Holiday Time

Dear Room 6
We're at the end of another crazy-busy term!  Once again, the weeks just flew by and now suddenly, Term 4 is approaching!  Enjoy your break and take some time to recharge your batteries... trust me, you'll need the energy for the weeks ahead!  See you in two weeks.
Miss Simpson

'Let Us Entertain You'

On Wednesday night, a crowd of nearly 500 turned up to be entertained by us.  Even though we had seen all the class items during rehearsals, there is nothing quite like the real thing.  It was awesome!  Despite some last minute changes to our class item, (thank you to those who stepped up into new roles), it ran very smoothly.  Congratulations Room 6 - all the blood, sweat and tears paid off - you can be very proud of yourselves!  Check out this video of the dances:

Blog Comment Competition

Over the past couple of weeks, Miss Simpson has been keeping a record of all blog comments made by our families - there were 74 in total. 

Thank you so much to those who have commented - it makes us feel pretty cool knowing that people enjoy checking out what we do in Room 6 and at Halcombe School. 

All the comments went into a special draw and one was drawn out...and the winner was...

Logan!  The odds were definitely in Logan's favour as his family commented many times - thank you!

Rod Tower Awesomeness

Logan, Daniel, Alex and Jago have set a new Rod Tower record at Halcombe School.  They needed nerves of steel and a very steady hand to make this massive tower.  Nice one boys!

Senior Team Sharing

As has become a bit of a tradition at the end of every term, Rooms 4, 5 and 6 got together to share their learning.  With our focus on creativity, it was really interesting to see the cool projects that other classes have been working on!

Race Day

Race Day had finally arrived and boy, were we excited!  We were all set to race our CO2 Cars that we'd made in Tech with Mrs Bowles and were stoked to have the whole school as an audience!  Luckily Mr Alcock was available to come in and set up the race track and help run the event - thank you Mr Alcock!  There was a gasp of surprise as the first cars shot down the track like bullets - we could not believe how fast they went!  After that, there was a lot of talk about which car would be the best... 

 

 

We were also treated to an amazing lunch, made by Mrs Neville and some of the Year 8's.  Thank you - lunch was delicious!

 



Daffodil Day Recognition

Cross Country Training

The countdown is on!  With the cross country being held the second week back after the school holidays, we have been in full-on training mode.  It might be hard to motivate ourselves during the holidays but those who are serious about achieving their goals will continue their training - good luck!

Crazy Times!

A couple of electricians took over our class today - they were replacing our old, ugly lights, with fancy new ones.  We moved into the library for the day!

Vines!

Online Art

As part of our creativity unit, we explored a number of exciting online art sites!  We had no idea that you could create such awesome art using a computer!  Here is a sample of our artwork:

CO2 Cars

The cars are made - sanded smoothly, painted brightly and varnished carefully.  The partners have been chosen.  The track has arrived.  We are getting pumped for the big Race Day on Thursday! 

Recycling Legends!

We were stoked to receive this award from the Green Team in assembly today!  Well done team.  Sounds like we need to be better at turning off the lights in the storeroom though...

2013 Tech Reflections

Our final Tech session is tomorrow.  It's shame Tech has come to an end - we have all loved it - there have been many skills learnt, highlights and challenges along the way.  Thank you so much to Mr Stonely, Mrs Neville and Mrs Bowles - our wonderful teachers.  This week we have done some reflecting on our Tech experience.  Here are some examples:

Buddy Class

It has been AGES since our last Buddy Class so we were excited to meet up with Room 3 today.  When we found out we were doing an obstacle course while blindfolded, our excitement quickly turned to fear.  "They'll kill us!", said one student.  "Have a bit of faith", Miss Simpson told us.  After finding a partner, we carefully led them through the course before they took over.  It was awesome fun!

Cross Country Training

We've started our cross country training!  We're going to make a wee adjustment to our training track as you can see from the map below - follow the red line!  The red line is 600m long, so a return lap will be 1.2km.  Bring it on!

Go Elen!

Check out this awesome article from the Manawatu Standard!  Congratulations Elen!

Street Art

After checking out some incredibly inspirational street art, many of us decided to create our own.  Our task was to find a suitable spot around our school to create our art - using existing objects and cracks in the concrete was all part of the challenge!  Have a look at what we came up with:

Speech Finals

Today three Year 7 students (Hannah, Jasmine and Jago) and three Year 8 students (Molly, Juliet and Alex) competed in our school speech finals.  All six students put in a lot of time and effort to refine and learn their speeches - this made it especially difficult for the judges!  After some intense discussion, the judges named Molly as the winner of the Year 8 competition.  Jago and Hannah were first equal in the Year 7 competition!  These two will spend the week making some wee changes to their speeches and present them again next week.  Good luck!  Molly and the Year 7 winner will represent our school at the Interschool competition held at the beginning of next term.

