Tahu's Visit

On Thursday 11 May Tahu came to visit us. She works at the Orokonui ecosanctuary and she came to help us prepare for our whanau group trips next week. She brought some friends along to help her and each class worked with them for about forty five minutes. She started by telling us some stories about the history of our country going back millions of years and singing a song about the special place set up to protect the environment at Orokonui ecosanctuary. We did some role play about how to keep the pests out and then we went outside where we learnt about some native plants and we each made a pretend poo ball to demonstrate how birds like the kereru help spread seeds. Finally, we used a tracking device to track down a kiwi statue just like they do to keep track of the kiwis at the sanctuary. It was a very interesting and enjoyable session and we learnt a lot about New Zealand's history and its native plants and birds.

Mandarin

Our new mandarin teacher, Amy, took her first lesson with the class at the start of the term. She started off by going over some of the simple greetings we had learnt previously but in a fun way. She has been teaching us how to introduce ourselves and how to introduce someone else. We also learnt how to tell the time. In our last lesson Amy taught us how to make paper lanterns like the ones in the picture below. It is fun to learn a different language and we are looking forward to many more interesting mandarin lessons throughout the year.

Year 6 Camp Stalls

On Thursday 6 April, the Year 6 children had their camp stall. It was held in the school hall 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. They were selling things like baking, toys, lollies, drinks, popcorn etc. They had to make posters saying what they were selling at their stall, as well as the price. Most things were either $1.00 or 50c. The Year 6’s made $526.40 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!

Works of Art

In Room 8 we have been learning about a famous American artist named James Rizzi. He was a pop artist who liked to use bright and fun colours. He liked turning boring cities into fun art. For our art work we had to draw some buildings in the James Rizzi style which includes all sorts of different and unusual shapes. We had to turn it into a city that had faces. It was a fun activity and we were all pleased with the way our pictures turned out. 

Wacky Hair Day

On 24 March we had a wacky hair day. The children came to school with all sorts of wacky hairstyles. Some wore wigs and many others dyed their hair a variety of interesting colours. At 10.20 the whole school got together on the basketball court for a grand parade. Miss Hodges and Mrs Robinson were the judges and they awarded prizes for the best junior and senior wacky hairstyles. This event was organize by the student council. They had asked the children who participated to bring along a gold coin donation and they will donate the money raised to Kidscan.

Bikewise

On Thursday,16 March, Constable Gordon came to school to teach us how to keep safe when riding our bikes. Check out our video to find out what we learnt.

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.