New Adventure Playground

 Adventure Playground

The new children's adventure playground, built this year, has been a real hit with the children. They absolutely love this swing in particular and will head straight for it, and queue up, to be able to use it at lunchtime and during golden time.

Sometimes taking your turn fairly by not queue jumping, and spending a fair amount of time on the swing, are issues that need to be dealt with by senior students looking after the swing.

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

 Enterprise Flytying Class Trip to Utuhina Stream

On the second to last week of term 3 Mr Bach took his enterprise flytying class to the Utuhina Stream for a field trip. The aim was to try and identify likely spots to find trout and talk about the times and places that are best for catching trout in small streams. We were hoping to test out a couple of the flies we designed, but unfortunately although we saw trout we were unable to catch any. Maybe having 30 children bounding around on the bank didn't help. 

Tom's mum came along as a parent helper. We were lucky to have many parents who were willing to lend a hand.

The children look towards the stream, where we managed to see a number of trout, a couple of them big. We scared them unfortunately - and trout are very hard to catch once disturbed.

Mr Bach explains a few of his secrets about how to catch trout in the Utuhina Stream.

    Mr Bach tries to catch a trout by some miracle under an overhanging tree.

 Mr Bach shows some of the different flies he has tied over the years.

In deep pools, under banks and behind or under snags are some of the favourite places that trout like to rest and hide.

  Hemi enjoying himself by the stream.

  Mr Bach negotiating two hazards - streamside vegetation and excited children.

Hili was proud to carry the first aid kit for our class.

Poetry Recital - middle school

 Middle School Poetry Recital Finals 2013

In the last week of term 3 the annual middle school poetry recital finals were held in the hall. Our judges were Janet Keen and Mrs Cato. Janet gave a very complimentary review of the competition in her weekly newspaper column. 

The standard was very high this year with all finalists having memorised their poems and many children used expression in their voice and gestures.

Alex Veper and Poppy Martin represented room 6 in the year 3 section and Tom Parry, Joseph Boles and Naina Michael represented room 6 in the year 4 section.

Children from rooms 6, 7, 8, 14 and 15 participated in the recital.

Tom gave it his best using expression and gestures.



Joseph gave an excellent recital but had his poem cut short by early clapping.

Well done to Tom and Joseph for giving it their best and making us proud.

Poppy went the extra mile and included props and a costume as part of her recital.

Alex wrote his own poem for the competition. Here he shows us his participation certificate.

Kate won the year 3 section with a magnificent poetry recital showing public speaking skills of the highest order.

Enterprise - Children's Designs turned into flies.

Enterprising - Dream Big and Make it Happen 

Last week during flytying Mr Bach tied the fly designs of about 16 children in our fly tying class. We had been trying to design a fly that would catch more trout, or catch anglers as a top seller to fly fishermen. In order to design such a fly we looked at what trout eat and the various colours, shapes, movements, sounds and smells that they are attracted to, because trout associate them with prey and food. We have also looked at trout fishing techniques, trout behaviour and likely places in rivers and lakes to catch trout. Mr Bach has tied everybody else's flies at home from the children's designs to the best of his abilities given the details in the designs. This week we are going on a trip to the Utuhina Stream and will have fly fisherman Gary coming to talk to us about his techniques.

Enterprise - Dream Big and Make it Happen.

 Fly Tying - Enterprise

Children from throughout the middle school have been coming to room 6 twice a week this term to learn about fly tying, fly fishing and how to design a customised fly, that will hopefully catch more trout. The children have been looking at what to do if you have a dream to become a better fly tier and fisherman and even make some money out of it. The children are posing with Mr Bach's 16lb (7.25kg) brown trout he caught in 2005 after over 30 years of trying to catch such a huge trout. Mr Bach caught his fish on a standard fly customised to his own design after lots of testing and designing.

Wacky Hair and Sock Day

 Wacky Hair and Sock Day

Wacky Hair and Sock Day was to raise money for the Special Needs Christmas dinner on Friday 30th August. Room six won the the class prize for its overall participation in Wacky Hair and Sock Day  Even Mr. Bach got involved, grudgingly, when swarmed on by teachers and children with hair colouring and pipe cleaners. Some children in room 6 really got into the wacky hair theme with some excellent colours and styles. Look below at all the awesome looks.

Willem












Koby

Tyler

Charis
                                                                            Wylie

Joseph

Tae'o

Alex

Ryan

Mr. B

Patrick

Tom