We are celebrating Clarke Johnstone, an Olympian and an ex Outram pupil.

Clarke Johnstone was a pupil at Outram School and will be representing New Zealand at the Olympic Games in the equestrian events. The school has made a book to encourage him and every class contributed a page. On Friday we completed our page.

Making patterns with two or three variables

Our strand topic this term is algebra and on Friday we began by making group patterns with two or three variables. It was great fun guessing each other's patterns and calculating what the next pattern would be.

We are training for the Cross Country

It will soon be our cross country race day and we are busy training for the event. Today we ran for eight minutes and as we went, we counted the laps we completed.

A very busy and happy classroom when the children arrive

When the children arrive in the morning the class puzzles are always enjoyed. This week the tangram puzzle has been challenging the children to create the shapes without looking at the answers.

As good as chocolate for the birds!

On Tuesday I brought a fat called dripping and it was mixed with seeds like sunflower  seeds. Mine is one really good bird feeder. We made six  fat balls and more.There are more than eight altogether. The wax eyes love it.

Reporter: Tayla

New Books

At the library I got this new book called 'The secret of the snow'.  Last time I got an Emma Jacks book which stands for EJ12. I just love reading and I'm really good at it.

Reporter: Matilda

Keeping ourselves Safe with Constable Greer

Today Constable Greer introduced us to the Keeping Ourselves Safe unit. We talked about the importance of knowing our address and phone number and knowing what to do if we get lost. We all enjoyed the video.

Hockey with Anna

We had our first session of hockey with Anna and it was great. We learnt how to hold the hockey stick and how to dribble the ball. We even managed to have a short game of hockey. Our next session is next week.

Farewell Isaac

Today we farewelled Isaac as he moves north. We shared our favourite memories of Isaac and then shared good wishes for him. At lunch time we had a delicious shared lunch. Farewell Isaac and keep shining!

Early morning puzzles

Before school everyone likes to try out the latest puzzles. Ethan brought along yet another new puzzle for us to try and Mya and Tim were busy with the tangram challenge. Another group led by Jamie were sorting the endangered creatures puzzle and Rakai was determined to solve Ethan's puzzle.

Tyler's brilliant bird feeders

Tyler has become a bird feeder expert. This morning he brought in his third bird feeder and shared with the class how he made it and where he would like to place it in the school grounds. Well done Tyler!

Flocks of wax eyes at Outram School

The Room 9 Bird Cafe has been so busy this week with the heavy frosts. Clouds of wax eyes and sparrows have been feasting along with tuis and bellbirds. We love standing quietly and watching this scene through the window.

The Horton story continues

We returned to Horton today. We practiced our phone calls again and it was much easier today as we became more comfortable with the drama conventions. We then dressed up Horton and placed him in his nest and placed Mayzie nearby. As you can imagine there were a lot of telephone calls between them and between these characters and the rest of the class. The story will continue tomorrow.

Drama with Horton hatches the egg

We began our drama unit today and practiced two drama conventions - telephone calling  and hot seating. We started reading 'Horton hatches the egg' and we used hot seating to question Horton. The mask helped us get into role. We also hot seated Mayzie as we tried to discover how she could bear to abandon her egg.

Photographer: Rakai

The wax eyes have arrived!

The tree outside our classroom is covered with our bird feeders. Sparrows have visited and tui and bellbird but we have been wondering where are the wax eyes? Everything changed today when a cloud of wax eyes arrived and discovered the delicious feast waiting for them. We crouched by the window and watched with delight as the birds happily ate.