Sports Activator Visit

On Monday 2 November, Rory, the sports activator came to our school. Each time he visits we work on a different set of skills. This time, the sport that he wanted us to learn to play was softball so we began our lesson with a small ball skills session. First we buddied up with a partner and practised catching. Next, we practised pitching the ball underarm. We learnt that the pitch has to pass the batter between the shoulders and the knees to be a fair pitch. Finally we learnt some of the rules for softball and then put them into practice during a game. It was a lot of fun and quite a few runs were scored.

Cricket Coaching

On Wednesday 21 October Dion came from the Otago Cricket Association to teach us some cricket skills. First we warmed up by playing a game of ball tag. After that we did some fielding  practice. We had to be careful when picking the tennis ball up and placing it on a cone or else it would fall off  and roll away. It taught us the importance of getting down low and keeping our eyes over the ball. The next skill we practised was bowling. We learnt the correct technique and the importance of keeping our bowling arm straight. Dion explained that our front arm was like a pulling a chain except that we were actually pulling our bowling arm into position to bowl the ball. We spent a lot of time practising bowling at sets of wickets. It was fun and we will try to apply these skills the next time we play cricket.

Emergency Drills

On Thursday 15 October, the school participated in the nationwide "Shake Out" event which is about raising awareness of what to do if an earthquake strikes. At 9.15 we practised our earthquake drill inside our classroom. We had to duck, cover and hold which means we had to get under our desks, cover our heads and hold onto the leg of our desk in case it moved. We also watched a series of videos made by famous New Zealanders which all had the same message about what to do in an earthquake. Later in the morning, the whole school practised our emergency evacuation procedure or fire drill. Finally we practised what to do in case we are caught outside when an earthquake strikes. We all thought it was a good opportunity for us to learn about what to do in case we are involved in a real emergency.

Technology Challenge

For much of this term every class in the school has been focusing on the concept of "Special Places". Room 8 chose to study Ancient Rome and other ancient civilisations. One of the activities was a technology challenge. We were given the task of creating something made famous by the Romans. It had to be small enough to bring to school, made from materials you could find at home, and parents were encouraged to help. From the variety of choices that we brainstormed, many children chose to make a model of the coloseum, some made weapons or armour, and several children made a working catapult. We had to present our finished products to the class and give information about the thing we had made and how we went about making it. We are very proud of what was made and we were pleased to be able to share our work at last week's assembly.

Museum/Art Gallery Trip

On Thursday 17 September, Room 8 went on a class trip to Dunedin. The purpose of the trip was to support our current topic which is Ancient Civilisations. First we went to the Otago Museum where the educator talked to us about some of the exhibits on display and then we acted out a Greek play. We then acted out the process of mummification and were taken to the room were actual mummies were on display. We learnt a lot about life in ancient times and it was fascinating to see how advanced their technology was thousands of years ago.
After lunch, we went to the Dunedin Art Gallery where John, the educator, took us for a tour of the gallery, pointing out some art works of interest and telling us some stories from ancient times like "Androcles and the Lion". Finally we arrived at the classroom where John explained that we were going to be doing mosaics, a type of art made famous by the Romans. We had to work quickly to draw our pictures and then cut out the numerous small pieces of coloured paper that needed to be stuck on to create the mosaic effect. Once they were finished, the mosaics looked great as can be seen in the examples below.

Sports Activator Visit

On 7 September our sports activator, Rory, came to to take us for a session on basketball skills. Firstly, we practised our dribbling skills in a straight line and then Rory set out some cones and we had to sidestep them. Next we had to try to bounce the ball between our legs and behind our backs as we went around the cones. We were then put into pairs and we practised chest passing. The next type of pass we learnt was the bounce pass and finally we had to do the bounce pass with one hand. Room 8 really enjoyed this session and can't wait until Rory's next visit.

MP3's Recording Studio Visit

On Thursday the 27th of August, the school’s band, MP3, visited the University of Otago’s recording studio. They recorded four original songs entitled, “The Best You Can Be”, “Reach For The Stars”, “Got To Let It Go”, and “Do The Right Thing.” In the morning when they arrived, they were shown the main studio where they would be recording. The main sound track of the band was nearly completed before lunch and it only took two or three takes for each song. In the afternoon we had one more song to complete and then it was just the vocalists who were needed to record the vocal tracks. They did the vocals separately because otherwise the band music might spill over into the vocals. This was the fifth time that the school band has been to the recording studio during the last six years and it has now produced a total of 20 songs, including 17 original compositions, some of which were co-written by the children themselves. Although the recording work was completed on the day of our visit, the recordings have not yet been mixed but we are all looking forward to hearing what we hope will be a very professional sounding CD.

