Careers Day

Before Careers Day begun we were lucky to have Brian come in from the Carpentry Department of the Otago Polytechnic.  He took us through a practical task of making a wooden pencil case.  It was fantastic and everyone was able to produce their own unique pencil case that they were proud of.

 

 

Bikes,bikes,bikes.

On Wednesday 11th September, the whole school participated in a Bike Fun Day.  Each class, through out the day, got to have a go on a range of different bikes.  Some of the bikes you could recognise like a scooter, skateboard, Penny Farthing and a Rickshaw but others looked like a bike but did not behave like any bikes that we knew.
There was a bike with  four wheels, two on top of each other.  A lawnmower bike.  A bike where you had to peddle backwards for it to go forward.  A bike that squired water/
Then came the bikes that had a bit of danger to them.  We loved these the best especially the two drifting bikes.  It was hard to get a turn on this bike as it was very popular.
If you ever had an idea for a bike with a difference then you could probably find it here.
We finished our day with coming up with our own ideas of designing a bike and shared these with the class.

Britney
Shay

Kapa haka 2013

It was that time again to show off what we had learnt through song and dance.  Everyone was excited to perform.  This year we had added a haka taught by Mr Edwards Taikawa into our programme.  We showed kaha when we delieved the haka, so much that we were exhusted at the end.  We cant wait till we perform again.

 

Trophies Galore

In the weekend, I had my prize giving for Northern Soccer Club being held at North East Valley Normal School.  The first team to have their speech was the 10th grade team.  It went from the 10th up to the 13th grade teams.  My team was up next.  We were the 11th grade.  There was the Most Valuable Player award,Most Improved Player and the Ron Clough Sportsmanship award (he was my Grandad).  Cameron B got the M.I.P. award and I got the M.V.P. award.  Sammy got the Sportsmanship award.  After the teams shared we had the overall important awards.  There was the most skilled,best keeper and the rep team medals.  I got the GOALKEEPERS award and a rep team medal.  I love soccer.

Lucas

Cross Country 2013

The time had come for the Otago championship cross country race. This year it was held at Kaikorai Valley Collage. The school had one person participating who was Shay.  

When he got there he had to go to the hall and register.   Next he went out on the field and waited to be  called out.   While he was waiting he watched the year 6 girls and year 5 boys.

The time had come for the Year six race.  Then the horn was blown and they were off.   Lots of people were slipping over and Shay was nearly tripped over.   The track was really muddy  as  feet got stuck in the mud , slowed them all down and made the race hard.

On the last straight of the race Shay passed 3 people. The finishing line was in sight and it was a relief to see it.   At the end Shay came 30^th out of 62 people. Shay was so tired after the race that the teacher let him go home.

 

Mathaletic's

Mathaletic’s                    

On Wednesday 28^th August Mrs Staynes took s group of mathematician’s to the Regent theatre.  There, these students were taking part in the annual matheletics competition. 

We got there in time to see the Year 5 students participating in the last few questions to their competition.   It was our time to compete.  We took our place, choose a runner and we were off.

We answered many of the questions.  Some were very difficult and we had to make sure we listened to each other about the answers given.

Finally the winners were announced.  Although we didn’t win we enjoyed the competition.

Anna

Cameron O

Ukulele Jam 2013

Thursday 8^th August, room 5 went on a bus to Tahuna to take part in the annual Ukulele Jam.  On the way, Kaci sat beside me and we sung some of the songs we were soon going to play.  We arrived at Tahuna and got into a big line.  As we walked towards the hall we walked passed other children getting ready to enter the hall.

The Ukulele’s had to be checked to make sure they were in tune.  Mostly of the ukuleles were in tune but Mrs K-E had to do a quick tune to a few.  Once we were all tuned up, two lovely ladies put the words up for Utaina.  We used our beautiful voices to sing this song.

After singing and playing Utaina, we were all warmed up.  We played 6 songs then had a rest.  Mrs Caldwell talked to all of us then let us go out and eat our morning tea.  Room 5 went out, ate their morning tea and had a good play on the equipment.

Time to come back in and continue the Jam.

Next we found our ukulele’s, sat down and began to play some other tunes.  My favourite son was Army of two but I think everyone else liked Hey ho.

A few minutes after playing we meet the members of the band, stood up and then had a good stretch.   We lined up to get on the bus.

On the way to school, we saw the same things but this time we snag more songs.  By the time we got back to school we were exhausted.  We all wanted to go home but it was only lunchtime.  We had some food then got on with our work.

I had a great time at the Jam and would happily do it all again.  I learnt lots of useful tips and other stuff as well.

