Star Dome

On Tuesday Room 12 and the rest of the school went down to the Events Centre to see the Star Dome. The Star Dome is like a big blow up tent you go inside of.  From inside it looks like you can see the stars.  Mr Parkinson told us all about the stars and galaxies. We found out that space isn’t just stars and planets. Also a shooting star is a granny star that is losing its colour and it beams it all out in one huge go. There was a picture of a comet flying through space, did you know a comet is only about the size of a basketball? We watched a clip of an astronaut going through space, which felt 3D. He told us that two galaxies crashing together at two hundred km per second still takes millions of year to create one huge galaxy. There are all sorts of colours in space. We found out so much more about space and a big thanks to Mr Parkinson for letting us use the Star Dome and teaching all about our galaxy.

By Lydia, Rosie and Chloe

Snow Day

Snow day

Did you see the snow on Monday the 26^th of May 2014? Well Te Anau School saw it and had the best day ever playing in the snow. Before the snow melted Rm12 took some pictures of the snow and creations people of Te Anau School made. With the pictures we made a snow video. Click the link below to see.

Tote Tray Holder almost finished

Last Monday we started off by putting an undercoat on our table top.  We then screwed on our rails and then put the sides and bottom together.  Once we had it screwed together we put wheels onto the bottom to make easier to move around.

We have now finished painting our top.  Next week we will screw the top on and we will be finished.

Building a Tote Tray Holder

In Room 12 we have been experimenting with using different tables to do our work.  We have been using standing tables and tables where you can sit on the floor.  Some children in our class would like to get rid of their desks and use these alternative tables all of the time.  This has created the problem of where to store their belongings.  To solve this problem we are building a tote tray holder that will also be used as another high table.

First of all we looked at examples around the school of other tote tray holders.  Using these ideas we designed and drew our own tote try holder.

Next the five of us went to Mitre 10 to look at the prices.  Once we new how much it would cost we sent a letter to Mr Rush to ask for money to pay for it.  We got the go-ahead right away.

We went back to Mitre 10 to buy our materials.  During the holidays Mr Excell went to his brother’s workshop to cut the wood to size according to our plan.

To begin our project we had to mark out the screw holes on the runners for the tote trays.  We then drilled holes for the screws.

Next we used a router to give our table-top a rounded edge.  We did this to make it safer in case someone bumped into it.

Next Monday we are hoping to finish building our tote tray holder then we will paint it over the following days.

Stay tuned to see our finished product.

Workspaces

Room 12 has a variety of workspaces for us to use. We have two classrooms. Because the room next to us is empty most of the time. Room 11 is the room where we don't talk to others. Because Room 11 is empty we get two cloak bays which is useful because our bags aren't clustered together which doesn't make push and shove each other to reach our bags. We have three tables two are big and one is small. The two big tables are so we can stand up while working. The small table is so we can sit down with others while working.  All of these different workspaces are useful to us because some people work better than others in different spaces.

Room12 and Room 2’s shared lunch

On Friday in Week 8 Room 12 and Room 2 dug up some of the potatoes, corn, marrow and pumpkins from our garden. There were two different types of potatoes, a gigantic marrow, 7 pumpkins and some corn.

There were so many vegetables we had to sell some of them. We took the rest of the vegetables into the staffroom so that Rosie and Thomas P could wash the them. Lydia, Ellie and Jess B cut the potatoes into wedges. After that Rosie and Ellie stayed to cook, with the oil, baking paper and the chicken salt. We had got a tray and had put baking paper on to a tray then we put the raw potatoes on top, then drizzled the oil on we had also sprinkled chicken salt on. We put them in the oven to cook, we cooked them until they turned brown on both sides. Then at 12:30 we came and ate them in the lunch-eating area with our wedges and corn. At 1:30 we had Room 2's pumpkin soup and scones outside the Cayford block. It was very tasty.

Digging our Potatoes

Digging Deep

Us with our produce

Samantha, Emmerson and Rosie

Explorers Day

Yesterday we finished our Explorers unit off that we had been doing with Mrs Excell.  Our celebration included cooking Pompolona Scones, setting up tents, sack races and cooking our lunch and marshmallows on gas cookers.

Click on the link below to see our Smilebox presentation.
Smilebox Explorers

Southland Athletics

On Saturday the 22^nd of March five children represented our school at the Southland Athletics in Invercargill.  They were against the best of the best from around Southland.  The students who went were Jayden, Thomas, Mitchell, Caitlin and Cory.  To get to this event they had to come first or second at the Northern Southland Athletics.  They really deserved to be there.  All the competitors tried very hard.  The results were:

Thomas 2^nd High Jump, 9^th Discus

Jayden 11^th 1500m

Cory 17^th 800m

Caitlin 11^th 1500m

Mitchell 5^th Long Jump, 3^rd 200m Heat, 7^th Discus

Written By Jonty, Luke and Jayden

Takahe Visit

On Thursday the 13th of March Room12 walked down to the bird park to learn about and feed the Takahe.

As well as seeing the Takahe we went to see all the other birds like geese, ducks, morepork kaka and kea.

The class split up into 2 groups and hid the kea and kaka food half of us fed the kea and the rest of us fed the kaka.

On the 28th of March we found out that Te Anau School was adopting a Takahe.  Our school held a mufti day to raise money to feed the chick.  We got to choose a name for the Takahe.  We named him Murchison or Murchy for short. We named him this after the mountain range where the Takahe were rediscovered.

Fergus, Thomas and Asha