Colour Day - Whoop Whoop!

Pallet Project

We're working on a pretty cool project at the moment - we can't wait to show you the finished result!

Small Ball Skills

We had a great small ball skills session in Room 6 this afternoon.  We split into three groups, and rotated around three activities.  We had some fun with the 'crazy catch' device, practiced our 15-20m throwing and worked on throwing the ball at a target.  We finished up with an awesome game of longball.  Great work team!

Commas

Not many of us knew how or when to use commas at 9am this morning.  By 9.30am however, we knew exactly what to do!  First we talked about conjunctions (words that join two sentences together) and then we talked about the three different times that commas need to be used:

BEFORE A CONJUNCTION:
eg.  I was very hungry, so I made myself a sandwich.
eg.  The cows escaped from the paddock, because the gate was left open.

TO SEPARATE THINGS IN A LIST:
eg.  I went to the supermarket and bought some apples, milk, tomato sauce and jellybeans.
eg.  There were lots of people at the party, including James, John, Jim, Jock and Julia.

WHEN YOU NEED A SHORT PAUSE IN A SENTENCE:
eg.  My brother, who is very tall, loves to play rugby.
eg.  As the rain pelted down, some massive puddles formed on the road.

Interhouse Cricket Update

We are nearing the end of the Interhouse Cricket Competition - there are only two games to go before the playoffs.  Today Kauri faced Totara.  Kauri batted first and scored 75 runs, but Totara managed to beat them.  Check out these action shots:

Music With Mrs Howie

This afternoon, we had music with Mrs Howie, who is the music master!  She taught us some songs while she played the guitar.  When we showed Miss Simpson what we'd been working on, she was very impressed!  Thanks Mrs Howie, we are looking forward to another session next week.

Photographer:  Grace

How To Catch A Tennis Ball

Today we've been hard at work, making videos about how to catch a tennis ball.  After discussing and brainstorming the different steps involved in catching a ball, we were off outside to do the filming.  Here are a couple of awesome examples - you can view our videos on our blogs.

But, not everything went according to plan.... here are some 'other' parts we filmed...

Interschool Swimming

A massive congratulations to our relay team for the Feilding Interschool Swimming Champs - they won the Country Schools Relay!  Well done to those who also competed in the 100m, and a double well done to Greer, Lydia and Mya who made the final of this event.  Awesome work team!

Buddy Class - Capture The Flag

It has been ages since our last buddy class, and so we thought it was about time we got together and had some fun!  We joined up with Room 2 and played Capture The Flag.  There was a lot of talking about tactics and the best way to beat the opposition.  What a great way to end the week!  Thanks Room 2!

Interhouse Cricket

Our next interhouse competition - cricket - is now well underway!  It has been a bit tricky fitting in the games around the yucky weather this week, so fingers crossed it improves for next week.  Here are some action shots from the game today between Matai and Kauri.  Matai scored 103, and Kauri managed to score 104 with only 30 seconds to spare.  It was a very close match!

Sun Art

In Room 6, we're not quite ready to say goodbye to the sun!  So, we thought we had better create our own sunshine with this cool Sun Art!

Shared Novel

We have just finished reading 'My Sister Lives On The Mantlepiece', by Annabel Pitcher.  You can read some of our thoughts about the book below:

Created with Padlet

We're about to start our next book, 'Mr Tucket', by Gary Paulsen.  Exciting times!

Small Ball Skills

Today we started our new PE unit - small ball skills!  We are aiming to be able to master these things:

• throw 20m
• catch a ball that has been thrown from 20m away
• pitch or bowl a ball accurately
• hit targets on the full from varying distances
• apply these skills in games like rounders and longball

Information Skills

We've been getting stuck in to our research tasks about dinosaurs over the past couple of days.  This meant we needed to do some work around how to put information into our own words - we know that copying information from books or the internet is a big no-no!

