated how air takes up space. 

Her second activity involved the class creating tetrahedrons made out of lollies and tooth picks. These shapes represented the diamond- the strongest shape and structure. It was really cool!
After Amie's awesome science session, Alvin taught us how to say a few phrases in Mandarin, Chinese.
First we learnt to count to 10.

一  yī
二  èr 
三  sān 
四  sì 
五  wǔ
六  liù 
七  qī 
八  bā 
九  jiǔ
十  shí

Next he taught us how to say "Hello, my name is ...." Here we are introducing ourselves in Mandarin.

Charlotte the "Super Enviro-kid" visits the Skyscrapers

Yesterday Charlotte Thomas, aka "Super Enviro-kid" and "Orangutan girl" visited us to tell us about her love for the natural world and her experience in Indonesia visiting an Orangutan wildlife sanctuary. 

It was amazing talk and we were fascinated by her stories, photos and personal artefact collection. Charlotte and her family have become "palm oil free" as a result of her passion for environmental issues, and from finding out about the plight of the orangutans and other animals who are losing their habitat because of palm oil planting and deforestation. 

It was an inspirational talk, and we are all thinking about ways that we can be more palm oil aware in our shopping choices. Here are some photos from the talk with Charlotte.

If you want to see Charlotte and her visit to the Orangutan sanctuary you can watch it on this link from the Sunday programme on TV One.
Charlotte Thomas on Sunday programme

Our sustainability popplet

Room 13 have had really good ideas about being more sustainable. Here's our popplet- can you spot Digi-duck!

Zoo animal recounts

We had such a great time at the zoo. Here are some recounts about the event. See if you can spot our deliberate language choices in our writing.

The Spider Monkeys and Gibbons- By Ruben

Ohhh... the spider monkeys,

Whoosh the spider monkeys were swinging around and around joyfully. They looked like a kangaroo with a sugar rush.The spider monkeys fur looked like a bunch of soft furry dog hair .

I felt happy when I saw the spider monkeys were laughing with joy on their faces.There were so many I could fall over counting all of them.Their tails was long, furry and flexible.

Suddenly, the gibbons started making loud noises using their balloon like voice boxes.The teeth of the gibbons looked sharp and scary. The gibbons looked like Mr twit with his hairy body.

The Cuddly Red Panda- By Millie C

Their soft silky fur was shining in the sun and there eyes were gazing at me.  At first I wanted to take him home because he looked so chubby and cute.  But I knew I couldn’t take him home with me.  He was moving quite fast around the tree, as if he was a spy sneaking around the streets, trying to find the baddy.  He stared at me like a statue then he vanished to another branch to meet his buddy once again.  Soon we had to go, the sun shined on me. I was sad we had to go.

The Pink Butted Monkeys- By Robyn P

Swish, Swish, Swish my feet glided on the smooth path. I opened eyes and saw a rose pink bottom that looked as if it had been

smacked really hard.

A glimpse  of those monkeys teeth and you’d think you are their   prey. But I knew that they could not reach me in distance , although I felt quite scared . As if I knew that they were going to leap over their enclosure and bite me with their threatening teeth.

The baby baboon leaped up to his or her mothers paranoid arms I actually felt more sorry for the mother than the poor little baby baboon who only wanted attention. Just then the mother accidentally pushed her baby and she slipped and fell now I felt more sorry for the baby.

Tweet , tweet, tweet the peaceful little birds sang while they passed my ear. I wondered where they were going in such a rush. 

I decided to follow the littlest bird but I could not run as fast as she could fly. But she was too fast , oh well It was so close to see where she was going.

The baboons yelled in a medium voice. It was kind of freaky. I felt like they were going to leap out again. It was like that scared feeling all over again. "Robyn!" someone yelled. I sadly knew that it was time to go. 

"Bye bye", I whispered  softly.

"Ekk" a baboon whispered as if  he was saying goodbye too.

SunBathing Ottaz
By Daniel M

SPLASH! I heard. 
The fancy otters were diving into the water. While I watched, one otter was chewing the jiggly meat. 

Another otter was sunbathing and twisting and turning. It was funny though they looked joyful. A really funny otter was peeing like a waterfall and it made Saahil and me and laugh.

For a few minutes a stinky fish smell appeared. I thought  Saahil farted but it wasn't him. I asked Saahil if he farted but he shouted NOPE!

Teach me Tuesday Week 6

Today it was Teach me Tuesday again! 

This week Annie and Dan T were our teachers. 

First, Dan taught us everything we needed to know about "Club Penguin". He talked about the website, the characters, the games, the rewards for being a club penguin member and the merchandise that you can buy too. It all looked pretty cool! 

Next, Annie shared her dancing expertise by teaching the class a simple jazz dance. 

 Annie organised us into even groups, and then she taught us a routine to the familiar Jump Jam music "Absolutely everybody!" 
(Notice all the very stylish poses!)

We had heaps of fun, and enjoyed learning from todays experts! Thanks Dan and Annie!

GPK day!

It was GPK day today. We had a great time in our community doing choice activities like board games, ipads, computers and colouring in. Here are some photos of GPK day.

Our trip to the Zoo

Today we went to the Auckland Zoo! We enjoyed exploring the amazing biodiversity over 17 hectares of naturally inspiring habitats. We were also lucky to have a lesson with Su the Zoo educator, who taught us about human impact on the rainforest environment. It was a brilliant day. Thanks to Mr Bull, Mrs Yong and Mrs Takahashi for supporting us on our trip.