Market day

Te Ropu Whakamanawa held their first market day on Friday. 

Students and whanau made sweets, craft and donated goods to sell.

It also happened to be pyjama day, so it was an extremely festive atmosphere around the school.

Here's some pics of some of the stalls:

Super Rugby trophy comes to visit

(Here's a throwback from last year that's been lurking in the drafts...)

We were lucky enough to have the Super Rugby trophy come to visit.

The inside looked gross...

The teachers were pretty excited too!

 

Perseverance and problem solving

We are learning about Perseverance and problem solving.

"Go over go under go around or go through, but never give up in all that you do."

Today we were fortunate to have Vili join us again.

We played a game where 4 jokers had the tough task of making people smile...

We've got a couple of really good akonga able to keep a seriously straight face! There was a lot of integrity in the room too, which made it great.

We had to really persevere, but when trying to make someone smile, as well as when trying not to smile. 

We problem solved to move a golf ball from one end of the room to the other. We were in teams, which made it difficult too.

Learning should be fun

All In Tag

With our Thursday crammed between Strike Day and Anniversary Day, we are trying to cram as much fun into one day as we can!

Softball

Ellen & Paige, from the Canterbury Softball Association, came to teach us some softball skills today. 

We played a game of tag and then practiced some throwing.

The Summer Learning Journey launches

We had the pleasure of having Emma come to visit to tell us about the Summer Learning Journey.

This year it's about the world around us.

There are some great prizes up for grabs.

You can earn 4 points for each activity. 10 points for a bonus activity. For each comment you leave in a friends blog, you get 2 points .

There are 3 activities per day.

Goals

New face at KiwiCan... we welcomed Seddon today, after farewelling Katie last week.

Owen & Seddon

Last week we talked about goal setting. We recapped what goal setting is and why it's important.

KiwiCan says...

keeping calm and in control, 

helps us all to reach our goals.

We played 'Windy Racer'. We had to move a ping pong ball from one line to another, without using our hands. We had to watch out for carpet burn too!

 

We talked with a buddy about what a smart goal is and what it might be... 

S-Specific

M-Measureable

A-Achievable

R-Realistic

T-Timed

We looked at big broad goals, then moved to more specific ones.

Athletics practice

We have been practising for our athletics sports next week. Today the year 4's we're learning shot put and discus.

Year 4 throw practise

KiwiCan

We are focusing on resilience this term.

Kiwi can says keeping calm and in control, helps us all to reach our goals.

We played 'The rain pours down' game,  where the person in the middle says "the rain pours down on everyone with..." then those people get up and swap chairs. The person left over gets to pick the next thing.

The Rain Pours Down...

We are talking about goals, which ties in really well with the SMART goals we've been setting in class.

We had a great discussion about what we need to do to earn points for our class this term. 

We set a short term goal for the next week, something small that we can achieve. It might be picking up a couple of pieces of rubbish at lunchtime; helping cook dinner; taking the wheelie bins out...

Uru Manuka Student Summit

On Thursday, 15 students from Gilberthorpe School travelled just down the road to Hornby High School to present and attend the 2nd Uru Manuka Student Summit.

This full day action packed event focused on creative and collaborative use of digital technologies to promote innovation and learning. The programme included problem solving challenges, breakouts, hands-on workshops and demonstrations led by students for students.

There were 24 sessions, each about 45 minutes. The Summit ran from 9.15am until about 1pm.

After the students returned from the Summit (and enjoyed a well earned lunch!), they then spent the afternoon teaching our other Te Ara Takitini Students about a toolkit they attended.

2nd Annual Uru Manuka Ki-O-Rail tournament

On Friday, the 7th of September, Gilberthorpe School hosted the 2nd Annual Uru Manuka Ki-O-Rahi Tournament. (The first tournament was held at Yaldhurst Model School last year).

Teams from Hornby Primary, South Hornby School, Yaldhurst Model School, and of course our very own Gilberthorpe School, participated in the tournament. It was held over 5 rounds, with each team having a bye during the round. The team having a bye wasn't able to rest though! They had the responsibility of refereeing the four games that were being played. It was a great afternoon, with great camaraderie being shown amongst the akonga in our Uru Manuka Cluster.

We are looking forward to next year's tournament already!

If you'd like to know more about how Ki-O-Rahi is played, click here.

Gilberthorpe goes skiing

We were fortunate to take a group of students, teachers and whanau up to Mount Hutt for the day.

We arrived at school before 7am, ready to load into cars for the trek. There was much excitement! - From our littlest 5 year olds, to our parents and teachers! It was quite dreary weather during the drive, but as we headed up the access road, we drove up through the clouds and found ourselves with clear skies up above.

We had the option of skiing or snowboarding. It was pretty tricky getting the ski boots on for those of us who weren't used to wedging our feet in. We headed straight into our lessons with the fabulous Mt Hutt Instructors.

