Kyle Mewburn visit

 Lawrence Area School were lucky enough to have award winning NZ author Kyle Mewburn, from Millers Flat, come and speak to our junior school about his books and how he became an author.  He shared many of his published books and even gave the library a copy of his latest chapter book, the 3rd in the dinosaur series.  We are the first school to have this book as it isn't even on sale yet!
After speaking to the junior school Kyle then had a workshop with nine of our gifted writers, which included three Room 4 students.

Spot Mrs May filming Kyle's every word!

 

 Kyle had us all in fits of laughter as he spoke about his early school days and his writing - he was very funny!

Kyle shared lots of his published books with us, including his first ever published work

 

 Kiss, Kiss, Yuck, Yuck is his best-selling picture book.

He has sold over 30,000 copies of this book!

Kyle had to re-write The Stubborn Little Pony 14 times before it was accepted to be published!

Kyle read us his latest picture book titled 'Moon Cow'.
He is hoping that it will make it into the finals of the next NZ Post Book awards. 

Kyle's favourite book from school, which prompted him to become a writer is The Phantom Tollbooth

Members of the Crafty Crew, writers extension group (including Mac, Jess and Rylee from Room 4) who got to meet Kyle and talk to him about his writing.

To find out more interesting facts about Kyle Mewburn and his writing check out The Crafty Crew's blog at:

www.lascraftycrew.blogspot.com

Room 4 Overnight Camp - September 8-9

What a fantastic time R4 students, teachers and parents had on our recent overnight camp in Dunedin.  We had two days jam-packed full of activities which included the Sports Hall of Fame, Otago Early Settlers Museum, Chinese Gardens, Otago Museum (overnight), Baldwin Street, St Kilda playground, Moana Pool and Mosgiel park.  Phew!  Check out the information and photos for each camp activity on our blog.

Challenge - students, parents, anybody else viewing our blog - we would love some comments on our blog pages.  R4 students - which activity did you enjoy best and why?  Write a comment on that blog post.

Lotions & Potions

Our first activity after arriving at the Otago Museum was Lotions and Potions with Heather.  This fitted in perfectly with our recent Kitchen Chemistry unit!

We were put into four groups and went around four different stations, experimenting and learning about chemical reactions.  Luckily we had great parents helping us to follow the instructions and work out what was happening in each experiment.

Heather repeated the mentos and coke (pepsi) experiment that we had done previously at school, except that she didn't use mentos - she put in dry ice instead!  Wow, what a reaction!!!!

Discovery World - camp

Whilst staying at the Otago Museum, we had loads of time to explore Discovery World.  We never tired of this!  One of the favourite activities was the Mind Ball challenge - even Mrs May and Mrs O had a 'face-off!'

The Otago Early Settlers Museum - camp

Prior to visiting the Chinese gardens we learnt all about the history of the Chinese and their arrival in Otago.  Alot of this information was not new to us as we had learnt about the involvement of the Chinese in the goldrush days when we studied the 150th celebrations of the discovery of gold in Lawrence earlier this year.  It was great to re-visit this and learn some new information too.  From the Early Settlers Museum, we went and viewed the Chinese gardens, then came back to the museum and made some chinese lanterns in small groups.  We were also given a fortune cookie each - some of us had surprisingly relevant 'fortunes'.  Mrs O couldn't stop laughing when she read hers..... 'You should not confuse your career with your life'.

The Sports Hall of Fame - camp

Our first stop on camp was at the Sports Hall of Fame above the Railway Station.  We were amazed to find out that it is the only one of its kind in N.Z.  There was all sorts of sporting memorabillia on display, such as medals, sports equipment, photos etc.  We had a quiz with 20 questions to answer while we were there.  Several of our groups managed to correctly answer 18/20 questions correctly, which was impressive!

St Kilda Dinosaur Park - Camp

There was loads of fun to be had at the St Kilda Dinosaur Park on Friday morning.  We were all too busy scootering to enjoy what the playground had to offer.  After a free exploration of the jumps and track, we finished with a competitive scooter race.  Jaxon won the boys battle, after narrowly losing his heat to Adam, whilst Sam won the girls race.  
We were all impressed with Izack in the final when he picked himself up off the track and continued racing after falling over - way to go Izack, you're a great role model showing others how to persevere and never give up!

Eating on camp

The food we ate while on our camp was DELICIOUS!!! Our afternoon tea and dinner were supplied by the Otago Museum. For tea we had pizza from pizza hut, and it was super scrummy.

For breakfast we had a choice of corn flakes or ricies, and the teachers were allowed to make themselves some toast and coffee.

While we were at the St. Clair dinosaur park we had morning tea, and we devoured a mountain of fruit - it was so good; apples, bananas and oranges.

After we had been to Moana Pool and running up and down to the top of the hydro slide we were absolutely ravenous!!!

Luckily there was lots of bread and hot chips waiting for us at the Mosgiel Park and we were able to make some yummy hot chip sandwiches, smothered in tomato sauce. We also had plenty of fruit and biscuits to finish off before heading home.