When you've found some useful information, the first thing you need to do is identify the key words. Today we refreshed our memories about what key words are and made a list on the board:

Once we have identified the key words, we use them to put information into our own words.  We did some practice, and we were pretty good at this.  Check out these examples from Jack and Willow:

Rippa Rugby

The annual Rippa Rugby Tournament is fast approaching!  Today we had a training session with Clayton and Rhys from Manawatu Rugby.  We practiced passing and ripping, before launching into a game.  It didn't take long for our rippa skills to return and some people scored some awesome tries!  We have another training session tomorrow, which we are all looking forward too.

Bus Wardens With Constable Cree

Today our six bus monitors met with Constable Cree from the Feilding Police to discuss how they can keep everybody on the bus as safe as possible.  Thanks Constable Cree!

House Chants

Check out our awesome house chants!

Miss Simpson has also had a hunt around and found some old videos of the house chants from the Fun Swimming Sports in 2013 and 2014.  Recognise anybody?

Fun Swimming Sports

Well, what an awesome end we've had to our swimming programme for 2016!  This afternoon we had the Fun Swimming Sports, which is all about.... FUN and representing your house with pride!  We had all kinds of crazy events and had lots of laughs too.  Bring on 2017!

Here is a video of some of the highlights - thanks for doing the camera work Heath!

Swimming Sports

With more than 60 races, the swimming sports was an event of epic proportions!  We'd all signed up for the events we wanted to enter, and have been practicing hard over the last few weeks.  Even though it was nerve wracking waiting for our races, we all enjoyed the chance to find out, once and for all, how fast we really were!  Congratulations - you all put in an awesome effort and pushed yourselves hard in every race.  Well done!  A special congratulations to Greer and Jensen, our 2016 senior swimming champions.

Halcombe School Gutterboard Finals

We had 38 students in Years 5-8 who signed up for the Halcombe SchoolGutterboard Champs.  Gutterboard has been a very popular break time activity over the past few weeks, so we decided it was time to get serious and find out who the masters of gutterboard were!  In the all-boy Year 5 and 6 final, Blake faced Jack.  It was a close match and both boys had their chances.  Well done to Jack, who managed to win the game.  The all-girl Year 7 and 8 final followed between Mya and Catherine. Catherine went around the world, putting all the pressure on Mya who could not quite match Catherine's performance.  Awesome work Catherine!

Flippaball Finals

Our first Interhouse Competition has come to an end.  We've been playing lunchtime games of flippaball for the last week, and today it was time to find out who the champions were! Matai faced Rimu in the playoff for 3rd and 4th, and after an awesome match, Rimu came out on top. The final between Totara and Kauri followed. It was a very physical game, with both teams desperate to win! In the end, Totara took it out. Well done to everyone involved, and a special congratulations to Totara. Check out the action shots taken by Miss Fleet below.

Next up:  Interhouse Cricket!

TOTARA - THE WINNING HOUSE

Final Fun Day Friday

The water was a bit cold today, so after our house relay training, only a few hardy people remained in the pool to enjoy the final Fun Day Friday!  The challenge?  Stand up on the tyre - easy right?

Level 4 Swimming Assessment

Today was the big day - the day we've been training for!  We headed off to the Makino Pool to be tested on the following things:

• 100m freestyle
• 100m backstroke
• 50m breaststroke
• 50m sidestroke
• tread water for 3 minutes
• float on back for 3 minutes
• perform a safe dive
• swim 50m fully clothed

We all performed very well, and tried our best to achieve some great results.  Congratulations to all those who achieved their goals - be proud of yourselves!  What an awesome afternoon!

Treading water:

Preparing to swim in our clothes:

Having fun in the diving pool:

Civil Defence Radio Check

Our school is a Civil Defence Welfare Centre, which means if there is a disaster in our area, people would come to our school for help.  We have a radio system which is designed to be able to contact the outside world in case of such a disaster.  Checking this radio system is working is an important weekly job that Heath and Jason are responsible for.  They must speak into the radio to confirm that all systems are working properly.  So far, so good!

Cybersafety

Constable Cree from the Feilding Police visited our class today.  She talked about how we can keep ourselves safe online and gave us some important messages to remember, including:

• never share personal information or passwords.
• if you have a problem with online bullying, make sure you tell an adult (keep the evidence - do not delete anything).
• be very careful about the photos and information you post online.