Spuds in a Bucket

The school council came up with this really cool idea to give every child in the school a 'spud in a bucket'. They ran a disco earlier in the year and with the money that they raised from that and the selling of Jaffa tickets, they bought buckets and spuds.

Mr Graham and Fabian's mum were busily helping everyone plant their spud.

First we had to use a black vivid to put our name on our bucket. Some of us drew pictures on our buckets as well. Then we went out to the garden to get our spud and some dirt.

We covered the potatoes with dirt and put them outside our classroom. They look really cool all lined up together.

We are responsible for looking after them; watering them and making sure that the potato grows.

At the end of the year, we are allowed to take our 'spud in a bucket' home. One day in the holidays we can have potatoes with our tea.

Next year, if we bring the bucket back, we get another potato to plant in it.

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - How Much Can You Do

Have you ever tried to hula hoop?  Some of us have but lots of us haven't so when Milly from Queenstown came to visit us we were keen to give it a go.

Milly showed us some of her moves.  She can 'hula a hoop' around her neck,her legs, her waist and even around her shoulders.

When she performs in a parade she uses a hula hoop that is on fire - pretty awesome.

When it was our turn, Milly suggested that we choose the biggest hoops as they are easier to learn on than the smaller ones.

Some of us were awfully hopeless at the start but once Milly told us what to do, we managed to 'get it'.  The trick is to get a good stance and rock in a rhythmic way.

 

Then we got really good and some of us tried hula hooping with more than one hoop.

We were challenged to walk while spinning the hoop, turn around, and take it from our neck down to our waist.

At the end we were allowed to show off our best moves - Caitlin and Deanna spun the hoops while grabbing each others hands.  Jordan was pretty spectacular as she spun the hoop from her neck down to her waist.  

Hayden H could walk around while spinning his hoop.  And Fabian managed to go down on to his knees and still keep his hoop spinning.

Deanna thought it was really tiring which means it would be good exercise.

Cameron thought it was great fun to see how long you could keep the hoop up.

Sydney enjoyed it but she got the stitch.

                                         And Nicole wished that Mrs Divers was here to                                             see us.

Mrs Tobin suspects that hula hoops are going to be very popular at school for a while.

Song Bong

A group with a funny name - Song Bong - visited our school last week.


There were four people in the group, a Dad and his wife and their two sons, Jonas who is 15, and 10 year old Lui.  

Once we were all seated in the hall, we noticed there was a big cardboard wall set up.  From out behind that came David, who is the dad, with a puppet called Bargu.  Then Kate (mum) and Jonas came out with raku sticks and tapped them together.  

Lui came out 

with his raku sticks and they all tapped them together while David used the puppet to tell a story.

The next thing we saw was a big hairy volcano.  David, Kate and Jonas danced around the volcano.

They set up some drums and they played them - it was really loud.  Some teachers came up and played the drums while the school sang a song.  It went like this:

     I go to school

     I go to school

     I go to school

     And my teacher is cool!

Lui walked out with a big shell and he blew it.

At the end of the show all the children were allowed to come up and have a little play on each drum.

It was really cool.

By Jasmine and Khail

Disco

On Friday night we had a cool disco.  The theme was 'Black and White' and nearly everybody came dressed up.  The disco was form 6pm - 7pm.

Mrs Mitchell-Bain had some cool music for us to dance to and there were heaps of prizes.

It was really neat to see all the kids dancing and some of the little kids were really good at it.  Some mums and dads danced too.

We could buy ice blocks, fizzy drinks and glow sticks.  It wasn't quite dark enough for the glow sticks but they were fun anyway.

The council are going to decide what to spend the money on.  We don't know how much we made yet but we hope it's a lot.

Maori & Pacific Island Festival

We have had the most awesome day ever.

We had to be at school early so that we could get our face painted and get into our costumes.  Then we went by bus to the Edgar Centre.

We were quite nervous waiting for our turn.

There were heaps of schools there performing and some of them had tiny wee kids, like 2 year olds, and others were high schools.

                                                     While we waited for our

 turn, we watched some of the other schools.  Kavanagh was really good and the boys made a lot of noise when they stamped their feet against the stage.

Soon it was our turn and we all went around the back to get ready to go on stage.  When we were on stage our parents all waved at us so that we could see where they were.

We sang our waiata and the girls used the pois.  The boys did a haka.

It was really cool to be able to see our mums and dads in the audience.

When we finished, we sat back in our seats to watch some more of the show.  We got a huge clap when we finished.  Mrs Tobin and Mrs Baines think that we were the best group.

Thank you to Mrs Mitchell-Bain who taught us all the songs and dances.  We 

really loved it and want to do it again next year - please.

