Room 10 Friday Flash

What an exciting week we have had. We started with a rocky shore class trip to Long Bay Marine Reserve, were we learned about biodiversity, classifications of rock pool creatures, and how we can protect our oceans. To read more about our experiences read our individual blogs, you'll find links to them along the side of this page, or click here.

Tuesday we had our last session with our Netball coach... next up we will be learning badminton skills. 

On thursday we cancelled most our usual schedule in preparation for a special assembly to honour Mrs Cooper, our wonderful caretaker, who after 23 years dedicated service at Glenbrae School, is leaving to be closer to her family up north. We each made a handprint, which we wrote a personal message to Mrs Cooper, to thank her for taking care of us for all these years. 

On Friday we started our new courses at TECH@TAMAKI, Year 7's were on metal work and Year 8 students were on computer technology. In current affairs today we talked about a breaking news story on illegal crayfish selling in the South Island. This related perfectly to our current learning about fishing rules and valuing our fisheries. We had a great discussion and able to practice lots of new vocabulary we have been learning: seized, recreational, pseudo, penalties, thriving and many more. 

During lunch break Mrs Parker witnessed some fantastic collaboration and problem solving skills see here: 

The rugby ball was stuck in the tree, knowing it was two high to reach and too hard to climb, Anthony got Nganga on his shoulders, but they still couldn't reach, Timote helped by finding sticks to reach further, and before we knew it, the ball was down and the fun continued.

Have a great long weekend everybody, and remember, Monday is Queens Birthday so we have no school, on Tuesday it is also a Teacher Only Day, so see you all Wednesday! 

Self Assessing our work as reflective learners.

Self Assessment's in Room 10. 

This week we have been taking more responsibility for our own learning.

This involves using a rubric to decide what we have achieved and being a reflective learner.

Some of us have been enjoying sharing our work and being reflective... see who has done so, so far on the attached chart. The rest of us need still need to complete our self assessment. Thankfully Mrs Parker made us a short movie to show us how to do it.

Work hard Room 10! Success is on it's way to you.

Estimating and Measuring

This week we have been focusing on measurement, particularly estimating.
We've had a few scavenger hunts, where we have been estimating different lengths and looking for classroom objects which are that length. At first it was difficult, but we found ways to estimate using body measurements.
For example, some of us discovered that our index finger was approximately 10cm long.

We also did some estimating outside, using our paces to measure distance in metres.
Some of us got really good at this and were able to estimate very closely to the actual measurement.

Samoan Language Week

Malo le soifua!

This coming week is Samoan Language Week.
In Room 10, and throughout Glenbrae School we will be practicing our Samoan greetings, phrases and our daily prayer will be in Samoan instead of Te reo Māori.

Ia manuia le vaiaso o le agana Samoa

Tofa Siofua
Mrs Parker

Netball

This term Glenbrae School is receiving Netball training from Auckland Sport.
Every Tuesday for 40 minutes our Coach teaches us different skills through games.

The past couple of lessons we focused on passing, and today we were practicing keeping balance and intercepting. An intercept is when the ball is being passed between team members and a member from the other team jumps in the middle and intercepts the ball.

Today we played a warm up game called Rainbow Warrior where coach would call out a colour and each colour meant a different action. Green: Run, Orange: Skip, Purple: Jump and Red: Hop. When she called out Freeze we all had to freeze on the spot. Then coach would walk around and gently push you on the shoulder, to test if you could hold your balance. Then, she gave us tips on how we could make our balance better.

Following the warm up, we got into our house groups, Kowhai and Nikau together vs. Kauri and Rata. We played two games which required us to pass the ball across the court and into the hula hoop on the ground. You got one point for getting the ball in the hoop, but a whole 5 points for intercepting. Some of our team were really good at intercepting! 

Next week is the inter-schools Netball tournament, so some of us will get the chance to show of our skills their too! During the lesson Mrs Parker took note of the students who practiced good sportsmanship and fairplay. After the lesson she asked the students to nominate their classmates for the same thing, they were all the same people that Mrs Parker had noticed... Well done to Anamanu, Api'i, Atelaite, Danielle, Te Puawai, Edwina, Hannah, Salelei, Desire, Ngatokoono, Siosifa and Moli!

