The water toys were fun today.
I got very, very wet!

Thursday is our last day at school for 2016. We finish school at 12pm.

It has been a great year of learning in Room 8.
Thank you to everyone for helping to make this year special.

Good luck to our Year 3's moving to Year 4.
Next year it is a good opportunity for our Year 2's to step up to be the role models to welcome the new Year 2 children.

We were aiming for 4000 page views this year - we nearly made it!
We really enjoy looking at the map to see where people are looking at our blog. (We especially like comments.)

We hope everyone has a Happy Christmas and safe and enjoyable holidays.
Remember to book your PLP for 2017.

Today Ashveer's family, including his grandmother from India, came to school to celebrate Ashveer's birthday. They brought pizza and a drink for the children and some lollies to share with families at home.
The children have also taken home a Christmas decoration to hang on the tree. This can be kept from year to year as long as it is kept dry.

Tomorrow is our last day. Remember school finishes at 12pm

We have been contacted by the Christchurch Library to see if they can have some copies of our book, 'Welcome to Christchurch' in their collection.

They will let us know where it will be.....

 1.      Margaret Mahy Collection.

This is the heritage children’s collection of most titles published in New Zealand with a strong focus on Canterbury.  This is not a borrowing collection and is restricted access to the collection until the new Central Library opens in 2018.

2.      Children’s collection.

This will mean that it can be borrowed and it will ‘float’ which means that it stays at the library it is returned to.

That's pretty special.

The article about Room 8 was published in the Library newsletter, 'Uncover-Huraina', 

December 2016 - February 2017, Issue 02.

Eileen's photo is with the article!

Phew last week was a BIG week!
~ The tabloids were fun on Monday.
~ The rest of the school enjoyed our dress rehearsal on Monday as well
~ Our End if Year Celebration on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons was well received by our audience.
~ Our swim at Waltham Pool was great
~ This was followed up with the school picnic in the evening!
I am sure everyone slept well on Friday night :)

It was pretty exciting in our class this afternoon.
We had a text to say there was a special delivery for us in the office!
Cesar's Mum, Oana, is from Romania and their Christmas tradition is to celebrate St Nicholas.
In some European countries children receive gifts (or a stick) on 6th December.
So Cesar's Mum arranged for St Nicholas to drop off some presents for Room 8!!!!!!

Everyone had a present!

Thank you for your help Oana.

We finished off the day with some stollen - traditional fruit bread from Germany.

We are looking forward to our Celebration tomorrow and on Thursday.

Help please
Jasmine and Tolson have misplaced their polar fleeces.
Could families please check to make sure you have the correct fleece at home. Thanks for your help.

Good News
Lucia completed most Home Learning activities this term. Congratulations, Lucia.
Ashveer, Flinn and Eileen also did well. Ka pai!

Congratulations to everyone.
Our class was first to return all our library books. Yahoo! 
Thanks to families for helping to track down the last tricky few. 

We are always happy to receive any readers that may have been found lurking under beds, or hiding in book cases. They can be returned to class or dropped at the office.

The build up to Christmas is always a fun time. 

We have plenty of activities planned at school - our End of Year Celebration, tabloids, usual athletics programme, class swimming times and our fun swim at Waltham Pool.

In between we have some Christmas activities to create to share with family and friends.

We have been learning about the different customs for celebrating Christmas from around the world.

Last week we talked about some traditions from Germany. Anna told us gifts are exchanged on Christmas Eve, 24th December.

This week we will be finding out about some different customs and traditions.

Playing draughts is very popular in Room 8

A small surprise ......

Skip It skills.

The children are very keen to get to 4000 page views before the end of school. We currently have 3691 so it is nearly achievable 

This is a record of our page views this past week.

New Zealand	45
Netherlands	5
France	3
United Arab Emirates	2
United Kingdom	2
United States	2
Russia	1

It is quite exciting looking at the world map to see where the different countries are.

Grandparents and friends from overseas often look to see what we are up to.

I am trying to impress the children with a Christmas joke each day....

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Wendy.

Wendy who?

Wendy red red robin comes bob bob bobbin along.