Chinese Gardens Visit

Today our student teacher, Miss Gibson, took us the the Early Settlers Museum and to the Chinese Gardens.

At the museum, we had to find heaps of objects that the Chinese people used when they first came to New Zealand.  It was a bit like a scavenger hunt and some of the things were quite tricky. We saw a picture of Mr Chin, our mayor, when he was just a baby.

Did you know that when the Chinese first came to New Zealand, they weren't liked very much.  Because they looked different, wore different clothes and talked differently, 

the white people here thought they were not as good as they were.   Even children teased them.

Here Aiden, Brin, and David are sketching their designs for the Chinese lanterns that we are going to make.

After the museum we went to the Chinese Gardens. 

Did you know that there is a male lion and a female lion that guard the entrance to the gardens.  The male lion has his paw on a ball and that represents the world.  The female lion is carrying a cub.  

In the gardens we saw heaps of Chinese buildings and there are goldfish in the lake.  We learnt that the garden is based on a scholar's garden and he had places

where he could study quietly and places where he could see the trees and the water.  

Our guide said that everything, except the water and the concrete, came from China, even the big heavy rocks that make up the mountain.

  She said that there are no nails in the whole place - we hope the buildings don't fall down.

We had a cool time there.  Thank

 you to Sydney and Camble's mums who came with us. 

Let the Bradford Olympics begin!
We were very excited when we arrived at school because this was our Bradford Oylmpics day. Most of us had dressed up in colours that matched the mascots.
After we sang the Bradford School song and the National Anthem, we raised the flag part way up.


Nicole held on to a corner of the flag as she read the children's oath on behalf of all the children. She promised we would all play fair and try our very hardest.

Then Mrs O'Donnell read an oath on behalf of the judges.

We all headed off in our teams to play some games.






We played some really cool games. Jordan, Jacob and Tayla seem to be eyeing each other up - they have to try and tag the other people knees.
Freya and Cody are doing battle in an arm wrestle - go Freya!




This looks like a fun activity too. David is trying to tag Jason-Mark on the knee - I think he managed to get him.



OUCH! Jonathan is trying so hard to get Jason-Mark. When we were playing this game we had to use our honesty and own up if we got tagged.




We all had a great day. On Friday in assembly teams got bronze, silver and gold medals. We hope we can have the Bradford Olympics again next year because it was really cool fun.

Fantastic Miniball

Rules of the Game
We have rules that we have to follow, such as ... you are not allowed to push people, you can't play more than one game on one day, you must wear the right uniform. We are not allowed to foul.





How to Play
There are two teams who verse each other to win. The hoops are ten feet tall. When you score a goal it gives you two points; when you foul, the other team gets one point. each team is only allowed five players on the court at a time.

Uniform
You have to wear a Bradford top, and you must wear shorts not jeans, and good shoes to run in.


Games and Practices
We have practice on the tennis court at lunchtime on Thursday. We have two teams, the Bradford Bulldogs and the Dragons. The game times can be from 3,30 to 7.00pm. We play at the Edgar Centre.


Things we Enjoy
We enjoy winning (last week we won 25 to 15), and we also like the exercise and the team spirit.

Hayden & Camble

Book Fair

Our book fair was opened by a lady called Phillipa who came from the Dunedin Public Library. She talked about the library and how you can use the computers and she told us about how to get a library card.




Each day at 11am, one of the teachers read a book to us kids. It was really cool.

At the book fair there were some awesome books like Captain Cough a Lot and Ants Pants. Mrs Mitchell Bains was reading Cinderella in Room 2. On Tuesday night we had fish and chips in Room 6.












Some of the kids grandparents came to school on Thursday to read books to their grandchildren. It was a sunny day and some read outside.






On Friday we had a book character day where everyone came dressed up as their favourite book character. There were some awesome costumes.

The book fair started at the 4th of August and finished on the 8th of August when the Beijing Olympics started.



Jacob and Hayden

We have a variety of sports at Bradford School and some of us play netball on a Tuesday at the Edgar Centre. We have two teams - the Magic and the Mystics.

Some of the games we win, and some we lose but we always have heaps of fun.


Sometimes the games are quite rough and Jacob usually manages to fall over at some stage.

Most of the time Brin and Jacob are the shoots and Natasha and Deanna are the defense.






We have a lot of good players in our team who work together to help us win.

Our centre Tayla, is in the Otago Year 6 team.




At the end of each game we always shake the other teams hand and give them three cheers.


by Natasha and Caitlin

New Road Patrol Jackets.

The Road Patrol kids have got awesome new jackets because the small vests don't keep the rain off us.
Do you think we look snazzy in them?


Krystal's Dad bought them for us.
Don't you wish you had our job?


David and Aiden