Year 6 Camp

On 19 November the Year 6’s went off to Camp Tirohanga which is near Mosgiel.We arrived at camp and got our stuff unpacked then we set off to Dive Otago. The scuba diving and snorkeling was lots of  fun.The scuba divers enjoyed diving down to the bottom of the pool. Then we made our way to the Portobello Aqauriam where we went on a tour around the place looking at the different types of sea creatures. On Tuesday it was beach day.We went to the St Kilda Life Saving Club to learn about water safety and sun safety but unfortunately it was too cold and wet to have a swim in the sea. On Wednesday we did some activites around camp like rifle shooting, archery and orienteering and we also had a man from the Red Cross do a first aid course with us.The next day we built bivouacs which was hard work.We went on a bush walk and compared the pine forest to the native bush. You can really see the contrast.We did an obstacle course, a blindfolded activity called Nightline, some old fashioned indoor games, and bounced on the camp’s new trampolines. After that we had a go at the water slide. It was probably one of the most fun activities. On Thursday night we had camp graduation and we each stood up and talked about our achievements at camp. On Friday the man from Red Cross came back to do the second half of the first aid course and present us with certificates. We did some sketching of the camp, played a couple of final games, and then it was time to go home. We all had a great week at camp despite the atrocious weather.

Christmas Market

On 14 November the Year 5 and 6 children held a Christmas Market in and around the school hall. They were selling a wide variety of Christmas themed goods such as Christmas decorations, ornaments and many different types of Christmas sweet treats.

The purpose of this exercise was to explore with the children the concept of “Enterprise”. They had to do the maths to find out the actual cost of making their items and determine a reasonable selling price so that they could make the maximum amount of profit. Their incentive was that they got to keep whatever profit they made. There were some very high quality goods for sale and some children displayed considerable entrepreneurial skills.

It really was a very interesting and worthwhile project and we would like to thank all the parents who contributed to making the market such a successful venture for our students.

School Concert

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening of the last week of the term, Milton Primary School students performed a concert at the Toko High School hall. The evening began with several items by the kapa haka group.  This year the items were performed in whanau groups rather than individual classes. The items on the programme consisted of several high energy dance numbers, an action song, some short plays and two songs performed by MP3, the school’s band. This was enhanced by some wonderful lighting, sound effects and digital displays organised by our amazing tech crew.

At the end of the night the seniors performed some entertaining syndicate singing for the audience.There was a raffle and several 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.

Art Gallery and Museum Trip

On 12 September we visited the Otago Museum and the Dunedin Art Gallery. The purpose of these visits was to support our conceptual focus for this term which is "Past, Present and Future." Our first stop was at the museum where we enjoyed our three quarter hour visit to the planetarium. We learnt many interesting facts about our solar system and about how to identify various constellations. Another context we have been studying is "Ancient Civilisations" and we were fascinated to learn about the Egyptian tradition of mummification.
At the art gallery we discussed many aspects of life in Space. John told us stories about Matariki, taught us an action song, and how to play the theme to "Star Wars" on bells. We looked through some 3D glasses to see the world as an alien would see it and we listened to some "alien" communications. We then returned to the classroom to complete a stunning mural depicting assorted spacecraft and creatures.
It really was a very interesting and worthwhile trip and we look forward to continuing our studies on these topics back at school.

Technology Challenge

The topic we are studying at the moment is Space. Our homework challenge for the last month has been to work with our parents to make either a spacecraft, a space station, a satellite, or a model of our solar system. The children did an amazing job and have produced some fantastic creations as can be seen in the photos below.

Cross Country

On 23 August, the Milton Area Schools Cross Country was held at Tokoiti School. The track was a 2km course around their school field and some neighbouring paddocks. The junior children had a much smaller track of about half a kilometre. It was a nice sunny day and the grounds weren’t muddy at all. The Years 3, 4, 5, and 6’s who finished in the first five of their races got to go down to the South Otago champs in Clinton on 23 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.

