Te Maunga's Magical Class Trip

 On December 2nd, Te Maunga had a class trip to Kerikeri. Our first port of call was The Parrot Place. It was absolutely amazing seeing the colours on all the birds! We had never seen anything like it! Everyone had a chance to get a bird to perch on them and we all had a great time.

Next we popped off for a spot of lunch at the Kerikeri Domain. Laura scuttled off and when she came back there was a plethora of pizzas for everyone to devour! What a delicious way to refuel.

Lastly we went to the movies to watch The Secret Garden. We already knew most of the story since Penny had been reading it in her very authentic accent. We even got to indulge in an ice cream and a drink there!

Awesome Athletic Adventures

On November 27th Paihia School wandered up to Bledisloe Domain for the annual Athletics Extravaganza!

There were hundreds of kids and parents all excited to get started and show their athletic prowess.

We ran, threw, jumped and laughed our way to an awesome day out with the other schools.

Thanks to Mrs. Williams for organising this great event, the PTA for selling such a great feast and all the participants for their tremendous efforts on such a hot day!

Cross Country

Today was our annual Cross Country. We were so glad that we got moved to Level 1 so that it could take place.

We all piled into vehicles and headed off to Bledisloe Domain. The PTA had some delicious food for sale but we knew we couldn't eat too early or we would get a stitch later in our run!

The little kids all ran first until it was finally our turn. We ran around the field and then up the hill. Our lungs were bursting but we managed to make it to the finish line. What a perfect way to end the term!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

A huge thank you to everyone that voted for our America's Cup video!!!! While we didn't win a major prize, we were lucky enough to win a consolation prize... A new Sphero Robot! Thank you so much to Genesis Energy for sponsoring this awesome competition.

We are going to have a whole lot of fun learning with this little ball of energy!

Quiet on set!!!

For the past month, Te Maunga has been an absolute madhouse! We have been writing scripts, making props, finding sets and playing dress ups. We made movies!!!

We had some hiccups along the way but we managed to come up with some outstanding stories and beautiful cinematography.

You can check out all of the movies on our class Youtube site here

Hunting For Treasure

On August 28th, Paihia School ran a fundraiser for ex-pupil Sam Godsiff-Johnson. Sam was raising money for the charity I Am Hope. Our school ran a treasure hunt to support the cause!

The junior students got out just before morning tea and hunted around for some pictures of gumboots that would land them an exciting prize!

The senior students were called out just before lunch for their turn. Mrs. Lindsay hid tiny pictures of gumboots and the students set off! They peered high and low and some were able to get a hold of their little pictures.

Once all of the gumboots were found, Mrs. Lindsay called each winner up one by one to receive their mystery prizes. Some students won ice-cream, some won bouncy balls, others won headphones. All had a great time and contributed to an awesome cause!

VOTE FOR US!!!!!!

We have entered a competition to have the America's Cup Trophy brought into school and to win $3000 of learning equipment. This is the video we made.

All we need is for people to vote for us! You can vote once a day so please support us!

Maths Week

Last week we celebrated Maths Week. We had a series of fun problem solving tasks to do in groups and we had prizes for groups that were able to solve the puzzles and for working collaboratively.

On Friday Mrs. Cameron had a car full of balloons and everyone had an opportunity to see it and to guess how many balloons were in the car. After all of the guesses were tallied up, only one student had guessed the exact number of balloons... It was Tamati from here in Te Maunga. Tamati got a hamper full of goodies he can use at school.

Online Safety is Paramount

We have been learning about the Kawa of Care and some ways to keep ourselves safe when we go online.

We read a book about online safety. It taught us that it is very important to keep personal information off the web. We also learnt that being friends online with strangers is something that no one should ever do. Just ask Chicken Clicking!

Super Sonic Soundscapes

We have been learning all about different musical instruments from around the world. We read about violins being made the same way for the last 400 years, the erhu, a Chinese instrument, and the koauau, a Maori flute.