NB Mrs O also had an endless supply of sweet treats that we could earn and win - lots of lollies and chocolate!!!!! Mm - mmmmmmmm

The Night Walk - Camp

The Night Walk - the highlight of our overnight experience for most of us, despite being VERY SCARY!  Helen and Matt, our camp leaders, wanted to take us for a walk to the animal attic, however the alarm systems were on, which could trigger if there was any noise or light.  So.... we had to team up in a long conga line, with our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us, and walk quietly (in the dark), following Helen, up and down stairs, and through parts of the museum to the animal attic.  There were random noises as we walked, and we were all a bit freaked out!  Once we got to the animal attic safely Helen told us a story about a sleepover group at the museum which involved animals escaping from the animal attic - we even heard some of these animals making noises!!!!  Some of us had eyes as large as saucers at this point!  On the way back, Helen lead us through the nautical (boat) section.  While we were moving around this, there were bells ringing loudly, and something grabbed people's legs - remember we couldn't see anything as it was pitch black.  Mrs O was the first to be grabbed and she let out a very loud scream which gave us all a fright.  We didn't like the bells ringing either.   Everybody was very relieved when Helen opened the door back to our base and we could see again.  Despite it being super scary, this was an experience that we wouldn't have missed!

Olympic Odyssey at camp

After tea on Thursday night, we were put into three groups and each given a country to represent - there was Egypt, Greece and Japan.  Each country had 15 minutes to come up with a new Olympic sport for their country, a new flag, a team costume and a national anthem.  We then had to introduce our country and share what we had created.  The Olympic events were: Fastest carving (Egypt), Delicate Paper cutting (Japan), and Running (Greece). Each group finished by singing their teams new national anthem. It was  a lot of fun, and felt a bit like a camp concert as everyone demonstrated their team.

Butterfly House - camp

We were lucky enough to get to visit the Tropical Forest twice on our overnight stay.  Some of the children attracted way more butterflies than others - Izack would have the R4 record for the most butterflies to land on him!

Blaize wasn't so keen on having this butterfly specimen perched on his nose!  

It looks very ticklish!

We were amazed by the wide variety of colours and striking patterns on the butterflies.

Gosh it was warm in there - some of us would've loved to have dived right underneath this waterfall!

Sleeping in Discovery World - camp

Sleeping in Discovery World at the Otago Museum was wicked!  We got to choose wherever we wanted to sleep as long as it was not 'on' anything, 'in' anything or 'under' anything (except Helen, our leader, did say that we could sleep 'on' the floor 'in' Discovery World and 'under' the ceiling!)  The parents and teachers all slept there too - 22 of us all bunked down in one room, and yes we did all get to sleep.  We were pretty late to bed, as it was after 9.15pm when the lights were turned out, so some of us weren't too keen on waking up at 7am the next morning.

The Chinese Gardens - camp

The Chinese gardens was a beautiful and very tranquil place to visit.  While there, we had a challenge in groups to find 20 patterns within the gardens - they were found set in concrete underfoot, on lanterns above our heads, on intricate art works, on beams above us.... We had to look hard to find some of them.  

The thing that amazed us the most about the Chinese Gardens was that every single material, apart from the plants and water, needed to make this garden was selected specially from China!  Wow, that is incredible!

Moana Pool & Hydro Slide - camp

Our last activity in Dunedin before heading home.... and didn't we all have so much fun!  Everybody had a turn on the hydroslide, including Maria!!!!  Up, down, up, down, up, down..... no wonder we were all so starving by lunchtime!

Baldwin Street - camp

Our first stop after leaving the museum on Friday morning was the bottom of Baldwin Street... which meant there was only one thing to do - race to the top!  Mac and Jaxon were the first to the top, with everybody making it in their own time.  An excellent group achievement - even all of our parent helpers made it to the top!  We thought of how difficult it must've been for the man who trudged up Baldwin Street 27 times with a pack on his back to raise awareness and funds for his daughter who had an illness that required special treatment overseas.  We also imagined how tricky it must be to get down Baldwin Street in the winter!

Rugby World Cup 2011

So... the Rugby World Cup 2011 is upon us!  In Room 4 we are studying this worldwide event, and as part of this we have 'adopted' a country each to support for the World Cup campaign.  Find out which country your student is backing.  In Room 4 we all have our fingers crossed that Blaize's team wins!!!!!  Go the mighty ALL BLACKS!!!!!!

For Room 4 students, check out the Ruggerland website AND the

Rugby World Cup official website for the latest results and information about your team.

Click here for the link to the team information that you may need to complete your homework. 
Team information starts on page 14 with Argentina, then all teams are in alphabetical order.

Persuasive Writing

Over the past two weeks we have been working on writing to persuade others to agree with our point of view, as a build up to school speeches. As part of this we are really working hard on beginning by explaining our point of view and then stating reasons why we believe this and backing these reasons up with supporting statements/details, while sticking to just one side of the argument. Check out our writing page to see some of the beginning arguments for whether or not ANIMALS SHOULD BE KEPT IN ZOOS.