Positive Thinking

At the end of each week, we're going to write a journal about the awesome things that have happened during the week.  We can write about any of the following:

• what went well this week?
• what are you proud of?
• what was a highlight?
• what did you achieve?
• what made you happy?

Positive thinking is a powerful thing, and by the end of the term, we will have a wonderful collection of highlights from throughout the term.  Check out the awesome examples below:

Message From Gallipoli

Mr Smith (Bethany's dad) is currently aboard Te Kaha just off the coast of Gallipoli. He sent us the cool photo below. You can see a red shape in the distance - that is the seating ready for the visitors who will attend the dawn service at ANZAC Cove. Thanks Mr Smith!

Halcombe Community ANZAC Service

A massive crowd gathered in Halcombe for the community ANZAC Service.  Congratulations and thank you to the Halcombe School students who represented our school in various ways.

ANZAC Service

On Friday afternoon, we held an ANZAC service at school.  This was an opportunity for us to recognise this important day, and to remember the men and women who gave their lives in war.  Many of the Year 8 students had a speaking role - they were nervous, but did very well.  Thank you to our guest speaker, Mr Alcock (Jensen's dad), who talked to us about the meaning of ANZAC Day.  Many students brought flowers along, which were laid under our memorial arch.  They looked wonderful.

The NZ Army @ Halcombe School

We had some very special visitors at school on Friday morning.  Staff Sergeant Skelton (Jed's dad) brought some of his colleages along to school to help us learn about courage and ANZAC Day.  The vehicles they drove in were awesome, and very interesting to look at!  The gun was pretty amazing too, it can shoot a target up to 11km away!

Mr Skelton spoke to us about the white crosses we have at school, and about why it is important to commemorate ANZAC Day.

Next, we had the opportunity to interview the soldiers.  We asked them all kinds of questions about their jobs and what it's like to be in the army.  

Thank you so much to Mr Skelton for helping to organise this visit, and to the other soldiers who visited our school.  We had lots of fun, and learnt heaps!

Rippa Rugby Tournament

Wow, what a day!  All three of our rippa rugby teams did really well in the tournament in Palmerston North today.  All the games were really tough, against quality opposition.  We scored heaps of awesome tries and worked hard on defence. Well done team!

Thank you so much to our parent supporters, coaches, and those who provided transport.

ANZAC Display

Our school received a special set of crosses to help us to commemorate ANZAC Day.  These 30 crosses show the names of soldiers who died during WW1.  Today Jack, Jensen, Jorja, Mya and Mia set up the crosses, along with the poppies we made with Mrs Henderson.  The display looks awesome!

Photographer:  Mya

Poppy Art

In literacy, we're learning all about why we wear a poppy on ANZAC Day.  Most of us had a basic understanding, but we've explored this in real detail.  It is a fascinating story.  We also whipped up this awesome poppy art - it looks really effective on the wall, so call in and have a look!

Rippa Rugby

We have three teams entered in a rippa rugby tournament in Palmerston North on Thursday.  We've had two really good training sessions this week, and we are definitely getting better!  We know that some of the games at the tournament will be really tough, but bring it on we say!

Photographers:  Jorja, Mya & Grace

Te Reo Kori

Our PE focus for the first part of this term is on Te Reo Kori (traditional Maori games).  The key things we'll be learning are:

• rakau
• poi
• poi rakau
• korari
• waiata

We are looking forward to sharing our learning in an assembly for parents later in the term.  We're hoping we'll be able to do this at one of our local marae, Taumata O Te Ra.

Today we all had a go at poi rakau - a simple, yet surprisingly challenging stick game.  Some of us were hopeless, so we have lots of practice to do!

Courage

We have launched into our new inquiry, which is all about COURAGE!  Today we had a wee think about what we think it means to have courage or be courageous.  We came up with lots of interesting ideas.  Here is a sample of our first thoughts:

Next we worked in groups to share our ideas.  We didn't always agree, but we know that's okay.

After that, each group shared their ideas and we brainstormed ideas as a class:

Finally, we decided to look up COURAGE in a dictionary to get the 'official' definition of the word:

Poppies

Today it was time to assemble our poppies that we've been making with Mrs Henderson.  Since we glazed them, our poppies were fired, and we thought the end result was pretty cool!  After a quick lesson on how to put the poppy together, Mr Henderson clipped everything together and boom!  We have 59 poppies!  They look awesome.