Year 3 Athletics Afternoon

This afternoon, in the hot sun, we put on suntan lotion, grabbed our hats and water bottles and headed out to the bottom field to take part in our sprint finals.

First off, the relay team from each class raced against each other.  Well done to the Room 21 team who came first, followed by Room 19 and then Room 20.

Then the girls raced each other in their own classes, followed by the boys.

This left us with 6 winners:

Room 19 Girls - Alex
Room 19 Boys - Jayden

 

Room 20 Girls - Shelby
Room 20 Boys - Bede

 

Room 21 Girls - Zoe
Room 21 Boys - Wilco

 

 The six winners then raced each other in a final "Champion of Champions" race.

It was a close finish but the results were as follows:

1st - Bede
2nd - Jayden
3rd - Shelby

Well done everyone, a great way to end the week!

Kawau Fun Day

On Wednesday we had our Kawau Fun Day.  We did some art activities in the morning, then after morning tea, we split into groups and had fun doing some different Kelly Sports activities.  These included dodgeball, a bouncy castle, cricket, and a water activity among others.

We had a lot of fun at all the different stations and were worn out by lunch time!


Here are some photos from our sports session.
Kawau Fun Day - Kelly Sports on PhotoPeach

Awards Assembly

This week we have been celebrating our achievements during both a Team Assembly and our school Awards Assembly.

On Monday we recognised the students from rooms 19, 20 and 21 who have shown talent in the areas of Science, Technology, Arts, Sports and Cultural activities.

Well done to the following from Room 20 who received certificates at our Team Assembly:

Kai  and Reeve - Science

Matthew and Hazel - Technology

Rihana and Julia - The Arts

Shelby and Indie - Culture

Paige and Bede - Sports

Ava - Fantastic Attitude towards Learning.

Yesterday we had our special Torbay Awards Assembly.  These awards recognise Academic Skills, Effort and CARE.  

Congratulations to:

Isla - Effort

Lola -CARE

Nicolo - Academic

I'm so proud of all the children this year, they have worked really hard and made great progression with their learning in all areas.  I know they will continue their successes into Year 4 - ka pai!

Superstars!

Well done to Isla, Isobel, and Bede who were brilliant during the Torbay Idol Finals today.

They performed so well, full of confidence in front of the whole school, well done.

To have reached the finals is such an amazing achievement, but special congratulations go to Bede, who with his brother Joel, came third overall.

I am very proud of talent in Room 20!

Isobel, Gemma and Amy's performance

Isla's Performance

Bede and Joel's performance Part 1

Bede and Joel's performance Part 2

Bede and Joel get ready

Waiting for the results

On top of the World

The Sunshine Girls

The top three acts.

Torbay Idol Finals

Congratulations to Isla, Isobel and Bede who have all made it through to the Torbay Idol finals to be held tomorrow.

We are really proud of them for getting this far in the competition and we will be cheering them on as they perform in front of the whole school.  I know they'll do us all proud!

Kindness Calendars

We've been getting ready for December fun and Christmas festivities over the last week, and yesterday we thought about ways we could spread some festive cheer.

At a time when we are often thinking about the things we want to receive, we brainstormed things we could do to help our families and friends and make them happy - things like walk the dog, lay the table and play with someone who looks lonely.

Then the students spent a lot of time carefully thinking of what they could do at home and school between now and Christmas.  When they had 24 ideas they checked spellings, and wrote them on their "Kindness Advent Calendar"  as neatly as possible before decorating them.

All the students did a great job, and I hope the little acts of kindness they do will make the run up to Christmas a little easier for all our wonderful parents / caregivers.

Kids Biz Christmas Show

We were very lucky to have a little excursion out of school today as we had been invited to be the audience for Kid Biz kindy's Christmas show dress rehearsal.

We had our morning tea early and walked with Room 21 and Mrs Ye, Mrs Abbot and Mrs Broadfoot down to the kindy.

What a treat we had!  The show was fantastic and made us all feel so joyful and Christmassy.  It began with a Haka and Poi dance.  Then they performed "The Littlest Christmas Tree' musical, and ending with 'We wish you a Merry Christmas'.

Many of our students had previously attended Kids Biz, so it was lovely for them to go back and visit and see teachers they knew.  I was really proud of how well our students behaved representing Torbay school, and what a fantastic audience they were.

When we arrived back at school we set to work writing and decorating thank-you cards to take to the kindy.

It may only be the 24th November, but it's suddenly beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Torbay Idol

Yesterday the Kawau team got together to hold auditions for Year 3 students who wanted to take part in our annual Torbay Idol competition.

We had 12 acts who took to the stage to show us their talents including dancing, singing, acting and playing instruments.  Ka pai to all of you for showing courage and dedication in your performances.

The teachers looked for performers who we could see had put effort into their act and had spent time perfecting their routines / songs etc.  We also picked people who entertained us and the rest of the audience.

 

The following acts have made it through to the semi-finals which will be judged on Monday lunchtime by Miss Mitschak.  Please remember costumes and music for Monday, and keep practicing!

Well done: Isla (Rm 20), Isobel / Gemma and Amy (Rm 20, 19 &8), Sienna (Rm 21)  and Sophie, Neve and Olivia (Rm 21).

Good luck, we hope to be cheering you on again in the finals next Friday!

Pumpkin Update

We had some sad news with our pumpkin growing efforts.  Unfortunately on Halloween night some people came into school and tipped out several of our pots that were growing - a bit of a mean trick.

