The Big Bark Project

We made a positive contribution to our community this afternoon - we shifted a MASSIVE pile of bark from the end of the Halcombe Community Walkway to the garden 40m along the track.  It was hard work, but we enjoyed the opportunity to get stuck in and help out.  Well done team!

Flossing The Floss

Well, we're not all all floss experts, but as usual, we give everything our best shot!

Dubsmash Fun!

Wheels Day

We had an awesome two days of wheeling this week!  We didn't let the rain and icy conditions stop us from having heaps of fun and showing off all our moves.  Congratulations to the Matai Year 8 students who organised this event - well done team!

Science Experiment

Nearly two months ago, we buried seven plastic items in our garden.  The goal was to observe and record how much the items degraded over the term.  We have dug up and re-buried the seven items twice.  We have been shocked to discover, that there is ZERO sign of degradation on ANY of the items.  In fact, we think that if we washed the dirt off, we would be able to reuse everything.

Surely some of the items will start to degrade before the end of the term?

Here is Blake showing one of the items, a plastic bottle, to the rest of the class.  Everyone else is recording information in their diary:

Staff vs Year 8 Students - Patter Tennis

With 12 chances, the teachers should have been unbeatable... they weren't.  The students ruthlessly picked the staff off one by one until they won the match.  Well done kids!

Kids = 1 (patter tennis)
Staff = 1 (flippaball)

It's on!

Photographer:  Rhianna

Risk Taking!

That moment when you want to try the jump, but you're a bit scared, but everyone else is doing it, and you're pretty sure you're going to break something, but you get stuck in there and do it anyway!  Go Anna!

Ki-O-Rahi

Ki-O-Rahi is a traditional Maori game, and is a reflection of the legend of a love story between Rahi and Tiara.  The game is complex, but SO fun, and you need to have quick reflexes, good passing and catching skills, speed and a never-say-die attitude!

Thank you so much to Marcus from Sport Manawatu, who came along and coached us today.  We're definitely looking forward to having another go at this game!

Photographer:  Bethany

Mu Torere Final

Our class Mu Torere Championship finished up today, with a great battle between finalists, Jessie and Kane.  It's hard to know whether winning is about having a good strategy, or just good luck, but Jessie and Kane sure looked like they knew what they were doing!  Congratulations to Jessie, who managed to beat Kane 2-1.

National Young Leaders Day

Today Brenna, Ashley, Anna and Bethany attended the National Young Leaders Day in Palmerston North.  This was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about leadership and how to be awesome.  The girls heard from a number of inspirational speakers, and were even entertained by William Wairua and Vince Harder!  Here are some of the key points:

DROWN OUT NEGATIVITY WITH POSITIVITY

Kelly Wilson - AUTHOR, TRAINER OF KAIMANAWA HORSES, TV STAR

• Hard work pays off.
• Never stop learning.
• Set goals.
• Face your fears.
• Success is no accident.
• Once you've decided on a goal, charge after it in an unstoppable manner.
• Write down a list of 100 things you want to achieve - and do it!
• You don't have to be good to start.  But, you'll never be good if you don't start.

Lisa Tamati - ULTRA MARATHON RUNNER

• If the challenge terrifies you, do it anyway!
• It's okay to fail, we all fail.  If you're not failing, you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough.
• If you have a dream, keep going!  It doesn't matter how long it takes you to achieve it.
• If we're willing to push ourselves, we can achieve unbelievable things.

Jono Naylor - FORMER MAYER OF PALMERSTON NORTH & MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

• Try to be excellent at what you're good at.
• Tomorrow doesn't have to be the same as today.
• We need to give people a reason to follow us - HOPE.
• H = humility = give credit where credit is due.
• O = others focused = put others ahead of yourself.
• P = play to your strengths = we're all good at something, so keep trying till you find your thing.
• E = extend yourself = take risks.

Riley Hatherway (17 Years Old) - FOUNDER OF YOUNG OCEAN EXPLORER MOVEMENT

• Fear is one of the biggest obstacles we need to get over.
• Young people are so influential and have so much power.
• One person can make a difference.  But a lot of people, who each do a little bit, can make a massive difference.
• Put EVERYTHING into ANYTHING you do.

Tech

We are now half way through our first rotation of Tech.  We're having fun and learning loads of new stuff!  Here are some pictures of us in action today:

Interhouse Patter Tennis

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been participating in one of our favourite interhouse competitions - PATTER TENNIS!  Throughout the round robin competition, there were loads of fantastic rallies and skills on display from all four teams.  

