Athletics by PL and KS

This term we have been doing athletics. We have been doing field and track events. Some of the field events are Discus, Shot Put, High Jump and Long Jump. The track events are Relays, 100m, 200m and 400m. Before we start practising, we always do our warm up exercises first and we always end by warming down. We warm up so we don’t get cramps and hurt our muscles. This Friday we will have the selections. Our teacher will be choosing the best participant in each of the areas. These students will proudly represent our school at the Area Zone Athletics.

The Bokashi System

Our school will start with another way of recycling our left over food. It is called the Bokashi Compost System.

In the bucket you can put all left over food, fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, filters and tea bags
and cooked and raw meat and fish.

Keep out Liquids (milk, oils, soup and juices), all packaging, plastic or plastic wrap, paper, glass, metal and polystyrene.

After 4 weeks we will have valuable fertiliser from our waste to put into our gardens.

Teachers could you please make sure that you have an empty ice cream container in your class to collect the leftover food scraps. And don’t forget to send it to room 9 after lunch so that it can be recycled.

Our Vegetable Garden by NK

Our school has started a vegetable garden. In our veggie garden we have tomatoes, cabbage, eggplant, chillies, carrots and some lettuce. Our aim is to sell the veggies to the teachers. With the money we will purchase more seedlings and expand on our garden. We water our veggie garden at least three times a week with plant fertilizer.

Choir by AT

One of the choices that we have for electives is choir. The choir group also performs at assembly’s and special events. We also sang for the Trash to Fashion show and the crowd loved us. We sing New Zealand Medley songs. Some of the titles are: “The Greatest American Hero”, “A Spoonful of Sugar” and many more. My favourite song is “ What the World Needs Now”. We are practicing really hard and getting ready for performing at the “Kids for Kids” concert that will be held on the Manukau Events Centre. Wish us all luck.

Kapa Haka by TR and FA

Welcome to Bailey Road Kapa Haka group. Our Kapa Haka teachers are Matua Dave and Miss Whaea Ngahiraka. Our group consists of middle and intermediate students from different ethnic groups. We practice new songs and learn the actions for the songs. We always start with a prayer, then we sing songs and we end with a prayer. We perform at special assemblies. I have also learnt how to use the poi e. We will be learning how to make a poi e next term. We also have special outfits. The boys and girls wear special outfits. Kapa haka is cool.

Sewing by JA

Every Friday, during our senior syndicate electives, we have been learning how to sew. So far we have learnt how to thread a needle and do different types of stitches like the cross-stitch and the blanket stitch. We have learnt how to sew our names onto different types of fabrics and how to sew a picture onto a piece of paper. All of us have enjoyed the experience of learning how to sew. Some students decided to use their sewing skills to mend their uniforms.

Our Awesome Wormfarm by SI

You must be aware that Bailey Road has a wormfarm. We put all of our foodscraps into our wormfarm. Did you know that the worms also love brown paper bags, paper towels and shredded paper? Our worm population has grown over the last year. We use the worm tea (wee) to water our environmental nature trail.

It is now time for us to collect the worm casting (poo). Since it is our first time doing that, Ron from the A.R.C will come and assist us this Friday. All the health councillors will be present. The worm casting is also valuable fertilizer that we will use in our nature trail. I will be making a video on how to collect the worm casting. Keep watching our blog for the video.

Matariki

Our school celebrated the Maori New Year on 12th June 2009. We did it over two ceremonies. We started with the dawn ceremony. Teachers and students started to gather at 5:30 am. Our school Kapa Haka group did an awesome performance. The ground was blessed and tree planting began. That was followed by kai (porridge) in the staffroom.

The second ceremony was when the whole school gathered in the junior syndicate at 9:20. Every class had to choose two students to plant a class tree. Thank goodness we had beautiful weather. Soon after it began to rain. We had a great morning.

