Cricket for Teach Me Tuesday!

We are nearing the end of out Teach Me Tuesdays for the year! On Tuesday Xavier and Caiden taught us how to play non-
stop cricket. We had a fun game together and enjoyed the winter sunshine too! Here are some photos from our cricket game.

Gymnastics sessions

Last week we started artistic gymnastics sessions with tutors form North Harbour Gymnastics. 

So far we have focussed on landing securely and rotation. Here are some photos of us doing gymnastics.

Dream Giver stories

This term we have been developing our descriptive writing skills by retelling and reworking animated fantasy stories. One of these was "The Dream Giver". (See clip if you want to watch it).
Our writing focus has been to use deliberate language features (strong vocabulary, metaphors, simile, alliteration etc) to enhance the writing. Here are some of our stories...

The Chantico Shadow serpent- By Riley B

One night there was a boy named Zac. He was sleeping in his silky soft bed. One night the old wooden window of his bedroom slowly opened and a little elf-like person fluttered in and landed on the boys bed.

He opened a sack of glowing dream eggs. He carefully cracked the precious golden goose egg over a book about the solar system. The runny honey like liquid soaked into the book. Instantly, the dreaming boy started to dream about floating in space.

In the middle of the dream Zac rolled over and kicked another  golden dream egg. It landed on another book named, “Chantico shadow serpent”. So the exciting space dream turned into a NIGHTMARE!

Now Zac was in an ancient mossy forest. As he explored, he discovered a lost temple that he thought was built from a long ago Aztec culture.

Suddenly, a black shadow monster awoke and began to emerge from the dark temple. It chased Zac to a towering cliff.

The monster looked up and saw a huge droplet of golden egg syrup falling from the sky. It landed on a tiny sprout. The sprout started growing into a huge, thick rope-like vine that trapped the terrifying monster.

Zac, who was still crouching at the end of a deadly cliff watched an elf like dream giver flutter away. He woke up- and was happy that it was just a dream.

The dream Giver- By Robert D

Once on a dark, starry night a tiny bony creature fluttered in the night sky. He was called the dream giver. He crept to an open window. Clutching a bag containing lava glowing eggs, he landed next to a boy in a deep sleep. The dream giver carefully opened the bag and cracked one of the lava glowing eggs. Out came a golden yolk.

The dream giver tipped the yolk onto some baseball cards. The cards were swallowed whole by the shining lava colour. Then out of nowhere flaming baseball players hopped out of the cards. The boy instantly dreamed about baseball as the flaming baseball player spat.

Then the dream giver cracked another lava egg onto a space book. A shining light burst in the darkness of the room. The dreaming boy was now the boy in space.

Then suddenly the astronaut boy shifted and knocked one of the lava eggs over. It landed with a smash on an aztec legend book. Yet again the shining lava swallowed the book whole. Out of nowhere BOOM! a massive spray of purple tendrils came out of the book. It pushed the dream giver away. The dream giver had a look over horror on his face. The tendrils formed a vortex and sucked the boy into the spray of purple. 
A look of horror stretched across the dream givers face. The unknown world was so peaceful with amber butterflies fluttering gracefully. Then the boy looked around and saw ancient god like stone faces. He walked slowly staring around and then he found a temple.

He leant on a little stone statue and broke it. Glowing golden eyes appeared.

Suddenly, a massive thunder roar broke the silence. The boy ran as fast as lightning. The creature was as black as coal. This mysterious creature chased after him with another thunderous roar. They reached a very rocky cliff!

Then out of nowhere magical dream eggs dropped from the sky. Claw-like roots rose from the ground. The creature had one last thunderous roar and then died. The dream giver had saved the dreaming boy.

The Dream Giver- By Ruben S

“Creeeeak!” as the door slowly opened, as an elf like man walked through the door with a bag filled with golden eggs. He flew over to the little girl and took one of the golden eggs, and cracked it open. Inside there was magic golden-like goo dripping into the girls ballet shoe. Then the shoe turned golden and a little golden ballet dancer came out of it and started to dance.

Next the dream giver flew across to a little boy and cracked open another egg. The liquid fell onto his astronaut book and instantly there was a miniature dream astronaut flying above his head.

Again the dream giver flew to the next child and cracked another magical egg on his head. All of a sudden there was a miniature softball pitch and softball players.

