Welcome to 2015!

A big Ilam School welcome to all of our new families at Ilam School this year. It has been fantastic to see these new children integrate so quickly into their classes. Also welcome back to all of our returning children. It has been great catching up with you in the playground and sharing your holiday stories!
This week we have our orientation trip for new students on Tuesday. We will be leaving school at 1 p.m. and will return at approximately 2.45.
On Wednesday we are holding our International lunch. This will be taking place in Room 21 and the multi media room. All international families are welcome, regardless of what language you speak. All you need to bring is a plate of food from your culture. Children are welcome to join us for the lunch. Please remember to send your reply to school by Tuesday so we know that you are coming.
After this exciting start to the week, we hope to start our ESOL programme on Thursday. A note will come home informing you of the group that your child will be in and what stationery they will require.  It would be really helpful if you could purchase this for the following week (all items available at the school office).
Don't forget Cultural Day is coming soon, so start planning your cultural costume now!

Our Spring Visit to University

Kirsten's year 1 and 2 group visited the University to look at the signs of Spring. We took lots of photos to record our experiences. When we got back to school we wrote captions for our photos. 

Settlement of Countries

Mrs Brooker's year 5 group have been talking about the settlement of New Zealand and their own countries. They researched the topic, took notes and made a poster from their findings. The next step was presenting the posters to the rest of the group. Watch these videos to see what they have learned.

Trip to the Weather Station

On Wednesday 27 March some of the Middle and Senior children who have been learning about Weather visited the Weather Station at the Botanical Gardens.
We caught the public bus to Hagley Park. We walked over the bridge to the gardens, admiring the beautiful scenery as we went. At the Weather Station we met Mr Appleton, who records information about weather in Christchurch. He showed us around the Weather Station, and told us all about the different instruments they use to measure the weather. We asked him some questions, and then Hakim thanked him on behalf of all of the students.
We had lunch and a play in the playground. Then it was time to catch the bus back to school.
It was a great trip. Not only did it reinforce what we had been learning about weather, but we learned some new information as well!

Chinese Umbrellas

On Thursday one of our Ilam School International Ambassadors, She She Huang, made a speech to the staff about Chinese Umbrellas. She did an amazing job, and the staff all learned something new about something that is special about China. Here is She She's speech:

Hello, my name is She She. Today I’m going to talk about my country, China.

China is a very big country and they have many festivals, such as Chinese New Year and the Chinese Lantern Festival, but today I’m going to talk about the umbrellas; China’s olden day umbrellas.

They usually had a small painting on it or had pictures printed on them. In the olden days they used them for shade or to look pretty since it hardly ever rained in most parts of China. Even so, they normally have a coat of oil which smells very bad but protects the umbrella from breaking in the rain. The handle on the umbrella is made from pure bamboo and there is not one piece of plastic on this umbrella.

This is only one of the many things about China, but I still hope you learned something about my country.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Kirsten's year 3 writing group read the funny story 'Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs'. We imagined what it would be like if food really did come down from the sky! We wrote stories about it, by choosing a food that we like. We also picked a kind of weather to include in our stories. See if you can spot it in each story!

I was watering my plants in the garden when something squashed on my head.  I looked and it was round. Sushi was tumbling down from the sky. Hundreds of pieces of sushi came down from the sky like snow. I could hear rumbling as the sushi hit the ground.  I felt happy because we can eat sushi forever!

By Benit

I was playing on the swings in the playground when a sweet light brown donut fell onto my plate.  Hundreds of donuts dropped down. I couldn’t see anything! I felt scared because I couldn’t see through the fog of donuts.

By Genevieve

I was walking on the court at school when long cobs of corn tumbled from the lightning in the sky.  I heard the lightning sizzle as the yellow corn dropped like a huge rock onto the concrete, I felt brave because it was exciting to have an adventure!

By Yamato

I was looking at the plants in the garden when a tomato tornado storm came to the garden.  The red tomato was all squashy and flat on the ground and the tomato tornado squashed all the plants. The tomato tornado made all the plants a mess .I felt very unhappy because all the plants fell down. It was a very big mess.

By Elvis

I was walking down the road when a soft chocolate cake bumped me on the head. I saw lots of cake in the road. It was coming from in the sky! I felt scared because the cake might squash me!

By Inah

 

What is Weather?

This term many of our ESOL groups will be studying weather.  Later in the term some of our students will be visiting the Weather Station at Hagley Park. If you would like to do some research about weather in your own time, look at these websites:
www.weatherwizkids.com
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/whatisweather/
eo.ucar.edu/webweather
urbanext.illinois.edu/treehouse
We are going to learn new vocabulary and do lots of fun activities. Make sure you talk about what you are learning at home!