Auckland Botanic Gardens SI

We have been learning about fabrics and fibres this term. One of the fibres we were looking at was flax. Our teacher thought that it would be a great idea to visit the Botanic Garden. It was a great idea. 

After a tasty treat of morning tea we went of with our group and with one teacher.We went down to see the beautiful flax,learnt the different names, different sizes and everything. The teacher explained about the traditional uses of flax. After that we did a challenge to find the insects on the flax plant. Then the teacher gave us a chance to cut the flax but before that we had to say a special prayer. After that we went to go and see the different flax plants. 

We also got to plant our own flax seeds and were allowed to bring those back to school. These are kept in our class nature corner. We water it daily and we can’t wait for it to start growing.

Soccer QB

My favourite sport is soccer. I made it into the school team and went to play against other schools in the Area Zone Tournament. I had a lot of  fun playing but we didn’t win any games.

Testing for Waterproofing NK

Our class has been learning about Fabrics and Fibres. During our lessons we decide to do an absorption test. 

The aim of test was to see which fabrics was the most absorbent. We had four different types of fabrics cotton,linen,polyester and silk. 

Our  test was a fair test because we used the same size material and the same amount of water. 

After the test I have learnt that cotton was the most absorbant fabric.Linen, polyester and silk were the least absorbant.  

Our Classroom Environment LS & LM

We painted some flags on our class windows. It represents the different cultures in our classroom. They are New Zealanders, Tongans, Samoans, South Africans, Cook Islanders, Fijians and many more. 

We also made 3 D stars to show the Whanau of room 13. Our teacher gave us a template. We cut and stuck the template onto coloured paper. Then we folded the paper along the line. We then joined and stuck the corners together. Once our stars were made we took it to five different people that knew us really well. They wrote five good qualities that they liked about us. Our teacher then stuck a colour photo of us in the centre. We then hung it up on our class wall. It looked really attractive. 

We also have a birthday chart. When it is someone's birthday our teacher writes happy birthday on the board and we sing the happy birthday song. We also do decorations on our Interactive white board. 

Japanese

This term the senior syndicate has been learning Japanese. Our teacher is Miss Koriyama (Sensi). She is the best Japanese teacher in the world. 

She has taught us  how to write our names in Japanese, how to say the alphabet and the different animal names too. She told us a little about Japan and how they used to live. 

We have been doing origami this week. We made rings, birds, frogs, rabbits and weapons. It was so cool. At first I thought that it would be difficult but to my surprise it was very simple. We use nets from a website called http://www.origami-club.com. You guys should try it some time. They make excellent gifts.

by TR, JA and AA

Syndicate Sports by GF and KK

Every Thursday afternoon the seniors have syndicate sports. Our school have four houses. There are   Kowhai (yellow), Matai (black), Rata (red) and Rimu (green).  The sports that we playing this term are  Netball, Basketball, Hockey, Volleyball, and Kiwi Tag. Each house has a captain and a vice captain. We earn heaps of points for winning games and showing good leadership. The whole aim of game is participation.

Swimming

      

In term 1 we had our senior swimming carnival. I did very well and got alot of points for my house. I belong to Matai. I entered in freestyle , backstroke and breastroke.I won all of my heats. Matai house came first followed by Rata,Rimu and  Kowhai.We had lovely weather and it was great fun.

By FA

Basketball

On Thursday morning we have a P.E. skills lesson. This term we have been learning how to play basketball properly. It’s really awesome. First we learnt the basics, then we played the game. It was real fun. We had house competitions. We also practice at lunch time because practice makes perfect. Some people take 3 pointers but most of the time they miss. So that takes skills. 

Done by: AT & CO

Hockey AG & SG

We are trialing for the school hockey team. We both like hockey and hope to make the team. We are learning lots of different hockey skills. Hockey can be very dangerous. Yesterday when I was training I got hurt with the hockey stick. But I am not going to give up. As the saying goes “NO PAIN NO GAIN”!