Wednesday February 29th Teacher- Ms Marra

Today we walked to Queen Vic to watch a musical performance by the Pipe Band and the Quartet singers. 
Thomas said “ They were playing the pipes and the Scottish drums, the drums were very loud”
Paris said “There was one big drum that made a low sound”
Pammi said “The little drums were beating fast”
Fabian said “The little drums were scarey for me because they were loud”
Rici said “I wonder if they are going to come back when we are older?”
Alex said “ The little drums were the loudest and I wonder how the air gets the sound to go in the pipes?”
Johnathan needs to know – “Why do they have big, middle and little pipes?”
Sophia asked “What are the drums made out of?”

This was Camerons first time listening to bagpipes and they were really big and looked heavy to carry.  Our class thought that the performance was AWESOME, EXCELLENT AND COOL and we learnt that bagpipes come from Scotland and different countries have different instruments that sound different.
 

For Music/Te Reo today Ms Marra taught us how to use the rakau (Maori sticks) and the movements for the Sasa (Samoan slap dance).  We learnt how to keep in time to the music, remember the sequence of actions and experience dance from another culture.
Connor thought that the song was very hard to sing and the sticks were easy to tap.
Xanthe said flicking the rakau was hard to catch again
Morgan thought that the sticks were hard to flick and sing at the same time.

 Angie thought that the Sasa was hard to remember.
Terri liked doing the sticks because the flicking was hard but I got it right sometimes.
Lily said when we tapped the Rakau on the floor it sounded like Thunder!!!

Sing loud, sing proud!

Today we practiced and performed some songs for the school. Ukulele was still hard but we enjoyed it and we eventually started to get it together! When we performed for the school it was so fun and we felt really awesome and fantastic. We were excited before the performance and nervous as well because this was our 1st performance in year 3. Sadly we didn't get to play the ukulele in front of the school and we wish that next time we will be able to. However, some of us are really keen to learn it more in the future.

In the Jungle - The Mighty Jungle!

Today, Nancy the music teacher showed us how to play Ukulele.  Lots of us thought it was going to be easy because it looks simple but it was actually very hard!

We learned a few notes and how to hold it properly.  We also learned how to tune it.  We learned about frets, strings and fingers.  There was so much to remember but we tried hard and did our best.  We were also very kind and shared our ukuleles so that everyone got a turn.

Tomorrow we will join some older children in the hall for a performance.  We will sing 'In the Jungle' while they play the tune on the ukulele.  It will be very exciting and we would love it if some parents came to watch!  We will be playing after 1:45pm in the hall.

Also, thank you to all the parents who are leaving us comments.  If you would like to receive our blogs via email, then enter your email address in the 'Follow By Email' box on the right of the screen.  It has been tested and it should work but if you have any issues then please let me know.

If music be the food of love, supersize me!

We have been having great fun today learning how to make our own songs using 'JamStudio'. A great little website that lets us choose our own instruments, notes and tempo.  We found that the songs sounded better if we created patterns of notes, like 'EEAA, EECC' instead of just random notes.  You can see for yourself how easy it is by clicking on the picture of JamStudio below.

We also went swimming today.  It was our last time for us this year and they taught us all about survival.  First we learned about hypothermia and how dangerous it is.  Next we had to dress up in baggy clothes and try to swim. We had a competition, we did a team relay where we had to swim as fast as we could in clothes.  The clothes felt very heavy. We even got some free time today in the play pool.  It was awesome!

And the beat goes on....

Today has been quite an exciting and unusual day.  We started off listening to Cameron and Johnathon, it turns out out that they are really quite talented on the piano.

We did some normal things today, like writing and reading but we had so many other things going on that we missed maths!  We watched 2 concerts today, firstly we watched some African drums  and then this afternoon we watched some Japanese drums.  These were very loud.  They were made from cow skin and they were called Taiko drums.

And as if that wasn't enough, we've had a sausage sizzle, mufti and a fire alarm at lunch!  What a crazy day!

P.S. Don't forget your togs tomorrow!  If it doesn't pour with rain, we are going for our last Waterwise session at Parnell Baths!

Music Focus Continues!

