We're going on a Bear Hunt...Te Haere ki te Rapu Pea

We’re going on a Bear Hunt...@Rāwhiti School... Friday 24th April 2020!

Bear hunts have been popular during our lockdown time.  What’s in your window?

Below is my bear called Ted and he has been adopted.  I can't knit so my Grandmother knitted Ted this lovely blue jersey.  My Mum sewed his cotton pants and bow tie.

When I'm in my kitchen I've seen many children stop and admire Ted.  During Easter Ted was holding a basket of wooden eggs.  Sometimes he's a bit mischievous and hangs out of the window when its open. 

I took Ted on a wee photo shoot around the garden because he loves fresh air and likes to see what's growing...

Charlotte has also written about the two teddies she has in her window.

Ted looking out the window....getting some fresh air on a pile of garden waste because the dump is closed...

Ted is chilling out in the garden...one photo there's a lemon tree behind him...you can just see some lemons growing!

Growing!

This year our theme is Growing!

Come and check out some of the books we have with the theme of 'Growing' in our school library.

Did you plant anything in your garden this year?

In the holidays I grew some giant sunflowers.  The Bumblebees loved visiting...one Bumblebee flew away with so much pollen that it had to stop and wipe if all off!  It looked like a little ball of yellow candy floss...

May The Fourth Be With You!

On May the Fourth we had some new Star Wars books on display in the library.  To test how much we knew about Star Wars we played Kahoot!

Did you learn any new facts?

Georgina, our Caretaker, made a papier mache R2D2...

Our Library Learning Space at Rāwhiti Scv

The library space is finally finished and ready for the Term 1!  It took many hours and a daily average of around 17 000 steps to unpack all the boxes.

This is stage one because we've brought all of our older furniture and shelving with us.  Now we need to think about how we want to use this space and the furniture we need...this will be a both fun and challenging to design!

Front-facing our non-fiction books and using categories like...Work it Out!  Spooky, Weird & Magical!

Piles of boxes to unpack!

Front facing our fiction books...we're using the shelving we brought with us...

The library all sorted! Took many hours and footsteps!

Visiting Libraries...

The Library Focus went for a library crawl and visited five libraries.  We visited the library spaces at Halswell School and Heaton Intermediate.  Then we visited the South Learning Centre, Kaiapoi Community Library and Aranui Community Library.

At each library we observed how adults and children were using the library spaces and what activities they were doing.  We also looked at furniture, shelving and how different spaces were created within spaces.

This visit will help us all design a library environment that suits our learners.

Captain Underpants...Meeting Dav Pilkey

On Friday 22nd May a group of children went and saw Dav Pilkey, the author of the Captain Underpants series.

We were all very excited!  Dav Pilkey had a rough time at school.  He learnt in a different way and back then his teacher wasn't very supportive.  Dav used to make his classmates laugh and he was always drawing.  He loved drawing and making comic books.  His teacher would shout at him for making comic books, she thought this was a waste of time.  She'd make him leave the classroom.

Dav said his teacher said something about not talking about underpants in class and the children thought this was funny.  This lead to him creating the character of Captain Underpants.

Dav Pilkey lives in Japan.  Guess what?  He writes in a cave.  Imagine having your own cave to write in.  I actually think there's no other writer who has to kayak to their cave and then write.

Dave gave each school a large picture he drew of Captain Underpants.

Some of Dav's slides as he told what his life was like when he was at school....

This is the cave Dav writes in....

Can you see Dav's pet beetle?

Dav Pilkey drawing some of the characters from the Captain Underpants series...

Dav Pilkey signing our Captain Underpants books....

All of us waiting to see Dav Pilkey!

Check out Dav Pilkey's video...Reading gives you Super Powers!

Library Book Trolley - Tōneke Pukapuka

After you've returned your library books you can now put them in the right place on the return trolley.

We have lots of different books in the library…

How to Write a Personal Recount...

Last Christmas holidays in 2013, I spent some time writing an e-book. You can read about how I created my eBook here. The book's not in our Freeville School Library but it is in the iTunes Store and it's FREE! Take a look it was fun to make...

Chapter one...

The Library at the Back of the Hall...

At the end of last year I unpacked our wonderful collection of books from the container and set up a library down the back of the hall.  It's been so exciting to have classes visiting this space and issuing books to take home and read.  We have a great collection of new books arriving in our library and I can't wait to share them with you all.

We have a new section in the library, Te wāhanga Māori, Māori section.  This is a selection contains Māori Myths and Legends, non-fiction books and picture books written in both Te Reo and English.

Our new Māori Section…Te wāhanga Māori

The Caterpillars (Junior-Non Fiction area) are smiling once again!

Our picture books are in clear and black cubes...

A library down the back of a hall...

Destination Book Fair 2010

We were able to choose about $780.00 of books from the book fair.  Below are most of the books selected.  They should be in our library soon.

Read a Book for Māori Language Week

We have some new books in our library to celebrate Maori Language week - Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.

Kei te Pēhea Koe is a beautifully illustrated book.  Each emotion has an illustration drawn in different colours.  The illustration for 'Kei te pukuriri au I feel angry,' has tones of reddish pink.

This picture book also has a very user-friendly pronunciation guide at the back.  A great book to practise saying how you feel in te reo.

Room 5's first go at Speed Bookin'

This was so much fun to watch!  We had a variety of books, one dating back to 1975!  Funny books to children's books.  I think after about the third time Room 5 found it easier to sell their book to their classmates.  I look forward to our next Speed Bookin' experience.