Netball success in the Finals

Certainly was a game of two halves but great to see the St Mary's Flames settle and get the win.  A wonderful game of netball with some great plays under pressure.  Congratulations girls, very proud of you all.

Following the Flames game another nail biter of a final which was won by the St Mary's Steele.  

Excellent to have both teams winning their sections and then getting awarded the most progress by a team in their respective section groups.

Launching into our latest learning focus ......

What better way to begin our new topic than to start with a class day out to Toitu and the Art Gallery.  We are going to be looking at New Zealand's involvement in War.

Not sure if one of our lovely parent helpers wanted to play "Where's Wally?" in the photos or is she just a photo bomber?

Awesome Activities at Whanau

We have been talking about "Lifelong Learning" and part of this involved us thinking about things that continue and the positive things from our past that are worth continuing.  This is very true about the activities we learnt at our session on Friday which focused on playground activities we could do.  The oldies and the goodies came out with Elastics, Hopscotch and Four Square.

Check out Kakariki in action:

Our Adventure with Authors Continues

This morning St Mary's hosted New Zealand author Stacy Gregg.  We wish to congratulate Stacy on her award last week at the New Zealand Book Awards for her children's book "The Island of Lost Horses".  

It was inspiring to hear from an author and we hope to use some of her tips in our own creative writing.

Thank you to John from Mosgiel Paper Plus for giving us the opportunity to host Stacy.

Our session with Ella West

Yesterday we were lucky to be invited to the Mosgiel Library to have a session with local author Ella West.  Ella received a prize last week at the New Zealand Book Awards for her book "Night Vision".

We got to hear a little about Ella and the processes she goes through as an author.  Then she lead us through an activity to help us create characters and plan a story.  The most important point she made was to think big and exaggerate our ideas to help us write great stories.

Writing we want to share with you.

Year 7 & 8 Basketball Final

Last night our Year 7 & 8 Basketball team played in the final for their section against Bathgate Park.  It was a great game full of excellent defence and attacking opportunities.  Each player gave it their all and worked as a team to come very close to winning the Mixed Grade Section.  The game finished with the win going to Bathgate Park 34 - 30.  Certainly was a game that went down to the wire.
Well done Team.

Congratulations on the way you have played this season and for making your section final.
A big thank you to Wendy who coached the team throughout the season.

Letter of the Week Activity with Our Buddies

Another "Out There" Inquiry Presentation

Check out Caitlin's Google Slide presentation on "The Moon"

Blue skies, crisp winter day for our action packed day

It was a pleasure to host St Joseph's Year 7 & 8 students in our annual winter Sports Exchange. 

Throughout the day we competed in Rugby, Netball, Soccer and Basketball.  

Our team captains showed great leadership skills.  We had a number of individuals who shown with their sports skills and the team comradery was amazing.  Although we didn't manage to left the shield this year we were competitive in all sports.

A huge thank you to the parents who supported us throughout the day and assisted with transport and afternoon.

Buddy Time on Friday

It is always great catching up with our Junior Buddies on Friday to chat about there week and help them with a craft related to their "Letter of the Week"

Welcome to our guests from Japan.

It was a pleasure to host guests from Kyotamba in a Room 7 on Friday.  The students are on an exchange with Taieri College and enjoyed visiting and seeing a primary school in action.

Art Action in Room 7

While our Year 8's have been out and about the Year 7's have been getting creative with paint preparing their backgrounds for their "Pop Art Chimps".

During Stars on Stage rehearsals we have also been celebrating "The Arts" curriculum as we create our newspaper art.

Keep following our blog and we will show you our final pieces once they are completed.

"Out There" Inquiry Presentations

At the end of Term 2 we were given our Inquiry Assignment to complete our learning on our "Out There" unit which focussed on all things related to space.

As a class we looked at the solar system, the structure of Earth and our atmostphere.  It was then up to us to set up an inquiry that we wanted to complete on a topic of our choice.

We have started sharing our findings and learning with the class.

We hope you enjoy looking at Sam's Slide Presentation and Ben's Prezi.  To view more of our learning come and visit Room 7 to see the posters that are being displayed.