Luging

Luging in Queenstown was awesome.  We had five goes each.  I went twice on the learners track and then I went on the expert track for the rest of my turns.  It made camp that much more fun.

Technology

Room 7 Year 7’s and 8’s from St Mary’s have been doing technology. The Year 7’s have been doing woodwork for awhile now and it has been real fun. But it can be hard sometimes. We have been working on our money boxes and wooden half pipes. Everyone has pretty much finished their money boxes but for a few people.  I am glad we get to go to technology every Thursday because it has been so much fun. We have also done other things like cooking and sewing.  They have also been real fun.

Out of the three things we have been doing I think cookings the best. For the money boxes we have had to do a lot of sanding and we have also been doing a little bit of writing in our technology booklets but it wasn’t that hard do to the work in our booklets. We are all privileged to get to go every Thursday and it is still awesome.

Japanese

JAPANESE 2012!

Through out the year we have been doing Japanese. Learning words such as how to say hello to someone, how to count from 0 to 19 and how to read phone numbers and write in hiragana. How to say hello at different times of the day.   At the moment we are learning to say how old are you? And who is this? The other day we had some Japanese chocolates that Mr Baines brought us back from his trip to Japan with Taieri College.

·          Ohayoo Gozimasu" is a way to say hello.

·          Another way of saying hello at a different time of the day is "Konba wa".

·           How to ask a person what their name is you say "Onamae Wa Nan Desu Ka"

·          if you were a girl you would respond saying "watashi wa Jaylah desu".

·          If you were a boy you would say "boku wa Jonty desu".

Term 4 Fitness

For Term Four fitness each whanau group's leaders had to find or create games that improve a certain skill that would be helpful for your PE skill development. One group is doing games about jumping, another is doing it about running, throwing etc. Each whanau group will rotate around all of the activities over the term and completes one activity a day. This will go on everyday at 10:30 and end at 10:45 (only if the ground isn’t wet)   

Teddy

Your challenge for Week 5 is to come up with a joke or a pun about bears. Post your joke or pun in the comments section (remember to sign your name with your comment or it may be deleted). In class you need to explain why it is a joke or the meaning behind the pun. Prizes for the best.

Golf lessons at Belleknowes

What a place to spend a morning of learning!

Check out the great view that the golf group  from Room 7 got to look at while they were busy learning and developing their golf skills.

Belleknowes Golf Course: 7 November - am

If only we could all spend our time like this! 

Challenge for Week 4!!

Have your eyes peeled in Room 7 this week for the "Happy Sunflower".  If you locate the "Happy Sunflower" you need to send a comment saying where the "Happy Sunflower" is in our class.  The first two people to correctly say where the "Sunflower" is by adding a blog comment with its location will get a sweet treat then the Sunflower will be relocated. 

St. Marys Time Capsule: Part 1

At St Marys this month we are going to plant two time capsules in the grounds of the current and future school sites. We will be putting in objects that are typical for our time and hope they will be found in the next few decades. Each Whanau group is thinking about what to put in. More news coming soon!

Here are some of the Whanau groups planning what could go into the time capsule.  Do you have any ideas you could suggest?

All Blacks come to Mosgiel

On Tuesday we walked to Peter Johnstone Park to see four of the All Blacks.  The players were introduced to us and then we got a school photo taken.  After all the schools had their photos taken we got to line up and get their autographs.  Seeing the All Blacks was awesome.  We wish the whole All Black team could have come.

100 Years to Celebrate

During our Year 7 RE programme we have been talking about the Pope.  Lewis brought along the letter his Great-Nana had recieved from the Pope in celebration of her 100th Birthday.  What a fanastic milestone for Lewis and his family to celebrate.

 

Money boxes from Technology

 In Room 7 we go to Taeri College every Thursday to do wood work, cooking and sewing. Today some of the Year 7's finished their moneyboxes. It took about 10 weeks and the rest should be finished soon. Our next project is to build a quaterpipe for techdecks or a cheese board. These are some of our Moneyboxes.

Technology Projects

Check out our latest technology projects that we have designed and made at Taieri College this term.

 



Our Literacy Celebration today

To celebrate Literacy today we held a "Stop, Drop and Read" throughout the whole school at 11am. In Room 7 we read silently and then Mrs Baines read us a funny story by Paul Jennings called "Pink Bow Tie". Room 1, 2 and 3 were lucky to have visitors from the Altrusa Club of Taieri read to them in the foyer. Thank you to Altrusa Club of Taieri for the bookmarks. These will be a reminder to us about how important it is to read, read, read.

Create your own at MyNiceProfile.com

Luging

 Luging in Queenstown was awesome.  We had five goes each and I went twice on the learners track.  Then I went on the expert track for the rest of my turns. It made camp that more fun.

Basketball Final 2012

Basketball Finals

On Monday the 27^th of August we had the B-grade basketball finals which involved St Mary’s White and St Mary’s Blue at the Edgar Center. It was an intense game which involved a lot of baskets. At half time the score was 20-3 to our team, St Mary’s White. The game continued and there were some great plays and lots of baskets. The team that came out on top was St Mary’s White. The score was 31-15. In St Mary’s White were Brendan, Chanse, Kyle, Max, Tony and Josh. In St Mary’s Blue there was Lewis, Will, Jayden, Gage, Mitchell, Tyrin and Jack. It was great and it proves that St Mary’s is the best in the B-grade.

Skiing at Winter Camp

PS - please excuse the spelling mistakes, next time I will remember to have my work checked before I save the final motivator

Camp Highlights

Winter Camp 2012

On the 20^th of August our class left to go to Queenstown on our winter camp. On the first night we went to the pool after a few hours we got out and left to go back to the lodge, went to bed and slept. We went skiing on the Tuesday and Wednesday at Remarkables. We had lots of fun skiing.  On the Thursday we went to the Arrowtown museum, we went to school in the 1880’s and had Miss Grey as a teacher.  She was a lot different to our teacher now.  After lunch we went gold panning.  Everyone found some gold it was lots of fun. After that we went to the gondoliers and on the luge.  Jayden and I were the first ones to use up all of our goes.  Before we knew it the camp was over we had lots of fun. Thank you Mrs Baines for organizing our winter camp can’t wait till next years summer camp.

Winter Camp 2012

Camp Highlights

Camp Highlights

In Week Six we had school camp. We stayed at the Lakeland Park Lodge. We had two days of skiing at the Remarkables Ski Field. A day in Arrrowtown, luge and gondolas. On Friday we went to the bungy and a parent jumped off the bridge. Then went back to school.

1. Skiing at the Remarkables
2. Luge and Gondolas
3. Watching the parent bungy
4. Listening to the music in the van
5. Gold panning

Camp Cube to print off and make up as a momento

My Camp Highlights

Lakes District Musuem

Check out this great website http://www.handsonhistory.co.nz/students/welcome/ which will give you some information which is really useful for our visit during Camp.

Sports Exchange with St Joseph's

Sports Exchange

On Tuesday the 17^th of August we had a sports exchange with St Joseph’s in Oamaru. We played them in basketball, rugby and netball. When we arrived we were welcomed and then the basketball team got ready to play. It was a close game the whole way through but they won in the end by two points 34-36. Then we went outside to the rugby field. It was a fun game but we lost by three tries. We got into the buses and headed off to the netball courts. When we got there the girls got on the court and started. After the game we went into their hall where each school said thank-you, this was followed by afternoon tea. After that we got into the buses and went back to school.

Marshmallow Challenge

During a choir practice the students who are not in choir we given the "Marshmallow Challenge".  The aim of the challenge was to build the highest tower that could stand without support holding a marshmallow.  We were given 20 pieces of spaghetti, 1 metre of tape, 1 metre of string and a marshmallow.  This sure was a challenge.

First Aid

During Term 2 we were lucky enough to be visited by Belinda from St John's.  This was a great opportunity to build on our First Aid knowledge from previous years and to refresh the things we had forgotten.  We hope we don't have to put our skills into practise too soon but rest assured that if you need help then we will be able to help.

Soccer

On Friday the 20^th of July St Mary’s had teams entered in the Cluster Sports.  The Cluster Sports involves teams from Fairfield, Green Island, Big Rock, Abbotsford, Outram, St Peter Chanel, Concord and St Mary's.  We entered a Year 6 and a Year 7/8 team in the soccer competition.

Room 6 had their game first. They were playing against Green Island. Room 6 made some spectacular goals and they won 7-2.

