Shake Out

"Earthquake!" Mrs Palmer shouted. Drop, cover and hold! Some of us were under tables holding onto a leg, some of us were on the floor and well away from the windows doing the drop, cover and hold position. Mrs Palmer stood in the door way to keep it clear for us to get outside. After a minute Mrs Palmer said the shaking had stop for now and was safe to get up. We walked out the back door and met the rest of our class on the field by our class number. Some of our class were outside doing fitness with Mrs Steadman and had to do the drop, cover and hold position on the field! Charlie said Mrs Palmer gave him a fright when she shouted out earthquake. But that is what a real earthquake is like. It happens when you are not expecting it! Our class did a great job during the national wide shake out drill inside and outside the classroom.

Inter School Cross Country

Mrs Palmer took a team of 20 to the Inter School Cross Country last week. We were lucky enough to send 5 of our class to represent our school. They did an amazing job and placed high as there were about 200 competitors in each race. Travis was 12th, Mase 20th, Yoonsu 50th, Vetaia 80th and Mack 91st. We are so proud of the effort you put into the race. It was challenging, long and muddy!

Year 6 Visits

This week our Year 6's went to visit Wanganui Intermediate to try out some of the specialist subjects. We were put into groups and rotated around four of them. At cooking we made fruit kebabs. In science we planted a pea seed which we hope they grow when we take them home. We loved robotics where we programmed robots and they had a fight with each other. Hard materials was cool as we got to make a wooden pen. Creating animals for a outside scene was challenging in the art session. Our morning was lots of fun and we even got to have morning tea sitting around the fish pond.

Wanganui Intermediate invited us to their production 'The Little Mermaid'. For some of us it was the first time in the Opera House. What an amazing place. The show was fantastic and we all really enjoyed the singing, props, costumes and seeing some of our old Carlton School students in the production.

Hundertwasser Art

We learnt about the artist Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser. He was born in Austria, lived in other countries and in his later life he lived in New Zealand. His artwork was individualistic and unique and he did not follow tradition art rules. He gave a name to this creative and unique process as “transautomatism”. In his work, he rejected straight lines and was fascinated by spirals, as he noted that here are not straight lines in nature. He commonly used bright colours in his artwork. We created our own Hundertwasser inspired artwork using paint and felt pens.

Rutherford Visit

Last week we were lucky to have some students from Rutherford Junior High visit us. They came to tell us all about their school and what they could offer year 7 students next year. Their school band played two songs to us too. We were able to ask questions to the teachers and students. It was great to see Coral and Rajveet who were at our school last year who are enjoying Rutherford this year.

Monsters

Check out our monster art! We planned monsters in our art books.

We chose our favourite monster and created a bog version with crayon and dye.

After that we used our clay skills to create a 3D version.

 

Midweek

Did you know some of our boys have been writing the Midweek column. They always get it checked by Ms O'Connor before it gets sent off to the paper. Pretty clever huh! Here is their latest column.

Rutherford

We have started back at Rutherford again this term. For active learning we are cooking, sewing and creating something at woodwork. We are having heaps of fun learning new skills. Watch this space to see what we create!

Museum Visit

Last week we went to the Museum to learn all about organic pigments and natural tools and Toi Māori (Māori Art).
We worked with Margie and explored different ways we can make paint and what we could use to paint with. We had a go at painting with feathers and we made our own brush from harakeke. We used onion skins and walnut pods to make dye. We also used paints made from ochre. We used the pigments and tools to create our own tapa patterns.

We also work with Awhina to learn about Toi Māori. We looked closely at different whakairo. We learnt they were used to tell stories and show history. We explored all the different patterns and discovered that different places around the country have different styles and patterns special to them.

Cave Paintings

For inquiry we spent some time looking at cave paintings. We were really interested in learning why we have cave paintings and what was used to create cave paintings. We looked closely and how people were drawn and why they choose the animals they did. We then used all the information we learnt to plan and create our own cave paintings to tell a story about what might of happened in New Zealand many years ago. Instead of using natural paints made from limestone and ochre we used crayons. They still look great!

Maths Activity

Celebrating Puanga

Today some us got up super early to meet on the school field to celebrate Puanga. We all stood around a bonfire. Mr Ohia spoke then we all sung a song. Some of us sent some lanterns off into the sky. We then went into the hall for some share kai. After that Mr Ohia's Ropu shared some facts about Puanga and a waiata. We then spent the morning in our houses doing lots and lots of fun activities. What a great way to spend the day!

Art Gallery and Library

On Monday we were lucky enough to be able to visit the District Library and Art Gallery. At the Library we got a tour and some of us were issued a library card. We really enjoyed looking through all the books and issuing them on their fancy system. At the Art Gallery Seitske showed us an art exhibition. We looked at all the creatures that were made from clay. We were then given an opportunity to create our own creature. We had such an awesome day!