Anna

 

Keep Dunedin Beautiful

On Wednesday the 7^th of August, the whole school went to the play about keeping Dunedin beautiful.  It taught us about reducing, reusing and recycling our waste at school and at home.  They shared with us different ways in which we could do this.  They sang and danced

their ideas.  We loved many of the songs they sang.  Keeping our community, school and home tidy is the way to go.

D.N.I.Technology

The year six students from room 5 N.E.V.N went to D.N.I for a morning of technology fun.  When they arrived at the school, four lovely teachers and Mr Leach greeted them. 
Mr Leach explained to them the groups they would be in and how they would move around the classes.  The students were sent to their groups.  They were able to take part in activities like metal work, wood work, fabric and food.
We learnt to make an amazing book mark from fabric,cotton and wool.  We went onto metal work where we stamped our name onto a piece of metal and made a necklace or key ring.  Next off to wood work where the challenge was to create a box out of wood.  Then finally to food where we got to decorate a biscuit that we could sell at the next fair.
We came back together keen to show our friends what we had made.  The biscuits were so good that many didn't make it through the school gate. 

 

After thanking the teachers and Mr Leach for having us, we left with our hands full.  We all can't wait until we get to go to Intermediate.

 

 

 

 

Anna

On the last day of term 2, the children of North East Valley Normal School had an annual toy sale.  The reason for this sale was to raise money for child cancer.    There was a range of toys donated by children of the school.  Once the toys were sorted they were divided into four sections: Mini toys, soft toys and games, big toys, books and dvd’s.  Bankers had been organised to help collect the money from the buyers.  Silva, Oliver, Phaedra, R.V. Olivia, Ben, Lucy, Jack, Dylan and Crystal all stepped up to help

As a banker, they were the first people to get to choose off the tables then came the students turn.  They first came to buy from the youngest class, room 11 to the last class one who he which was room 5. 

The most popular table was the mini toys.  There were hundreds of mini toys from MacDonald toys to action figures.  These were all a real hit.

The students packed up the table and sold the last of the toys.  The sale was really successful and enjoyed by all.  The students raised over $200 dollars.  Thank you to every that helped to make this such as success.

Oliver

R.V.

 

Mr McLarens Musical Instruments

Mr McLaren came to our school one afternoon to share his woodwind instruments.  He showed us how to make sounds using bottles.  He played notes on the bottles that were high and low.  He played us the song Mary had a little lamb. 
Next he played instruments like the flute,clarinet, recorder,bassoon and our favourite the saxophone.  Caitlin joined in the act with her giving a high five when Mr McLaren blew up a balloon with the bassoon.  It was a great afternoon and we all enjoyed his sharing.

Ruby
Crystal

Spelling Quiz at Tahuna

On Wednesday 26th June,R.V. Phaedra,Tori,Kaci,Caitlin and Lucas competed in the Otago Daily Times Extra Spelling Quiz being held at Tahuna Intermediate. 
There was a series of questions and quizzes such as dictionary work,spelling,guess the word,word jumble,correct the sentences and knowledge.  It was long afternoon finishing at 6.30pm.  Overall we did very well with one of our teams having a score of 92/100.  All of the teams did a really good job.

Phaedra     Tori

Homework R.V.

Friday was Topic Challenge time and I got to share my homework and baking on macaroons.  My homework was also presented on a power point.  I used transitions to go to the next slide and lots of descriptive information about macaroons.
Macaroons are a type of meringue with any desired filling ,like jam or butter cream in between two macaroon.  There are many types of macaroon around the world like Korea,Japan and Germany.  The country that created the macaroons is France.  I baked four French macaroons and twenty-one Filipino macaroons.  They were really yummy.

R.V.

Lucas and homework

My homework was about origami/paper folding.  I taught the class how to make a paper claw.  The insturctions in my book that I had written out were not clear compared with me going around and showing people how to do it.
For some of the children I had to do some of the folding so that they could carry on.  Soon everyone was making the paper claws.  I later found out that a class mate had made over 500 claws.

Lucas

Layla comes to school

On Friday, my dog called Layla came to school.  She was here to met the room 5 children.  She made it easily up the stairs even though it had been raining hard outside. When she arrived in the room the children greeted her with smiles  and pats.  Layla loved the attention and all the treats she was given.
The treats were a mixture of Shmako's amd meaty bites.  Everyone fed her one which made her want to stay longer.  It was time for her to leave so my mum and brother took her back home.

Dylan

Strike

On Thursday 20^th June, the children from N.E.V.S and other primary schools went to D.N.I to watch a performance put on by the musical company called STRIKE.

STRIKE is a drumming band from Wellington that uses different types of instruments that you can hit, bash or strike.  Some of their drums they had built in a different way by hanging them from a scaffolding tower.

The band names that visited Dunedin were Mr T, Mr Sparkle and Cookie Monster. 