Room 7 didn’t go so well. We played against a mix of Green Island and Fairfield. We lost  4-0. We have a game of soccer every second week. We hope to win our next game.

Great family holiday fun

The Baines Family are enjoying a great holiday in Hanmer Springs. Just spent the morning at the hot pools. The super bowl is very cool, although I was a little apprehensive to begin with but put on my brave face to get Georgia on, she can certainly hold on tight when she doesn't want to do something. Check out www.hanmersprings.co.nz to see what I am talking about and enjoying. Happy holidays!

Congratulations to the amazing Young Vinnies

Dear Young Vinnies

You should all be very proud of the huge effort and dedication you put into your first challenge as a newly established Young Vinnies Group.  When you decided to have a collection for the Taieri Christian Foodbank you really made your group work hard with the decision to invite all Taieri schools to take part with you.  What a fantastic success with collecting so much for our local community.  I hope you all saw the great article telling your story in the Taieri Herald on Tuesday the 3rd of July.  Congratulations to you all on your hard work and the success you have achieved with the support of East Taieri and Outram School.

Well done
From Mrs Baines

PS - I accepted a hug on your behalf from Christine when she came to collect all of the boxes on Saturday the 30th of June.  She was so excited to see so many boxes especially since they included the items like toothpaste, toilet paper, coffee etc that they always run low on.

Taieri Schools Speech Competition

On Wednesday the 27^th of June Room 6, 7 and 8 entered a speech competition against Outram. The participants from Room 6 were Callum Scott, Zara Galliven and Josh Illingworth. From Room 7 there was Jaylah Kennedy, Brendan O’Neill and Josh Hyde. From Year 8 there was Kyle Burns, Sinead Illingworth and Maddy Will. We had a few place winners with one 1^st, one second 2^nd and two 3^rd’s. Some of the topics from Room 7 were ‘Why Aliens Exist’, ‘Why Fitness is Important’ and ‘Why Students Need an Income’. We did really well and most of us want to do it again.

Xtra Maths

In Room 7 we are doing Xtra Math and there are four stages: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Kyle and Max recently finished Xtra Math. The only other person that has finished Xtra Math is Josh. Soon they will have to do each question in two seconds instead of three seconds.

Foodbank Appeal

In the Room 7 the Young Vinnies group had a project to help the Taieri Christian Care Foodbank. On the 21^st of July we met Christine at the foodbank. We talked about how much money things cost such as groceries and bills. Some people don’t have enough money to balance their budget so they take money out of their shopping leaving not enough there for food.  This is why we need to have the foodbank. While we were there Christine asked us some questions and then gave us a tour of the food storage area and counter where people come when they need some assistance. They give out a few parcels a year to each family. They have a lot of food but they need more toothpaste, coffee, toilet paper, Milo, Sugar, Spreads and a few more things. We had a Wacky Mufti Day to collect items for the foodbank. We had triple the success because East Taieri and Outram also got involved with the appeal.  We got heaps of cans and other supplies. We collected the cans ourselves and had to sort them into boxes in categories. Michael from the Taieri Herald came and took photos of the collection and all of us. When he was finished we put away our groceries and finished packing. At the end we had 21 full boxes of food. The foodbank is going to pick it up tomorrow.

Wacky Mufti Day

Taieri Music Festival

On Wednesday and Thursday night the St Mary’s School choir performed at Taieri College for the Taieri Schools Music Festival.

We sang some massed choir items and then individual items. Our school sang an Elvis medley. Our favourite massed choir song was Video Killed the Radio Star. We got given glow sticks to wave around during the middle of the song.

Kapa Haka June 2012

On Friday, the St. Mary’s Kapahaka group went to Middlemarch. We went on a bus; it took around an hour and a half. When we finally got there we went to the park and had our morning tea. After that we were welcomed into the hall by the Middlemarch Kapahaka group. We sat down and then they sang some songs. Once they had sung a few songs it was our turn. We sang two songs and then we shook all their hands. After that we sang Haere Mai together. Then we walked down to the school and had a BBQ lunch. The senior boys and girls and the younger ones split off into groups. The girls learned some new things with the poi. The boys played some hand games and the Yr 1,2 and 3’s learned new things with the rakau. Now it was time to go back to school so we all jumped on to the bus. We headed back. We listened to music and we were soon back by 3:00 in time to go home.