Dress up Day - St Mary's 2014

 Dress up Day

Last Thursday St Mary's staff and students came dressed up as their favourite book character. We had all sorts of characters in room 6 as you can see from our photos. Children had to bring a gold coin donation, which will go towards relief efforts for the typhoon ravaged Philippines.

Some of the children put a lot of effort into their costume selection.

A group photo shows the wide range of characters we had in room 6.

Poppy vainly attempts to scare Mr. Bach with her costume.

  Charis

 Veronica

 Koby

 Jasmin

 Naina

 Ria

 Lucille

 Tyler

 Willem

Misty

Picture Prompts - writing

 Picture Prompts - Motivating to Write and stimulating thinking

A good way of getting children to write is by using picture (usually photo) prompts. Big pictures are best and they can be electronic or in paper form, as long as the children are able to look at them closely from the place from where they are writing.

Children can be guided to describe the setting or a character in the setting by using looks like, feels like, smells like and sounds like, or they can use the scene to begin a story using who, what where and when.

 The children may have to be encouraged to choose a prompt as procrastination in making a choice is common.

 Room 6 children have chosen their prompts in this picture and are now orgainising their books and other writing equipment.

Some children are very happy and motivated writers - others may need support and encouragement to write.

Room 6 Assembly Term 3

 Room 6 Assembly Term 3

Last Friday at the end of week 9, Room 6 students ran the school assembly. This was the second assembly that Room 6 have run this year. A new group of students got the chance to participate and practice reading clearly in front of an audience. All the children learned their words perfectly and spoke clearly to the assembled audience.

The assembly was opened by Joseph who welcomed everyone to the hall. 

Josh introduced the prayer which was Hail Mary or Awe e Maria in Maori. He did the sign of the cross in French and then Maori.

Tae'o asked the school to stand for the singing of the National Anthem.

Claire and Anna played us a beautiful piece of music on their ukeleles.

All of Claire's guitar students played us a couple of pieces together with some musical accompaniment.

Willem asked Mr Macmillan to present the Principal's Awards to some worthy students.
He wore his Dad's tie especially for the occasion.

Mr Macmillan presented the Principal's Awards.

Teachers and pupils admire the wonderful assembly put on by the marvellous students of Room 6.

 Interhouse Cross Country 2013 

Room 6 students trained up hard over 6 days at the beginning of term 2. We ran for ten minutes every day around the school filed and recorded the number of laps we completed. Our training goals and record of laps run will be put into each child's portfolio

Some children made more progress with their fitness than others

 Poppy trained hard. Here she is putting her hand out to get a lap marker from Mr. Bach.

Naina runs past Mr Bach who kept track of the children's progress. Mr. Bach used to run with the children in past year to improve his fitness, but unfortunately a severe ankle sprain has lead him to retrie from running and focus on biking and kayaking.







Willem and a group of mixed room 6 and 7 girls make their way past the recording point.

 Room 6 children performed well at the school cross country held in the Redwood Forest last Wednesday. Josh (above) and Alex and Misty (below) all got high placings in their year group.

 

Koby (above) and Poppy (below) also ran well for excellent placings in the cross country event.

Some of our year 4 children will be attending the interschool cross country event for certain.














All of the St Mary's staff helped out during the event. Here Mr Volschenk is guiding children to the recording table. Mr Bach was the unofficial photographer and First Aid Coordinator!!!

   



Mrs Park and some girls at the recording station.

The children cheered on the other children from their houses in the races.

 Some children really got into the cheering business.

Sustainability -Term 2 Concept

 Our concept this term at St Mary's is ‘Sustainability’. Children will learn what difference they can make to their immediate environment. We will focus on sustainable gardens and recycling will also be part of the programme. Middle School children will be using the school gardens, looking after the chickens, recycling scraps, running a worm farm and trying very hard to persuade others to do the same.

 The middle school has exclusive access to the school garden's this term and room 6's day in the garden is Wednesday. In class we will be talking about sustainable practices and why sustainability is important but on Wednesday's we are allowed to get our hands dirty weeding the gardens, getting the scraps from the chickens and keeping an eye on the worm farm.

 The children enjoyed their first afternoon in the garden and found lots of fascinating things to talk about. Tae'o and Misty in particular seem really keen to share something with Mr. Bach.







The children were not scared to get stuck in weeding the gardens and looking for insect pests on the leaves.

 Some caterpillars were found on some of the cabbage leaves but with autumn upon us there should be no more butterflies laying eggs.

 This week Poppy also shared something very interesting for news. She brought a large abandoned nest from last summer, probably made by a larger bird like a blackbird or starling. Interestingly among the twigs and leaves used to build the nest was a piece of plastic rubbish.

Koby was also lucky enough this week to receive a special prize at assembly for his holiday reading. He won one of the main prizes - a book voucher. Well done Koby.