Matthew was choosen from the audience to come up and show off his drumming.  He was fantastic.  He even did the moon walk in his act.  .

 

Our favourite was the marimba performance called Tropical Forest.  There was also a fire performance where they lit a stick on fire and they used liquid in a spray bottle to make sounds and beats.

 

R.V.

Caitlin

 

 

Safe Kids St Johns

On Tuesday 18th June, Belinda from St John Normal  came to North East Valley to share and teach us what to do if we ever got hurt or saw others who had been hurt.
We got to have a go at CPR.  CPR is something when you do mouth to mouth and press down on someones heart.  You only do this if there is no signs of life.  Someone breathing and their heart beating-pulse.
Belinda asked us what are some of the dangers that that we could get ourselves into and we came up with a lot.  Keeping safe was the answer. 
Next Belinda asked for a volunteer for to put on some fake blood to see what we would need to do.  Anna was picked and then we watched what we needed to do to a wound that was bleeding.  We all got to practice bandaging each other .  At the end , we thanked Belinda for all the things that she had taught us.  Mrs Kewene - Edwards presented our certificates and medical package that we all recieved after completing this course.

Anna's Chinese Gifts

On Wednesday, I brought my gifts to school that were from  my Step dad.  He got them from a recent trip to China.  I showed a beautiful butterfly that is displayed in a glass box.  A silk covered notebook.  A silk bag and skirt .  Finally  a Snug (a blanket with arms) .  I enjoyed sharing my gifts with them.

Anna

The Amazing Elgrego Show

On Monday the 17th June, the whole of North East Valley Normal School went to the Elgrego show being held in the school hall.  Elgrego performed amazing magic tricks with his wife Sue as an assistant.  He told us about bullying and being kind to each other.
Elgrego has many animals with him to help with the show.  Birds,bunnies and a little dinosaur named Semour who lives in a yellow egg.  Birds where jumping out of fire, balloons popping with cards inside,birds coming out of ribbons where there wasn't before.  All sorts of spectacular things. 
Being a super hero was the message to over come the bullies that we will come up against.  The children along with enjoying it were learning many new skills.

Ruby
Jazmin

Road Safety

BIKE/ROAD SAFETY

Wheels turning, breaks screeching, traffic lights flashing!

That was the beginning of an afternoon of fun with bike safety.

We have been looking at Road and Bike safety.

We had to watch videos about being  safe on the road.

We had to learn the rules about indicating and when it is good to turn with our bikes. Finally the time came when we got to ride our bikes.  First we had to listen to the instructions from Constable Somerfield.  It was very responsible work. Not only did we have to be responsible on the road but respectful as well. Some people had to share a bike because there wasn’t enough.  After showing off our road rules it was time to put our bikes away.  Our skills can now be seen when we ride to and from school.

Shay

Kaci

B.M.X Champion

I love doing BMX and I am really good at it.  This day I brought my bike and helmet to show the class.  I explained the specially features of my bike and how different it is to a normal bike.  I shared with the class how I have been in many races especially with my club.  There are many competitions that are around New Zealand that my club enter.  We have some really good BMX riders at my club and I hope to be as good as they are.

Matthew

Kitten comes to school

It was another day of school when R.V started to walk in with his kitten.  It was so cute and so adorable!   The kittens name is Velcro and is six weeks old.  His breed is a Mancoon.   While R.V. was talking ,  Velcro started to bite him on his hand and arm. Then the cutiest meow could be heard. After that, Velcro started to sleep peacefully and safely in RV's arms.  His Mum picked up Velcro, he said bye with a huge meow.

R.V.
Britney

SOCCER TIME

Yesterday ,on the 16th of  May the year 5 and 6 students played a game of soccer against Sawyers Bay school.  In the first half it was a good game .  Everyone was warming up by passing the ball and dribbling carefully.  When the whistle went  for the first half ,all the N.E.V. players ran to Mr Andrew in the middle of the pitch to have a discussion on the next things they were going to work on in the second half .  Every 1 got in there places ready to start the next half. We scored 2 goals because of an awesome pass.  The first goal was scored by Rory then about 15 minutes later Cameron O scored another great goal. Fifteen  minutes later the whistle went .   Game over with the final score at 2-0.

Lets get swimming

In the first week of term 2, room 5 and the rest of the school went to Jill Clarkes Swimming Program. This was for two weeks. In our class swimming there were three groups. Beginner, intermediate and expert. All the kids were kicking and splashing the grown ups. We all practiced four different strokes including freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly (butterfly is pretty hard).   The swimming instructors were really nice (and knew a lot about swimming). Our student teachers and adults got quite wet when they sat on the chairs. We had alot of fun learning how to swim.