However, while the dream giver was preoccupied, one of the sleeping children moved his leg and knocked one of the mysterious eggs off his bed. It fell onto an ancient horror book!

The dream astronaut was floating happily, but suddenly he went tumbling down to the ground into the ancient world. When he got back up, everything looked so beautiful and peaceful. He turned around and there was ancient ruins of aztec kings everywhere. The dreaming boy decided to explore the buildings. He saw a huge temple. So he decided to rest his arm on an ornamental brick.

Suddenly a sleeping monster was disturbed in his cave. He rose and started to chase the little boy. His dream had become a nightmare!

The dream giver had been watching on and he dropped another magical egg into the dream. Giant yolk dropped from the sky and created an earthquake. An enormous tree began to grow and trap the monster, lashing it to the ground. The boy was safe!

He awoke from his sleep, panting and wide eyed to see an elf like man fluttering out the window.

Teach me Tuesday- learning from two cultures!

It was Teach me Tuesday again today. What a success it was. 

To begin, Keita taught us how to say a few basic greetings and words in Japanese. He also taught us how to write these words in "hiragana" (japanese character writing system). We had a lot of fun copying the hiragana and saying the words. Thanks Keita!


Next, Neha taught us about a "Rangoli" which is a folk art from India in which patterns are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards using materials such as coloured rice, dry flour or flower petals. 
It is usually made during Diwali or other Indian festivals. We made our Rangoli patterns on small pieces of card with coloured rice and glue.

We learnt heaps today about your cultures today Keita and Neha! Thanks for sharing with us.

Sewing fun!

We are really enjoying our "Patterns" inquiry and art. So far we have learnt about Patterns in art in the Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman and Medieval periods. We are also nearly finished with our sewing art too. Here's a collage showing one of our sewing sessions. Come and see the finished art in the classroom!

Peace Week thinking

This week our thinking question was: "Where can you find peace?" These are some of our ideas.

Where can you find peace? By Neha C

Peace, peace can be anywhere depending on     

the person himself. If he is a old man who would prefer to curl up on the sofa and eat cookies while drinking hot cocoa and reading a book near the fireplace.

Sometimes for a mother all she wants to do is get away from her naughty children and just going on holiday for once. However, Sometimes for a mother it can be peaceful to just spend time with her children.

Also for a kid peace can be found in not peaceful things like the most  scariest roller coaster. It might unpleasant to adults but kids you never know what's going on in their heads like for me I would ride a roller coaster while drinking strawberry milkshake.

Where can you find peace? by Annie Z
Peace can mean different things to different situations around the world. To me peace is very important because peace is being happy, having no problems or difficult situations or fights. 
In New Zealand it is a very peaceful place, so "peace" can be found here. Peace means not noisy, and peace in families, e.g. no divorce, work and problems with friends, rules and government organisations. In other countries "peace" means no war and less strict rules. 
So as you can see peace means different things in different situations.

Where can you find peace? by Tamzin H
Peace can be found in many places. To me peace can be found on a quiet beach, but some people find peace in other places like in a quiet room or with their family. Other people find peace with nature. Some people find peace on a tropical island like Hawaii. Some people find peace on road trips or on a plane. You can also find peace snorkelling or fishing another place. You can find peace going on a relaxing holiday.

Where can you find peace? by Lukas M
Peace can be found in many places. It can be found in lonely places like if your'e in a bed and you're reading a book quietly with your room locked so you're completely by yourself. 
You can also find peace on your boat by yourself and you're enjoying the view of the golden sand and sea.

Hand Ball for Teach me Tuesday!

We had another successful "Teach me Tuesday" this afternoon. Saahil taught us how to play one of the most popular lunchtime games...HANDBALL.  


First he demonstrated how to play and told us a few basic rules and then he organised us into 3 groups. 

We had a great time playing Hand Ball. 

Barbara Kendall visits UHPS!

Yesterday we were really lucky to have Barbara Kendall visit us to talk about her life and experiences as a NZ and world champion in her sport- Wind Surfing. She showed us some really cool videos of her competing and told some interesting stories about her experiences at sporting events including the Olympic games. 


She also showed us her Olympic medals and the olympic torch that she carried in London in 2012. It was a very inspirational talk. 

Thanks to the ANZ bank for organising for Barbara to come and talk to us.