Cameron's Water Rocket

Cameron and his dad made this really cool rocket using an old plastic bottle, a pump and a special valve. Cameron showed us how it works and explained a bit about it. We had to make sure it was facing AWAY from other people in the playground so that they weren't in any danger.

Miss Robinson got a real fright when it first"popped" as it made a loud noise and zoooommed past her so quickly!

Cameron also wrote a fantastic story about water rockets, you won't believe how much he knows. Maybe he could be a scientist or an engineer when he gets older?

Super Spaceships

Our class has integrated our science topic "Our Night Sky" into our ICT programme as well. Jonty and Jadine created these cool space pictures using the PAINT programme on the computer. (You might like to try this at home if you have a computer and microsoft word)

As you can see, they have drawn spaceships with rocket boosters on the sides as well as some shooting stars and planets that are found in our solar system. Jadine showed her work to Room 6 and taught them how to create shapes and use the paintpots to fill in these shapes to create their own pictures. We will find a special place to display all this fantastic artwork. Awesome stuff Room 7!

Aquatic Centre and Rabbit Island

Our class went on a day trip to the Aquatic Centre on Wednesday 1st August. We were lucky to have several parents willing to provide transport to Richmond. The first cars headed off at about 10.oo am. Everyone was very excited and noisy on the way over (the poor parents!) Bev met us in the foyer and explained some safety rules to us before we were allowed to change into our togs.

Miss Robinson hired four surfboards for everyone to use. Most people spent time in the wave pool although the spa pools were also a popular choice. Chelsea did really well to stand up on the surfboard and balance on the waves!

After an hour and a half in the pools we were so wrinkly that we all had to exit the pool and get changed again!

We piled into the cars once again and this time we headed to Rabbit Island where we had a picnic lunch and a fossick along the beach. The weather was great despite rain earlier in the week.

Some pupils spent time making huts in the scrub, others collected pretty shells and made cool sandcastles. We also took PE equipment along and played frisbee and bat down on the sand.

It was another fantastic trip and we want to say a big thankyou to the dads (and Chloe's mum) who were able to take time off work to come with us. We really appreciate it and hopefully some of these parents might be able to come on camp to Marahau with us in November?

DID YOU KNOW....

This term our science topic is "OUR NIGHT SKY"

We are learning all sorts of interesting facts about our solar system. Here are few things we would like to share with you.



*you can fit over one million Earths into the sun.

* Mars has a never ending storm.

*Earth is the only planet that can support life

*Pluto is no longer a planet

*A neutron star is heavier than 50 Earths

*Jupiter is known for its red spot

*There are 8.1 million stars for every human on Earth

*Everything is made of star dust

*Neil Armstrong was the first man to step foot on the moon

*His footprints are still there 38 yrs later because there is no wind on the moon

*The sun has been shining for about 5 billion years

This will make you laugh...

Each Thursday morning we share jokes and riddles with our classmates as part of our oral language programme - we are learning to speak to an audience with a clear voice and use expression.
We have our school speech competition coming up this term. Two Year 5 pupils will represent our school at the District Competition on 6th September.

Man:A dog bit me on the leg this morning.
Friend:Did you put anything on it?
Man:NO - HE SEEMED TO LIKE IT PLAIN!!

by Mac



What does a skeleton feed his dog ?
Anything but bones!!!

By
Renee





Why are vampires so unpopular?
Because they're a pain in the neck!!!!


By

Chloe T




What sort of cat sells wood ?
A catalogue!!!

By Emma


What is a monsters favourite shape?
A vicious circle!

By Chloe G

The Library is back...

This week Room 7 visited the school library for the first time in a year! Because we have had so many new pupils enrol at Motueka South School, our school library has had to be used as a classroom. We enjoyed being able to use the interactive Smartboard and the computers again. Here are some of the boys using the www.kidsastronomy.com website to find information about our science topic which is "Our Night Sky".

While they were doing that, other pupils checked out the new Braintastic CD on the smartboard and other people just browsed the shelves for new books and read magazines. Shana Tova issued books for people so they could take them home to read and she spent time showing Chelsea how to use the scanner.

It was great to be able to use the library again after all this time..our class has the library booked every Thursday afternoon so we are going to make the most of it.

Cross Country

On your marks....get set...GO GO GO!!

With our annual cross country coming up this term, we have started to get fit by running laps of the back field at school. Miss Robinson times us each day with a stopwatch and we try to improve our times. We record the time in our maths book so we can track our progress. Hunter is our fastest boy and Jade is our fastest girl so far during our practices. Hunter is completing a lap in approx 1min 30seconds which is very speedy indeed! (That's even faster than what Miss Robinson can run!!)

Our school Cross Country will be held at Goodman Reserve on Friday 31st August. It is always a great day out with lots of family, friends and supporters there to cheer us on!

Last year we had a parent and childrens race which was popular, we should make sure we do that again this year. I wonder who will win?

You better make sure your parents have started their training!!

Rollerskating

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.

Gymnastics Festival

Measurement

For maths we have been learning how to measure lengths accurately using centimetres, millimetres and metres. This week we had fun measuring various things in our playground such as the distance between the oak tree and our classroom and the length of the netball and tennis courts. Some of us were more accurate at measuring than others! The netball court recorded lengths of 27m, 28m, 29m and even 30m!!I wonder who was correct?

Breadmaking

The new classroom

We have an update on the new classroom that has been moved to our school and refurbished. The builders have nearly finished and now the painters have been in to paint the outside walls. The builders are busy making a deck to go around the outside and the corridor has now been completed. It looks great and Mrs Nicholls is looking forward to moving in soon with her pupils.

SHREK 3

Our school is holding a premiere viewing of the new Shrek movie on Thursday 7th June. We are selling tickets to help raise money for the middle and senior school camps at the end of the year. You can buy tickets at the school office for $10. The first show is at 5.45pm and the other is at 7.30pm. Be in quick before they all sell out! If it's anything like the first 2 movies, it will be hilarious...

Giant Carrot

Look at this huge carrot! Mac brought it along to school to show us. It looks like it has been injected with steroids. Mac will be having carrot soup, carrot stew, roast carrot and baked carrot for breakfast, lunch and tea!

Hockey Coaching

We have been lucky enough to have a coach called Fiona come over from Nelson recently to teach us some basic hockey skills. She showed us how to dribble and trap the ball carefully and then we played "Creep up Jack" using hockey sticks and balls. After that we played another cool game where we each got given a number. When your number was called out, you had to run into the middle and try to score a goal between some cones against your partner. We really enjoyed this game, (it was exhausting though) and it got a bit dangerous with hockey sticks flying everywhere at one stage!

Lots of pupils have said they going to choose hockey as their sport for Winter Tournament next term now that they know how much fun it can be.