Time flies

Unbelievably we are now into the last three weeks of term and rather than slowing down we seem to be getting busier.

Next week we start our self directed learning. That means over the course of next week we have to finish our inquiry projects, complete our advertising assignment and maths work as well as the usual swimming, fitness, music and Maori.

For the past three weeks we have been looking at the different types of advertisements including those in the papers and on billboards, radio and TV. Now we are working in groups to design and make/produce their own advertisement for the Freestylers fun day on Friday.

Since the Freestylers won the school election they are holding their fun day on Friday. They have organised a sausage sizzle, drinks and ice cream for lunch time and a water fight after lunch. We are hoping it is going to be a nice day.

This term we have been studying the NZ elections and we are also hosting one of our own, with three parties from each Senior class. The three parties from our class are Kids First, The C.O.O.L party and The Freestylers! The whole school will have a chance to vote for their preferred party!
And as part of the Government wanting to know what the younger generation of Kiwis think, we are taking part in voting for the NZ elections (but our votes aren’t going to be counted officially).

Yesterday, a large group of students from the school went along to Westpac Stadium to watch the FIFA Under 17s Women’s World Cup Semi-finals Football game! The competition was between England and Brazil, the final scores was 3-NIL with England being crowned the semi-final champions!
It was a very exciting game with hundreds of supporters for each team turning up!

Earlier on this week, Thorndon School hosted its annual yearly Athletics Day with fantastic outcomes from different students in the school! The weather was fantastic and it was a very successful athletics with our successors going through to Central Zones next week! Well done guys!

We also have a new addition to our class, Sam Van Loenhout! He’s come all the way from Queenstown and we hope he enjoys his time here at Thorndon School!
Also, the moment everybody’s been waiting for...we are starting swimming next Monday so don’t forget your togs!


And recently, a black bird has made a comfortable nest outside our classroom window and laid two eggs in it! The whole class has been observing the nest, but today the two eggs hatched with two healthy baby birds!

Last week of term 3

Skipping
Room 6 has been skipping for 15 minutes every day in training for jump rope on the 24th of September. We have learnt the double-Dutch, egg beater and how to have more than one person in a rope. Room 6 is doing quite well and we will hopefully shine through on the day. We have also been getting sponsorship for the event to raise money for the heart foundation. If we raise enough money we will get given prize so everyone has been busy getting sponsorship.

Art
We have all been practising drawing nature still life outside. All the class is doing really well and the pictures look amazing. You can really see how much detail they’ve put in to it and what type of plant it is.

Inquiry
We have done an inquiry, comparing China to New Zealand. We have all done something different to compare we have done it on Microsoft publisher. We then cut it out and stuck it on coloured paper, red for China and black for New Zealand, to make it stand out. The middle school and junior school will come around and check it out and then we will bind it to make it a class book for the whole class to read.

Having worked so hard we are all looking forward to a well earned break over the holidays. Let's hope it is fine.

by Anna Caudwell

Term 3

Welcome to term 3!


As you can see this is our Don Binney art exhibition. They look wonderful! If you would like to see the exhibition they are on display at Wholly Bagels, Thorndon, until about the 14 of August (sorry but they are not for sale).

Last week we had some Chinese performers come and show us a taste of what it would be like if we did lion dancing in New Zealand.

In seven days it will be the start of the Olympics. We are currently studying China and the olympics and will be doing an inquiry project based on China later in the term.

By Natana and Alex.

Narrative by Lilliana

We were shown how to write descriptive clues, rather than telling the reader exactly what was happening in a story. Here is Lilliana's work - can you guess where the story takes place?


I ran through those long white corridors, my heart thudding. I was in a circular room, and long white robes hung on the walls around me. The dettol fumes crept up my nose, my head was spinning round and round. Staggering slightly I sank into a chair. Something cold and wet touched my hand. I jerked to my senses; I was here to do what I had to do. I got up and pushed open the doors.

I was in those long dreary corridors once more. With my chest heaving I started to run again, I had to get there before they came back to reopen. She had to be here somewhere, she had to be, she just had to be. Tears blurred my vision. I stopped. Straining my ear, I heard it again, a sort of yelping. Opening the door where the sound was coming from, my breathing stopped. There she was, hiding under a clean white bed. “Chase,” I muttered scooping her up. Her fur was soft, and her little wet nose pressed against my neck. That doggy smell bought me back to earth. It’s amazing how dizzy dettol can make you. “We have to get out of here quick.” Just then I heard a door open and voices chattering loudly. Oh no, oh god. No! I remembered the sign on the way in ‘trespassers will be prosecuted.’

By Lilliana Wiles

10 June 2008

As our Inquiry is on Birds, we set up a Wiki on Birds. We wrote our Bird Reports as a writing task and we are now in the process of putting all our Bird Reports on the Wiki. There are all sorts of pages such as bird reports, bird jokes, bird films, bird stories, bird games and bird photos. You can visit our Bird Wiki at:
www.thorndonbirds.wetpaint.com

Our Three-Way-Conferences are coming up soon, so we are currently preparing our work to show our parents. We can photocopy pages from our schoolwork books or show some other pieces of our work from around the classroom. Three-Way-Conferences are similar to Parent-Teacher Conferences, only the children are leading the conferences instead of the teachers.

We have been practising mixing different colours and trying to make as many different shades of one colours as possible. To mix colours we start at one end of a piece of paper with one colour and blend it into another colour on the other side of the paper. Here are some examples:

Week 3, Term 2

Our lastest art works are based on Don Binney, a well know New Zealand bird painter. We have researched his works and printed two of his pictures we liked and written why we chose them. Then we took the background from one and either created a bird or copied it from the other picture and then we did the other bird or background. As birds are our main topic we have also been writing reports on birds and studying their body parts, beaks and claws/feet as part of science.

On Wednesday the 14th we did the school cross country at the Botanical Gardens. Some good runners from our class came in the top five in their year groups:
Year 7 girls: 1st Anna Caudwell,
5th August Gould,
Reserve: Jessica Just
Year 7 boys: 2nd Dominick Baguiro,
5th Ngawhera Rangitaawa
Year 8 girls: Reserve: Liu Yan
Year 8 boys: 1st Natana Wallace-Parata,
3rd Tailah Love,
5th Zach Boyle,
Reserve: Alex Bremner

And this is how they got on when they ran in the Zone Cross Country on Tuesday of this week.
For the year 7 girls: Anna came 7th, August came and Jessica came
Year7 boys: Dominick came 29th and Ngawhera came 24th
Year 8 boys: Natana came 12th, Tailah came 19th and Zack came 22nd.


Well done you did very well.

We have also restarted doing senior sports on a Wednesday afternoon we are doing soccer, netball and hockey. It is so fun.

By Anna and Renata