Creative Christmas Cards in M6

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These lovely children got creative with their Christmas crafts today and everyone made something very different.

Liam's effort was quite eye catching and he showed great patience, well done.

Fun, fun, fun with M5

While Mrs Walsh spent her release time tidying her classroom ready for the big move, I had the opportunity to spend the day with M5 in a new learning environment. We had a great day starting out in the library with reading, games and chess. We then moved to the hall to work on our volleyball skills, before making Christmas Cards in the afternoon. A great day with a lovely bunch of kids.

Computer Hour

While the senior school was on camp we took the opportunity to borrow some extra chrome books and hone our maths skills on a few websites such as interactive weekly, fun4thebrain and matifica. 

S7 Artwork

We created white silhouette pictures and then added in the background. Everyone had their own idea of what they wanted and spent the next 40 minutes happily completing their own creations. Great results from everyone.

School Garden

Jaden, our very conscientious and extremely capable lawn mower. The grass seems to grow better than anything else at the moment, but the garden is starting to show signs of growth.

The garden is beginning to take shape thanks to some dedicated young gardeners. These young people are keen to help out whenever possible, and like me, are learning as they go.

Some of the girls planting snow peas. So far we have planted lots of lettuce, some peas, carrots, radishes, silverbeet,and some lebanese cucumbers as well as tomatoes and strawberries and probably a few other things I may have forgotten. 

TERM FOUR

This term is the grand lead up to the end of the year for our Year 8 pupils with lots of things happening throughout the school. It is always tinged with a little sadness saying goodbye to our seniors but we wish them all the best. Can't wait for the Year 8 social, which is an end of year highlight and I am sure all children from Year5, 6, 7, and 8 are looking forward to camp in week 8. Seems a bit strange as this is the first time in many years that I will not be involved in any of the camps - but I look forward to catching up with kids afterwards and hearing their camp stories.

Classes will soon have to get ready for a reshuffle for next year and hopefully we have some progress happening soon on the building site.  Can't wait to have these new classrooms and get the chance to teach in what will be an amazing environment.

WHY???

Our current focus is on looking at why we educate, how we educate and what we do to improve the outcomes for children.

The purpose of education should be to develop the unique potential within each of our students while motivating them to be collaborative, self-motivated and life-long learners. OR as one of our learning groups succinctly put it, 'empowering today's learners for tomorrow's world', and ultimately giving students the chance to share a sustainable tomorrow together. 

Tall Ferns vs Japan

Yesterday a select group of our basketball players had the opportunity to attend the warm up game between the Tall Ferns and Japan. While we did not win against our formidable opponents, finally losing 58-75 the NZ team put up a good fight and had some moments of brilliance. The group of kids who went thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and contributed to the noise around the place. Our banners were the best there and many peole took photos. A great day out.

Tessa Boagni, one of the stars of the team being swamped for selfies with our kids. A lovely young lady from Christchurch who dealt with all the hype really well and who is a very handy player on the court.

Chloe and Mia looking resplendent in Canterbury uniforms after competing in a half time on court competition.

Our awesome banners, as you can see by the empty seats behind us we got there early and all ready for the fun to begin. This actually paid off as we saw the complete warm-up and got the attention of the team, organiser and management etc. which was pretty cool.

All eyes on the centre court action.

The singing of the national anthems.

Te Pihinga Artworks

Stencil and Crayon Art in Te Pihinga

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Using wax crayons we created our background, we then cut out our shadow stencil and glue everything together. Just look at what we can create.

Blogging in Wha Whero Team

Wha Whero students using chrome books to update their personal learning blogs. Everyone very focused and engaged in what they are doing. Students add pictures of artwork, photos of activities and written language work to their blogs on a weekly basis. Some children also add work to their blogs in the evening at home and all share their work with parents, whanau and friends.

Using an online blackboard and an app called screencastify students also share examples of their work and their thinking. Today maths students shared their understanding of multiplication equations.

Uni hoc with S3

Red team verse yellow team, a fierce competition.

Blue and green teams waiting for their turn, and discussing abilities and tactics.

Start of next game.

Lots of fun and everyone more than a bit puffed after all this activity.

Maths and Literacy in S6

As part of their maths programme children get the opportunity to play maths learning games on the iPad, always a popular choice. Today Daniel is checking the time in other parts of the world, after our earlier conversation about time differences around the world.

In writing last time we looked at how to stretch a sentence. Today we are going over this and remembering to add who, what, when, where and why to our sentences.

Another example of how to make a sentence using who, what, when and where. This could be built up to include WHY? as children become better writers.

Children wanted to know if they could change the order in their sentences and many added the reason for what was happening. They came up with some interesting sentences and raced each other to come up with weird and wonderful sentences about what their siblings or pets were doing. Great fun.

ANZAC Day Commemorations 2015

M2 being attentive while listening to speeches and proudly wearing their poppies.

The whole school outside on a lovely, sunny autumn day. School Council did a great job of running the assembly and children were showing great respect. Well done everyone.

Bucket Ball

Bucket ball with M1 & M2 at the park.

Both classes extremely competitive but both playing very fairly.

Making poppies in M2

Really cool and simple idea for making poppies found on YouTube. Great end result, well done M2.

Artwork and ANZAC Art in M4

Holly created this masterpiece in Term One - one of our talented Year 6 artists.

The whole class creating their own poppy fields with simple finger painting techniques.

Finger painting poppy art in M3

Easy to do but effective. Finger painting to create a field of poppies.