Clutha Clued Up Kids

On 1 August 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 for the small groups of children to rotate around. One activity was to ride a bike around a course. It had stop signs, some cones and even a ramp. In another activity we learnt about survival in the bush and how to build a bivouac. The other activities we did during the morning were dog safety, firearms safety, beach safety, fire safety, what to do in an earthquake, how to check a helmet, and we even did one about how your brain works and how to relax. Most people don’t realise how important these keeping ourselves safe tips are but if we remember what we did here it could truly save a life one day.

Hockey Tournament

A cool morning greeted all of the brave students who were participating in the annual hockey tournament on 5 July. It was held on the second last day of term two. Teams from St Mary’s, Tokoiti, Waihola, the Catlins and Clutha Valley came over to challenge Milton Primary School. M.P.S had six teams entered but none of them made the finals. 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 the teams from the Catlins and Clutha Valley were in the final for first and second place and the team from the Catlins won. We loved having the students from the high school reffing us. It was a long and hard day but we all thought it was definitely a lot of fun!

Life Education

The Life Education bus came to Milton Primary school recently. In the senior classes, Pip and Harold, the puppet giraffe, were teaching us about cyber safety. We learnt about the importance of keeping our personal information safe and private and remembering that once we post something on the internet we have lost ownership of it. We discussed the importance of friends and that, not only is it important to have good friends, it is important for us to be a good friend to others and protect their privacy online as well as our own. We were reminded of what we learnt last year about keeping our behaviour “above the line” because the things that we say and do have a large impact on our personal reputation.

We all had fun in the Life Education bus and we look forward to it returning again next year!!! J

Sports Activator

This year we have a new sports activator named Shea. He has been teaching us the skills that we need to play hockey. First we played games to help us warm up. Some of the activities we have done help us to practise keeping our eyes on the ball and ball control. We learnt how to do short dribbling and long dribbling. Next we worked in pairs and practised passing the ball to each other and counting how many times we could do that successfully. We learnt how to hold a hockey stick properly and some of the rules of hockey. All of us enjoyed the sessions and are looking forward to the sports activator’s next visit.

Whanau Day

On Friday 1 June we had a whole day in our whanau groups doing fun activities. Miss Keene organised six different activities and each group got to do all of them. We spent nearly an hour at each activity. Some of the activities were learning some tech coding, baking maori bread, making poi, and several different art/craft activities.

There was a sausage sizzle for lunch and we were all entertained by a performance by the school’s kapa haka group at lunchtime. We all had a wonderful time and are very grateful to all those who contributed to making this special day such a huge success.

Live Chat

Throughout the year the children in Room 8 have maintained a penpal relationship with children from a class at Excelsior Elementary near Sacramento in California, U.S.A.

Today we had a “live chat” with them called “Reflecting on our Learning”. The children learnt about what topics they had been learning in their respective classes in each area of the curriculum. It was very interesting to be doing this in real time even though it was 9.00am on Thursday here and 2pm Wednesday afternoon there! This will be our last interaction with them for a while as their school year is about to end and they won’t start again until they return from their summer break in mid August. We will look forward to catching up with them again then. In the photo montage below you can see photos of Room 8 children on top participating in the live chat with their penpals whose photos are on the bottom.

Book Week

From Monday 14 May till Friday 18 May, it was Book Week at Milton Primary. On Monday the teachers swapped classes and visited another room to read the children a story. Each day at a certain time a whistle would sound at a different time and we had to stop what we were doing and “Stop, Drop, and Read. On Thursday, to celebrate book week, we were allowed to dress up as our favorite book character. Everyone enjoyed seeing the other students costumes and their amazing ideas. Some of the costumes on display were Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, Snow White, Spiderman and various witches and princesses. We also had a book fair running throughout the week in the school library. There were chapter books and picture books for sale to help raise money for the school library. The books are amazing and very interesting to read. We love reading at Milton Primary School.

