Wednesday 31 October 2007

KPE Episode 148 - "Furze the Fixer"

"Furze the Fixer" by Lorraine Orman is podcast by Tiana and Mele from Room 17. These girls bring us another fantastic podcast from a book that Mele has been reading.

The main character in this story, Dougal, is not at all happy when he has to do loads of jobs at his Nan's place on the farm during the holidays. But the jobs become a lot easier when he discovers Furze, a boggart, when he is cleaning under the stairs. Furze has been shut in a suitcase since 1889!

Dougal soon becomes less selfish when he discovers that Furze's old home has been turned into a wind farm and he won't be able to send Furze back to Scotland as he had promised. This sounds like a fun book to read. Tell the girls what you think.....

Tuesday 30 October 2007

Kiwi Kids Use ICT


Kiwi Kids Use ICT
http://interwritelearning.shycast.com/contestant/90/
Kia ora from Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand. We have entered the Interwrite Learning Classroom Makeover Video competition and we made the finals!
Can you believe it? We can't! 4 schools from America and our entry from New Zealand. Talk about taking on the big guys - what are we thinking you might ask? Well we are thinking about having fun, but we are also thinking about the cool things we could do with that prize. So come on, vote for Us! Pleeeease?
The song we used for our movie is a parody of “Stop, drop and roll” which is a song originally performed by talented NZ hip hop artists ‘Mareko’ and the ‘Deceptikonz’.
This movie is a collaborative effort by the Senior school team starring a group of 9-10 year olds and our very own rap star in the making: Mr Palmer. Our school uses ‘ICT’ or ‘e-learning’ to help raise student achievement as well as to celebrate our learning. Produced and masterminded by Miss Erick!

So click on the link above and vote for us. You will need to create a username and sign in to be allowed to vote. And you only get one vote. While you are there, why not support the other kiwi school who are finalists in the Grade 6-8 section, Ilminster Intermediate from Gisborne.

Finally, if you would like to view/have a high quality version of our entry, subscribe to kpeTV on iTunes because it is available there.

KPE Episode 146 - "To JJ From CC"

"To JJ from CC" by Caroline Bindon.
This story is brought to you by Tamika and Lani. Tamika is a Year 5 student in Room 16 and Lani is a Year 6 student in Room 17. They tell us about a girl with an extraordinary number of names- all beginning with 'C'. And when her mother is mad with her she calls her by every single one of her names. CC doesn't like it and starts talking in a strange way - all the words in her sentences start with the same letter. The teacher thinks that is weird and calls her mother into school. Then she discovers that her teacher has an awful lot of names beginning with JJ. Tell them what you think of this podcast...

KPE Episode 147 - "The Big Block of Chocolate"

"The Big Block of Chocolate" by Janet Slater Bottin.
A fantastic Kiwi story....
"Miss Jenny brought some chocolate, a great big block of chocolate. She said, "This block of chocolate is mine and ALL for me." But others have different ideas..... Kaiser and Joseph from Room 17 bring us this story. If you have not read this one yet you are missing a treat. It is the story of a succession of greedy creatures who try to hide away a block of chocolate so they can eat it later - all by themselves. This is a rhyming story, and this catchy tale has all the greedy creatures missing out until along comes the ant who shares the chocolate with his whanau. And oh, the delight of it! This book is a favourite with everyone who reads it. You should read it yourself!

Tuesday 23 October 2007

Dad's Takeaways by Melanie Drewery

KPE Episode 145 is "Dad's Takeaways" by Melanie Drewery. Sarah has been reading this story and SharonRose is her DJ. The story is a play on words about a kiwi family on holiday at the beach. The kids want takeaways for dinner and Dad says yes. However his idea of takeaways is different from the kids. They are thinking of buying something like fish and chips or McDonald's but Dad takes them down to the beach. He knows you can take away enough kai moana from the sea to have a good feed. In the end the family enjoy getting in the water and finding food like mussels and oysters to eat. They learn that you should try things before you moan about it! We hope you enjoy this story too.

Thursday 18 October 2007

KPE Episode 144

"Beanbag" by Janice Marriott is the book reviewed in Episode 144 of KPE. Lani from Room 17 has been reading this book and his DJ, Moses points out that it is another cat story. Lani has podcast a few cat stories this year and he tells us that this is his last one. He is going to move on to other kinds of books after this! Beanbag is the name of a cat and his owner takes him to school one day to the class pet show. Beanbag is not one of those quiet cats and he escapes from his box and chases a dog around the classroom and creates a huge mess. Then he runs away... The boys enjoyed recording this story, though we are sorry there are a few problems with the microphone in this episode. We hope you enjoy it!

Sunday 14 October 2007

KPE Episode 143: "The Refugees"

"The Refugees" by Janice Marriott.
Tanisha and Keletiola from Room 15 have been reading this book and bring us episode 143. It is the story of a family who have to leave their war-torn country as refugees. A young boy and his sister are separated from their parents and are forced to leave their home, after soldiers ransack it. The children end up in a refugee camp for a month before being allowed back to what remains of their home.

Thursday 11 October 2007

"Hangi" by Trish Puharich

KPE Episode 142 is about a book called "Hangi" by Trish Puharich from the School Journal Story Library. Johnny has read this book and has Cruz as his DJ for the podcast. Both boys are Year 6 students from Room 18 and this is their first podcast. Hangi is a cool book which shows us how to make a hangi using wonderful photos taken by Sarah Hunter. The kids in the story get to make a hangi at school. We see how they prepare the food and the hangi pit, and of course we get to see them eating it at the end.
We were surprised to find out that Johnny has never eaten a hangi! Cruz is very fond of them though. Do you like eating hangi?


Tuesday 9 October 2007

KPE Episode 141 - "The Path to Ponga Pond"

This episode of KPE is presented by Kaiser and Joseph from Room 17. Kaiser has been reading "The Path to Ponga Pond" which was written and illustrated by Errol McLeary. The boys really enjoyed this story about a boy called Felix who lives on a farm in New Zealand. One hot day in Summer he decided to go for a swim and set off on his bike. Along the way he gathered up some of his friends - a pig, a duck and a frog! When they got to a steep hill they all got off the bike and worked together to push it up the hill. Then at the top they all jumped on for a fantastic, speedy, exciting ride down the hill that ended with a big SPLASH in the pond. The boys said that this was a story about how you can have lots of fun while you are helping each other. They said they really like this book. Tell us what YOU think.

Mele's Holidays

Mele has created this animoto to show some of the photos from the conference she attended in the holidays. You will have read all about it in the previous post. Tell her what you think.....

Thursday 4 October 2007

Our students teaching Teachers

Some of our students have been working hard these holidays showing teachers how to Podcast. On Wednesday October 3 Mele, Sarah, SharonRose, Leauma and Lorenz attended a conference for teachers called ULearn at Sky City in Auckland. We were in a big room along with students from 5 other schools. More than 100 teachers from schools around New Zealand came and watched what we were doing and lots of them asked our students to show them how to make a podcast or a vodcast. They were very busy for an hour and a half, but they had lots of fun AND got to eat some yummy food.
One of the teachers we made a podcast with comes from Scotland and he showed us his friend's school's podcast. His name is Ewan McIntosh and he has come to ULearn to talk to the teachers about how they can make school more exciting for us - yay!
After we had told the teachers all about podcasting went we went up the Sky Tower for a look. We even had our faces painted.