Christmas Art
This is a sample of some of the Christmas art we have been working on.

 

 

Water Fight

We had a water fight with Runanga School. You could bring water guns, bottles, balloons or anything else you could find. We put flags out for an area that you could go and be safe to refill. It was an awesome time and I hope we do it again soon.

Christchurch Choir 

Our school is part of the Greymouth Combined Choir and we sing in the Christchurch  Music Festival.

 

Because we are a small school we are only allowed to send 6 students which means we have to audition and commit to practice in our own time.
Unfortunately the two boys we trained with us weren't able to go. We particularly felt sorry for one who hurt himself at the last minute and had to stay home. Its an amazing experience.

We sang in the Horncastle Arena. We left school on the Thursday morning and travelled to Christchurch. That night we went out for a Buffet meal and then Ten Pin Bowling. The next day we practised until lunch time, we were then supposed to go to the Margret Mahey Playground but it was closed. We decided to go shopping at Northlands Mall for a while and then go back to the motorcamp for a swim. After the show we went to Dominos with Runanga School and got pizza for supper. On Saturday we travelled home

Swimming/Cycling

    

In terms 1, 2 and 4 we go swimming at the Greyouth Aquatic Centre.   We go every Monday morning for one hour and have swimming lessons. Our class bikes to the pool while the others bus and then walk back. This Monday two of the staff were sick so we didn't have enough people to ride. The teacher gave us free time to set up a bike course and challenge during class time. It was heaps of fun and we are hoping it happens again sometime. We have been thinking up plans to make it more difficult for ourselves

 

Tiny Houses  
Most of you will have seen all the tiny house programmes on TV lately. In our class we are making tiny houses with furniture for maths. 
We are doing geometry and measurement and have had to work out a scale for our house and the perimeter and area for it as well as all the furniture  and walls we have decided to put in it. We had to do a plan for the layout of the inside before we began to build. Here are some examples of how we are going so far.

We have to put a roof on after we have finished the inside.

Garden Club Cooks

Our garden club picked some veges from the garden and made delicious bread cases for the whole school.
 

We had spinach, leeks, carrot, parsley, silver beet and spring onions. We added these ingredients to a cheese sauce then putting it in bread cases. Everyone went back for seconds they we sooooooo nice.

  

Our Kapa Haka

We are REALLY proud of ourselves. We got one first and either second or third in every other section. We have not performed for 3 years.

We had new costumes that reflect our school colours of blue and white. The three koru represent the three bodies of water that surround our school  - first is the beach which is one of our boundaries- second is the lagoon where all the boats are moored this is one block away and third is the river three blocks away. We hope there is never a a Tusnami!!! The white is to represent the Barber. A chilly, damp wind that blows down the Grey Valley is known locally as 'the barber'. Because of the mist that accompanies the wind, you can actually see it as well as feeling the chilly blast.

Kahurangi Dance

We had a visit from the Kahurangi Dance Group and they were fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though there were only seven of them they filled our hall with their amazing vocies. The whole school sat and listened in awe. It would have been great if they could have come before we did our own performances as the totally inspired us!!!!!!

  

Toys

Our assisgnment: 

1. Look at your favourite toys. What are they made from? How are the different parts joined together?How are they used? Can you use any of these ideas in your own toy design?
2. Think about the types of toys that children of different ages play with. How might a toy for a baby differ from a toy for a seven year old?
3. Think about the toys that girls and boys might play with. Do toys have to be especially for boys or girls, or can they be used by both?

4. Design a toy -Choose a target audience for your toy and think about what they might like to play with. Create a number of designs and ask children in the target audience for their opinions. Could you create a survey to find out their opinions

5.Think about the cost of your toy. How much do the materials cost? How much might it cost to make? How much will you charge so that you can make a profit on each toy?

6. Think about the instructions that will need to be included with your toy and then write them.

7.Make some packaging for your toy so that it catches children's attention when they are in a toy shop.

8.Create some advertising (e.g. posters, radio adverts, video adverts or a website) to promote the toy to others.  

