Colyton Sports Exchange

We had the fourth and final of our winter sports' exchanges with Colyton School today.  There were some fantastic battles, and we won some and lost some!  The sun was shining, the kids were smiling and the afternoon tea was awesome!  Thank you so much to our coaches, referees and supporters.

Thanks to Mr Blanchard for the brilliant photos too!

MR BLANCHARD'S PHOTOS - CLICK HERE

Special Visitors

Today we had some special visitors to our class - all the way from Japan!  They told us a little bit about life in Japan, and then dressed Hollie up in a kimino.  A kimino is worn by Japanese women on very special occasions.

PJ & HC Day & Staff vs Students Netball

We were all super comfortable in our PJs today!

Well done to the Totara Year 8 students who did a wonderful job of organising hot chocolates for everyone.  The popcorn was 100% yummy too!

The students played some very sharp netball in the Staff vs Students netball match this afternoon, and came very close to beating the staff.

What a day!

Blue Screening Fun!

Algorithm Tutorials

This week, some students have been using Explain Everything to create short videos explaining how to use algorithms to solve problems.  These will be very useful for people who need to practice, or who aren't sure quite what to do!

Bulls Sports Exchange

Today we hosted Bulls School in another epic sports exchange!  The rain (mostly) stayed away, but the ground was VERY wet and muddy.  The slippery conditions gave us a good challenge though!  All our teams performed very well, and the afternoon tea was yummo.  Well done kids!

Thank you so much to our coaches and referees, and to Mr Blanchard for taking awesome photos!

Mr Blanchard's Photos - Click Here

Sarah - Horizons Visitor - Round 2

Sarah from the Horizons Regional Council visited us again today.  We analysed the results from our tracking tunnels, and nearly all the groups had some pest action!  Some locations were more popular than others, and we discussed the reasons for this.  We've learnt a lot during our first attempt at tracking pests, and most groups agreed they'd do things a little differently next time.  It seems we have plenty of rats and mice around our school.

We are doing another round of tracking, this time using the 'proper' ink pads, rather than the home made job.  Some groups decided to move their tunnels to a different location.  We discussed using different bait, but decided to stick with peanut butter.

Sarah showed us a variety of different traps that can be used to kill pests, and we talked about the positives and negatives of each.  As a class, we decided we would like to try to trap and kill some pests around our school, so organising that is our next step.

Chin Up Champs 2018

Movie Making Fun - Tech Group A

Fun Times Ahead...

South Mak Exchange

Yesterday we faced South Makirikiri School in our annual sports exchange.  We piled on the bus, very excited about the matches ahead.  We were very pleased that the weather was WAY better than last year, when we had thunder, lightning and hail during our games!

We received a warm welcome at South Mak and got straight into our warm ups and games.  Of the five games we played, Halcombe won the senior rugby, B netball and football, and South Mak won junior rugby and A netball.  We all had loads of fun, and it was awesome to see some fantastic individual and team performances.  The afternoon tea was pretty good too!

Click here to see some fantastic photos that Mr Blanchard took:

Mr Blanchard's Photos

Special Visitor - Sarah - Horizons Regional Council

Yesterday we had a visit from another expert to help us with our science learning about biosecurity.  Sarah is the environmental educator for the Horizons Regional Council.  

She talked to us about pests in New Zealand, and what is being done to try to eradicate them.  We learnt about what the footprints of different animals look like too.

Sarah also helped us to construct tracking tunnels, because we are going to monitor the pests that are around our school.  We are hoping that some peanut butter will tempt the creatures to walk through the tunnels, and leave their footprints behind.  Once we know what pests we have around our school, we might be able to set up some traps to do our part to protect our patch of land from these creatures.

R6 Arm Wrestling Championships

Over the past couple of weeks, we've been competing in an arm wrestling competition!  There were some VERY close battles, and some that weren't so close!  Congratulations to Finlay, the champion!  He was a convincing winner against Freda in the final.

Mathex

We had a number of students from our class competing in the annual Mathex Competition in Palmerston North today.  This is for our elite mathematicians, and they've been training hard over the past few weeks.  All their hard work paid off today, as all of our teams achieved a Top 10 finish.  Awesome work team!
Year 7:  8th
Year 8 A:  1st
Year 8 B:  6th 

Tech

Gymnastics

We have been busy trying to improve our skills in gymnastics.  With two sessions each week, many of us are on track to achieve our goals.  We are learning skills on five different apparatus - floor, beam, high bar, vault and trampoline.  We know that the biggest barrier to success in gymnastics is a lack of confidence.  We're working on this...

Here are some shots of us in action on the vault today:

ANZ Netball Experience.

We won't forget what happened this morning for a long time.  We are so lucky.

Newbury Sports Exchange

Quite a few students from our class played either netball or football in a sports exchange with Newbury School today.  It was exciting to visit another school, and even though we lost all our games, we still had loads of fun - as usual!  Hopefully we'll have some better results against South Mak next week.

Buddy Class

Today we had our first Buddy Class for Term 3.  This term we have a new BC - Room 1!  They needed a bit of help with a science experiment.  They have been studying solids, liquids and gases, and today we helped them make oobleck.  We didn't mind the messy, gunky gunge at all, and had lots of fun squishing our hands into this mysterious liquid.  Is it a solid?  Is it a liquid?  No one knows...

Special Visitor - Abi - DOC

We had another awesome visitor in our class today.  Abi, a DOC Ranger, came along to talk to us about PF2050, and some of the things DOC does to try to eradicate pests in New Zealand.  We were very interested in the things she brought along to show us, especially a (dead) ferret and a DOC 200 Trap.  Thanks Abi, we learnt heaps!

 

Tough Kids Challenge 2018

Nearly everyone from our class attended the Tough Kid Challenge at Linton Army Camp last week.  This event really did test our toughness - there was mud and running and ice-cold water and obstacles and dark tunnels and everything!  All the students had a blast though, and even though there is no winner (it's all about participation), everyone gave their best.  Thanks to all the parents who provided transport and cheered us on.  We also won a super cool prize - popcorn for the whole school - because we had the loudest cheer!  Yahoo!  Check out these awesome photos from Mr Blanchard: