Christmas Art

We hunted on Pinterest and the internet for images about Christmas for us to have a go at.  Here are the stunning results.

Camp

We didn't let the weather stop us from completing many amazing activities at Mount Hutt Retreat.  Participating in air rifles, abseiling, mountain biking, rope course and archery were definite high lights of our camp!

Although many said making indoor tents from all the bunk room items, playing night time games and creating newspaper fashion were just as cool.

Maths Fun

At the end of our geometry unit we found making nets (the design to create a shape) a lot of fun.  We borrowed Mrs MacKenzie's car floor mat and made houses to go all around the mat.

Then Mrs Watson found some cool 'Angry Birds' and 'Minecraft' designs that involved folding and following instructions. 

Ashburton A&P Show

Mrs Watson knew the time had come for us to show off our art skills and entered every class member into the Ashburton A&P Show.  The theme for our art work was 'animal'.  

First we learned how to enlarge an image so it still appeared in correct proportion.  We did this by using a grid overlay and then drew each section by section onto another piece of paper with a larger grid underneath. Finally it was time to paint and develop skills such as brush stroke and almost dry paint to create realistic feathers or fur.

Here are some that placed at the show.  All images are displayed in our class and you are all welcome to come and view.

Fijian Language Week

We looked at traditional art from Fiji and found many similarities with Tonga, Samoa and Cook Islands.  Which made a lot of sense as the temperature of these countries is also similar so therefore similar animals, flowers and trees would be found in these countries.

After checking out a few images we created our own interpretations and here are images of our progress and some final images. 

Te Reo Māori Language Week

This week we are celebrating Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. At Netherby School we have an inclusive curriculum that integrates Māori language in all aspects of our learning, but this week we are having an extra focus on it.

In Ruma Tahi, Kea, we found a poi routine all about wāhi - location. We hope the juniors watch our video and learn the routine too.

Kei te whakapau kaha matou - we are working hard.

Swimming like fish!

We have just had a fantastic week swimming at EA Networks.  This time we all seemed to be learning skills for floating or swimming on our backs.

Sometimes there were even times when we had a toy crab or duck on our heads to check we were keeping our bodies still.

Tiddlywinks Championship

With all the rainy weather we have had this week I decided we needed more indoor games that can be played in groups.  I asked the class if they had ever played Tiddlywinks? The answer no - many knew how to flick counters but never at a target or within a time frame for a competition.

The class quickly sorted themselves into four teams and were given a colour set of counters.  There were many different methods applied - but we soon discovered none were very accurate.  Some students attempted to cheat, but were very quickly disqualified!

Hope you give Tiddlywinks a go at home - it's easy to set up. 

Noo shows his skills

On Fridays we have Nicola Walker take students for music lessons.  There are singing, keyboard, ukelele and recorder lessons.

Noo attends keyboard lessons and this week he came and shared with us.   We were really impressed.

Hockey with Mike

Mike from Mid Canterbury Hockey will be teaching us some hockey skills.  Today we were making sure we had control of the sticks and balls.

To complete the session we had a game of "Rob the Nest".  This was quite tricky as everyone wanted to maintain speed, but sometimes speed meant they lost control of the ball.

EPro8 Challenge

So much excitement having 6 more kits for us to use.  These kits are like massive lego or mechano building kits - they have aluminium pipes, joiners and screws. In small groups we followed a plan to construct a pulley system that had to be at least 1.6m tall.  Some even managed to get their pulleys working!  Huge effort to think, collaborate, co-operate and build a design.

The photos say it all - everyone was busy and proud of their work. 

And here are our final products!

Gumboot Day

Squeals of joy and laughter could be heard from all activities run for Gumboot Day.  We had "Toss the Gumboot", "Target Practice" and "Over - Under with your boot" activities and we rotated round these activities with our buddy classes.  It was hard to get quality photos with all the gumboots flying!

Gumboot Day is a National day to raise funds for children that need counselling to have this service for free.  In our country there are many children struggling through life.  So like wearing gumboots in mud can be hard work, these children struggle to cope with learning.

Our school raised $136.

Football with Karen

We started off with fun games to warm up and boy did we need that as it was very frosty when we had our football sessions with Karen.  Once we were warm we were put into teams to have mini games.  Lots of fun.

Samoan Language Week

This week is international Samoan Language Week.

We are lucky to have a couple of Samoan students in our class and they can help us with some of the words or phrases in Samoan.

Talofa lava = hello

Fa'afetai = thank you

Mālo = well done

Afio mai = welcome

In class we looked at some Samoan art and then designed our own using traditional patterns.  Here are a few of the finished art works.

Netball Skills

We are having some sessions with Natalie from Mid Canterbury Netball for 3 Wednesdays.  Natalie gave us lots of challenges to complete.  The warm up challenge was all about jumping and she managed to trick most of our class quite easily.

In the video clips you will see us attempting more ball skill challenges - some far too hard and some of our class found some way too easy! Ask your child if they can show you some of the challenges.