A War Poem - By Erina

Poem about World Wars.

Dark clouds coming by 

Red drops from the sky

Guns are heard from afar

We can see cars driving past

Really fast

They have lost their lives

Some of the family

Mostly wives

See poppies grow

On their graves

See them lay

On a beautiful day

Its too` sad to say good bye

A drop of tear from my eye.

A Poem by Erina - to see more of Erina's work read here

Loopy Person - Measurement by Gemima.

My Loopy Person

Last week Room 10 students were paired up and measured each other. We had to measure our head, neck, shoulders, arms and so forth. After we wrote down the measurements of our body parts we halved them, to make a miniature of ourselves - or as Mrs Raj calls it a loopy person. It was easy to measure ourselves because it was a lot of fun to do. The difficult task for me was having to measure it out on paper because the ruler wasn't long enough and meeting deadlines. But overall, it was awesome!

By Gemima - read more of Gemima's work here

Honour of the Soldiers - A Poem by Anthony

I give thanks for those who died

for our lives.

War is not nice.

People shooting each other

would have been terrified

they stood up for themselves

and yet did not survive.  

This poem is for world war one and two and with Mrs Parker and Mrs Raj's help I wrote this wonderful poem, Honour of the soldiers.

By Anthony - read more from Anthony here

Loopy Person - Measurement by Anamanu

This here is my Loopy person. 
Today I learnt how to measure my different body parts. 
I measured  myself with a measuring tape and then halved the total, then had to measure it on a black piece of paper. 
So what I did afterwards was cut out the measurements and glued together the pieces to make a loopy person. 
So basically this picture is half of me. 
It was easy to cut out the measurements because I kind of enjoy cutting. It was hard to measure myself in different body parts.

By Anamanu - read more of Anamanu's work

My Loopy Person - Measurement

In the Morning we had Maths and in Maths we had our Loopy People to finish. We then started to finish them off.
We first had to measure our self with a measuring tape then put the amount in our Maths Book. Then divide it by two, then put the answer in our Maths Book.
The hard part of making the Loopy People was gluing the body parts together, it was more like a sticky situation, but I managed to get through it.
The easy part was measuring it, and dividing it, and cutting it too, but I did manage to finish it on time and it was AWESOME making it because it was easy and fast.

By Ilalio

read more of my work here

Welcome Back Glenbrae Bright Sparks

What a fantastic first week back after the school holiday break.

In Maths we have been learning about measurement, and making "Loopy People". First measuring ourselves, halving the measurement, then making mini replica's of ourselves. We look forward to sharing the completed works next week.

We all displayed great teamwork in helping one another with our measurements.








During silent reading time, we were so engrossed, enjoying our books that you could have heard a pin drop!


We also practiced some creative skills making some Mother's Day Cards for our Mums this Sunday. We hope they love them!

and the Blogger of the Month Award goes too....

Atelaite was Blogger of the Month in April.
Atelaite shared many honest open blogs about her learning and also shared her thoughts on current events from TV news. Congratulations, keep up the good blogging and hard work Atelaite. 
Be sure to read Atelaite's blog, or

You can find our other Room 10 blogs here

Mrs Parker Graduates

Yesterday I  took the first day of school term off.... Although I was really looking forward to getting back to school and seeing all our bright spark faces, I instead spent the day at Aotea Centre with my peers and colleagues celebrating the success of our studies last year! 

We were welcomed at 7.30am to the Faculty of Education breakfast, then at 9.15 took the march up Queen Street. It was such an honour to walk up Queen Street, traffic stopped, police escort, and hundreds of people along the side of the road cheering our congratulations. 

My husband Mr Parker was very proud of all my hard work too, biting my hat to check it was real, just like they do the Olympic gold medals to check it is real gold. 

It wasn't until the actual graduation ceremony, that I realized how important it is to celebrate such achievements and hard work. Currently I am undergoing further study at Auckland University in the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy [MDTA], where in two years I will gain a Bachelor in Education with Honours. I look forward to doing it all again with my MDTA crew alongside me. 

Today, back to school, to share my knowledge and help Room 10's Bright Sparks find their passions for lifelong learning, innovation, and success.