Merry Christmas Everyone!

Well, the day has come .... the last day of school!
We wish everyone a very merry Christmas and happy holidays.

See you all next year!

Athletics Training

Over the past week, we've been out in the crazy wind, practising athletic skills.
Today we were practising throwing the discus. Luckily the wind was helping push the discus into the air!

Room 3 Camp

Last week Room 3 kids had our school camp! We went to Te Manawa Museum to construct and battle robots. We had a sleep over at school then went to the Manawatu Gorge to do the Tawa Loop Track.
It was loads of fun. We played lots of fun games in the hall and had fish and chips for tea. For some of us, it was the first time sleeping over somewhere different, and it was exciting sleeping in the class overnight.
Here are some photos of our 2 day camp ...

Thanks so much to our wonderful parent helpers ..
Mr Iwikau, Miss Allen, Mrs Moses, Miss McLaughlin, Mr Rutherford, Mr Stace, Talk Talk, and to Mrs Newman and Miss White for helping out with our breakfast/lunch on Friday.

We really appreciate it!

Technology - Making Coasters

Room 3 have just finished their technology project - To design and create a coaster that will ..
1. Be waterproof
2. Be strong
3. Be heat resistant
4. Not scratch the table
5. Look good

First we had to work our what would be a good material to make our coasters with. After a process of elimination of bad ideas, we decided 5mm MDF would fit the criteria above.

We had to draw our designs, including what materials would be needed, what the back would be like and to show colours paints/vivids we would use.

Some Room 6 children helped us in the woodwork room to cut edges of the wood, then we had to sand the rough edges.

We had to coat the wood with special primer so that our paint colours wouldn't seep into the wood.

Finally ... we got to draw and paint our designs. Some printed pictures from the internet. We HAD to follow our plans. Sometimes we had to change our design, because we realised things didn't work out as we planned...

We glued felt circles on the back so that they wouldn't scratch or stick to the table.

At last, we sprayed our coasters with a varnish to waterproof them.
Our coasters look amazing... Here are some photos of our technology process ...

Check out our coasters!

Pet Day

Today was Pet Day!  The back field was filled with lambs, calves, goats, dogs - not to mention cats, rabbits, pigs, chooks and birds.

Room 3 children were proud of the rural-themed artwork they've been working so hard on over the past two weeks. Here are some photos of our day ...

School Disco

Friday night was our school disco. The juniors kicked the night off at 5.30pm and got straight into some serious grooves. We had lots of fun. Miss Jeynes had fun dancing with children from different classes too! Here are some photos of our night ...

Cross Country Practice

This week we've been putting lots of effort into our training for cross country. We have been running along the shingle road just outside of school.
Today we had a practice run of the cross country course. It was great running through the mud and working out how to get through the creek without falling into it!

We're hoping the weather will be perfect for this Friday's cross country...

School Disco next Friday

PET DAY

I hope you all had a great holiday. Now we're back into Term 4 full swing!
Pet Day is fast approaching - Week 3 - Wednesday 26th October.

Room 3 will be creating some wonderful pieces of art ... a paper flower garden and pet rocks. All materials will be provided at school. We look forward to showing off our art.

See you at Pet Day!

A Wheely Fun Day

Today the Student Council ran another Wheels Day.  Despite a few raindrops and puddles, we all got to have a zoom around the school on our scooters, drift bikes, roller blades and wheely shoes.

Then for lunch it was a sausage and a spider drink. YUM!!!! Sorry parents for the muddy clothes!

At the start of the day, the whole school went to the hall to show off our groovy dance moves that we've been practising for the past few weeks.
 Check these out ...

Thanks Student Council for this fun event.

Reminder about Wheels/Spider/Sausages

Dancing With Our Little Buddies

Today we got together with our buddy class - Room 8. They taught us a dance called The King Of Spain Goes Marching.

We each had turns dancing with  our younger buddies and had lots of fun.
Thanks Room 8 kids for showing us this dance! We're looking forward to our next buddy class session.

Wheels Day/Fun Day Coming Up

Fabric Fun

Room 3 kids are learning all about Fabric & Fibre. We have been learning to identify different fabrics, and test out and compare their properties. For example, how stretchy is the fabric? Is it absorbent? Does it fray easily? Does it bounce back after you squeeze it? etc.

We worked in small groups and had fun, ripping, cutting, squeezing fabrics.

We've learnt that fabrics are constructed in 4 main ways: weaved,(like cotton shirts)  knitted/looped (like woolen jerseys or stretchy cotton T-shirts)   or are 'non-woven' which are NOT made from thread.  (Like polar fleece)

Today we practiced weaving flax. We needed to work with a buddy because one person had to hold down the ends of the flax while the other weaved .. under, over, under, over.  Then we swapped over to give our buddy a turn.