9. Put your work on your blog (some people are still working on these tasks but keep your eye on their blogs they will appear).

Our Class Bitmoji's Complied By Liam W

We had a Duffy Role Model come to our school today and we all received 2 books.It was former World Champion Black Fern, Regina who is still an active rugby player and has played overseas on many occasions. She spent 2009 playing and coaching rugby and living in Long Beach California. She is very focused on keeping physically fit and healthy and encouraging young people to do the same. Regina enjoys working with all ages and helping people to learn the fundamentals of preparing themselves to do their best to achieve in life, whether it be on the sports field or the academic field. She loves assisting others to set themselves up for the future  this is a skill she prides herself on. Regina still plays club rugby and coaches at McAuley Girls High School in the Auckland competition. Regina was a Police Officer for many years. Regina says if she was Prime Minister for a day she would raise the salaries of Police Officers and Teachers! She was really interesting and motivational to listen to. Some lucky students got to wear her Black Fern World Cup jerseys and hold her gold medals.

School Assembly

As part of our oral language some of our students organised and took assembly on Friday. We started with the NZ National Anthem which we do it in sign language as well as singing it.

We have a start of the week from each class - they get to sit at the front and have a special reward.

Teachers give awards and Duffy Caught Being Good awards. We sing songs (we sang Love Love Love and Count on me).
Assembly usually goes for 40 minutes.

 Classes present items and show things they have made during the week. It is really fun taking assembly as we get to spend a couple of hours on Friday morning sitting in the staff-room preparing and then setting up the hall. The students in our class take turns at taking assembly. We use the microphone so that everyone can hear but still have to think about making eye contact and speaking clearly. We also need to be prepared so that everything flows. sometimes we use notes but it is better if we are confident enough not to need them.

We went on a whole school visit to Shantytown as part of our inquiry study on toys through the ages. We voted and decided not to dress up in Victorian Costumes this time so we were really comfortable. Our school only has 65 students so we enjoyed doing lots of things together, although the seniors did get to do some different things like stilts. We were really interested in a timeline that the teachers had made out there with examples of the toys through time. They got a lady to come and show us her doll collection which was fascinating even for the boys. There was also a man who had stream powered models which were really interesting. We played lots of games and had an awesome day while learning new things and having new experiences.

    

-----Mihi-----

We are really sorry you can't see these we will try to change the setting so you can.

The Blaketown Garden  Club

Here  are some students   from our class they are cleaning up and planting some new plants in the garden. This garden is so cool they clean it up and plant new cool stuff in the garden like foods that we can eat.  At lunch on Tuesday the garden club meet up and sometimes they give us food like dips and good fresh vegetables,  bread rolls with  vegetables, lettuce rolls and muffins made with the produce. A lot of  students go to garden club and work on growing seeds, wedding and craft projects.  We have made mosaic tiles for the gravel area and painted  gumboots we have filled with plants as decorations around the school. We have a bath that we grow carrots in and as part of our sustainability unit we recycled tyres to make a herb garden.

  

     

At our school we are really into cycling as we are right beside the West Coast Wilderness Cycle Trail. This means we do lots of biking. Each Monday our class bikes to the local Aquatic Centre for swimming, this is part of our fitness. After swimming we have a vote about which route we will take back to school. One way involves going down a steep hill called Brewery Hill as its beside the Monteiths Brewery, this is probably our favourite as we can cruise down really fast. Our other favourite way is biking into town to the Grey River and getting on the Cycle Trail at The Warehouse, the biking around the harbour, fishing boats and down to the Tip Head (river mouth) to see if there are any fishing boats coming in then back to school. The third way we often choose is to bike past our local aerodrome (on the cycle trail) and stop at the local BMX track to play.  The longest trip we have done was at the end of term one and as our last day treat we went on a bus and biked 42km along the trail back to school. It was an awesome day with lots of laughter. Some people learnt more about resilience on the hills and as they got tired in the hot sun.