Jack

Crystal

Having fun with music

For discussion group, Rv brought his violin to school. It looked very delicate. He showed us the rosin and how to put it on the bow. . The rosin is a wheel that you rub it against the bow and it makes it more smooth when you play it.   Rv showed us the first 4 notes of the violin. It was a little out of tune but it was okay.   The violin case was a blue velvet with two bow holders. It was really cool !

R.V.

A Dragon comes to school

On Tuesday the 16th of April,Jordan brought his Australian bearded dragon called Puff to school. Every one enjoyed him but Olivia got a bit of a fright when Puff ran over to her while we were sitting on the mat..
Rory said that he really enjoyed seeing Jordan's bearded dragon Puff.  He had seen it a couple of times at his house but this time it was really the best .   Rory liked watching Puff charge at him while he was sitting on the mat.  It was a bit scary but not to much .

Jazmin really enjoyed having Jordan's bearded dragon at school. It was very exciting seeing it in real life instead of a picture as she had never seen one before.

Jordan

Art Gallery

Last Tuesday, Rm 5 went to the Art gallery. Mr Neumegan, talked to the children about insects. They looked at arrange of paintings ,watched  some films  and got to sing a song.   After that, they went into the art classroom ready with lots of ideas. In there they started to draw an insect. There was a whole range of insects to chose from to help with our sketching. There were spiders ,wasps and lots of other things.   We started to draw the heads, the body's all falling off the page.   When we were finshed drawing we  coloured them in with bright crayon. We covered it up with blue pastel then with something sharp we scraped away some of the crayon, shading the insect.   Dye was used was used for the background along with a range of coloured stickers..

 

 

By Olivia and Lucy

Whole school Cross Country.

Last week,the whole school had the anual Cross Country run.  All of the classes particapated in the run and did very well.  The clasess went by their age group 5 to 11.  There was amazing runners like Shay, Jack and R.V. in year 6 boys .  Phadra, Caitlen and Olivia in year 6 girls.  It was an amazing event not to be missed.  Well done to all those children who particapated in this event.

Oliver
Lucas

Golf with Melanie

In March, Room 5 had Melanie who came to our school to teach golf.  She came around 12:00 and taught the basics .  Room 5 started off with small rubber balls then moved onto tennis balls. Some people hit the tennis balls to their partners that were  standing on the other side of the field.  Finally, they moved on to rubber golf balls.  Some hit them far and some not so far,but everyone went very well.  Well done to everyone who participated.


By Oliver and Cameron.

Beach Education Recount

On Tuesday the 12^th of February, the senior children from North East Valley Normal School travelled to St Kilda Beach.  There, they were going to take part in Beach Education Day.  This is when you learn about how to be safe when you are at the beach.

After being greeted by Zoe and Vienna, the life guards, the children entered the club rooms and put their equipment away.  When they had done, they sat on the mat ready to listen to the life guards.

Next ,it was time to find out what the ten rules of beach safety were.  It did seem a lot to remember but they were easy to learn.  Meila got to play ’Who wants to be a millionaire’ to see if she could remember all 10, and she did.

Being sun smart was the next learning that the children looked at.  Here they learnt how to be safe in the sun at the beach.

Holly got to dress up as a life guard and show all the children what they needed.  She had her hands full trying to hold on to all the equipment.  The children found out that life guards help you on the beach but they can also tell you where to buy the best ice- cream.

The children then pretended to be the water and act as a rip.  As they did this Dylan pretended to swim in the water and then get caught in the rip.   Seeing Dylan in trouble,  Holly the lifeguard jumped in and showed the children how to save him.  The lifeguards then showed the children what to do if they got into a rip.

Beach games and lunch followed and then it was time to hit the water.

In between the flags the children swam.  Boogie boards flying, bodies surfing the waves and plenty of splashing.   Laughing and screams of delight could be heard up and down the beach.

After all that swimming it was time to get out and get changed.

Finally, the children were dressed and on the bus back to school.  It had been a great day of learning and fun.   Some of the children made suggestions to ask their grown-ups to take them to the beach and then they could share all the things that they had learnt.

Room 5    Shared writing

 

Homework begins

The first presentation of homework has been presented to the class by Olivia.  She choose Cookies as her Topic Challenge and shared all the things she had learnt.  Olivia finally thought that edible homework would hit the spot.  And it did.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year was the first celebration that we looked at.  Our visit to Toitu and the Chinese Gardens allowed the children to experience the past and the connection we have with Chinese community.  The Chinese Gardens allowed us  to have a look at the plants , decorations and important symbols that represent the new year coming.  What a great time we had.

Beginning the Year

It's the start of a new year and all the students are ready to go.  Everyone has returned fit and well and we're pleased to catch up again.    The classroom was bare but we know very soon that it will begin to fill with all the learning that is ahead of us all.  Keep an eye out on our adventures in 2013.