ICT Presentation For Board Of Trustees

Last night, a group of six students made a presentation to our Board of Trustees.  The presentation was all about ICT and how we are using it in our class.  Congratulations Molly, Alex, Grace, Juliet, Olivia and Hilary - you did a wonderful job of sharing information and answering questions.  Well done team!

Blog Comments

Righto parents/families, you're up!  We LOVE it when you comment on our blog and so we've decided to offer a little incentive to encourage you to visit our blog and leave us a comment!

Every comment you leave counts as ONE entry to our special competition.  You can comment as many times as you like.  This competition will run through until Thursday 26th September.

Who can comment?  Anyone from your family!  This competition is open to the parents/families of Room 6 students only.

We will pull out one name and that person/family will win a $20 iTunes voucher and three bars of chocolate!

If you've forgotten how to leave a comment, don't panic, your child will be happy to show you how its done.

Thank you!

Kiwiana Art

Earlier in the week, we did some cool Kiwiana Art with Mrs Bremner, our relieving teacher.  We had to research Kiwiana images, draw one, photocopy it three times and colour it in four different ways using one colour.  It sounds a lot more complicated than it was!  They turned out really well - check out these awesome examples:

Tech Update

We had our second-to-last Tech session today!  Here are some photos:

In The News Again!

Take a look at this great article from the Feilding Herald.  Well done to Olivia D and Nelly for writing most of the information!

Creative Drawing

We continued to develop our creative skills in a drawing task we completed today.  Here is what we had to do:
1.  organise a group of four - pen and paper each.
2.  draw the head of a 'creature' at the top of the page.
3.  fold the paper to cover the head and pass the paper to the next person.
4.  draw the torso and arms, fold the paper and pass the paper to the next person.
5.  draw the legs, fold the paper and pass the paper to the next person.
6.  draw the feet, fold the paper and pass the paper back to the person who had it first.
7.  open paper and check out your creative drawing!

We've done this activity before and it gave us a real laugh again today.  Here are some of the most wonderfully weird examples:

Hockey Time

We've been learning to play hockey and after two sessions, we're getting pretty good!  Today we started off by practicing our hitting and ability to control the ball.  Next we had some 1:1 battles to practice both our attacking and defensive skills.  Here are some photos:

Photographer:  Olivia C

We finished up with a game which the Bibs won 1-0!

Photographer:  Olivia C

Yum Yum!

Conservation Week Photo Competition

We recently entered a competition run by Horizons Regional Council.  The task was to take a photo showing you and/or your whanau in your environment!  We entered four photos and took out first prize for the gravel photo (bottom right).  Thank you to Horizons and Te Manawa for the awesome prize pack!

Here are our four entries:

Here is Elen collecting our prize:

Here are our prizes (which we're donating to our school Green Team):

All Blacks vs Argentina

We're all set for the next All Blacks game on Saturday night - here are our score guesses:

Staff vs Students Netball

Today the teachers faced the almighty 'A' Netball Team.  It was a tough match right from the start.  Once the teachers got into their groove, they were unstoppable... for the first four minutes.  After that, the students began to dominate, making far better plays than the teachers!  The students took out the match 10-5.  Well done girls!

Scorekeepers:  Sophie & Ffion
Timekeeper:  Alex
Photographers:  Jago & Cody
Referees:  Aaliyah & Elen

Incredible Skills!

Stefan is so talented - watch what he can do!

We're In The News

Check out this article from the Feilding Herald!  Thanks to Mark for supplying the photo.

Sketching

Earlier in the week, we worked on our sketching skills with Mrs Bowles.  After watching a tutorial on You Tube and discussing some key aspects of sketching, we headed outside to sketch the front of our school.  Check out these awesome sketches by Cody and Tyler:

 

Watercolour Art

This week we created art using watercolours - this was new for many people.  Firstly, we had some time to experiment, helping us to know how much water to use and how to blend colours effectively.  Once it had dried, we decided to cut up this work and make bookmarks - so cool!

Next we had to create a sunrise/sunset scene, adding hills in the foreground.  Later, we also added trees, houses and animals!  Considering the whole project involved a lot of experimentation, our art turned out pretty good!

Netball

Every Monday night, a group of dedicated girls have been playing netball for Halcombe School in the Intermediate competition, played at Vautier Park in Palmerston North.  The team has had some awesome wins, some devastating losses and had a lot of fun along the way.  Tonight was the last game, but unfortunately they went down 12-11 to Palmerston North Intermediate.  They placed 4th overall in their grade.