Play is the Way

Play is the Way is a unique programme of physically interactive games that develop self regulation within children and fosters independent, self-motivated, and empathetic behaviours. Play is the Way develops emotional intelligence and social competency skills so children can create close personal connections and a sense of self worth and belonging. We are very excited to be implementing this programme at Milton Primary this year. On Monday 7 May we had its founder, Wilson McCaskill, come to school and work with the teachers and the children. The children learn through playing a wide variety of fun games which challenge them to think about their behaviour and develop positive attitudes towards facing challenges, developing perseverance and achieving success. We are looking forwarding to embedding this programme into our school culture as a reflection of our school values of respect, responsibility, confidence and teamwork.

Wearable Art

As part of our investigation into the concept of "Sustainability", the children were set the task of creating an item of wearable art. They had several weeks to plan and make their creations and were encouraged to enlist the help of their parents on this homework project. On the last day of the term, the children presented their work to the class. They had to explain what they had made, how they made it, what materials they used, and what they would do differently if they did it again. There was a great variety in their creations ranging from various types of headgear to jet-packs and all of the children should be very proud of their efforts.

School Fair

On Saturday 17th March, Milton Primary School had its school fair. This year’s fair had a St Patrick’s Day theme and there were a lot of activities based around this theme. There were a lot of fun things to do including sponge throw, a bouncy castle, paintball, horse riding, and many other interesting activities. Lots of people also contributed to the raffles. Thank you to those who donated the wonderful prizes for these. The sponge throw was really fun and the willing Year 6 victims got thoroughly soaked. In the paintball you had to shoot the paintballs and try to hit the targets. Laser tag was also very popular. In the Fire Engine it was very loud and it was fun to ride around with the siren going. Also there was a baking sale and there were a lot of sweet treats to buy. Thanks to all the people who contributed to help set everything up. It was a massive fundraiser for the school. 

Geometry

In geometry, we have been learning about the properties of 2-D and 3-D shapes. We have learnt that the flat surfaces on a 3-D shape are called faces, and the pointy bits are called vertices. We have learnt the names of some 3-D shapes and how to recognise them from flat representations of themselves called nets. There are a lot of new words to learn in like parallel, perpendicular and congruent. We have been learning to use the language of geometry to describe 3-D shapes like the ones you can see in this photo.

Athletic Sports

On Friday the 23^rd of February it was the Milton Schools Athletics day. St Marys and Tokoiti came to participate with us. All of the events started at 9.30am and went to around 2.00pm. Lots of parents and caregivers came to cheer their children along as well as their school. These were all of the events: high jump, long jump, mini hurdles, 100 metre sprints, 200 metres, 800 metres, shot put and discus. Each child put in a one hundred and one percent effort. At the end of the day children went home with a red face and a smile with tomato sauce over it from the delicious sausage sizzle at lunchtime provided by Home and School helpers. The 800 metre run was the longest and made us puff and slow down a little bit more at the end of the race. Everyone tried their hardest and our best wishes go to the children who qualified for the South Otago sports in Balclutha. It was a great day but everyone’s bones would have been very stiff and sore the next day!!

Swimming

We were all delighted to be able to get straight into swimming instruction right from the first day of the school year. We were also fortunate that the weather stayed fine for us so we only missed one swimming day. In this block of swimming, we focus on practising the basic swimming strokes eg freestyle and backstroke. We use equipment such as floatboards to work on our leg action and once we have mastered that we go on to work on arm action and breathing. Many children have made tremendous progress since last year. Later in the term we will have another block of swimming lessons and we will be off to the pool again at the end of the year when the focus will be on water safety.

2018

Welcome to the start of the new school year. It's great to be back for what promises to be another exciting year for the students in Room 8. The children have settled into their work very quickly and our classroom routines are already well established. There will be regular updates to our class blog throughout the year including samples of the children's work and photos of the children participating in a variety of different events and activities. You are encouraged to make regular visits to the blog to check out any updates and leave a comment if you would like to.