On Wednesday 10th to Friday 12th November, Room 3 and 4, went on their EOTC Activities, with the Aoraki Polytech Teachers. We were split into two groups for the first two days and participated in either rock climbing/abseiling or kayaking. We went to Salt Water Creek for kayaking and Spur Road for the rock climbing/abseiling. There were four or five Polytech people taking us for each activity. When we were rock climbing/abseiling we had to wear a hard hat to protect our heads from falling rocks and had a harness around our bottoms for the carabena to attach the rope to us. Then we climbed up the rock faces and we had a Polytech person be-laying at the bottom. This means that they are attached to the rope that we are attached to and they feed it through the carabena while we are climbing. We also went abseiling, which is going backwards over the top of a cliff. It was very scary because you had to walk backwards and then all of a sudden you are going down a big cliff face. This was very challenging, most of us achieved this! When we went kayaking we had to wear pfd's (personal floating devices) that are the same as life jackets. We each had a kayak and a paddle. Before we got into the kayak we learnt about the blades on the paddle and where we should have our hands. Toby also told us how to use the paddle, spoon side facing into the water. We had to paddle over to the other side of the creek and raft up, this means all line up side by side and hold onto the other persons kayak. One of the games we played was when we were rafted up and two of us had to change kayak's, we had to walk over the top of the kayak's. A lot of people fell out of their kayak's but most of us remained dry! On the Friday we all went to Peel Forest together to walk in the bush. We went on the Acland Falls walk. Once again we split into two groups and went up at different times. We looked at the leaves on the trees, talked about the tracks that we were walking on and looked at the sign's pointing us in the right directions. When we got to the waterfall some of us filled up our drink bottles and others of us wet our heads and hats, it was really hot. We played a game after lunch called Scarecrow, which is a mixture of bullrush and stiff candle, it was fun. After that we went on the big tree walk, Neil talked to us about the tree and then we all went around it to see how many children we could fit round it. When we got back to the bus, we thanked the Polytech for taking us over the three days and then we got back on the bus. Because we had been so well behaved and it was very hot, we stopped in Geraldine and had ice blocks! It was a fantastic three days where we learnt a lot about kayaking, rock climbing and walking in the bush.

On Friday it was Pet Day. I was excited. I brought my dog Fleur. I also brought a sand tray garden and a boot and some flowers for floral footwear. First when I got to school I dropped off the sand tray garden on the seats on front of the library then I got my floral footwear in the library. Then I got Fleur, I gave her a pat thn I went to the place where you tie up your dog beside a tree. Fleur was beside Max, Campbell's dog, and beside Max was Ethan's dog Tip. Max liked Fleur. The first event was the dog handling, I got fourth equal. I got first for my sand tray garden and also for my floral footwear. I won the Senior Cup.

I hope you have all had a great holiday and are rested for the last term of the year. We have lots planned for this term so we will be very busy. A few things that we will focus on this term will be the Commonwealth Games, with our own games at school in the first week back on Thursday. We will also have our annual Pets Day in the second week of the term on the Friday. Along with these two events we will be having our joint Outdoor Activities days with Room 4 in week five, we will be kayaking, rock climbing, abseiling and bush walking. This will be a very physical three days, we are up for the challenge though!!! We also have our Rural Schools Athletics day on the 19th November. We will be looking at the different ways people celebrate Christmas, writing our own classroom newspaper and painting Christmas Trees, along with maths, writing and reading. I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday, so enjoy the last few days of your holiday and get ready for an action packed term. :-)

Well here we are at the end of another busy term! We have spent a lot of time looking at Healthy Eating with a visit to Harold, making smoothies and baked potatoes. We looked at writing instructions and letters, our instructions were great we included a title, ingredients or equipment, then numbered steps using a verb. We read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as well as watching the movie, to compare the book to the video, we also wrote letters to Harry through our Owl Post.

Enjoy your holidays and have a well deserved rest, I will see you all next term, bright eyed and bushy tailed!! :-)

On Monday we went swimming. We did it for a week. On Monday the seniors went for the first week of swimming. That was Room 3, 4 and 5. It was at Century Pool. We had to change into our togs and get ready to hop into the pool. Then they called our names out and then we got in the pool safely. Then our swimming instructor told us her name. Her name was Jane. I learnt a lot and enjoyed it.

On Friday we watched the Harry Potter movie because we read the Harry Potter book. We got to eat popcorn and lollies. Ravenclaw won the group house points so Ravenclaw got the beanbags. The other houses are Hufflepuff, Slytherin and Gryffindor. In the movie Gryffindor win's and Harry Potter is in Gryffindor. It was great fun watching the movie.

On Wednesday 25 August 2010 the teachers played the A Netball Team. The teachers were wearing clown wigs and dressed in black to represent the Silver Ferns. The A team wore hula skirts. Claire Smolinski from South Canterbury Netball came out to referee the game so that the teachers and A team had no influence over the referee (but this didn't work as the A team bought her off)! Megan, Mrs Rush and Mrs O'Toole played for the teachers. It took a long time to get the first goal, this was scored by the teachers. All the supporters were cheering for the A Team! Lyn and Adele played for the A team, Lyn cheated by coming on but not subbing anyone off. The teachers won 6-4.