A floating elevator has been invented to take us to a planet of our choice...

Botany Downs jumps for Heart Jam

More than 200 schools took part in Heart Jam today today to raise money for adults and children with heart problems. We have been learning a special Jump Jam routine with Brett Fairweather and we did it this morning. Thank goodness the rain stayed away! We look cool and are all keeping our hearts healthy.

After 200 days on the road the Queen's Baton arrives at Botany Downs Primary

The Baton is coming to Botany Downs

Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day. Some children from Howick Primary are going to arrive at our school with the Queen's Baton which is heading to the Commonwealth Games in India. We are one of only 6 schools in Auckland who get to take part in this relay and we are VERY proud to be involved. We will take lots of photos and put them up soon.
YAY BOTANY DOWNS

Balloon Day at Botany Downs

Today it was Balloon Day at Botany Downs. We all wore red to support the Asthma Foundation and had a sausage sizzle too. We loved all the balloons and were very careful not to pop any....

Buddy Reading

Today Room's 7 and 17 enjoyed a story in our fantastic library. Mrs Macro read 'The Dumb Bunnies' to us. It is an awesome story and makes us laugh.

Simpson and Duffy

E.S and S.C drew amazing pictures of Simpson and his donkey Duffy. We read about how Duffy used to help carry the injured soldiers from the battlefield down the cliff to the doctors. Even after Simpson was shot through the heart and killed the little donkey still carried a wounded soldier down to safety. After the war Duffy went to India where he was looked after for the rest of his life.

We made ANZAC biscuits.......mmmmmm

The Poppy

With ANZAC being a special day in New Zealand a lot of us bought a poppy to wear. The money raised goes to help the members and families of the R.S.A. The poppy is a symbol of rememberance and we feel proud to wear them.

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders' fields.

A special day for all New Zealand

Today we had a special assembly to remember all of the men and women who died in war to keep our country free. We listened to the poem "Ode to the fallen" and heard the Last Post. Some of us wanted to cry because it was sad and made us think about all of the dead soldiers. Two children laid a wreath under the flag and then we were very respectful and stood for a minutes silence. We are very pleased we got to pin on our poppy and help to remember such an important time for our country.
"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"

Welcome Back...

Term two has just begun.... I hope you all had a safe and happy Easter holiday. This term will be an exciting one with lots more space activities to share. ANZAC day is also coming up so we will look at that too. Don't forget to keep checking our Blog and please leave us a comment.
Miss Wright :-)

Some space pics for you to look at...

The moon over Botany Downs

This is how the moon looked over Room 21 this morning. Isn't it beautiful!!

A very special visit

On Monday afternoon we got to meet Mr Rutherford. His father worked on the Apollo space missions building part of the rocket. He had lots of interesting facts to tell us and he showed us original space badges collected by his father. These badges were given out to the astronauts after each space mission. If you look closely at each the picture on it helps to tell what happened on each flight. We really like the badge with the eagle on it as this is when man first landed on the moon and the famous phrase "the eagle has landed" came from.

Earth Hour Update

In the weekend it was Earth Hour. We all tried to help our planet by turning off the lights in our houses for one hour. Some of us got to stay up late to see how dark it was. Some of us played games by torch or candle light. Some of us played hide-and-seek with torches or read with a torch. C.S even went out for dinner and saved power at his house. Some of us just went to bed as normal which still helped save power. A lot of us watched the news and saw how other countries turned the lights off big buildings and special places. The lights went out on our sky tower, the opera house, the pyramids and lots of very tall buildings. We all tried to help out and do our bit and Miss Wright is very proud of us for reminding our mums and dads that it was on.

One small step for man.......

Moon Rocks

Earth Hour....you can make a difference

To help our planet we can all do our bit by turning everything off for 1 hour on Saturday 27th March. Try reading by torchlight or playing boardgames with Mum and Dad. Perhaps you could go outside and look at the stars......

Mr Hayward shows us how gravity works

Mr Hayward from Room 16 demonstrated how gravity works with this very cool experiment. Don't try this at home or mum may get cross!

We went to the amazing stardome

Today we all got to go to the Stardome obsevatory at One Tree Hill in Auckland. We saw a show called "The Cardboard Rocket" and got to travel through space visiting all the planets in our Solar System.
We learnt lots of exciting things and would like to share some of them with you.
J.B - I learnt that Mars was red because there is iron in the stones and it is rusty
R.T- I thought the rings around Saturn were made out of glass but they are made out of rocks
A.H- The Earth is called the Goldilocks planet because it's "just right"
C.S- There is more planets than there used to be
S.D- Pluto is a tiny dot
C.R- Jupiter is the biggest planet and it is made out of gas
R.Z- Earth is called "goldilocks" because it's not too hot and it's not too cold
E.F- I learnt that some planets have dust around them
I.Y- I learnt that the sun could be very hot and Mercury was closest to the sun so it was very hot
N.L- Mercury is the closest planet to the sun
O.P -The sun is really big and you can't land it and it's really hot
A.P.M- There are three planets called Gas Giants
M.P- The three Gas Giants are made out of gas and have no ground so you can't land on them
E.S- Pluto is not a planet anymore
S.C -Mercury is the closest planet to the sun
J.E -Jupiter has a big red spot which is a storm and one of the planets got tipped on its side
A.L.B- Pluto is smaller than our moon
K.B- Jupiter is covered with storms and is soft, you can't land on it
K.H- You can't land a rocket on Jupiter because it is made out of gas
C.B -You call Earth "goldilocks" because it's just right....not too hot and not too cold
E.D- Jupiter is a planet that is made out of gas
J.K- Jupiter is the biggest planet
Z.M- Jupiter has big red spot that makes a storm and lightning
L.H- There is a storm on Jupiter

Swimming rocks!!

This yeare we have been really lucky to have professional swimming instructors come to school to help teach us how to swim. They are lots of fun and make learning to swim easy!! We have all learnt lots from them and we will miss them when swimming stops. We love to go swimming now but the water is getting really cold....brrrrrrr

Busy times at Botany Downs

We are very luck at Botany Downs to get two new classrooms. They will be room 22 and 23. The builders have been hard at work and they are coming along quite quickly. The builders have put up the frames. We heard nail guns going BANG BANG BANG. We also saw the builders using a level to make sure it was straight. We think the two new classrooms are going to be awesome.