Room7's fun weeks of athletics

Term 3&4 room7 have been learning how to throw a coit and a vortex. Its really good to get your body aeking because it fires you up and you can get fiter,faster and have more accuracy in throwing. To throw a coit you have to pull your arm in a straight line and bring it up past your nose and let go when its at the tip of your fingers.(Chuck it at a high paste)To throw a vortex you need to strech you're arm right back behind you're ear and lift it then chuck when its just past your nose and make sure you throw it high. Isabelles opinioun is....Athletics is fun because it gets us warmed up for work. These are things we use Vortex Discis Geoff is the man that tells us what to do in athletics.

Montana WOW Awards Show

Wearable Arts in Room 7

We turned the ordinary into the extraordinary by making our own wearable arts. This week we've been working on making things last longer by recycling them into something new.

First we planned out what we're going to make and how we would make it. We thought about what we could make- and Theo made a series of sketches that really drew our attention. The lightbulbs all went on and everyone was turned onto Theo's ideas because they showed us what we could do! We thought WOW!

Now it's time to MAKE the outfits. We're doing papier mache, painting, stapling, ripping, attaching, cutting and creating. We're using cardboard, bubble wrap, silwer bubble paper, newspaper, plastic bags, aluminium foil.... anything that's had a previous use as something else and is now recycled. Soon we'll be showing our costumes in the St Francis Xavier Wearable Arts Festival. Make sure you're there to see our WOWABLE show!

Take a look at the New Zealand WOW Wearable Arts above.

This is what the Room 7 WOWABLE WORKROOM looks like!

OUR MADONNA Our pictures of Mary celebrate Mary’s Assumption (our school mass on 15 August). Our pictures of Mary show a Maori Mary. In some of our pictures her dress was tapa cloth and others had kowhaiwhai patterns. There were two different pictures which we used to get the size of her head and body right. In the paintings she looks like a Maori mother holding Jesus. Her clothes have Maori patterns and she’s wearing pounamu tiki and earings. These paintings were done by a New Zealand painter called Julia Lynch. MADONNA is a famous title for Mary and lots of famous paintings and sculptures have been named MADONNA. One of Julia Lynch’s paintings is called Southern Madonna. They’re really beautiful and they remind us that Mary is peaceful, graceful, caring and kind. Check back on Monday to see photos of our paintings.

What room7 is doing this week

Water Safety

The whole of St Francis Xavier school went to Tawa swimming pool. Everyone took turns at swimming but some people didn't go swimming because their parents are worried that they could be sick or they don't like to swim. People in diffrent groups learnt different kind of strokes like catterpiller,breast strocke,freestyle and backstroke.People also learn't how to float. Room7 had swimming interviews on how they are doing in their swimming. You need to know how to swim when there is a flood, tsunami or if you fall off a boat. We also used life jacket's to keep safe.

Hi
It's time to go swimming again!
Listen to our Room 7 swimmer from 2009.




Oops... that wasn't about swimming at all.
Watch this space!

At the Orchestra

At the orchestra we listened to fantastic music that was from the 1600's to the 1900's. The beautiful music was played at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington.

Musical instruments played music from great movies, shows and a long time ago. There was a funny person who gave the conductor a wig and a stick.... because that's what conductors sometimes did in France in the 1600's. Monteverdi was using a big, thick bamboo stick to conduct the orchestra when he he wacked the stick on his foot. He didn't go to the hospital straight away...and ten weeks later he died of blood poisoning!!! The trumpet played the Indiana Jones music.

Dylan liked the Mozart music best. Thomas liked the Bethoven bit. The ballet bit was good too. Xavier thought he looked like a ballerina man. We heard lots of new instruments. We learned some new ways of clapping too. So have fun conducting your orchestra... but make sure you don't whack your foot too!!!

FLOOD AT SCHOOL

Last night powerful, rushing rain fell at St Francis Xavier school. It created a gigantic puddle on the big kids court. People were playing in the puddle but that caused some problems....

• lots of balls got stuck in the puddle because it was so deep and the kids would get soaking wet shoes;
• it was creating a flood that stopped us from playing on the court and wet our shoes when we walked over to the toliets;
• we were getting grumpy teachers because the children were getting wet and they didn't want upset parents.

We had to get a truck to unblock the drains. Sarah's dad's workmate used a sucking machine from the jet truck to unblock the drain. Then the water disappeared into the drain and cleared the court. Now he just has to sweep the leftover twigs and rocks off the court. He's going to have to be careful to put the rubbish into the bin or onto the ground or the drain will get blocked again!

It's not just St Francis Xavier school that had gigantic rain problems. In Titahi Bay there were heaps of cars floating on the flooded road. In other places in the North and South islands kids are sweeping the water, rocks and mud from around their houses instead of going to school today. Remember to watch the 6 o'clock news on TV, listen to the radio, check out internet (NZ Weather) or TVNZ http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news to get more information.

My Greatest Feat

We're wearing our pedometers to see who'se the fittest person around our school!! My Greatest feat is a challenge to walk to the Rustburg stadium in South Africa. We are trying to walk the length of New Zealand and we'll be tracking our progress on a map of South Africa. The All Whites are soccer players and they'll be playing for New Zealand at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Watch our progress by clicking the link to the MY GREATEST FEAT website!

