Friday the 6th of December was a sad but also exciting day for Room 24. We had our last Roots of Empathy visit from Rylan and his mum and dad. Rylan was very happy to see us and liked to play with the toys and be handed around for a hug with the kids. Sandra and John bought us presents and we got certificates from Sarah. We gave Rylan our wishing trees and the class card we made him. Then we all shared a cake.

Our Marigold plants have been growing very quickly and we had our first flower open the other day! We are hoping that there will be more before school finishes next week.

For Maori this term we have been doing some flax weaving. We joined Room 21 and created some flowers or putiputi. Sometimes it was difficult because we had to weave 4 pieces together but we soon got the hang of it. The first picture is Miss Shirley's demonstration model.

As part of the Roots of Empathy programme, 3 children from our class were chosen to attend the Baby Celebration were we farewell our family and say thank you to the ROE instructors. We also created some door hangers with baby safety messages on them to display at the celebration. Here are some photos.

The Ride of Terror!
Once,in a house-hold, a very big one - a family lived, all safe and sound.And in this house where the family lived,was an awesome little dog, the children's pet Buster. There were 10 children, all of them the same age! Nick, Ryan, Jacob, Matthew, Jeremy, Jed ,Liam, Rick, Mark and... oh my gosh where's Si?

"Si, Si, Si, where are you Si?" His mother called, a worried glance on her face."I'm in my room mum"shouted Si, annoyed that she interrupted his relaxing time. "Well Si, you've ruined the introduction, come on I was going to introduce you to the reader."She sighed "Si I've had about enough  
of you staying in your room all day."She left, her face as red as a tomato.

The next morning their mum announced that they were going to a theme park - a scary - themed - theme - park.It was a new theme park and it opened tomorrow, they were going to the open day and were going to be the first people in to try the rides! Si ran to his room and slammed the door behind him.He was not going to that theme park.Just then his mum came in."Mum"said Si, "horrible theme park? Me? Noooo, you must be mistaken!" he cried. "No dear, I'm not mistaken" she replied. "Really, I thought you'd like it!"

That night Si couldn't sleep, he didn't want to go to the scary theme park but he didn't want all of his brothers to call him a wimp. "No, no, no, nooooo. "Oh my, I can not go to that theme park!" He exclaimed, after waking from a scary dream- a nightmare!

"Good morning Mum, I don't feel well, can I not go to the theme park?" sighed Si. "Wimp" said Jed. "Walk it off" said Jeremy.

As they were driving, Si's tummy threw up "Oh I threw up inside my mouth" he whispered. He didn't want the others to hear, they would call him a wimp.

When they got there they cut the red ribbon. "Mum". "Yes dear?" "Why do we have to cut the red ribbon and go in first?" asked Si. "Because we are awesome, I paid a lot of money to do this, so please be thankful".

When they got in to the theme park it looked pretty harmless. "OOOOOO" said Matthew. "Lets go on the ride of terror" shouted Mark. "That big ride in the middle?" asked Rick. "Yeah" exclaimed Jacob. "That one in the middle?" Liam and Nick glanced at each other. "Yeah, all right". They were sitting in the ride and it was going up, up, up "aaaahhhhh" they all screamed as it dropped them down, down, down. "Si?" asked Mum "are, are you alright Si?" "Yes Mum... that was totally awesome!" he screamed, "lets go on another ride!"

And, well, that's the end of the story. I hope you enjoyed and please read more books by Hayley Lomas- hope you have a great day!

Last term we went to Jellie Park for swimming. Here are some photos from the survival skills day where we wore pyjamas in the water, got to wear life jackets and practiced the correct way to slide off the side of a boat into the water.

Our class has been lucky enough to be involved in the Roots of Empathy programme this year where we learn about empathy and relating to others through watching the change and development of a baby in their first year of life. We have had Sandra and her son Rylan visit our class numerous time throughout the year. Rylan has just turned 1 year old and is now crawling. Here are some photos of his visits with us, including the first time we saw him crawl!