Student+Learning+Term+2+2013

__Our Town, Pleasant Point __ This term our focus has been on learning about our town and what makes it a great place to live. Our goal was to create a brochure for new children that move to Pleasant Point which tells them the fun things to do and important things that they need to know. We had lots of fun learning about our town and also learning and practising new skills along the way. Writing

We started by looking at a bunch of brochures about different towns around NZ and identifying things that they had in common:



We used a brochure about Reefton to write an information report. This helped us to really understand the information that we can expect to find in a brochure. Here are some paragraphs from our reports:

Reefton has lots of things to do. You could go to the Inangahua River and catch a brown trout. Or you could go gold panning at Black Point Museum and find flecks of gold. At Bev’s Doll and Toy Museum you could visit Bev to see her wonderful collection of antique dolls, toys, prams and teddy bears. By Lachlan

There are lots of food places in Reefton. At the movies you can eat popcorn and lots of lollies. At Black Point Museum you can eat muffins, pies or enjoy coffee and homemade slices of bread. Go to the Reefton Cottage Café where you can eat a full breakfast as well as coffee or teas, lunch and desserts. By Cooper

Reefton is the Westcoast’s only inland town. There is the Inangahua valley and Paparoa mountains. There were goldmines at Waiuta, Big River and Murray Creek. You can stay at Wilson’s Hotel. You can eat at the Reefton market and Nursery which has pickles. You can shop at Four Square, it is open 7days. You could go trout fishing 40 minutes away from Reefton. You could catch a brown trout. In Reefton there are 2 race horse meetings each year. They are trots and gallops. By John

Reefton has lots of old mines left over from their history of mining. You can go and look at some of the old buildings. There is Big River where you have to take a 4WD to see the old mining village. At Murray’s Creek you can pan for flakes of gold. By Harry



This helped us to decide what information we wanted to include in our own brochures about Pleasant Point:

Maths

In Maths we learned about statistics. Some of the things we did were creating bar graphs, stem and leaf graphs and learning how to collect information in a tally chart and then work out what the data is telling us. We designed an inquiry to help us with our brochures. We wrote a question to ask kids our age that live in Pleasant Point. We then used a tally chart with a range of choices to collect our information. Here is an example of one of our questions:

What are the most fun places for kids to know about in Pleasant Point?
=We conducted our surveys for homework and then used the data to create a bar graph and write a statement about what we found out. We had lots of fun using a website to create our graphs. Here are some examples of our finished work: =


 * [[image:stjoplptroom3/Graph1.JPG width="257" height="395"]] || [[image:stjoplptroom3/graph2.png width="432" height="317"]] ||



This information then helped us to make decisions about which 6 places in Pleasant Point to include in our brochures.

__Brochures __

Each person in the class was then assigned one of the most popular places in Pleasant Point to research. Everybody then had access to the completed paragraphs about those places to put in their brochure. We had to find out their opening hours, address, phone number and/or website, prices, describe what you would do or get there and give a reason why it is a fun place to go or an important place to know about. We used the phone book, the internet and contacted people at our assigned places to ask questions. We had to make sure that our information was clear and correct as other groups in the class would be using our paragraph in their brochures as well:

The Pleasant Point Bmx Track is near the cemetery on the hill. It is over the road from Burgess Street and the Main Road. It is free and you can go there any time. It is a really good place to go for your birthday party or with your friends. There is a barbeque as well. There are harder parts and easier parts and it has a heap of jumps. The Timaru District council look after the track and can be contacted on 687 7200 or on their website www.timaru.govt.nz. Remember to bring your bike and your helmet for lots of fun. By Conor

Come to the ‘Get To The Point Day’ in Pleasant Point! It is held on the Main Street of Pleasant Point once a year. It is a street fair with lots of stalls where you can buy lollies and toys, get your face painted and much more! Most things are really cheap to buy ranging from $1 or $2. The Main Street is closed for most of the day. You can also watch a highland dancing competition, a sheep shearing competition and even a sausage eating competition! There are lots of raffles including a chocolate wheel. By Cameron M