Celebrating Catholic Schools Day

On a really rainy, wet day Rooms 4 and 7 went to a really flash school called St Brigid's to celebrate Catholic Schools Day. Our day there was spectacular and awesome: we took part in a Connect 4 championship, a smashing, splashing game of soccer and an awesome liturgy with worship songs, a pretty school candle and Bishop John.

How to Make Your Way Around Our Future School.

A few weeks ago we built a road....and this afternoon we built a school of the future! We thought we would need: floating chairs, robots for each student, personal go carts, jet packs floating desks, a cafe, vege garden sky scraper elevators, squash court, video game room, fishing hole repair room, chocolate swimming pool, engineering room, cooking room....and so much more!

We planned, designed and built our model school and pot bear people inside. Then we wrote directions for how to find your way around our school of the future!

What do YOU thing would be in a school of the 22nd century?

Road Safety

We discussed it with our parents and our teacher.
This is what we know so far:
Stop, look, listen, live.
We need to find the nearest crossing to cross the road safely.
At a driveway look to see if a car is coming out.
Don’t be noisy in the car to distract a driver.
Children cross the road with an adult.
Look right left and right again before you cross the road.
Don’t play on the road.

By Sereana, Xavier, Thomas and Rachel.

Te Reo

This week we are learning the Maori colour names.
These are the Maori colours:
kowhai (yellow)
pango (black)
papura (purple)
whero (red)
kikorangi (blue)
kakariki (green)
parauri (brown)
ma (white)
karaka (orange)

Te Reo means the Maori language.

There is a link on the lefthand side to help you say these words.

By Sean, Anton and Ryan

Sports Day

Tawa, Linden, Greenacres and Redwood schools came to our school.
There were 12 teams.
One team had bands and the team they played didn’t have bands.
The activities were set up in a circle.
We did three legged races, sack races, and relays.
We played dodge ball and potato and spoon races.
We ran with a tennis ball on a tennis bat turned around and came back.
By Anna, Aamy and Jamuel

Room 7 Goes to Parliament

On Tuesday we went to Parliament buildings in Wellington. We caught the train from Takapu Road railway station. We walked around Wellington city and went to the Archives to see the Treaty of Waitangi.

We saw lots of things and felt pretty special.

• Thomas: "I liked talking to Peter Dunne."


• Rachel: "I liked the debating chamber."


• Xavier: "I liked the socks on the rock. They represent different countries."


• Sereana: "I liked Pat showing us the cameras and talking about the people planning for emergencies in the basement.


• Jamuel: "I liked it when we were being watched on camera."


• "We saw some people protesting about mining."


• "The Treaty of Waitangi at the Archive was pretty special because it's really old and was signed by lots of people."

There's lots happening at St Francis Xavier today....

• We'll be playing water games on the field after lunch today because it's National Water Week..... We need to drink lots of water so we can keep our kidneys clean and healthy!
• We've been doing a lot of art work about Pompeii and how the volcano exploded and the ash storm buried the city for years and years and years!
• We're signing up for My Greatest Feat! We're going to see if our class can walk the distance of New Zealand when the All Whites at the Soccer World cup in South Africa.

A Day in Pompeii for Rooms 4 and 7

On a hot, sunny perfect day Rooms 4 and 7 took a bus trip to Te Papa for a day in Pompeii. We went past the calm blue sea, we passed by Taylor Preston, Westpac Stadium, the railway station where there was a bright blue train, the BNZ where some of our dads work and we saw the tall city buildings.

Amazing pictures were all around the walls. They were painted by slaves who put plaster on the wools then had to paint really fast before the paint dried. The coins were made of bronze- they smelled really nice and they felt bumpy and smooched.

The earthquake moved the houses at 8 am - before the volcano blew. then the shook and slid off the roof. Rocks came flying out of the sky and smashed the roof and the statues. The smoke from the volcano made it dark and really hard to see. The ashes were like a sandstorm when they exploded out of the volcano. The whole place was buried for about 1700 years.

What do you think about our visit to Pompeii?

Rippa Rugby

Hi there everybody. Today the Year 3 and 4 children went to Petone Rec for a Rippa Rugby tournament.

We played 5 games: had 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses. It was lots of fun because it's a game that's not really about winning.

Luke said "I enjoyed taking part. - although some people had minor injuries."

Mika thought it was fun.

Ryan said, "We all had fun because we all got to get the ball. People passed it and we got to run a lot too."

"We has to run as fast as we could when someone passed the ball to us", said Sereana. "Next time we're going to have more girls in the team".

THANKS COACH LIAM - WE REALLY APPRECIATED YOUR COACHING EVERY LUNCHTIME!

Home Learning Challenge

Today we talked about our new St Francis Xavier Home Learning Challenge. We're working on this and want to share our ideas with you.
We were thinking about the GIVING CHALLENGE where we would do things to help other people. We could:

Have a 40 Hour Famine where we would go without technology for 40 hours

• Give some of your pocket money towards people in need


• Give up our favourite food for a week and give the money to Caritas


• Give to our family - prepare some meals or do some jobs
• Give up our time - go and visit a neighbour and help with some chores

What do you think?

Post a comment......

Hi there from Room 7

You're not going to believe this. This afternoon we made 3 wordles - and every time Sean's name disappeared from the list!

But welcome to Room 7 - and welcome to 2010...... anyway.

We want to see how many kids from Room 7 check out our blog tonight - so be sure to subscribe, sign on as a follower and make a comment!

See you tomorrow!

Mrs B and Room 7

ROOM 7 2010