Rocket Park Cultural Festival

It has been a long time between posts and we apologise for that, but it has been pretty hectic around here! Last Saturday was the Eden/Albert Cultural Festival at Rocket Park. Our groups have worked incredibly hard on their performances this term, and it all paid off on Saturday. Every student who participated should be proud of their efforts - you all represented yourselves, your whanau and your school with pride. Ka mau te wehi koutou!

Camp!

Our Year 5-6 camp at Chosen Valley was awesome! Thank you very much to the parents for their support, and Ms Green for organising such a successful week. It was wonderful to see everyone challenging themselves and having a great time. We are sure everyone slept well on the weekend!

Books we're reading

Room 23 are reading two novels at the moment - Trash by Andy Mulligan, which we are reading as a shared book, and The Astounding Broccoli Boy by Frank Cottrell Boyce, which Mr Bennett is reading to the class. Although we haven't finished either of them, we'd already recommend them to other readers!

Term 4

Welcome to Term 4 koutou!

Room 23 have got a big term coming up - Year 6's have got graduation practice, Year 5's are film making, and our school camp to Chosen Valley is next week!

Lots to look forward to, but we need to make sure that in amongst all the excitement, we're not losing sight of our key values:

Manaakitanga - Kindness

Kotahitanga - Unity

Kaitiakitanga - Guardianship

Manawanuitanga - Persistence

Rangatiratanga - Leadership

Cross Country

A huge congratulations to all the participants in our cross country today. You all did yourselves proud with your efforts! And an extra congratulations to Rania, Amy, Ossian and Mahalia for getting into the top three in their year groups. Tau ke koutou!

Aranui Rest Home visit

We made our second visit to the lovely people at Aranui Rest Home on Tuesday, and had a great time. It was fantastic to see some familiar faces again, and once again our students represented themselves, their families and our school with pride. They were all respectful and positive around their Aranui friends. Before we left, we sang our school waiata and Ms Kirk sang two beautiful songs - Pokarekare Ana and Ave Maria. We think the people of Aranui enjoyed themselves!

Indoor Olympics

While the Year 6's were away at Wesley Intermediate, the Year 5's decided to create the first ever Classroom Olympics! We came up with sporting events which could all take place inside a classroom, which was fun! This is our version of the awesome BBC 2016 Olympics trailer. Enjoy!

Be Healthy!

Nau mai, haere mai ki te wa tuatoru - Welcome to the third term!

Our first focus for this term is Being Healthy. Make sure we're drinking lots of water, and being active in the playground. Kia kaha Ruma Rua tekau ma toru!

Awhi Te Reo Maori - Embrace Te Reo Maori!

Room 23 love to korero! 

Check out Natalia's 100 word challenge writing!

Here is a great piece of writing from Natalia - and take a look at the comment she got from Kathy, the person who runs the 100 Word Challenge website. Ka mau te wehi Natalia!

Natalia @ Owairaka District School: 100 Word Story Challenge Week #22: This week we had to use the words Violin, Yellow, Eaten, Swept and Airplane. My old termite eaten shack stood out in the desert like a ...

Pou Toti

Although our Matariki celebrations were two weeks ago, it has been awesome to see everyone still out there playing on their class pou toti (stilts) - no matter what the weather!

Check us out on Seven Sharp!

We were visited on Tuesday by well known chef Al Brown and the Seven Sharp camera crew. Click on this link and skip through to 17:15 to see their segment on us. What a good looking bunch!

Green Week medal winner

We are very proud of Amy, our Enviro champion!  Amy and her whanau take the time to look after our school heihei  (chickens) on the weekend. Ka mau te wehi Amy!

Science with our buddy class

We had a great time with our Room 10 buddies, making marshmallow catapults. Thanks a lot to Mrs Getty and her class for coming over to share in their learning with us!

Coco-Kawa

Kia ora koutou.

This term, Room 23 will be using Rongoa Maori (Maori medicine). Last year, we made Kawakawa Cream using Olive Oil. The leaves of the kawakawa plant have been used for hundreds of years by Maori for their medicinal properties. They can help with skin conditions such as eczema, used to heal cuts or wounds...the leaves can even be chewed to help with toothache!

This year, we have decided to make kawakawa ointment with coconut oil, mainly because coconut oil is absorbed into the skin quickly and it smells awesome! We have already named our ointment Coco-Kawa, and even designed some labels for the jars we will put them in. Now all we need to do is make it! Watch this space!

Aranui visit to Owairaka

We were lucky enough to have some of our friends from Aranui Rest Home join us for Garden to Table today. It was great to catch up with John, Laurence, Herman, Thelma and Barbara for a beautiful kai of curry and rice. Once again, R23 showed great respect and manaakitanga around our manuhiri/guests.

More science with Kirsten!

Not to be outdone by Mark, Mahalia's mum Kirsten came in to share some awesome science with us today. She brought dry ice, which is frozen carbon dioxide, and we had great fun seeing what happens when you add water, dishwashing liquid and food colouring to it. Nga mihi ki a Kirsten for giving Room 23 the chance to experience this - we had a blast!