Our Fair Inquiry has been completed and we would like to post you some of the work that was involved. The Monster Fair Inquiry integrated Visual Language, Writing, Statistics and Visual Art. 

We have made a movie to show you some of the children’s work. Clips and photographs were taken throughout the unit.

Because of the limited time frame we had, the students were asked to contribute their ideas at the planning stage as to the direction they wanted the unit to go, and indicate how they would utilise their strengths (with regard to Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence) to assist the team meet the proposed outcomes. The children decided on the groups and tasks they would take responsibility for. Some tasks were set for the entire class.

As part of the unit, Room 22 studied different writing styles. The children have written in a number of different writing styles over the term. The first pieces of writing were written by Year 3 children. Instructions for making a poster are provided by Caleb who is also in Year 3. 

Arguments were written after the class had shared recent research stating that a significant proportion of advertising on television targets children and teenagers rather than adults. We discussed the effect of slogans and how advertisements were pitched to children. We would like to share some of this writing with you.

Book Stall Break 

By Nikau

If I go to the Monster Fair I will buy lollies, lollies and more lollies.  First I will have to help mum 

with the stall and then I will buy, of course, lollies. 

This year's Monster Fair is going to be so ghoulish. The haunted house will be so dark and spooky, really quite terrifying with nightmarish creatures. There'll be ghosts flying around the school, zombies walking around and a giant fire-breathing monster with horns, claws and sharp teeth. 

I hope that my class, Room 22, gets our book stall ready on time for the fair. I don't know what I'm going to be dressing up as yet. I might go as Dracula. I really hope everyone turns up. 

The School Monster Fair 

By Lauren 

St Albans School is having a Monster Fair. Room 22 will be selling second hand books at their book stall. It's going to be a really exciting day for me. While the Year 4's have been at camp, the Year 3's have sorted books into boxes. We call that categorizing them. We have one box for girls and one for boys, books for little kids, magazines for adults and of course we have chapter books. 

There are so many books that have been given to us over the past weeks. Our Inquiry is on the book stall. My group is very strong in oral language so we have to inform everyone in the school about the book stall. Some of us are good at art, so we have decided that we should have a colouring competition. Jake our group's leader choose Jake, Willow and me. Mrs Hunter thought that Jake's artwork would be great on one of the posters. I don't know why Jake was so hard on himself while he was drawing his picture because it was great when it was finished. 

At the end of the day, I hope that all of the books at our book stall sell out. If you come to the fair, do have an exciting day just like me. 

Instructions for making a poster

Caleb

If you are going to make a poster there are a few things that you need to know.

You need to follow these steps:

Step 1: Get a piece of paper (A3 is a preferred size)

Step 2: Draw a border (make sure it is related to what you are advertising).

Step 3: Draw a picture (subject related)

Step 4: Write the slogan and information (maximum of 10 -15 words) You don’t want your consumer to get bored half way through reading your advertisement and not realise how good your product is.

Step 5: Colour the background. Be careful about the use of colours (e.g. black on white or hot colours on cold) creates a contrast.

Step 6: Draw smaller pictures if there is room. (optional)

Step 7: Laminate the poster. (optional)

Step 8: Make sure that the consumer thinks the product is something they need and not want. 

Advertisement

R-Jay

We shouldn’t watch advertisements.  The advertisement tells you that the product is strong so you buy it and then it breaks. They say machines can make you strong, but there comes a day when you get weak and fat again because you don’t use the machine.

Yes, some products have cool features that can help you, and you can get some things free, but did you need them? I still think that advertisements are not good to watch. 

Those Adverts!

Jack Haldane

I believe that we should not watch advertisements. Why?  Advertisements are bad for you. If you see an advert and it’s really cool to watch, you push what you have seen to the back of your mind, into long-term memory.

I believe that there should be a TV channel where there are only advertisements. You see, I really believe that we should not watch advertisements. 

**This was a really challenging genre for the children to write in at Year 3 and 4. We post two Year 4 pieces of writing. 

Argument about Advertisements

Hi, I'm Anastasia and I had to learn how to write an argument about advertisements. Well keep reading…

Children Shouldn’t Watch Too Many Advertisements

I think we shouldn’t watch advertisements.