Today we listened to wonderful Celtic music.  Celtic music comes from Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.  It sounded like old fashioned music.  We can imagine cowboys listening to this kind of music long ago.

Swimming has been postponed until Friday.  On the original timetable it said Thursday 23rd would be our last visit but due to a double booking we will now be going on Friday 24th instead.  Sorry for any inconvenience.

Please remember also, that tomorrow is mufti day.  Bring $1 or $2 donation plus there is a sausage sizzle at lunch.  Drinks, muffins and sausages $2 each.

 

Adjectives and Nouns

Yesterday we went on a word hunt, today we used those words to create some fantastic sentences and stories.  We learned that nouns are things and that adjectives are words that describe them.  Tomorrow we are going to look at pictures and write narrative stories using these words.

In maths we played a higher/ lower game with numbers up to 1000 (click here to play it) and then put them into order.  We have also been learning about numbers with decimal points!

Well done to Ms Lin's class who entertained us this afternoon with some wonderful Ukulele playing and singing.  They have been getting lessons from a special music tutor and now we are all very excited for our turn next week!

Weird and wonderful!

     

What a fun Monday!  We have been busily learning about adjectives and nouns so that our writing will be as interesting as possible.  Today we went on a word hunt and described our playground, the trees, the road, the sky and anything else we could 

 find!

  

In maths we carried on learning about place value.  We found another cool game where we had to follow clues to guess the number.  Click here if you want to have a try!

 

The next two weeks are 'Arts focus' at Parnell.  We will be exploring and learning about new instruments and different music.  Next week we will have a special tutor who will teach us ukulele!  This afternoon we were treated to a concert by a man called Dom who showed us some weird and wonderful instruments from all over the world, including one, called a Theremin, that you didn't even need to touch!  Watch the video and be amazed!

Two Baths in One Week!

   

In the morning we went to the Parnell Pools.  We went in the deep pool and got in the big boat, then they tipped it over!  We had to go underneath the water to see if there was air in the boat.  There was!  It was cool because we could breathe!  Some of the people were scared so they didn't do it.  Ah well, maybe next time!

Well done to Secret Squirrels, who won the trophy for 'Table of the Week!' 
 

Making Millions!

Today in maths we used a really cool website.  We had to read the instructions and put the numbers in the right place.  It helped us practice our numbers up to 1000 but we even used it to learn what numbers in the millions looked like.  Best of all, we can practice this at home if we want to.  Click here to go to the website.

Soon, we will all be making millions!

Mystery Number

Also, the weather cleared up and we finally got to play another game of T-Ball.  We are hitting the ball further and more accurately and we learned to stand in the right place and leave the ball for the person who is closest to it.

An Ordinary Kind of Day

Today Mr Miller was back in the classroom!  It was a fairly normal day!  We did maths, lots of place value stuff - we're getting really good at splitting up hundreds, tens and units.  We did writing and we were learning to use interesting and different words to make our stories better.  We did reading too and learned how to fill in our reading diaries.  Remember, once we have read 100 pages we should bring our books in for Mr Miller to see and we will get a mystery prize!  This afternoon we went singing, we sang lots of different songs and our favourite one was Gummy Bear!  We also finished our reading book, the Magic Finger, it was so funny that we started another Roald Dahl book, Fantastic Mr Fox!

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS!

 

Doesn't it seem like forever since we've been allowed in the library?  Maybe it's because we're such a bunch of bookworms.  Well today Jo threw open the doors and Room 11 rushed in, eager to take advantage of the '3 Book Limit' - well, being a year 3 has its perks you know!

Hopefully we will love the books we borrow, we will definitely look over them, and maybe, just maybe, we will share them with someone special at home. 

We're water wise!

 

It was another perfect day for swimming!  Today the instructors taught us how to put on a life jacket, how to rescue someone using a stick and what to do if we see someone in trouble.  We are becoming very water wise!  We can't wait till our next lesson on Friday!

Decorating the Walls!

Today we did some artwork to fill our big blank wall!  We took photos of our face and loaded them into the computer.  Then we faded them out and then coloured them using our own colours.  Now our wall is colourful!  Also, happy birthday to Max!