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!

 

ESOL International Lunch February 2014

The International Lunch is held to welcome families to the new term at Ilam School.   Two International Ambassadors, a House Captain and a School Council member welcomed the parents.  It was an opportunity for parents to meet other parents and to share ethnic food from countries including Korea, China, Maldives, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Samoa, Belgium, Malaysia, Saudia Arabia, The Philippines, the USA, Japan and Nepal.  Thank you to the parents for attending and providing such a feast!

ESOL Orientation Trip 2014

A group of our new International students caught a bus to a local park and visited the Waimairi Road shops.  Here we practised using our new English by purchasing an iceblock from the dairy.  Next we walked to the park to eat our iceblocks and play on the play equipment. Everyone enjoyed playing together in the park and connecting with other new children.  Thank you very much to the parents who came with us. It was such a hot day but we all had a great time!

International Lunch August 2013

For our second International Lunch of 2013 we welcomed new international families to Ilam School.  It was great to see some new (and old!) faces join with us to share food and conversation.  Sadly, it was the last time we will see some families, as they will be returning to their home countries soon. They will be greatly missed, and we would like to thank both the parents and the children for their contribution to the Ilam School community. 


The International Ambassadors did a wonderful job welcoming us in their first languages.  The teachers would like to thank our Ambassadors for always making such a great effort at these events, they make us very proud to be a part of our school!

Mrs Brooker and Mr Dolan also welcomed everyone, and spoke about the benefits of being part of a multicultural community such as ours.  
Then it was time for the food!  The children chose from the amazing selection of multicultural dishes first, followed by the parents.  There was so much to choose from, including sushi, noodles, dumplings, quiche, pasta, taro, kimchi, baklava and brownies!  Thank you parents for your contributions towards our lunch.

 After our lunch, the children went out to play. The adults remained to listen to Mrs Brooker discuss how teachers teach writing at school. She showed the parents the 'describing wheel' which is often used in the classroom, and how it is essential that students are able to describe themselves. Several of the parents had some very relevant questions which prompted some interesting discussion.

Thank you again to all the parents who attended our International Lunch. It was a great success thanks to your participation.  We hope to see you again at our next lunch in 2014!