We can get brainwashed and keep trying to convince our parents to buy really expensive products. That will waste their money.

I think that if we listen and look at advertisements we will get so brainwashed that we will keep asking for things that we don’t even need!

Advertisements

Written by James

Do you know that advertisements actually brainwash you? Well they do.

Commercials manipulate you so that you buy their product. In the olden days adverts were targeting adults because children would never stand up for themselves and ask for things. These days, kids always ask for new toys and new games. I believe we shouldn’t watch adverts because the producer and marketers are using us so their item sells.  But then I’ve got to respect the fact that some people might believe in advertisements.

I think they exaggerate too much and they put them all over the internet which is too much for me. I think advertisements on television and the computer are a bad way of marketing. If you hear an advert over 4 times, it gets stuck in your long term memory which means you will keep on thinking about the product and will ask for it all of the time.

Sometimes the product isn’t even quality which isn’t good.  That’s what I think about advertisements. 

Off to Living Springs

Here are a few extracts from the children's writing on camp. 

Camp for our Year Four Group

By Jack Mc Bride

The most amazing thing happened to me at school. Can you believe that I just went to camp. Should I list the things that I did?  Um… no, you’re right, there are far too many of them. Anyway here are a few things that I did.

First we walked for two and a half hours around the harbour. I saw lots of rocks.

When we got to Living Springs, we went to our bunk rooms and chose our bed. Then we had multi-sports to go to. Most of us went on the Monorail (which is like a roller-ooaster), but I went on the Balance Bikes. It’s hard when you’re small.

At night time, it was really difficult to get to sleep. Everyone was talking non-stop. Robert and I were telling everyone to be quiet.

Camp

By Lydia

“Argh … Why ?” I thought. Nothing was wrong, except for the fact that I had been walking for three hours up a hill. I sighed, “I hope that the rest of school camp is going to be easier.”  Right, I’ll leave that part and introduce you to the camp itself.

Well, as you know it was our school camp. But I’ll bet that you didn’t know that it was my first camp, yes, Living Springs was my first school camp.

After the tiring walk, we sat down on the field and were told how to settle into our rooms. Once settled we met on the field again and were split into two groups, one to do rock-climbing and the other general recreation. I was in the rock-climbing group. We set off, crossed the road and headed for Don’s shed. On the way there we saw a painted car. When we were all together, we were asked to take our shoes off and sit on the green mat. Then off we went. I have to say that I wasn’t too good at it.

Off to Camp

By Robert

Children and adults started running towards Room 22 from every direction. Why? The Year Fours were going to camp.

We got our bags and put them into one of the parent’s trailer. We hopped into the cars and were off to Governor’s Bay. At Governor’s Bay we were divided into two groups. We walked up hill and down hill and up hill and … well, you get the idea.

After two long hours, we finally got to Living Springs. We collected our bags and headed for our bunkrooms. Boys and girls were separated into different bunk-houses.

We had lots of activities to do; rock climbing, bush walk, monorail, trampoline, flying fox and the low ropes.

We hope you enjoy watching this short video clip taken during some of our activities.

                            

Ronald McDonald

Written by Miyuki  (Year 3)

Today was a special day. My teacher said so. My teacher told us,” There’s a surprise in the hall.” Some people came and said,” It’s time to go.” “Yes!” replied the teacher. We were ready to go.  We ran outside, lined up and off we went.

In the audience I sat curious to what would happen next. After a while Ronald came in. He held a metal thing that I’ve never seen. He opened it up and reached into his bag. He opened that up and  … splat! The metal thing closed. He tried again and again but it just closed anyway. Then he opened it and twisted the top. Guess what, it didn’t fall down. He pushed it a little and it wobbled. He wobbled his hips in time to the wobble.

After a short story about road safety, he found his missing sock. His sock told him that it wanted to stay. So it happened. The sock (actually a puppet) stayed at St Albans School.  Hooray!

Road Safety

Written by Lauren (Year 3)

Bang! The door suddenly burst open and in walked Ronald McDonald. He was very a very tall character with short red hair. He was wearing overalls and read and white stripy top and socks.