Today we held the finals.  First up, Matai faced Totara in the playoff for third and fourth.  Totara absolutely blitzed Matai to take the win.  The final between Kauri and Rimu followed, and the match definitely lived up to all the pre-match hype.  There was a lot of talk about who was going to win.  It was a really tight match, but Kauri managed to overpower Rimu in the end.  Congratulations Kauri!

Once again, our sportsmanship skills were pretty awesome!

Kauri - WINNERS:

Survivor Comes To Room 6!

Wheels Day Fun!

Sea Turtle Art

We have just completed a piece of art that we are super proud of.  After reading about how plastic kills hundreds of thousands of marine animals each year, we were inspired to find out more.  

We learnt that there are seven species of sea turtles, and six of these species are endangered.  Turtles can become stuck in ghost gear (fishing equipment), caught as bycatch or can choke on plastic bags.

First we sketched our turtles, after watching a 'How To Draw A Turtle' tutorial on You Tube.  Next we outlined them with vivid before painting the body, shell and background.  We used pastel to add detail to the shell and body to make our turtles look more life-like.

This art is dedicated to these beautiful creatures that grace our oceans:

Rakau

Today we finally had a chance to get stuck into some rakau!  We practiced a routine we have used in Room 6 before, and BOOM, Blake and Kane mastered it immediately.  Check it out:

Goober Of The Week

Here is the evidence.... a gumboot became STUCK on Jessie's foot today.  Wow.

Learning From A Little Kid!

This video gave us a real giggle yesterday, but actually, we can learn a lot from this cool little guy!

Keep trying!

Don’t expect others to clean up your mess.

Don’t rely on others, you can do it!

Don’t let the hard knocks get you down.

Don’t waste food or drink.

Don’t be a halfa (do half the job). Do a good job the first time around.

Sometimes things don’t go according to plan.  That’s life!

When you fail, just get back in there and give it another go.

Kahurangi Performing Arts Group

Today we had a visit from the Kahurangi Performing Arts Group.  This group travels the country, sharing their love of performing and Maori culture.  We were super impressed with their skills, and really enjoyed the show.

• I enjoyed the stories, because they were interesting.  My favourite one was 'Pania Of The Reef'.  Mitchell.
• It was funny watching Josh trying to do the moves with the taiaha.  He was shy at the start, but became more confident.  Rebecca.
• I enjoyed the story about the woman swimming across the lake.  The way Lucky and Toots told the story was really funny.  Finlay.
• The end part was cool, because they were awesome singers, and sang loud and proud!  I also enjoyed watching the girls do the poi.  Freda.
• The whole show was really funny, and they were good at making the audience laugh.  Hollie.

Tech - It's Go Time!

We were very excited to start Tech today!  We will spend the next 20 Friday mornings rotating around five different activities:  Food Technology (cooking and baking), Hard Materials (woodwork), Soft Materials (sewing), Hand Craft and Digital Technology.  We had lots of fun in our first session, and learnt plenty of new skills.

Tech Group C made some cool movies today, check it out!

Te Reo Kori - Mu Torere

We learnt how to play Mu Torere (a board game that requires strategic thinking and a bit of luck), during our visit to Taumata O Te Ra last year, and it is now one of our favourite Te Reo Kori games.  After a quick refresher on how to play, we launched into the Room 6 Mu Torere Championships today.  Our opponents have been drawn at random, and the winners of each round will progress through to the next round until we finally have a winner.  Good luck everyone!

Art - Sea Turtles

We've been learning about how plastic bags kill hundreds of thousands of marine animals each year.  We know one of the reasons for this, is because, when floating in the ocean, a plastic bag looks very similar to a jellyfish.  Unfortunately, turtles love to eat jellyfish, and they end up choking on the plastic bag.  We have begun a piece of art dedicated to these beautiful sea creatures.  

After drawing an outline of a turtle (thanks You Tube!), we painted them.  We reckon they are going to look pretty cool when they're finished.

Here are some pictures of us painting our turtles today:

Maths - Statistics

For the next few weeks, we're going to be concentrating on Statistics in maths.  First we learnt all about how to find the average, mean, median and range.  This is a really useful skill when it comes to making sense of data.  Today we spent time learning how to interpret graphs.  We worked with a partner to select a suitable title for the graph we were given, before we had to make statements about what information the graph was showing.  We learnt that it is really important to give specific information when you're making these statements!