Whetu Olympics and Farmers' Market

                                                Natalie leading the way with our torch

               The trophies. We made the 'Sportsmanship' trophy with the stars coming out of the top

                                                                  Waiting to begin

                                                        The torch 'lighting' ceremony.

                                              Ready to go in the kayak/show jumping event.

                                                Here we are in the dress up/run/kick relay.

                                  Working hard in the Chariot -Nerf -Gun version of Rob The Nest.

                                   The trophies and torches looking a little bedraggled after the rain.

                                               Waiting for the Closing Ceremony to begin.

                                          This is the banner we made during Whetu Swap time.

                                                 Lots of customers for the baking stall.

                                                Jo and Nicola, our amazing gardeners.

Lots of customers!

Thursday dawned bright and clear after a rainy rest of the week, so it was all go for the Whetu Olympics. We started with a loud and enthusiastic parade down onto the courts,  then a torch lighting ceremony and karakia, and the introduction of the Balmoral Habits Trophies. Then the games began. We made it through two rounds before the rain appeared from nowhere, but showing persistence and the ability to manage ourselves, we carried on! It was great fun. At the Closing Ceremony we presented the trophies, Malcolm made a speech about how we had all basked in the glory of designing, making, organising and competing in the Whetu Olympics, and Room 25 showed us their amazing Olympic dance.On Friday afternoon the weather was glorious for the Whetu Farmers' Market. All the classes had made or baked something for the market, including pretzels, truffles and lemonade. We made coconut ice, self watering herb pots, daffodil bulbs in bags, and painted pots. Lots of families donated produce from their own gardens, and baked goods.The market was very busy. It was lots of fun for those of us who got to be the market stall holders, we had to do lots of maths to work out how much our customers owed, and how much change they needed. Jo and Nicola are now going to help us spend our profits on the fairy gardens and plants for the new vegetable gardens when we have harvested all the things we grew this term.

Getting Ready Day 2

                                                                       Making stars

                                            Hot glue gunning the stars to the Torch Holder

                                                                            Sugar!

                                                                   3 cups of sugar!

                                                  Stirring to get a  candy consistency

                                                                   Spreading it out.

                                                        More sugar for the top layer!

                                                                              Yum!

This morning we have been extremely busy getting ready for both the Whetu Olympics and our Farmers' Market tomorrow afternoon. We have made an Olympic Torch holder, finished our banners and practised our chant!
After morning tea we went up to the staffroom to make our coconut ice. It has a lot of sugar in it, and not so much coconut. It smelt delicious. We had to boil up the sugar till it made a little ball when we put some of it into a bowl of cold water. We think we did this better on the top, pink layer.The boiling sugar was very, very hot. Oliver was our official photographer, and he did a great job. It is now in the fridge in the staffroom, cooling down. We hope the teachers don't have a sneaky taste!

Getting Ready!

This morning Jo came in to help us start making some things for the Farmers' Market on Friday. We painted terracotta pots to put daffodil bulbs in, made beautiful, colourful butterflies, constructed self watering herb pots and are busy taking care of mung bean sprouts. We also did lots of maths working out how much we should sell each item for so we make a profit that we can use to buy plants for the Fairy Garden. We are learning a little about marketing as we find out how display our items so they look amazing. Later on this week we are making coconut ice and finishing our greeting cards. We look forward to seeing you at 3pm on Friday outside our classroom.

Making Pizza

One of the activities that we do during our Whetu Swap is cooking with Rachael. This week is was our turn to make pizza. We made the dough, cut up all the toppings and grated the cheese to go on the top of the pizza. It was lots of fun, and the pizzas tasted delicious! The cooks enjoyed sharing their creations with the choir members.

The Book Parade

Last week it was Book Week. There were lots of exciting activities at school-Nina Rycroft came to talk to us about being an illustrator, lots of different teachers read stories in the library at lunchtimes, and on Friday we had the Book Parade. You could dress up as a book character for the day, and at 12pm the whole school gathered together down on the bottom court to watch all the characters parade along the red carpet. In Room 16 we had three Lief characters (from the Deltora books), 2 Judy Moody's-one saving the world and one getting famous, Pippi Longstockings and her friend Anneke, Limelight Larry, Professor McGonagall, Matilda, Badjelly, Little Bo Peep, a cat, a pirate, and the Grand High Witch from The Witches by Roald Dahl. Everybody cheered and clapped as the characters walked along the carpet!

Sculpture, sculpture and more sculpture

By Alexandra and Laura

We have been looking at all sorts of sculpture by artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and mostly by Andy Goldsworthy. We have talked about the lines, shapes and materials they use in their work, and we really loved how the sculptures could look abstract, but sometimes represented real things like Barbara Hepworth's three stones that represent her children.This week we went and tried to do some of our own environmental sculpture out on the bank. We collected leaves, twigs, branches and  some stones. We had a lot of fun, but also discovered it is much harder than it looks to make something amazing.

                                                                     By Lara

                                                                 By Geraldine and Josef

                                                              By Setoga and Joakim

                                                              By Madison and Culburnia

                                                                        By Caitlin

                                                               By Harry P and Mack

                                                                 By Harry M and Matthew

                                                   By Kaia, Sophie, Hannah and Natalie B

                                                             By Archie and Oscar

                                                              By Toby and Oliver

 Then, this morning before school, this gorgeous creature arrived:

The children drew around Oscar with chalk, then used the fallen leaves to create Shadowman-

they then came and got the camera and took a series of photos of Shadowman with all sorts of different hairstyles, beards and walking sticks. It looked like wonderful fun!