Week 2

We were shocked by the news of Margaret Mahy passing away on Monday. She was a famous New Zealand author of children’s book and poems. On Tuesday we read a copy of A Lion in The Meadow, both the 1969 version and then a version printed in 2007, we were surprised that they had different endings and that the new one was slightly longer. We compared the illustrations in both books, we found the original version was very basic, and only had one shade of each colour and the new version had heaps of detail, better graphics and shades of each colour. We read an interview about Maragret Mahy, an article about her life and then a newspaper article about her death. All of this information then helped us completed a quiz on her at the end of the day and will help in our magazine unit. The winning team was Caleb, Sam and Troy, they each got 6 bleds and a little pack of lollies.

 

Earlier in the week we got into groups of 3 and had to decide what the topic of our magazine was going to be. It had to have a connection to health and P.E.  Some groups decided really easily where as others took awhile to make their mind up. There is a huge range of themes, including fishing and hunting, Olympics, netball, rugby, soccer, cooking. When we had the COW on Wednesday we did a practice page ready for when we do our own magazines. They included an article on Margaret Mahy, a photo with a caption and an advertisment for one of the books she has written.

What a long week being stuck inside because of the horrible rain! Talk about Cabin Fever! Thank goodness at the end of the week we could get outside and stretch our legs! Hopefully it is fine on Monday so we can get practicing for Spooner.

This week for Availll we have been watching a documentary DVD called Earth – The Power of the Planet. The section we have watched for this weeks activities was called Rare Earth. We found out heaps of weird facts, like how earth collided with its twin Theia and in billions of years the moon will not be with us. We have focused on Key Words and how they help us retell information, these skills are going to be super handy when we get researching for our Olympic unit!

We have looked at the different sports that will be at the 2012 olympics, we learnt that these were different from events, e.g. Athletics is the sport, but 100m sprint is the event. We also matched the symbols to the sports.

By Troy, Foni and Caleb