Our flax weaving looks awesome, even though it's not quite finished.   Here are some photos ...

FRACTIONFUN

We are learning about FRACTIONS in Maths.
We have been exploring finding fractions of shapes and objects.
We've learnt how to find fractions of objects by counting one in every 3 (thirds) and one in every 4 (quarters).
Some of us are learning to apply our division knowledge to work out fractions of objects.
eg: What is one third of 15?
      I know 15 divided by 3 is 5, so 5 is the answer!

We enjoy playing fractions games like Memory and creating wholes ...

Having Fun With Geometry

This is the last week of learning about shapes, position and movement.
We've been learning about the attributes of 2 and 3D shapes (corners, faces, edges), reflecting, translating and rotating shapes, and using directional words - left, right, 1/4. 1/2 and 3/4 turns clockwise, anticlockwise.

Today we had fun finding shapes that tessellate. We cut and pasted shapes as well as tracing around shapes to create cool tessellating patterns. Here are some photos:

The Halcombe School Olympics

Today was The Halcombe School Olympics!
The Student Council organised lots of different challenging activities, obstacle courses and games for all of the school to join in with.

There was a blind-folded challenge, a water-cup-carrying challenge, a gymnastics course, a bowling cones activity and plenty more.

Here are some photos of Room 3 kids getting stuck in and having a lot of fun!

Thanks Student  and Miss Simpson for organising

NZ Players Theatre

We've been having a great week at Halcombe School. On Tuesday we had a helicopter land in our field, and yesterday we watched a show, put on by the NZ Players Theatre.

The play was called The Fairest Of Them All. It had a very important message about how we shouldn't spend lots of our time fixated on social media or the internet. It's important to have good relationships with people around you. It was a very funny show.

Special Visitors

Yesterday, the whole school were surprised and delighted to have a visit from the NZ Defense Force.
All of the children  gathered on the playground, but none of them knew exactly why!!!

After about 10 minutes, there was a noise. It sounded like quiet thumping.
Then louder .... louder...!
"Something's coming!" yelled some random child. That random child was correct. Something WAS coming... Something large and powerful.

Soon everyone saw what was making all the noise. It was a helicopter. A MASSIVE helicopter! An 11 tonne Iroquois helicopter from Ohakea.

Everyone got a chance to have a look inside and ask questions.

How cool!  Here are some photos of this exciting, unexpected event ...

Thanks Mrs Simpson and Mr Borck for organising this special surprise.

Perseverance

Our Social Studies topic is Perseverance.
In room 3, we've set ourselves some fun physical challenges. We have to PERSEVERE and practice working on our goals so we can achieve them in four weeks.

First we had to work out what we COULD achieve. Then had to set ourselves REALISTIC goals.

Here are some of our challenges.

Stay tuned, to see how we go over the next few weeks!

PJ DAY!

On Wednesday it was Pyjama and Burger Day.
We rolled on up to school in our PJs or onesies, dressing gown and slippers. Some of us got 'strange' looks as we got on the Feilding bus in the morning.

It was nice to be snuggly all day, and we tried very hard not to fall asleep!
The student council organised burgers, which made the day even more special.

Soccer

Today was the last day of our Senior Sport Rotation. We had a go at practising some soccer drills and then put those skills together in a game.
Here are some photos of our afternoon ...

The Wahine

We have been learning about disasters at sea. We have been gathering and watching information on the Wahine disaster that happened in Wellington Harbour.

Netball Skills

Today we learnt some Netball skills with Miss Main. We practised having turns at shooting the ball in the hoop. This was tricky for some of us, but we persevered!
We practised passing and catching, and then put those skills together into a game.

Thanks for teaching us Miss Main!

Rippa Rugby

Last week it was Room 3's turn to have a go at playing Rippa Rugby.
We played a game called Last Man Standing. We had a space to run around and try to take the tags off other people. If you were the last one left, you were the winner!

We had relay races and practiced moved the ball around our waist and under our legs.

Then we got to play a game of Rippa Rugby. Some of us got muddy, but this was all part of the fun!

Thanks Miss Simpson for teaching us some new skills.

Stay tuned for Netball photos!

PJ & Burger Day Coming Up

Basketball Fun

Today was the first day of our Senior School large ball skills rotation. Room 3 children kicked off with Basketball.

We practiced dribbling the ball, turning out back while dribbling to evade others and we also tried 'lay ups'. That's when you aim for the backboard so the ball rebounds into the net. Tricky! But some of us got it in.

