Rollerskating at the Rec Centre

On Thursday 28th June, Room 2 and Room 7 went on an end of term trip to the Rec Centre as a special treat for making great choices as part of our Keys to Success programme. Some of us hired rollerskates at the skating rink and some people brought their own along to use. Luken was very fast on his skates, he is a member of the roller hockey club that skates during the week so he has had a lot of extra practise.

We walked down earlier so we could have our lunch at the Rec - it was too cold to have a picnic like we had planned so we sat in the cafeteria area. We also took some basketballs down with us so we had some shooting practise in the gymnasium while we were there!
Mrs Nicholls went skating with all the pupils while Miss Robinson was on standby with the first aid kit as there were a few blisters to patch up!

We are winners of $10, 000 !

Congratulations to everyone at Motueka South School - we are one of the 10 South Island schools to win $10, 000 through the New World longest docket competition.
What an amazing achievement and a huge team effort.

Now we just have to decide how to spend it all.....we will start writing a "wish list"!

Winter has arrived....

This oak tree in our school is over 50 years old. Taylor told us that oak trees don't grow acorns until they are over 50 years old, so that is an interesting fact that we have learnt today! We can easily see the seasonal change as the leaves slowly change colour and then drop gently to the ground. This tree is deciduous - this means that it loses its leaves in Winter and the leaves change colour during the Autumn season. Trees that do not lose their leaves are called evergreen.
The oak tree looks very bare at the moment. It's like a skeleton with only the bones left for us to see.
We will observe how the tree changes once Winter is over and Spring begins....I wonder when the buds will start to grow?
As you can see from this photo, the trunk is very thick and the branches get narrower, the higher they get. It reminds us of the arteries and veins in our own body which we learnt about during Life Education.

The Longest Docket

Our school took part in the Longest Docket competition recently which New world supermarkets were promoting throughout the South Island. We collected 167 dockets between us, which measured 31 metres when they were all stuck together. Room 2 won our school competition with 73 metres! They are going to win a free juicie each.

We have got our fingers crossed that Motueka South School will be one of the $10, 000 winners....imagine how much sports equipment we could buy with that!

Thankyou to all the parents, grandparents and neighbours who donated their dockets to our school.

Fantastic Fiction

We have really enjoyed reading these stories this term and recommend them to you to read when you get a chance. Miss Taikato bought us "Mr Pusskins "as a present on her last day with us. Miss Taikato is a student teacher who visited our class every Wednesday for a couple of months to gain more teaching experience. We are hoping she will still come and visit us when she gets a day off from her studies. One of our favourite book characters at the moment is Walter the farting dog. He has some very interesting adventures!

Terry the Baker

As part of our breadmaking unit we invited Terry from the New World bakery to come into our class and speak to us about his job. We each chose a question to ask him that was related specifically to his job in the bakery. We learnt so many interesting things...did you know that they use approx 2000 eggs a week to bake all the various types of bread, buns, cakes and biscuits?

Terry has been a baker for about 20 years but has only worked at New World for 6 and a half years. He has burnt himself lots of times while doing his job. He is the bakery manager and has 14 other staff members who work with him. He taught us how to make a plait and a knotted bun. He told us that his favourite type of bread is a cheese and onion roll.

He brought some bread dough along for us to knead, then we designed our own bun. Terry then took the buns back to the bakery on a huge tray, cooked them all and then brought them back just before lunch. They were delicious, the bread was so fresh and it was still warm as it had just come straight out of the oven!

Our Class Assembly

As part of our language unit on fairytales, our class re-enacted Cinderella and presented it to the school at a recent assembly. We enjoyed dressing up in costumes and putting make up on! Josh and Robbie were very convincing on stage as the stepsisters and Luken, Hannah and Chloe also portrayed their characters very well. Taylor did an excellent job as the sound effects person backstage. Everyone worked very hard during rehearsals, learnt their lines quickly and showed a lot of confidence on stage in front of a large audience.

Pot of Gold?

This rainbow was spotted over our school recently. I wonder if there is a pot of gold at the bottom of it? Miss Robinson wishes she could find it!

Clock Tower

Our clock tower had a make-over recently. It has been painted bright colours. Not everyone approves of the new colour scheme. Some of us think it is nice to have a change, some of us think the colours are ghastly!

No matter what you think, the clock tower is still an important part of our community and it can be easily seen from a distance.

Bakery Visit

A group of Room 7 pupils went to the New World Bakery early on Friday morning to have a look at the machines that are used to bake bread there. Terry, the baker showed us around and explained what everything was used for.

Here you can see some of the bakers making quiches and sponge cakes for customers to buy. This lady is piping some whipped cream onto the sponge using a special bag with a hole in the bottom of it.

These ladies are wearing aprons to protect their clothing and they are wearing hair nets to stop them from getting food in their hair (and also to stop their hair landing in the food!) No one wants to buy cakes or bread with other people's hair in it!

High School Band

On Tuesday 5th June we had a visit from the Motueka High School Band. They played a variety of tunes on a range of different instruments. These students are all very talented and have spent hours practising how to read music and play different songs. There are a few pupils in our class this year who are learning to play the piano and guitar and they have special lessons each week.

We hope Mrs Bolt and her band of young entertainers will visit again next year.