Cross Country

On 11 August, the Milton Area Schools Cross Country was held at Tokoiti School. The track was around their school field and some neighbouring paddocks. The junior children had a much smaller track of about 1km. It was a bit muddy with all the rain and snow we had had a couple days before the event which ended in a couple of people losing a shoe! The Years 3, 4, 5, and 6’s who finished in the first five of their races get to go down to the South Otago champs in Clinton on 19 August. After their race, the children were very puffed and hot with all the effort they put in. There were heaps of parents and family members there to watch their children. Every child should be very proud of themselves for competing so well and congratulations to those who qualified for the South Otago champs.

Greased Lightning

MP3: "Already Gone"

The Final Countdown

School Concert

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening, Milton Primary School students performed a concert at the Toko High School hall. The evening began with the whole school singing a lively song called Kiwikids followed by two songs by the junior children. The other items on the programme consisted of: two Maori songs by the senior school, a kapa haka performance by the juniors, a song performed by the school band, a senior dance group, all the talent show finalists from the juniors and seniors, and an amazing play by the juniors called “The Kings Spell”. The junior talent quest was won by Dan and Will Leslie, and the senior talent quest winners were Charlotte Herbert, Jenna Griffin, and Kate Brady.

At the end of the night the seniors performed some entertaining syndicate singing for the audience.There was a raffle and many prizes were won. The hall was full to bursting on the Thursday night and nearly as full on the Wednesday. The concert was enjoyed by everyone. It was a wonderful afternoon on Wednesday and an even better performance on Thursday evening. 

Clutha Clued Up Kids

On the 29^th of July the Year 6 students from Milton Primary joined students from all over the Clutha district at the recreation centre in Balclutha for the Clutha Clued Up Kids workshop. There were 10 different stations and 10 different groups of children. One activity was to ride a bike around a course. It had traffic lights and stop signs and even some ramps. If we had to stop we had to hold up our right hand to signal we were about to stop. At another station we had a session with St John’s. We had to race the other team to bandage up the wounded patient. We even used fake blood. We had to pretend that we were out on the farm on quad bikes and one person crashed. We happened to have a basic first aid kit on one of the quad bikes with bandages, plasters, alchohol wipes and even a phone. We performed the DRS ABC on the patient. D was to look for dangers, R is to check for a response, S was to send for help, A was to check the airway, B was to see if they were breathing and C was CPR which we didn’t do because it isn’t good to do it on a breathing patient. The other activities we did during the morning were dog safety, firearms safety, water safety, fire safety, what to do in an earthquake, how to check a helmet, farm safety and we even did one about how your brain works and how to relax. Most people don’t realize how important these keeping ourselves safe trips are. If you did go on this trip please remember what you did here and how it could truly save your life.

Hockey Tournament

A frosty morning greeted teams participating in the Hockey tournament at Milton Primary School at the end of last term. St Marys and Tokoiti came over to challenge Milton Primary School. It was really cold at the start but that didn’t stop us. Some children got hurt in the games, but they kept playing and we all had to work together to get goals and try to stop the other team from scoring. In the end M.P.S Yellow and M.P.S Green were in the final for first and second place. In the playoff for third and fourth place was M.P.S Blue and one of the St Mary’s teams. M.P.S Green were the champions and M.P.S Yellow came second. As a result of the playoff game, St Mary’s came third and M.P.S Blue came fourth. It was a long and hard day but we all thought it was a lot of fun!

Keeping Ourselves Safe

At the end of Term 2, Constable Gordon came to teach us how to keep ourselves safe. First we got given an envelope with some cards in it and some headings and we got put in groups of three or four. We opened the envelopes and set out the headings and looked at all the cards. We had to decide if it was about touches we like and touches we don’t like. We then read and worked out what heading they belonged under. After that Constable Gordon gave us another lot of cards and we had to choose what we thought was the safest thing and least safe. We were given little pink situation cards to put in the middle. We had to read what they said and set them out by putting the most safe at the top and least safe at the bottom. Next we watched two video clips. One was about a girl getting bullied and all the bad stuff that people posted about it. We also watched another video about cyber safety. Constable Gordon stuck some names of different types of abuse around the wall and then she read out some situations that included abuse. We had to decide what type of abuse it was. Next she told us about bribes, tricks and secrets. She stuck some pictures around the room and we had to say if the picture showed an example of a bribe, a trick or a secret. These lessons were part of a series of topics covered throughout the term to help keep ourselves safe in a variety of different environments.

