Level 4 Swimming

Over the past five weeks, we've been swimming every day.  We've been working hard to improve our technique, swimming fitness, water confidence, diving and lots of other things.  Today we had a chance to show off our swimming skills.  We were tested to see if we could do these things:

• perform a safe dive
• 100m freestyle
• 100m backstroke
• 50m breaststroke
• 50m sidestroke
• 50m fully clothed
• tread water for three minutes
• float on our backs for three minutes

Well done Room 8 - you were awesome today!  The Year 8 students also had time for ONE dive from the boards in the diving pool.  A special congratulations to the people who did this for the very first time.  Nice!

Spider Day

The Totara Year 8 students hosted a very successful Spider Day this week.  It might sound simple, but managing the icecream in warm weather is very difficult!  Georgia, Machar, Dylan and Amelia did a fantastic job of organising everything, and making sure everyone enjoyed their spider.  They have decided to donate the money raised to the Halcombe Community ANZAC Day Fund.  Great work Totara!

Interhouse Flippaball

The 2019 interhouse competition has begun!  In keeping with tradition, our first event was flippaball.  Everyone was very excited to see how each house would shape up after loosing such a big group of Y8 students last year.  

Everyone was keen to start of the year well, so there were some mighty battles in the pool.  Totara and Matai faced off for 3rd and 4th, with the game ending in a 4-4 draw.  In the final, Kauri played Rimu in another tight game.  Rimu stepped it up in the second half though, and were convincing winners in the end, 4-1.  Congratulations Rimu!

Fun Day Friday Highlights

Triple A Values

Our Triple A Values are an important part of our school.  They help us to be so super awesome and cool.  Over the last few days, we've been thinking about what the values really mean - and we've made a video... please enjoy!

Dry Weather

We had the drone flying around the school today - it sure is dry at the moment.  We need some rain!

Yummy Yum Yum!

Diving

To see where you need to improve your diving, watch the video and replay the part where you're in action.  What do you need to improve?

Kawhatau Camp

We have just spent a fabulous three days at the Kawhatau Outdoor Education Centre, which is inland from Mangaweka.  We did loads and loads of fun and exciting activities, which all helped to establish our class culture and allowed us to learn more about each other.  The weather was fantastic, and we certainly enjoyed the chance to swim the river!  You can read more about our favourite camp moments below.

Thank you to the parents who came along to help - you were awesome!

Here are our favourite moments from camp:

Fun Day Friday - Week 2

Today it was time to really test ourselves - could we catch the ball?

Totara Reserve Trip

What a cool day we had at Totara Reserve in the Pohangina Valley today!  We joined in some fun games with our buddy class - relays and playing on the playground and a bush walk and playing with the parachute and even a scavenger hunt!  It was very hot, so we were all looking forward to a swim in the mighty Pohangina River after lunch.  And it was worth the wait - it was 100% awesome!

Thank you so much to all those parents who came along - we hope you had a great day too!

Fun Day Friday

Our awesome swimming tradition of 'Fun Day Fridays' continues!  After swimming lots and lots and lots of lengths during our daily swimming lessons during the week, we were able to enjoy some crazy-fun activities on Friday.  This included Human Towers - well done to Rebekah, Rhianna and Abbie for being the first (and only) group to successfully make a triple tower.  Also, the Human Cannonball was back in action!

Buddy Class

We are very lucky to have Room 4 as our buddy class this year - we think they are a cool group of kids!  On Friday, we joined them for swimming.  After introducing ourselves, the Room 4 kids showed off their swimming skills, and then we made a massive whirlpool!  Fun times!