Green Hat Thinking

We recently put our GREEN HATS on for a creative thinking task:

IMAGINE YOU ARE COMPETING IN THE 

PARA-MARATHON.  DESIGN YOURSELF A 

SUPER SONIC WHEELCHAIR!

Here are the great ideas we came up with:

Senior Team Mathex

Our Mathex teams organised a Mathex event of our own today!  After being welcomed by Cody and Jago, we launched straight into the practical tasks.  These were hard!  After that, the 'quick-fire' round started, where we had to answer 15 questions in 20 minutes.  These were hard too!  Thank you to the Mathex kids, and Mrs Simpson for organising this fun event.  Congratulations to Lydia's team - the winners!

Mini Commonwealth Games

Over the past couple of weeks, the Student Council (supported by the Year 7 students) have been planning a mini Commonwealth Games for the students at Halcombe School.  Yesterday, the day finally arrived!  Each class rotated around six different events, having a blast along the way!

Congratulations to the Student Council and your helpers - you did an OUTSTANDING job.  Well done team!

Key Competencies - Quote 3

Today we discussed the meaning of this quote with a partner.  You can read about what we think it means on our blogs.  The message in this quote is definitely worth thinking about!

Handsprings!

Wondering what your technique looks like?

Maths Week!

Here is a special challenge for all the maths lovers!  Read about some of the world's most famous mathematicians below, work out the answers to the questions, and bring your answers to school on Friday.  Those with 100% correct answers, will go in the draw to win a very special prize!

Mathex

On Friday, we sent four teams to the Manawatu Mathex Competition - Year 5, 6, 7 and 8.  Congratulations to all teams for achieving great results!  

Our Year 7 team of Jordan, Sophie, Madison and Darian, came 5th place.

Our Year 8 team of Blair, Jago, Trevor and Cody, came 6= place.

Tech - Week 3

Today we had our last rotation of our first activity!  So far, Tech has been awesome!  Check out our blogs to read our reflections.

Moo Moo Moo!

Statistics Assignment

We've been working hard on our statistics assignments in maths this week.  We had to use the Graph Creator site to construct three different types of graphs, showing information about the Commonwealth Games.  Next we had to write statements about the data, which proved a challenge for some.  Our final challenge was to display the data in an effective way.

Aotearoa!

Some of the kids told Miss Simpson all about Stan Walker's new song, 'Aotearoa' today (Miss Simpson needs help to keep up with all the modern music).  They said it was awesome!  So, here it is.  They were right.  It is awesome.

Pumpkin Soup

Our wonderful Green Team grew pumpkins this year, and today we feasted on pumpkin soup!  Mrs Simpson whipped up the delicious soup, which went down very well!  Thank you Green Team and thank you Mrs Simpson!

Fun With Umajin

We had heaps of fun with blue screening this afternoon!  We had to choose a photo of an athlete in action and blue screen our heads onto the athlete.  Maybe one day someone from Room 6 will make it to the Commonwealth or Olympic Games for real.  In the meantime, it was fun to pretend!

Tech - Week 2

Key Competencies - Quote 2

Our quote for the week is one of Miss Simpson's all-time favourites:

We spent time discussing what the quote REALLY meant and how we might use it to achieve our goals.  Here is a sample of what we talked about:

Rap-unzel Show

Yesterday we were entertained by the New Zealand Playhouse Company, as they performed 'Rap-unzel'.  These mega-talented actors had us laughing within the first couple of minutes and we all thoroughly enjoyed the show.  Thank you to the PTA for funding this experience!

Amazing World Records!

Today we set up the world record for high jump and long jump.  We were all amazed and very much impressed by what we saw.

The high jump world record is 2.45m, and is held by Javier Sotomayer from Cuba.  He set the record in Spain in 1993.

Only one person in our class could touch the high jump pole (by jumping!)

The long jump world record is 8.95m, and is held by Mike Powell from USA.  He set the record in Japan in 1991.

We could line up our whole class over the 8.95m distance!

Bagpipes!

We've noticed that at the Commonwealth Games, a piper plays the introduction of the music for the medal ceremonies.  Today we had a visit from Graeme, a bagpipe master!  He talked to us about the history of the bagpipes and how they work.  Then he played a few songs.  Graeme was also dressed in the traditional Scottish gear.  The piercing sound of the pipes was really impressive!  

Tech Highlights - Week 1

Our Tech programme is finally underway!  We have been waiting patiently for this all year, while our hall has been renovated.  During this term, we will all get to experience food technology (cooking/baking with Mrs Neville), hard materials (woodwork with Mr Barker) and soft materials (sewing with Mrs Smith and Mrs Henderson).  We know we will develop lots of useful life skills along the way too!  We all loved our first two sessions this week!

Winter Sport

We have started our training for our sports exchange against South Makirikiri School in Week 3.  We are all looking forward to this event.  Here are some photos Victoria took of us in action yesterday:

Gymnastics Time

For the first six weeks of this term, we are focusing on gymnastics during PE.  We've had our first two sessions already and are looking forward to improving our skills, confidence and ability in all five events.  Check out the photos:

 

 

Watch these videos to improve your skills!

 

 

 

 

Te Reo - Week 1

These are some pretty common instructions given during our school day.  Let's try it in te reo!

Key Competencies - Term 3

This term, our key competency work will focus on quotes and short videos.  Each week, we'll discuss/analyse/interpret/debate the meaning of one quote or video and reflect on what it means for us.

Today we started with this quote:

After some discussion, we agreed that the quote basically means that you should be proud of who you are.  Together, we came up with a list of suggestions that will help us to be proud of who we are:

• don't try to be like other people (unless you are learning from a role model or leader)
• speak and think positively (Miss Simpson says this is probably the most important thing)
• try to be confident in all situations (don't freak out over the small things)
• do good deeds for others
• be proud of your achievements
• don't worry too much about what others think or say about you
• think for yourself and have your own opinions and ideas

Commonwealth Games Time!

Burger Day

Congratulations to the Student Council for hosting yet another successful event.  Burger Day was awesome, and even though cooking 128 burgers was a challenge, we were all over it!  Well done team!

Senior Team Sharing

The traditional end-of-term sharing looked a little different for the Senior Team last week.  R4 and R5 used powerpoint to display all their theme work, while we had our blogs to share.  There was not a book in sight.  It was cool to see what the other classes have been working on!