Life Education

The Life Education bus came to Milton Primary school recently. Pip and Harold, the puppet giraffe, were teaching us about friends, relationships and the influence of peer pressure. Pip taught us how to use our WITS. They were reminders of things to do when relationship problems occur. This is what the letters of WITS stand for: walk away, ignore, talk to someone, say an “I” statement. We learnt a lot about bucket fillers and bucket dippers. Bucket fillers are when you say or do something nice for someone, and bucket dippers are the opposite. Cyber safety was another topic we discussed and we worked together to come up with our top ten cyber safety tips. Finally, Harold taught us a song called Keep Your Cool. All the disco lights came up if we sang well. We all had fun in the Life Education bus and we look forward to it returning again next year!!! 

Cyber Safety

On 3 June, John Parsons came to our school to talk to us about being safe on the internet. Children from St Mary’s and Tokoiti also attended. He talked to us about how you should never believe in internet scams and how to avoid being tricked by scammers. He showed us some videos of kids not being careful and sharing some of their personal information online. He told us that if someone on the internet asks your name or for a picture of yourself, just ignore them. He explained that if something looks too good to be true on the internet, it is too good to be true. 

First Aid Training

In Week 6, Jan from St John’s came to talk to us about our safety and other people’s safety. She taught us the doctor’s A B C. She also taught us an easy way to put someone into the recovery position. We also learnt how to put a bandage on the right way and she told us how to stop a bleeding nose. She also bought an ambulance to show the little kids what they sound like. There are lots of different noises so that people in their cars pull over so the ambulance can pass them. We had fun learning how to put bandages on each other and we are now better prepared for dealing with a first aid emergency. Each student received a certificate for completing this first aid training course.

Rippa Rugby

On Wednesday last week we did some rippa rugby training with our sports activator, Rory. First when we got out there we were cold so Rory got us to run to the far tree on the school field and we were really warn after that.  We played some games with him. We played a game where we had to run to a cone and then run to the rugby ball that Rory kicked in. There were two teams, red vs green. If we grabbed the ball before the other person did we had to try and score a try and they had to try and rip one of our tags off of us. After we played another game where we got into a square made out of cones and there would be two people who had to try and rip our tags off us. If your tag got ripped off, you had to go outside of the square until the next round. In the next round there were three people who were trying to rip our tags off us. There were different taggers each round.  It was a very enjoyable training session. Many of our senior students went on to use the skills they practised with Rory at the Rippa tournament in Balclutha on 28 May.

Visiting Performers

On Wednesday 20 May, three performers came to Milton Primary School. Their names were Kieran, Olly, and Emma. They took a fairytale story like Jack and The Beanstalk and put it all into a big play that went for an hour. It was about a boy called Jack, a Giant, and a golden goose. There was a Giant that was throwing his rubbish over the side of the cloud that he lived on and covered the land. They sang and danced and made us laugh.At the end they let us ask them questions. It was a really good performance and we all enjoyed it! 

    

Year 6 Camp Stall

On Wednesday 13 May, the Year 6 children had their camp stall. It was held in our classroom at lunchtime. There was a huge crowd of people buying all sorts of things. It was amazing looking at all the different things people were selling. We were selling things like baking, toys, lollies, drinks, popcorn etc. We had to make posters saying what we were selling at our stall, as well as the price. Most things were either $1.00 or 50c. The Year 6’s made $429.00 from the camp stall which was a huge success and we really appreciate all the parent help we received to prepare our goods for sale. Now we can’t wait until we head off to camp in November!

Road Safety

On the 5 May, Constable Greer came down from Dunedin to teach us about road safety. We had to bring along a bike with a helmet or  a scooter with a helmet. First we got told about a boy who became unable to move his body because his head smashed against the side of the gutter when he wasn’t wearing his helmet. We got taught what to do so that didn’t happen to us. We tested if our brakes worked then everyone went around the playground on our bikes. When we went around corners we had to put our arm out and point it the way that we are going  and after we did the lap we had to look back at the sign that was being shown to us. After we did that Constable Greer put out a ramp and that was to help us get our confidence up. At the end we played a game when you get to the other side going really slow and you weren’t allowed to put your feet on the ground. It was fun to have a practical session on our bikes and we learnt some important things to help keep us safe on the roads.