Ronald McDonald came to St Albans School to talk about Road Safety. Three of the things to remember were: stop, look and listen. He told us not to hang your washing out on windy days because if there is a strong wind it could blow some, or all of it away and you’ll have to chase it down the street until you catch it.

Ronald McDonald also told us to always wear our seatbelts whenever we’re in a car. If you’re in a car crash and you don’t have it on, you’ll go flying forwards and hurt yourself badly. You certainly don’t want that to happen, do you?

At the very end, Ronald McDonald found his lost sock that had blown away in the wind. It was inside out so he turned in the right way and put it on his arm. It looked just like a puppet because it had eyes. 

Last week we discussed the storm that hit Christchurch at the end of the holidays. Diagrams were used to explain a front and the type of build up to severe weather changes. Storms have been a talking point again this week with the devastation experienced in the America.

The objective for this piece of writing was to use imagery and similes to describe events.

The Bucket of Water  

Written by Quentin

Did you see and hear that ginormous wind and rain storm in the weekend? It was like a massive bucket of water being dumped on Christchurch. I stayed inside my lounge and watched television all that day. I saw a few branches lying in the neighbours yard. That was after the storm had finished having its temper tantrum. The sky was so pale. I wished that the weather had been the same as it was when the holidays started. It was so sunny then. 

The Day I learned about Callum's Fear

Written by James

Have you ever been in a huge storm? Well I have. Here's how it started. On Friday I was innocently playing by myself when I looked up and saw this huge cloud rolling viciously toward Christchurch. Anyway it was nearly bedtime so I had to go to bed. The next day I woke to hear 'pit, pat, pit, pat. Immediately I knew that it was still raining. I ignored it for a while until a rain drop hit the window breaking into approximately 5 mini drops. Then Callum let out a high pitched scream. I stared at him for about ten seconds and left to watch Lord of the Rings. 

Welcome back to Term Four

We thought that you would like to read some of the children's recent writing.
During the first week back at school we all reflected on the Celebration Day held on the last Thursday of last term and the reasons behind it. Apart from getting into the spirit of the Olympic Games in Term 3 Inquiry focused on exploring the concept of a global community. Celebration Day was a very authentic way of bringing the children's discovery to a closure.

These are recounts that were written during our first week back. There are a number of photographs from this event that were posted on the Blog last term.

Our Celebration Day 

Written By Nikau (Year 3)

Well you will never guess what St Alban's school did on Thursday. The whole school had an STA Games Day. It was such an energetic day. I thought it was going to be an action packed day and it was.

At the start of the games, the King and Queen (Mr Warren and Mrs Bateman) arrived . Children came out onto the court and performed cultural dances for them. Then Mrs Warren spoke about the STA game for quite a while before they kicked off.

My favourite event was 'Fill the Bucket' hosted by Miss Archbold and Miss Bunting. A sponge was involved in this event. It felt as though filling the bucket was a fitness game. The sponge was used to squeeze water into a bucket. I got soaked when I was hit by the water and sprayed by the teachers' water guns.

I really think that the fantastic STA games should be put on again because all games were fairly played. It was a lot healthier than staying indoors for the day.

The STA Games

Written by Catherine (Year 3)

At the end of Term Three we had the STA Games. The STA games were played because we were celebrating community.

At 09:30am we went onto the court and lined up in house colour numbers. Then the King and Queen declared the games open.

Of the games, my favourite was the 'Hurdles With Hoops.' When we jumped over the hurdles I felt like a kangaroo. When going through the hoop I felt as though I was on a trampoline.

My least favourite activity was the 'Sponge and Bucket Race.' This was where the sponge in the green, yellow, blue or red bucket was dipped into the water and filled and then you had to run and squeeeze the water out into the bucket at the other end. But the teachers had water guns to squirt us with. I didn't get a single bit of water on me. Not even a teensy weensy bit.

Then we had lunch. If you had ordered cultural food you had to collect it. I sat with Ava and Zoe because we could sit wherever we wanted to. Now isn't that cool.

After lunch more games. My favourite in the afternoon was the sack race, but we used garbage bags instead of sacks. We had a three legged race as well. I was really good at it.

Finally after the games were over the King and Queen declared the games closed.