On Wednesday we were very lucky to host 24 students, their Principal and a teacher for the day. They had come from Hong Kong and were keen to learn about New Zealand schools , work in the environment and share knowledge about their country.

Our syndicate showed them how to do Jump Jam,then in our rooms they showed us different aspects of their culture. After morning tea we went to Jess Road Estuary and completed some planting.

Once we had sung two songs,had the Year 7/8 boys do the haka, we gave the visitors a postcard picture of our school.

It was a fun learning day and hopefully it will happen again.

We recently read the book ‘Holes” which we really enjoyed. Before we saw the video we had to make a model to scale of the camp. Most of us completed it well.

This term we learnt about blind and partially sighted people. It must be really difficult for blind people to achieve things but they do. With support to help them learn they travel, play sport, live on their own and have careers.
We realise to help them we over help rather than thinking they need it, we know how to lead them without hurting them.
We created pictures using materials that a blind person would be able to feel and know what the picture is about.

What fun we had when we were allowed to wear our pj’s to school. As it was cold we were warm with our dessing gowns, slippers and pjs. There was so many different types and colours which made it fun to see. Prizes were given for the most unusual, most colourful and best all round.

During the last week we have listened to some very interesting,entertaining and informative speeches. Every class member was able to deliver with confidence the speech they had written.
Alec,Hannah, Alexandra, Savannah and Gemma were selected to go forward to the Semi finals. From this today Gemma and Alec have been chosen to speak at the School Final.
Good luck to them both.

The term has started with the thought of fun things to happen. We have Skool Stars Videoing this week, we will look forward to 10 August when we can view our efforts.
We have our speech to write, the Sevens tournament at Katikati and Music Festival all on the same day-30 August.
In class we have already been discovering how blind and partially sighted people get around. This will be followed by The World of Africa where will compare New Zealand to Africa.
Our Skoolstars videoing was really cool. Here we are just before we were videoed. Our many thanks to Mrs Tipper for the help and support she gave us all.

The fun we had in the last week of the term. Mr Arnold and his team organised a shared lunch. We ate all types of kiwiana food from pav’s to smoked fish and chips. We played games such as pass the parcel, gumboot throwing and sack races As our own class we sailed our Team NZ boats we created in pairs. It was great to draw the plans and design our own boats.

We had four class members who went through to the next round and ran in the North Cluster Cross Country. Harry and Matt ran really well but did not get through to WBOP at Waipuna Park. Holly and Phoebe got third and fifth and went through. It was a fine day,they ran well and gained fourteen and fifteenth place. Well done.

What a sight! What a neat Day!
All our school in different countries (teams) with 10 children in each team.
We were dressed up in the colors of the countries.The games were 10minutes long,on a smaller field than normal. Each team played all the others in their year group so some played about 8 games.
At the end the winners were announced and then the Year5/6 winners played the Year 7/8 winner which was a draw.
The winners were Year1/2 Nigeria; Year3/4 Korea; Year 5/6 Uruguay and Year 7/8 Ghana.

On Tuesday we had 29 students from I.S.V.Kuaka Conservation Group here. We all did Jump Jam together, then 2 or 3 students went to each class room . We all shared things about the school, us and them.It was lots of fun.
After morning tea we were lucky enough to join with the Enviromonitors and plant over 400 trees in our bush area. We learnt the best way to care for plants, the best way to plant them and more about all the students.