Walk 'n Wheel Week

This week is Walk 'n Wheel week and Bradford kids have been walking to school every day.  We got given a progress card that our parents had to sign to see if we walked or not.  

Luckily the weather has improved and it is not rainy in the mornings, or not so many would be walking.  If we walk every day and get our card signed then we go in the draw for some prizes.  Some people walk from the bottom of Bradford Street and some walk from the round-about.

Mrs Tobin came down the street to take photos of the people who were walking and she said it was lovely to see so many families walking.  

WOW means walk on Wednesday.  All the classes see if they have the most

walkers on Wednesday.  Room 3 is the toughest to beat, so come on Room 5, let's start walking!  The class who has the most walking to school gets a certificate at the end of the term.

Tomorrow we will be walking from the top of Brockville, down through Fraser's Gully and back to school.  We hope we have lots of parents walking with us.  It should be fun, but a long way too.  We are having a BBQ lunch at the bottom of the track.  We will have another Blog about that soon.

From Jordan and Samara

 

The Hill family - Mum, Dad, Ryan, Callum, Grandma & Grandad and a cousin.  Great family effort.

Tagging along with Regan, Briarna and Jesse are Craig and family dog.

And this person was moving so fast, she was out of the shot before it was taken.  I wonder who it is?

Butterfly Haven Visit

Last week Rooms 5 and 6 visited the Otago museum as part of our inquiry study - A Bug's Life.  

The butterfly haven was really cool - actually, cool isn't the right word because it was really hot in there.  Some of us had to pop out and cool down.  

The butterflies were amazing.  I didn't know that there were so many different sorts.  At first I found it quite scary when they landed on me but I got used to it.  When they landed on my finger I could feel their scratchy legs grip as they tried not to fall off.  Some people had more than one on them.  Shaniia seemed very popular.  

A lot of the butterflies had damaged wings and there were quite a few lying 

dead.  They don't live for very long.  Most of the plants in the butterfly haven have been planted especially as food for the different butterflies.  Each type of butterfly prefers a special plant.

Did you know that there are turtles in the butterfly haven as well?  They are very cute but if a butterfly flies too closed the turtle will sometimes snap it in it's jaws.

As well as looking at the butterflies, we also learnt about them in the 'classroom'.  One of our class dressed up and pretended they were turning from a chrysalis into a butterfly.  It was fun when we had to try and drink through a straw using lenses that made it similar to what a butterfly would see.  I'm glad I'm not a butterfly,

 it was really confusing.  We learnt about the life cycle and what butterflies like to eat.  It was a good day.  I might go back one day.

PS playing in Discovery World was fun too.

Welcome 2009

Look at us - aren't we just the best!

This is a picture of all the kids in Room 5 this year and we think we're the best looking bunch yet.

There are 22 Year 5 & 6's and we have two teachers this term.  Mrs Tobin is our usual teacher but while Ms Dillon is on maternity leave, Mrs T is the principal so she can't be with us all the time.  Our other teacher is Miss Robertson and she is cool.

We'll be doing heaps of fun things this year - being the senior class we have duties to do and that is fun - you have to be responsible though.

Our first inquiry topic this year is "A Bug's Life" and we're looking forward to finding out all about bugs and creepy-crawlies.  

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.