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
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.
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.
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
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:
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.
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...
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!
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:
Today we were very lucky to receive a visit from Jimmy, a Quarantine Officer for the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI). We've been learning all about biosecurity, which is how we protect our country from threats such as animals, disease and seeds (because if those things come to New Zealand from another place, it could wreck our economy, environment and the animals we already have here). Jimmy gave us loads of information about MPI and told lots of stories about his experiences as a QO. Some were funny, some were yuck, and others were scary. He showed us lots of examples of items and animals that people have tried to bring into New Zealand, but were confiscated at the border. Very interesting stuff! Jimmy, who is French, also gave us a few French lessons!
We had a fantastic opportunity to put our Ki O Rahi skills to the test last week, in a game of Ki O Rahi against some of the staff from Sport Manawatu. We were well prepared with our ninja head gear, but we weren't able to beat the adults. They had one or two VERY quick people who were pretty much unstoppable. We gave it a good nudge though, and had loads of fun. Thanks to Marcus and the team from Sport Manawatu! Also, thanks to Mr Blanchard for the cool photos!
Congratulations to Lucy who was recently awarded the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award. Earlier in the year, the senior students voted for who they thought should receive the award. Mr Wilton from Westpac Bank, attended assembly to present Lucy with her well deserved award. Well done Lucy!
Congratulations to Kauri, who took out the interhouse nukumball competition in a great battle against Totara today. Well done kids! Final results: 1st: Kauri 2nd: Totara 3rd: Matai 4th: Rimu
We blasted our way around the soccer pitch in our last rotation for Large Ball Skills today. The slippery conditions made for an entertaining match, and it was great chance to develop our kicking and running and passing and balance and team work and agility and dribbling skills. Thanks for teaching us Miss Fleet! Photographer: Finlay
Today marked 100 school days since the beginning of the year! This was cause for celebration! So, we joined forces with our buddy class, and had a bit of fun with an app called 'Aging Booth'. This app did terrible things to us... it made us look 100 years old! While the results were pretty scary, we sure had a lot of fun!
The next interhouse event kicked off today - NUKUMBALL! The windy conditions made it a bit tricky, but all four houses started well. Well done to Kauri and Totara who won their first games.
