Poetry Success

Congratulations to Josh and Take. Along with three other Russley students, they were some of Paula Green's favourites in the Poetry Box Moon Poem Competition, which was open to schools throughout New Zealand. All five were shortlisted in the competition and have been published on the Poetry Box website. Sophia McMahon's poem Albatross Moon was selected as one of the winning entries. Sophia will receive a book prize courtesy of Paula Green.

Paula was impressed by the very high standard of entries from our Russley Writers; this is what she had to say:

"I adore all the moon poems. Tell the students I loved them so much. It was hard to pick just a few but I got so many moon poems in my box. I love the language, the similes, the images. These poems made me smile and feel good as I read them."

If you haven't read their poems, here they are again:

The Shadow 

by Josh T.

The moon is a sad face

shining light down to us

The moon is a yellow banana

It is a rugby ball

flying through the stadium

The moon spins really fast

The moon shining silver shadows

on  the world

Happy Moon

by Takeru Oki

Moon is a bouncy ball

floating in a dark sky

I think Moon is blue

Blue is cool

Moon helps 

to not see a scary thing

Moon is Okaasama

looking for us

*okaasama (means Mother in Japanese)

Congratulations, boys!

Class Meeting

Apologies: 
'Mrs. Shush' (Emily) and 'Mr. Brainfright (Max)

This week we enjoyed: 
'Punctuation Paradise', dictation team names, The Pencil of Doom, Golden Time, PUNCTUATION PARADISE, the class poetry recital, dictation, learning about some multiplication strategies in maths, Airship and Robot Rampage writing, ukulele lessons, Wednesday's visit to the library, making butter for science with Mrs. Harrison and reading our novels.

An area we want to improve next week is: 
Sanitising our hands after coming in from morning tea and lunch

We talked about the following things at Class Meeting: 

1. The end of the Pencil of Doom
Mrs. Rainbow would like to continue being called our Pencil of Doom names. Mr. Ish said that this can happen for the Roll Race only. Henry would like to call Mr. Ish 'Mr. Narrator' seeming he is narrating the novel. The class voted in favour of this. 

2. Netball
Mrs. Rainbow talked about Henry's idea from last week about fitness. She wants the girls to be able to do netball. Mr. Ish said that this can happen on a weekly rotation. Newton talked about this too. Mr. Ish will make a roster and it will happen next week. 

3. Drawing Competitions
Henry asked if as a class we could have some drawing competitions. 

4. Bits and Pieces
Mr. Ish talked about art next week and how we're revising the Writing Workshops

5. Times Table Challenges
Fred talked about how he'd like more Times Table Challenges. Mr. Ish will co-ordinate this every Friday when he's doing the Maths Knowledge and Spelling Challenge tests. 

These people will be given a raffle ticket for being awesome at their spelling and times tables:

100% spellers: Maddie, Take, Abi, Daniel, Noah, Oscar and Edwin

100% tablers: Zion, Tina, George and Daniel 

AMAZING POETRY!

Josh T, Take and Josh CP have been doing some amazing writing with Mrs. Koster lately. Have a read of their FAB-TASTIC poems about the moon....

The Shadow 

by Josh T.

The moon is a sad face

shining light down to us

The moon is a yellow banana

It is a rugby ball

flying through the stadium

The moon spins really fast

The moon shining silver shadows

on  the world

Happy Moon

by Takeru Oki

Moon is a bouncy ball

floating in a dark sky

I think Moon is blue

Blue is cool

Moon helps 

to not see a scary thing

Moon is Okaasama

looking for us

*okaasama (means Mother in Japanese)

My Moon

by Josh Collins-Polata

My moon is a big round ball

in a dark sky.

My moon is the colour of metal.

My moon is always moving slowly.

My moon has craters 

like cheese with holes in it.

Class Meeting - Week 8

Apologies: 
'Mr Grunt' (Jay Poole)

This week we enjoyed: 
PE, making lemonade, 'Punctuation Paradise', The Pencil of Doom, writing, Running Dictation, Golden Time, being weird, playing chess with Mr. Ish, 

An area we want to improve next week is: 
LISTENING to the instructions Mr. Ish gives, c a r e f u l l y. We're still not too flash at this!

We talked about the following things at Class Meeting: 

1. Pencil of Doom
Newton Hootin' (Zion) asked if we can read a few more chapters of the Pencil of Doom each day. The class voted in favour of this.

2. Science
Gretel Armstrong (Xanthe) wants to do more science. The class are keen to do this. Mr. Ish said that next week science rotation will start up again. Room 6 will be going to Mrs. Harrison on Monday and Tuesday afternoons in Week 9, then Mr. B in Week 10.

3. Basketball
Henry McThrottle (Noah) is keen to play basketball as a class. It was voted that for fitness we'll work on ball skills. Henry McThrottle, Mr. Brainfright, Fred Durkin, Clive Durkin, David Worthy, Mrs. Rainbow, Newton Hootin' and Josh CP will be responsible to organising 'Dribble Groups'. The Dribble Groups will 'teach' a group of tamariki how to dribble a bball. Then, for fitness we can work on our large ball skills. 

4. Shoes and Es
Principal Greenbeard (Oscar) is worried about people just 'dumping' their shoes all over the cloakroom. He would like everyone to take more responsibility for this. It was voted that their will be some shoe monitors at the end of morning tea and lunch. If the spot people being silly, they'll let Mr. Ish know and those culprits will get Es. 

These people will be given a raffle ticket for being awesome at their spelling and times tables:

100% spellers: Ava, Maddie, Ruby, Xanthe, Take, Niamh, Zion, Tina, Cole, Abi, George, Daniel, Gina, Noah, Max, Xavier, Aliyah, Riley & Brianna

100% tablers: Ruby, Niamh, Olivia, Emily, Tina, Abi, George, Riley and Brianna

See me for a raffle ticket please, kids. 

Fizzy Lemonade!