Science in the Senior Class

Today the senior class have been doing science with Mrs Hyslop.

We have made some non-newtonian liquid.

This is what we made.

To make this non-newtonian liquid, we used cornflour mixed with water mixed with food colouring to add some effects. Non-newtonian liquid is a solid and a liquid, if you apply pressure to it it turns hard, if you apply no pressure, it goes soft.

First we made our own non-newtonian liquid in groups of three, we had turns on mixing it up. This is every groups liquid mixed together, it is very colourful, but after not long, it got mixed up and looked like sticky brown water. The rest of the school enjoyed playing with it during play and lunchtimes and some are talking about making it at home now.

Written by Harrison

Picket Fence

Over the last couple days we have been painting our pickets for a whole school picket fence to be erected around our school.

We have had turns at painting the undercoat and two layers of white overcoat. 

Most of us have finished painting them.

You do two layers of white paint then you sandpaper them then you paint your picket using the following criteria:

- must include our name

- year level

- year it was painted

- things that are important to you

The process is taking a while and the weather is not being the best it could be which makes it hard for us to get them completed. We are hoping for another sunny day soon so we can continue painting.

Written by Tom and Blake

Oral language

This term one of our focus learning areas is Oral Language. It is important for everyone to become good at speaking to an audience and we get to practice in front of our peers. It helps us learn the meanings of new words and how to pronounce them by listening to others. Speaking, listening, reading and writing are all related and help us to become better learners.

Our task is to speak to the class on a set day about any thing of your choice. It could be a collection of something you have at home, your favourite sport, an article from the newspaper, anything that interests you and you feel comfortable speaking to the class about for at least 5 minutes. You need to be prepared to answer any questions also. You need to give this your very best shot as we are learning to take risks and push ourselves outside of our comfort zone.

Today we had Tim and Scott on Oral language, they both brought something with them to show us and help them speak for a while. Tim brought a photo album from his trip to Canada, it was awesome to hear his stories and look at his pictures. 

Scott brought his badges to school that he has earned from Scouts, there were many different ones, even some from overseas.

Other things that people have shared with us:

Antonio brought photos from his trip to Australia .

James talked about puppies.

Vaughan shared about his sheep.

Harrison talked about his trip to NZ20 Jamboree in Fielding from 2013/2014.

And there is a lot more.

Labour Day

For the morning today, we had our all-time favourite teacher from the middle class, Mrs Keach, and do you know that all morning we spoke about Labour day. 

We found out lots of information about what the public holiday was for, Labour day recognises the hard work that employees used to do and is a reminder of the important place of waged workers in New Zealand. 

Labour day is celebrated annually on the fourth Monday in October. It all started in 1840 when Samuel Duncan Parnell arrived in Wellington from London, where he had been campaigning for an eight-hour work day in New Zealand. All the employers didn't like this change, as they usually make their workers stay until the job is done, which meant that the workers usually had to stay at their job/workplace until late into the night. From 1840 to 1890, the eight-hour workday spread with the European settlement, as they agreed to Parnell's campaign, but it wasn't until the 28th of October, 1890 that the first ever Labour day was celebrated. In 1935, the eight-hour working day, five days a week was made law. Now, in 2014, Labour day is still a public holiday, but many businesses remain open, but the employers have to pay double and give the workers an extra day off when it suits them. Many businesses don't have an eight-hour working day because of discussions with their employees and the government. Unions are also in place to make sure that workers have suitable working conditions.

Written by Scott

Hip Hop with Mina

Today straight after play the Senior Class and the year 5's went up to the multi purpose room to do a hip hop class with Mina. Mina is a break dancer originally from Sydney, she dances in some famous music videos including some by Stan Walker.

When we arrived she asked us to say our name, age, a sport we liked and a super power we would like to have, some answers were - to be able to fly, to be a shapeshifter or to be very strong. Then we started to warm up by doing a series of running, jumping, and sliding moves.

We then did some moves like the running man, and the six step. After that we moved onto some moves to sit down, we could either choose to do the knee drop, or the corkscrew. In the knee drop you put your foot out the side, tucked it behind your knee, and sat down on your foot, if you let your foot come out of the back if your knee you could shatter your knee. 

We did a breakdancing combo of our sit, the six-step, and the baby freeze- Mina would say to us "keep your face off the floor!" .

To finish it off we did freeze, using body isolation (using only one part of our body), and did some dancing in circles and lines, we then re asked the superpower question and the ideas were much more creative. 

