Beach Ed Pix

Here are some photos of our day at North Beach. Thanks to Leanne for taking most of them!

What A Great Day!

I would be lying if I didn't say I expected our beach trip to be pretty awful today. In fact it turned out to be a wonderful day despite the awful weather.
Thank you to the wonderful parents who came and helped make the most of our day at North Beach. I'm just about to go out to book group so the photos and stories will have to wait till tomorrow. In the meantime sleep well! I'm sure I will.
Love Ms Ashby
p.s. The weather forecast for our Tryathlon on Friday is even improving!

Splish, Splash!

It was great to see so many of you with your togs at school today! Aren't we a lucky school to have a pool up and running? Tau ke Te Kura o Hato Opani!

An Athletics Catchup.

Our girls relay team who came 3rd.

The boys relay team who came second.
These guys are so speedy they are even blurry standing still!

Makenzie was away for these photos. He is in Kowhai and the relay team.

Amazing Athletes!

Well done Room 17 for all your positive, hard work at the athletics today. You worked well on your technique in all the events. I didn't get ANY photos at all! Sorry about that. Tomorrow you will have to make some fantabulous illustrations so we can load those instead.
I'm tired - are you?

Futsal Fun

Today we had our first Futsal session. Rohan from Mainland Football came and introduced us to some skills needed for this game. It is very like football (soccer) although the ball is heavier and less bouncy.
We discovered that in many South American countries children from 4 years to 12 years play Futsal and then they are introduced to football (although some carry on playing Futsal).

If you'd like to read more about Futsal you could follow this link to the Mainland Football website.

At the website you can click on these players' faces and find out about their involvement in Futsal.

Fitness Circuit

For fitness we are focussing on the same four areas as always, but using different equipment and skills.
Cardio fitness - being heart and lung strong: skipping and running
Muscle strength: adventure playground activities designed to build upper body strength like climbing the fire fighters pole
Coordination: throwing and catching, skipping, swinging and climbing
Team work and cooperation: ball skills, running circuit

Fantastic Fitness Fun

Year Three Tabloids

We had a fun time out on the field today doing various sporting activities. We had Rob the Nest, obstacle relays, egg and spoon races and the good old kiwi classic - the gumboot toss.

After we'd tossed the gumboots a bit we discovered they could develop super powers. Who knew - right?

English Park Performance

What a beautiful afternoon for an outdoor performance at English Park. It was almost as warm there as it was at the rest home yesterday!

The Room 17 Folk Dancers perform for the school.

Te Mahuri Kapa Haka

The Haka

Hunter made a connection between our performance and the Te Mahuri's performance. He suggested they are both dances from "past times".

Cricket and Fitness

It must be Spring if we're talking about, and playing, cricket!

It took us a while to get the hang of the speed cricket game they taught us, but now we've got it mastered we'll be able to go out and have a game from time to time.

Don't forget to keep developing your upper body strength and fire fighters' pole climbing skills. Will you get to the top of the pole by the end of the term?

Room 17 Dances

Impromptu Folk Dance Demonstration

What a lovely afternoon for an impromptu dance demo! I think many of you had family members admiring your fancy footwork! Here is that link to the new dance we learnt today. I'm still searching for a catchy tune to dance it to.

Gymnastics - remember that?

We have become very behind with updates on our blog. We did so many interesting things in the last couple of weeks but there was so little time to create posts to share it. I know you're great at talking about your learning and none of you would ever say,
"Nothing much.." as the answer to the question,
"What did you do at school today?" Would you????

Skipping

Now we have all completed the Cross Country so successfully we are moving onto skipping for our fitness.
Skipping is excellent for cardio fitness and coordination. You won't be developing strength so much but you are working cooperatively and encouraging each other so effectively.
Remember to check out our new skipping page for tips and video updates on how everyone is getting on.

Fant-iddily-astic!

Before - we're excited and a little bit nervous.

After - we're relieved and proud too!

It was so good to do the cross country today. Everyone was well prepared and rearing to go. Different people had different expectations and goals for the race, but we were all determined to make it the best race we'd ever run and to be the best we could be... AND WE DID AND WE WERE!!!

We are especially proud of Sophie, Makenzie and Riley for getting a placing - congratulations!

Orana Park - Here We Come!

It was so exciting to get on the bus and go to Orana Park this morning. We couldn't have had a more perfect day for it! All that finger crossing you did worked.
We split into five groups and worked with an educator from Orana Park to learn all about loads of animals. We had a theme of Wonderful Water and Its Effect on Wildlife.

Orana Park on PhotoPeach
These photos are all of Group Three.
Group Five's Photos

Cross Country on Tuesday

Treasure!

Did you see this great photo in the paper this morning?

What have cones and coins got to do with running? Well our cone and coin running trails have helped get you fitter. Now it's nearly time to put all that training and hard work to the test. There are four sleeps till the Cross Country. It was helpful to walk the course today and notice the changes from last year and work out strategies for having a successful run.

Remember - when you're going uphill make your steps smaller and DRIVE with your arms.

Here are some tips other children in Room 17 have come up with over the years.

If cross country isn't your thing - remember the running bit takes less time than playtime does. That's not a very big part of one day is it?

Shadow Play

For writing today we worked together to write a poem about our shadows. At first we wrote all the words we could think of that were about shadows. Next we tried to shape those ideas and words into a poem. We now understand how difficult it is to write poems!

Shadow, shadow where are you?
Somewhere where the skies are blue?
Oh we wish you would return
To help us play, have fun and learn.

We love it when you stay nearby
When the sun is in the sky.
Come and pounce and dance and play
Keep us company all the day.

The holidays are coming soon
So please come back
We're missing you!!!

We were so excited to see the sun today we decided to go out and play with our shadows!

It might be the last time for a while - boo!

Farewell Aquagym

It was fun at the end of our last session at Aquagym when everyone made a whirlpool. It was great to see how much progress everyone made over the week we were there.

Aquagym

It is a busy week this week with Aquagym. Yesterday Ms Douglas went with Room 17 and she took some great photos.