Although Mrs Ye and I tried to re pot those seeds in the morning, it has become obvious that some of the seeds were lost as we have a few empty pots as well as ones with nice seedlings.

On a more positive note we were very lucky to have some spare New World seed kits brought in so those who's pumpkins didn't grow will be able to plant these up as a replacement.  The children will bring their pumpkins home on Friday so they have a chance to be planted and grow, as I think any actual pumpkins are a few weeks away yet and term will have ended before we see any results.

Welcome!

A huge welcome to our new student Ruby who joined us on Monday.  We're really happy to have you here Ruby, and we hope you'll enjoy spending the rest of the term in Room 20.

Zoo-tastic!

Twenty five excited children boarded a bus this morning and headed to the Zoo.  The bus was filled with excited chattering about what we would see, with anticipation about lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes.

When we arrived we were met by our fabulous Zoo educators, Frazer, John and Kirsty, and after a quick snack, we headed to Te Wao Nui to start our sessions.  We first went into the Nocturnal house where we were told about Kiwi, how they are endemic to New Zealand, and about the pests that endanger them.  We got to see a kiwi  walking around, and learnt about their tiny wings, their clever feathers and who looks after the eggs.
Next we moved into the forest, and were lucky enough to see a Kaka, Parakeets, a Tui, a Saddleback, a Kereru and a Bellbird.  Then we went into the Rotoroa Island section and learnt about the pests that damage our trees and hurt New Zealand's birds and animals - we all jumped when the possom trap was set off with a loud bang!

After morning tea we split into our groups and set off exploring.  We saw Monkeys, Tamarinds, Galapagos Tortoises, Alligators, Lemurs, Pygmy Marmosets, Parrots, Otters, Meerkats and Seals as well as having a close up encounter with one of the Tigers - and all this before lunch.

Over lunch we played on the dragon at the playground and then set off again for our final explore.  Off we went to Africa visiting the Pridelands, seeing the Giraffes, Ostriches, Zebras, Lions, Meerkats, Lovebirds, baby Tortoises, Rhino, Springbok and the elephants Burma and Anjalee.  Next we saw the Cheetahs, Baboons, Serval and the Keas before heading back again via the Seals and the Penguins to catch our bus back to school.

We had a wonderful day exploring and there were some tired children on the bus home, our pedometers were definitely working overtime today!

A huge thank you to our parents helpers, your time was greatly appreciated.

Please encourage your child to complete the home learning activity about the zoo over the next week. Enjoy the photos!


Kawau Trip to the Zoo on PhotoPeach

Ker-ching!

Today we had Tessa from ASB Moneywise come and speak to us about money.  We learnt how eftpos machines and ATM's work and where the money that we use to buy things with actually comes from.
Then we split into groups and had to go imaginary shopping with our trolleys so we could "Stop! and look for deals."  At each table the students had to decide which offer was a better deal.  For example was it better to

a)  pay $2 for a light bulb that worked for 3 months.
b)  pay $4 for a light bulb that worked for a year.
c)  pay $10 for a light bulb that worked for 2 years.

There were some great discussions going on about which were the best deals, and Tessa gave us lots of useful advice about spending our money.

Maybe next time you do the supermarket shop you'll have a good deal spotter there to help you!

 

We love our Mums (and Dads)!

On Thursday we wanted to show our Mums just how special they are to us.  We spent time thinking of all the nice things our Mums do for us, the games they play, the places they take us, the yummy food they make, reading us stories, telling jokes and being just generally awesome.

Then, when we had thought of all those things, we wrote them down so our Mums would know just how much they were loved.

A little bit of colour here and a bit of decoration there, plus a special gift, and we had what we thought would be the perfect way to make our Mums smile.

We love you Mums (and Dads)!  

Sports Crazy!

Over the last couple of weeks we have started our Athletics sessions, and we've been lucky to have some help with our footballing skills with a session with some football coaches.

During our athletics sessions we will be practicing our throwing, running and jumping skills with a variety of activity stations that we will move around.  These include shot put, relay, sack races, hurdles and "javelin".  Here are some photos from our first session.

During our football session we played lots of ball control games.  We used the side of our foot to pass our football between people's legs to free them in a variation on Stuck in the Mud, and also tried to kick away our opponents ball using our own footballs from the sideline.  We all had lots of fun.

Growing Pumpkins

This term our main writing focus is instructional writing.  Although we have done a little bit of instructional writing across the year (Pom Pom poppers and How Colby Works) this term we will be completing more instructional writing activities.

We got underway today with a brainstorm to remind us of how instructions help us (to build/ make things), where we find instructions (recipes / toys) and the structure of how to write instructions (Title, equipment needed, steps etc.)

I then explained our task... we are having a class competition to see who can grow the biggest pumpkin by the end of term.

As the students wrote up our WALT, created their own titles and wrote down the equipment needed I took each group outside to plant up their pumpkin seeds.  As a group we discussed the different steps we were taking:  putting compost into the pot, patting the compost down, adding the pumpkin seed, filling the pot up with more compost etc.  Then when the students had completed the task they labelled the pots before finishing off the work in their books.

When everyone had planted their seeds we had a group photo and then carefully positioned the pots on our outside step where they'll get plenty of sunshine and we can water them easily.

Mrs Buchanan has reserved us a vege bed in the school grounds, so when our seedlings have grown we can transfer them to give them a chance to get really big.

Later in the term we will look at some yummy pumpkin recipes and then pumpkins will be coming home for you to enjoy!

We will keep you updated with the progress of our pumpkin plants!


Planting Pumpkin Seeds on PhotoPeach