Christmas fun

This week room 3 have been enjoying some fun Christmas activities.  We made decorations with our buddy class, painted Christmas art and today we made reindeer.

It has been a great end to a wonderful year.

I will miss you all at Halcombe School and I wish you all a very safe and happy Christmas.

Mrs Buckley

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Fun Friday

Disco

Cricket Skills

Manawatu Cricket

Today we had some people from Manawatu Cricket come and teach us some wonderful cricketing skills.  We played ball games and had a turn at hitting the ball with the cricket bat.  We learnt how to catch the ball properly and how to stand when we are fielding and batting.  It was great fun and here are some photos...

Wheelie great day

Wheels day

Today it was Wheels Day and it was awesome.  The children had fun scootering around the school and doing tricks on the ramps.  Here are a few pictures...

EOTC

Whitecliffs Boulders

Last week for our EOTC, we went to Whitecliffs Boulders in Mangaweka.  We had great fun walking around and playing on the boulders.  We finished up with a delicious picnic.  Thanks to our wonderful parent helpers who made this trip possible.
Here are a few pictures.

Spy Writing

Writing

This week we read the big book The Spy Meeting.  We had fun cracking codes and writing secret messages with invisible ink.  We also did some procedural writing on How to be a spy.  Here are a few of our pieces of writing.

Great writing Room 3!

Wheels Day

Maths

Counting Money

We have been practicing counting in 100's,10's and 1's and on Friday we played counting games with money.  We are all pretty good at counting money!

Cross Country

What a great day we had at cross country on Friday.  All the kids ran really well and the sun shone.  Here is a video of the event.

Helicopter visit

The lucky winners are...

Today we were very lucky to watch the rescue helicopter land on our field.  Tommy and Holly won a Turbo's competition and as a result got to ride to school in a helicopter. Here are some pictures and some writing...

I heard thumping in the sky.  I felt wind blowing around the school.  The helicopter was going to land on the field and Holly and Tommy and Miss Simpson came out.
By Joseph

I heard a hovering sound.  I looked up and it was Holly, Tommy and Miss Simpson in a helicopter.  Unfair, I thought as they hopped out of the helicopter.  They won a rugby competition.
By Lucas

When we were outside a helicopter arrived on the field.  Tommy and Holly arrived in the helicopter because they went to the turbo game and they won.
By Tom

Shake it out

Drop, cover, hold

This week was shake out week and Room 3 have been practicing what to do in an earthquake.  We learnt ...
1. you have to be fast
2. you need to get right under the table
3. you must cover your head
4. hold onto the table leg

Pet day

Pet Day
What a fun day we had today.  It was Pet day at Halcombe School and many of the children got to show off their fabulous pets.  There were bunnies, guinea pigs, dogs, cats, lambs and ponies.  The children had so much fun.  Here are a few comments from some of our pet owners...

" I was excited when I walked around the ring.  I was very surprised when I got a trophy and a champion ribbon with Henry," said Taylor.

"The judge asked me what food does your cat eat?  I was excited to get a ribbon," said Mya.

"It was funny when my goat Jay was walking around on his knees.  I think he was tired!" said Jamie

Dance

The second part of our PE focus for this term has been dance.  Room's one and two worked together to learn a combination of folk dancing, jump jam and hip hop.  Here is a little video of our wonderful dancing skills.  Great dancing everyone!

Buddy Class

Yesterday we played long ball with our buddy class.  We had so much fun out in the sunshine.  Thanks room 6 you are awesome at long ball!

Science

What's on our hands?

Blake's mum is a microbiologist and works at a vet clinic.  She very kindly dropped in to talk to us about bacteria and showed us an example of bad bacteria that can be found in cows.  We talked about bacteria that we carry on our bodies. To test this out, each child put fingerprint samples on agar plates and Michelle took them away to incubate them overnight.  Yesterday she returned with each plate.  We were all surprised to see just how much bacteria we have on our hands.  Parents, this should make the children wash their hands thoroughly! 

Celebrating Māori language week

One day a Taniwha

Beautiful singing room 1!

Making Ice cream

Edible Science

Delicious!  
This week room 1 made ice cream.  We turned the liquid cream into a solid cream using ice and salt.  We shook the cream, vanilla and sugar inside the small bag which was sitting inside a bag of ice and salt.  We had to shake the bag for about 10 minutes. 
The ice cream was so tasty.  We hope you can use the recipe to make some at home.

Solid, Liquid, Gas

Our play 

We have been learning all about matter in science. Today we performed a little song at assembly about the three states of matter.  
The children did a fabulous job of singing and acting.  Well done room 1 awesome work!

Cheese

Cartwheel Creamery

Today we had a visit from Mrs Walcroft from the Cartwheel creamery. She showed us pictures of how they make cheese.  "I didn't know that goats makes milk too," said Jayden.
"We learnt that they added other ingredients to the milk to turn it into cheese," said Lucas.
"They use molds to shape the cheese,"said Harry.
"I learnt that goats make white cheese and cows make yellow cheese," said Sean.
"They use a smaller tanker to collect the milk form the dairy farms," said Maisie.
"The milk is a liquid then it turns into a gel, then a solid," said Lucy.
"I learnt that there is live bacteria in cheese," said Stanleigh

Afterwards we got to taste the different cheeses...

"I loved the creamy cheese" said Taylor
"I found the white feta too salty," said Emily
"I ate it up in one gulp.  I love cheese," said James

chin up champs video

Making Butter

Science

This week we made butter.  We discovered that we could turn the liquid (cream) into a solid by shaking it.  Afterwards, we used our butter to make fairy bread.  It was delicious.
The next day we learnt how to use book creator to explain how we made butter. We hope to show some of these at our assembly in week 6. Here are some pictures.

Learning all about milk

Dairy Farm Visit

Today Room's 1 and 2 went to the Bartlett's diary farm.  We got to pat the calves and help feed them.
"The calf licked my hand" said Brenna.
"The calf's fur was soft," said Mya
"The calf sucked my finger as I took him to the trough" said Lucas

Then we went inside the milking shed to see how the cows are milked.  We learnt lots of interesting facts...
"cows are milked twice a day" said Jamie
"they have 500 cows on their farm" said Lucas
"the tanker hold lots of litres of milk"  said Sean
"the milk goes into the tanker through a big pipe" said Jayden
The cows eat about 100 kilograms of grass a day.
Cows and calves need to drink a lot of water each day.


"we got to put the cups on the cows to milk them" said Lucy
"we ate ice cream and cheese and we drank flavoured milk," said Maisie
"we saw the food they feed to the cows," said Taylor
"it was fun to milk the cows," said Joseph

It was a great day and we had lots of fun.

Oobleck

Buddy class
For science, we are learning about the different states of matter. Today room 1 and 6 got together to make Oobleck.  We got into groups of 5 with our big buddies and we mixed cornflour, water and food colouring together.  We made several discoveries.  When we hit the Oobleck it acted like a solid, yet when we picked it up it turned back into a liquid.  
We had lots of fun playing around with the Oobleck. Here are some pictures.
Thanks room 6 !

Maths

Shapes

This week we have been looking at 2 d and 3 d shapes.  We have talked about faces, edges and corners.  Today we went for a walk around school to identify 3 d shapes and we photographed them and then created a pic collage.  Great maths room 1!