Then we had a couple of games.
Here are some photos of our afternoon ...

Pirate Day

Ahhhh! Ahoy there me hearties!
(That's pirate language meaning ' Hi there, friends'.

Today was Pirate Day at Halcombe School. The whole school got decked out in some pretty awesome-looking pirate costumes.

When Room 3 children came into class, the first thing they had to do was work out their pirate name. There was an alphabetical code, and each person was assigned their name for the day. Miss Jeynes was Captain Tinkerbell Swab. Others had names like Two-Toes Penny, or Stinky Sharkbait.


We had a lesson on "How To Speak Pirate". Here's a few important tips:
1. Always exaggerate your vowel sounds.  Arrrrrrr.
2. When you greet a friend - you say "Ahoy me hearty - or matey". But if it's your enemy, you say "Avast, ye scurvy dog!"
3. When you address people - use the correct terms: An older person is a 'Salty Seadog'. A young pirate is 'Jim Lad'. A person of a higher rank than you is 'Squire', and the captain is called 'Cap'n'.

Practice those for fun! And for some reason, it sounds better if you use an Irish accent!

We had fun acting out pirate plays, and at the end of the day, we all got into groups in the hall for some fun group challenges.

Here are some photos from our day ...

WHEELS DAY!

We had a 'wheely' fun time today, because it was Wheels Day!

The juniors and seniors had turns at riding our wheels around the school, jumping ramps and sometimes falling off !

There were scooters, rollerblades, heeleys and drift trikes. It was exhausting after a while, but everyone had loads of fun.

Here are some photos of Room 3 kids ...

Measuring Volume

Today we learnt about estimating and measuring using mls.
We got into groups and arranged 3 containers into order of what we thought would hold the LEAST through to what would hold the MOST amount of water.

We drew the containers and wrote our estimates in  millilitres. Then we had turns at filling up each container and tipped them into a measuring container. We compared our estimates with the actual measurements. Some of us were quite close with our guesses!

Estimating and Measuring

In Maths, Room 3 are learning to make sensible estimates and measure accurately. We started off by estimating and measuring objects around the room using our hand spans. We worked out that not all our hand spans are the same size, so our answers were not all the same.

We have learnt the meaning of words .... 'length' and 'width'. The length of a rectangle is the LONG side, and the width is the SHORT side.

Then we learnt to estimate and measure objects/distances in cm and metres. We have learnt that Perimeter means distance around the edge, and Area means the space inside a shape. We have been learning to calculate perimeter and area of square and rectangles.

We are now starting to learn about measuring volume (or capacity). We are learning to measure water using millilitres (ml) and litres (l).

Stay tuned for more photos ...

Can you work out what the PERIMETER would be of a rectangle that had a length of 5cm and a width of 2cm?

Do you know what the AREA would be?
Leave a blog comment!!!!

Feilding Garden Show

This Saturday is The Feilding Garden Show. Lots of schools are entering displays and you can vote for the best one. Of COURSE you will vote for the marae that the Halcombe School Green Team and some R6 children have created, won't you!?

Check it out!

The first prize is a $500 book voucher which will go towards buying new library books.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE vote this Saturday/Sunday

Wheels Day and Pirate Day

Planting In Our Class Garden

Welcome back to term 2!

Now that the weather is cooler, and our school water tank isn't dry ... it's time to plant in our garden.
Today the whole class went out and we had turns planting leeks and broccoli.
We're looking forward to gobbling these up in term 3.

Here are some photos of us in our garden...

What's YOUR favourite winter vegetable? And how do you like to eat them? Roasted? In a soup? Please comment.

Colour Day

Today was COLOUR DAY at Halcombe School. Everyone came dressed in their favourite colour.
There were green dinosaurs, black All Blacks, pink princesses, yellow flowers, and much more.

Lots of us brought a donation which goes towards buying sports balls for schools in Fiji.

We were lucky to have 'spiders' at lunchtime. Yummo!

Dancing With Our Buddy Class

Today, (just for fun), the wonderful children from Room 8 came to our class to show us a dance they have been learning.
Some of us knew the song. It goes a bit like this ...
"E oma, e oma, tamariki ma ... E oma, e oma, tamariki ma"
(That means 'Run, children")
We sang and danced and did the actions.

Do YOU know this song?

The Minstrel's Visit

Yesterday all of the school piled into the hall to listen to The Minstrel sing songs. He had very important messages to share about fishing and keeping safe when fishing.

Today we are going to write about his visit, and we will be sharing his messages with you in the near future.

Here are some photos from the Minstrel's visit yesterday.

Colour Day Coming Up