Passion Projects

This term the kids are working on passion projects - completing something they really enjoy. Some are teaching younger students sport, others are building, being artistic, or helping others. All very cool and most are fully engaged in what they are doing.

Practising our drawing skills and using google sites to help us.

Learning how to make origami and then teaching others.

This group taught themselves some simple chords then went on to teach these to younger children.

Dixel had fun pulling apart a remote controlled car and trying to rebuild it into something else, or something better.

Phoenix and her group were successfully teaching gymnastics to a younger group of children.

YAY! A successful handstand.

Lego animation keep these boys well engaged and on task.

The House the Jack Built, not quite but Theo did some research and began to build his popsicle house with some encouragement from Jonny.

Pizza Lunch

Today this lovely bunch got a pizza lunch at Victoria Park as a reward for their excellent help at the Junior Athletics day. Well done guys.

Newsletter

We started the year with 76 children and have lost a few and gained a few along the way with our current roll being 79 children. What a year it has been – even the children are saying how fast the year has gone by. Our last two terms in our new space have been very settled and peaceful despite negative media hype about the failure of Modern Learning Environments.

 

The children have adjusted very well to their new space and we have thoroughly enjoyed teaching this group of children and watching them grow as young people. We will all miss them as a group next year and wish them all the best for the future.

 

A few housekeeping items for the end of year that you all need to be aware of.

·      Super heroes dress up next Friday 1^st Dec.

·      First Aid class – please bring a gold coin donation, which will go to St. John’s Ambulance.

·      Final week – shared lunch. We will send a reminder closer to the time.

We will put photos of these events up as they happen - so keep watching.

Also congratulations to 17 students who helped at the junior athletics day a few weeks ago. These students will have a pizza lunch tomorrow at Victoria Park with Mrs Fawkes.  Awesome effort.

In week 8 - good luck to Alex, Luka, Molly, Kobe and Theo in your athletic endeavours at the Canterbury Champs. Well done on making it through to this competition.

Super Hero Teachers

Today was our chance to dress up and show our students how easy it is to dress up as a super hero. We are doing a literacy unit based around super hero's and encouraging the kids to dress-up in Week 7. Can't wait!!!
Needless to say the kids have been looking at us sideways all day. Great fun.

Rubbish pick up at Dudley Park

This great bunch spent an hour cleaning up Dudley Park today. Awesome effort everyone.

Koru Games success

This week we have had 37 children competing in four different sporting codes at the Koru Games. I was very impressed with the way in which our children conducted themselves throughout the three days. Feedback from parents and teachers was all extremely positive and it was again an absolute pleasure to watch these young people give their best.

Sports we competed in were table-tennis, basketball, netball and football. Many of the competitors were focussed on their sporting achievements but found it a great social event as well, networking with other schools, and making new friends. Overall it was a great experience which was enjoyed by all.

All of our teams got good placings with netball and basketball both getting middle of their prospective fields and boys and junior girls table tennis competing well in a hard fought competition. Table tennis girls won the gold medal following on from their silver medal last year, awesome effort. The football team won a silver medal, in a competition with 32 teams this was also awesome. So proud of all our teams.

Special mention also to the younger girls  table tennis team, who took out the sportsmanship award for their sport (we have won this two years in a row). Well done.

GOLD Medal Table Tennis Team

SILVER Medal Football Team and Roger Kay their awesome coach.

Creative Makerspace

We are in the process of putting together a 'MakerSpace" and yes it is exactly what you think - a space for making things. In our space we need lots of things and stuff. We already have miscellaneous bits and bobs but we are now looking for anything really that kids can use to make 'anything' with.

Some children are currently working on dioramas and we would love some more shoe boxes. Others need felt and material for puppets, and another group need card etc to make board games. We also need a few tools for our new workbench - so if you have anything sitting around gathering dust that needs a new home, then let us know.

The list is endless, with one man's junk being another man's treasure.

                                        

Goal setting.

Working hard on writing our goals and next steps learning.

JUMP JAM

Our Year 8 Leaders are doing a fantastic job of running Jump Jam at F.F.W time and this week many classes joined in - with enthusiasm I might add. Great to see so many of the teacher's and teacher aides joining in, and the youngsters in the front row trying really hard to learn the moves.

International Teams in North Canterbury a First

Blacksticks beaten 6-2 by USA
Unfortunately our hockey girls couldn't pull off a win today but they have another chance tomorrow against a well drilled American team. Both girls who visited our school yesterday played well and Kirsten scored one of the two goals for NZ.

This is the first time ever that North Canterbury has hosted an international team in any sport apparently. Story in the Press today.

Black Sticks Visit

Kirsten Pearce and Kelsey Smith Visit.

In between trainings two of the black sticks visited us for a short time at school today. Both girls were delightful and happily answered all the children's questions. We wish them luck in their two games against USA this weekend at the new Rangiora hockey turf.

TAGUL

My new favourite classroom web tool.

Tagul allows you to create amazing pictures using words. Similar to wordle but it puts the words into creative little pictures. This word cloud was created by Lily

Our new learning hub name, Kōtare or the Kingfisher. A great tool, even managed to create a really cool card for my soon to be 80 year old Mum. The class have been creating word clouds about Rangiora and the many things this area has to offer.

Guess what Harry likes most about Rangiora???

Kōtare Learning Hub

Kōtare - the Kingfisher

It has taken a few weeks but we have finally come up with our new team name before moving into our new flexible learning space. This beautiful little blue bird is to be our symbol and team name for the next few years. You will see why we have chosen this little, vibrantly coloured, bird, when you first visit our very 'blue' new space. 

Everyone is getting a little excited now about the move as it seems to have taken so long to actually happen. Teachers are busily planning how the new space will work most effectively and what type of furniture we may need.

Camp is just around the corner for our team of 74 children and we just hope for a bit warmer weather that week.

As part of our writing program we have shared postcards with a class in the North Isalnd. We received our postcards from St Joseph's School in Pukekohe today and the kids had a great time putting together the puzzle these created. Need to do this type of activity more often. Our next correspondence will be letters to the children at the orphanage in Pokhara in Nepal - kids seem excited to be writing to Nepal again as many of them did this last year as well.

When we put the postcards together this was the message. Loved the colour the Pukekohe students  added to their work.

All very focussed on piecing the puzzle together.