Anzac Day

On Friday 24 April our school held its own Anzac service to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. We also had our student leaders set up the field of remembrance as a tribute to the fallen soldiers from the wars. A Dunedin soldier came and read out some words that his commander gave him to share.

The next, day Saturday 25, Kathleen and Millar from Room 7 represented Milton Primary School in the parade by taking the wreath up to the Memorial for the Milton Anzac service. There was a great turnout for all the soldiers that died in the world wars. There were a lot of people taking wreaths up. The wreaths will stay at the Memorial for a few weeks for everyone to see them….lest we forget! 

  

Jazz Band

On Wednesday a jazz band from a high school in Timaru came to our school and played some music. There were a lot of different instruments. There were trombones, trumpets, piano, drums, saxophones, as well as a viola and a guitar. The band also had a singer. The singer's name was Erin. She sang us three songs. One was "Titanium". She was a good singer and we joined in singing along with her. We all really enjoyed the band and are grateful that they put on this free show for us.

Swimming

For the last three weeks Room 8 has been doing swimming. We have learnt a lot in this time and have been  improving in swimming a lot.We have been learning to kick on our side to improve our leg action and we have been learning freestyle and backstroke. Mr McLennan has been giving us good advice so we can improve in our swimming. One thing most people have been learning about is kicking with straight legs because most of us were bending our knees while kicking. Another thing we have had to practise is in freestyle. We learnt that we need to just lift our head slightly out of the water when we need to breathe or it will slow us down and make breathing more difficult. So we  have learnt a lot and used all the advice we have been given and tried to improve. We are looking forward to some more swimming lessons at the end of the year.

The Magician

On Wednesday 18 March a wonderful magician came to show us some tricks. He showed us some cool tricks with his birds like doves, and parrots. We all loved the tricks the birds did. Some were little and some were bigger than your hand. It was awesome. After that, he and his wife got some students to be up on stage to  play games with cups. They got a reward for participating like a book, a pencil case, or a balloon. He took a ladder from a case and told us the five steps about caring. It was a great way to remind us about our current focus about relating to others in a positive way.

School Fair

Last Saturday we had heaps of fun at the school fair. There were so many fun activities and lots of interesting things to do. The weather was a bit unkind to us, especially for the poor sponge throw victims, but it was a very enjoyable day which raised lots of money for the school.

Sports Day

On sports day this year we had three schools competing -  St Mary's, Tokoiti and Milton Primary. We had lots of fun activities to do like sprints, high jump, long jump, shot put and discus. At lunch time there were sausages and yummy chocolate bars. It was a hot sunny day and lots of parents came to watch. We were all exhausted by the end but we had all had a great day!

High School Leaders Talk

Last week four student leaders from the High School came to talk to both the senior classes about being a leader. They told us that if you are a leader you get to have lots of opportunities and you have the respect of the teachers and the other students. This year we are introducing some new leadership roles into our school. We are going to have librarians, sports monitors and student support leaders. Many children applied for these positions and we are glad that we have so many students willing and able to perform leadership roles in our school.

Test, test, test....!!!!

This week we have been busy doing P.A.T tests. These are important tests that compare our level of achievement with that of other children from throughout New Zealand. There were four tests: Listening Comprehension, Reading Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, and Maths.

This week Room 8 has been preparing for the Milton Schools Athletic Sports which are being held at our school next week. We have been practising long jump, high jump, discus, sprints and hurdles. We have learnt that when we are doing discus we have to bend down low so that the angle of the discus goes up, you have to keep your hand on top of the discus, and you have to build up momentum before the throw. In high jump you have to do a scissor kick over the bar, run up fast, run on an angle towards the bar and try to land on your feet. At sprints we learnt that if you want to run fast you have to pump your arms, have light, fast feet, and look straight ahead. We are just about ready for athletics day and we are looking forward to it.

Welcome to the 2015 edition of the Room 8 blog. Throughout the year we will be posting reports about what we have been learning and sharing samples of our work with you. We hope you enjoy.