We all had a great time at our breakdancing/hip hop session with Mina and want her to come back again.

Holly

Senior Parents Digital Information Afternoon

Today we had a parent afternoon about digital learning.

We are looking at technology to show our parents what we are learning at school. We will show them Google docs and what we do and make on docs. This term we are using docs in most subjects. Our teacher can see what we are doing on her computer anywhere, anytime.

Mrs Hyslop showed all the parents how to get on the blog leave comments

We also introduced the parents the class site that Mrs Hyslop created in the holidays. It is where we can find some of our learning activities, newsletters, calendar of events and other important links.




The site is another place where our learning is stored but it has more on it such as the calendar, resources for learners and parents, important links and newsletters.

Why use Google Sites in The Classroom ?

• Google site is free
• It is very easy to use and has a simple and student friendly interface
• It can improve students digital literacy skills
• It can open up your classroom and make it a collaborative learning environment

Tailing at Carterhope

This weekend some parents and children went tailing at Caterhope to raise money for the school to buy new things.

We also went there to have heaps of fun like playing with the lambs and riding sheep around the pen.

Along with having fun we also had to work doing jobs to help. Vaughan and Scott helped to set up the pens and draft the lambs and Morgan and Latyun helped to tail them and to stop them from smothering. On the first day of tailing (Saturday) we tailed 14 paddocks of lambs and on the second day (Sunday) we tailed eight paddocks. When we finished we went up to the wool shed, the adults had cold beverage and the kids had fizzy. We also played in the wool shed, sliding down the chutes and trying to catch pigeons that were flying around. It was a fun weekend spent with the other children, parents and teachers.

The only photos we got were of Mr Bissett getting his truck stuck in a boggy paddock. Who would like to see the photo?

Written by Morgan and Vaughan

Sorry Mr Bissett, but who are we to stand in the way of good photography.

Warepa Wheels Day

This term every day is wheels day. I like the idea because you don't have to worry about whose wheels day it is so say if you forgot your wheels you could bring it the next day instead of waiting the whole week.

Here is Aidan, Danyon and Jack playing on some bikes.

Shaun and Daniel showing off to the girls.

This is what some of the kids say about Wheels Day:

"Happy and awesome," said Shaun.

"Good because you can play with other classes and you can leave your bike at school the whole week instead of one day," said Danyon. 

This post was made by Lachlan Bennett 

Action Beautification at Warepa

The parents, teachers and students have been busy in the holidays by erecting beautiful Oamaru stone carvings and new gardens. We made these carvings last year during 'Clubs' it has taken a little while to get them erected but we think it was worth the wait.

This is a photo of some of the very helpful students that used their own time before school when they could have been playing to cart and lay stones into the new garden. These stone have been kindly donated by Blackhead Quarries. It is going to take a few more trailer loads to fill up our new garden area but we are eager to get the work completed so much so that we are waiting for the trailer to turn up everyday.

Our Learning Environment

Today is Thursday and the year 7 & 8's are at Technology. The year 6's are also having a tech day at school with being able to bring ear phones and ear plugs to listen to music as we learn or to listen to our stories while doing reading. As you can see from the photos (below) some of the kids are using technology while listening to music at the same time.

We have also planned our own day to learn how to be manage our time more effectively with ourselves and our friends. We have had reading and maths learning centres with Mrs Hyslop, and we have tasks that we must complete and tasks that we can choose from. We choose when we want to do each learning area throughout the day.

The whole class has been doing a lot of work on computers using Google Docs as well as paper which is really good.

Cricket Visit

Bat, bowl and catch!

Tim and Tama from New Zealand cricket came to school to teach us new skills today.

This is what we learnt:
To be good at catching you need to cross your pinky fingers and point your other fingers at the ground, your fingers need to be spread apart. When the ball lands in your hands you close your fingers around the ball and bring your hands close to your chest.

Playing a fun warm-up game which made us focus on catching.

To be good at bowling you need to remember to have straight arms. The aiming arm needs to point in the direction you want the ball to go. The bowling arm moves clockwise past your body and brushes past your ear. The ball is held by your first two fingers along the two stitch line on the ball and your thumb goes in between the two stitch lines.

We finished with a game of three bat cricket. It was heaps of fun and we hope we go out tomorrow for another round.

By Blake and Callum

Tim showing us how to bowl with a straight arm.

Our turn for bowling!