A fun place to eat lunch or tea is the Steam On Inn on the Main Rd. They’re the best place to go for hot chips, chicken nuggets or an ice-cream sundae. They also do takeaways, their phone number is 036147661. The Steam On Inn is open everyday but Monday from 11am to late. They have a children’s menu which includes the nuggets, chips and sundaes. All meals are pried between $15 and $25 dollars. By Bella

Photography

We also had to take a photo of our assigned place in Pleasant Point to put with our paragraph. Our photo had to show what we would do, see, experience or an emotion we might feel at this place. We weren't allowed to take a photo of the building or a sign!

We learned about seven tips for taking good photos. We then had a go at taking a range of photos with a nature theme that showed one of these rules around the school:


 * = [[image:stjoplptroom3/View Point.JPG width="229" height="177" caption="View Point - Underneath, Cameron M"]] ||= [[image:stjoplptroom3/Simplicity.JPG width="212" height="178" caption="Simplicty, Ella"]] ||

Brochure Photos




 * [[image:stjoplptroom3/The Domain.JPG width="253" height="264" caption="The Domain, by Liam"]] || [[image:stjoplptroom3/Cameron H Golf Course.JPG width="215" height="277" caption="Golf Course, by Cameron H"]] ||

__When we had all completed our paragraphs and taken our photos we shared our work and created our brochures: __
 * [[image:stjoplptroom3/Brochure1.JPG width="251" height="371"]] || [[image:stjoplptroom3/Brochure2.JPG width="302" height="376"]] ||
 * [[image:stjoplptroom3/Brochure3.JPG width="272" height="432"]] || [[image:stjoplptroom3/Brochure4.JPG width="311" height="438"]] ||

<span style="color: #0ae60a; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 200%;">Health and PE

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">We got lots of exercise this term while having fun and learning new skills. In week 4 was the Rural Schools cross country competition at Cannington. It was a tough course but we had trained really hard at school and we all did our best. These people achieved top 10 places in their race:

<span style="color: #ff5d00; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Ella Sugrue (Yr 5/6 Girls) - 8th <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Cameron Murphy (Year 3/4 Girls) - 4th  <span style="color: #fd17e3; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Cooper Mason (Yr 3/4 Boys) - 1st  <span style="color: #eb0505; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Lachlan McCambridge (Yr 3/4 Boys) - 8th <span style="color: #800000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">In week 8 a Year 5 and 6 team which included people from our room and room 4 competed at the Jump Jam Extravaganza. We worked really hard to learn our routine at school during our lunch times, it was lots of fun! Our song was 'Blame It On The Boogie' and we had a Jackson 5 theme with our afro wigs and single gloves. We were the 'Sparkling 70's':




 * [[image:stjoplptroom3/Jump Jam3.JPG width="311" height="256" align="center"]] || [[image:stjoplptroom3/Jump Jam5.JPG width="330" height="281"]] ||

<span style="color: #0ae60a; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 180%;">Kiwisport also continued on Friday afternoons. We had expert coaches teaching us hockey, football and netball skills as well as fair play and team work.


 * [[image:stjoplptroom3/Hockey 1.JPG width="271" height="448"]] || [[image:stjoplptroom3/Hockey2.JPG width="270" height="461"]] ||


 * [[image:stjoplptroom3/Soccer2.JPG width="320" height="365"]] || [[image:stjoplptroom3/Soccer3.JPG width="313" height="365"]] ||

<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 200%;">Religious Education

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">A group of ten children experienced their first holy communion at the end of week 8. Mrs Sandilands and Father Job led them through their faith journey which resulted in a special community mass and a celebration party with family and friends. It was a very special night. Congratulations to Harry, Cameron H, Quinn, Conor, Alex, Kayla, Claudia, Simonne, Rian and Ella S.