We also learnt about sound effects used in movies. We saw that coconut shells were used to make the sound of horses galloping. We came up with some awesome ideas to make some sounds to do with all sorts of themes. Some groups did volcanic eruptions, some did storms and a few did crazy ideas like fighting dragons and zombies attacking!

Term 3 Begins

We have finally started Term 3 after a well deserved 2 week break. Everyone is feeling refreshed and ready to get back into some learning.

This term we are starting off by learning about music and musical instruments. We have looked at soundscapes and how sound effects are made in movies and will be making some ourselves!

We have been writing recounts about the exciting things we have done in the holidays. It was very cool to see what everyone has been doing in their break.

Extinction of the Dinosaurs

We have been learning all about dinosaurs. We learnt that they were huge and that they roamed the earth more than 65 million years ago.

One thing we read about was the extinction of the dinosaurs. There are many theories about how they all died out. The ideas that we thought made the most sense were the asteroid hitting the earth and volcanoes causing havoc.

We recreated these volcanic eruptions in class with our "Dino-ramas" to see how the dinosaurs may have lived out their last moments.

Almost Normal

We have been back at school for 3 weeks now and we are getting back into an almost normal routine. We have been continuing with our normally scheduled work and it has been great to see how well everyone has adapted to the changes.

We have been learning about the viruses and other microbes. The students have created some awesome digital posters about what they have learnt so have a look at the students' work on their blogs. The links to the blog are on the left side of your screen as you read this.

Today (Friday June 5th) we will be having another online assembly at 2pm to celebrate the students' efforts. It would be awesome to have as many people as possible to witness how awesome our students have been this week. The link to the assembly is on our class site.

Te Maunga Raffle

On Friday May 22nd the winners of Te Maunga's camp fundraising raffle were announced. The winners were as follows:

Family stay for 5 on The Rock - Kevin Reeves

Deluxe room for 2 at Scenic - Braeden Smith

Lego hamper - Kay

Easter hamper - Braeden Smith

Grocery hamper - Dianne Hawk

$30 grocery voucher - Karceya Takimoana

$20 Greens voucher - Rob Field

Congratulations to all the winners and a HUMONGOUS thank you to all of the awesome people that supported us by donating prizes or buying tickets!!!

Guess who's back...

We are finally back up and running! School opened today and we had a large percentage of students in class and ready to learn! It's been a long time but all the students seemed to get back into the swing of things very nicely. 

We have a Term 2 newsletter for you to peruse at your leisure attached below.

Term 2 Newsletter

Embedding a Slide Presentation

I have created a Slideshow and a video to show people how to embed slides on to their blog

Safety First!

We have been hearing all sorts of things about the COVID-19 virus spreading around the world. We decided that the best form of defence is attack! We watched a Nanogirl video about how to keep ourselves safe.

Then we did some science to learn about why soap is so important to use soap when washing our hands.

We all feel very prepared for what is happening now and will be washing our hands constantly!

Black Friday? Not at Paihia School!!!

Today we decided to have a colourful day at school. We all dressed up in colourful clothes to make our day as bright as possible!

We decided this was a good idea because this time one year ago there was an horrific event taking place in Christchurch. We donated money today and it will go to St. John because they were some of the first people in Christchurch to get in and start helping those affected on that day.

He waka eke noa!

We have been learning about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and how it affects us as a country. We have created our own Class Treaty and signed it with name cards on the wall.

We also made koru patterns to tell a story about our own whanau. These have been shaped like a waka to show that we're all in this together!

Camp Fundraising

We are off to Mangawhai for camp in April! We are all so excited to end the term with such a fun time together, but first...

We are fundraising to make sure we can have the best time for the least money. Every Friday we will be selling Juicies at school and we will be having three sausage sizzles and cake stalls at school. We have plenty of parent help and we are eternally grateful for the massive support from them, as well as the students and staff of Paihia School

Back in the Game

We've finally made it back to school in 2020! There are a lot of new faces and we have had a great time catching up with each other. We have been learning about patterns we can see and create and were able to use all sorts of things to make our own repeating patterns in class.