Digital ignition

Today brings us to our final session of three. We recapped the story of Maui, using picture prompts which Lyn held up. 

The key vocabulary is:

Algorithm - (a set of Clear Step-by-step instructions)

Bug - something wrong

Debugging - fixing the bug

Decomposition - when you have a problem, you reduce it down to make it better and work.

We talked about plastic bag use and the discussion around them in the news.

Only 1% of plastic shopping bags are recycled. If they go to the dump, they blow away and get into the water. They kill as many as one million sea creatures each year. 

Today we are going to communicate an idea to make a difference, using Scratch Jnr on an iPad. 

KiwiCan - Accountability

Last week in KiwiCan we were talking about ownership and accountability. Being responsible for the way you behave and the things that you do.

Kiwi Can says: We are honest, we are true, we take ownership for what we do.

Owen gave everyone a body part and a colour. We then needed to find something that colour and put that body part on it. 

We talked about accountability and that it means taking responsibility for things. For example, taking ownership of your room by keeping it tidy. 

We are accountable for the attitude and behaviour we bring to our learning. Getting our work done, to the best of our ability. Choosing not to call out or disrupt others by being there in the moment.

The key is to take responsibility for our mistakes and own up to it, to make it better.

Dawn McMillan comes to Gilberthorpe

We were lucky enough to have author, Dawn McMillan visit today for our Duffy Assembly.

She read 'Mister Spears and his Hairy Ears' to us. The idea came from Derek having really hairy ears!

Dawn McMillan

She used to be a teacher, but now she's an author. Best job in the world because she can do it in her pyjamas.

She lives in the Coromandel. 

She lives with her husband Derek and Lola her cat. Occasionally Lola walks across the keyboard. Derek brings morning tea and cups of coffee out to her studio, sits on the couch and checks what she has written. Sometimes Derek makes snoring noises when the story is boring.

When you're writing , you need to listen to the voices is your head. 

She has written 220 books for schools and about 30 for shops. She always liked the idea of writing stories. 

You can find out more about her on her site

Kiwi Can

Our term focus is integrity...

"We are role models through and through, 

Everywhere we go and everything we do."

One group lined up in a line. The remaining people lined up opposite. One line turns around, then the other line changes 3 things (hair, order, shoes etc) then the team turns around and tries to guess what's different. 

Some of us got a bit carried away and made extra changes, which ruined the game because it made it harder and more distracting.

Today's activity was called role model bingo because were looking at role models and observing the qualities of a role model in other people.

Happy birthday Mr Wilkinson

We welcomed Mr Wilkinson into the hub today, to present him with cards and a book about why we think he's the greatest!!!

Kiwican - Integrity

We have been learning about integrity.

 "Making good choices is up to me, it shows I have integrity"

Five Finger Fling

Everyone is playing with one hand. You're not allowed to talk, or change your hand, because we need to use integrity.

Our kiwican leaders call a number eg 7... everyone has to put their fingers out and it has to try and be the number. We had to think really hard about the number of people in our group because more people meant less fingers were needed. 

We played a fun game to practice making rescissions, called "would you rather". When given the question, you had to vote with your feet... then someone would be chosen to share why they chose what they did.

Some example are:

- live in the ocean or in space.

- eat at only McDonalds for a year, or KFC for a year.

- have 4 feet (no hands) or 4 hands (no feet)

- have to go to school 4 days a week for 8 hours or 5 days at normal time.

Author James Russell visits

James Russell came in to visit us to talk about his books. 

His main characters are Flynn & Paddy, which happen to be the names of his sons. 

He told us a great story involving frozen crumpets and a hunting knife 🙄. Followed by a story of him putting his leg through a deck.

When he writes a novel, his brain works really fast, but with his hand bandaged up... his one hand typing couldn't keep up with his brain. 

He explained what derrière meant by waving it about. 

He doesn't have a dog named Coco... or a dragon!

He has lots of really good ideas in the shower! 

The Dragon Defenders Series is set 3 years after the picture books.

He shoes us how you can use an app with the books, to show augmented reality.

He introduced us to the Pit Bull, the bad guy in the book... through the augmented reality app. The bone he crushed was a leg of lamb, which didn't make much noise... so he had to get the real Flynn to snap a stalk of celery next to the camera! 

Integrity

Kiwican says making good choices is up to me, it shows I have integrity.

Integrity is our term focus

In our first game, we were in 3 teams. We had a card. We had 5 coloured cards... we were only allowed to move one card at a time. We had to use integrity, by not cheating (telling our team members; peeking etc) only  one colour at a time.

Mastermind

We are learning about making good choices. Some of the good choices we can make are listening to instructions; not talking in class etc.  We talked about why we make poor choices. Risk v reward.

For our second activity, we sat in a circle with a piece of paper. When Owen rolls a dice you write down the numbers. You can choose to sit down and bank the numbers you have. If Owen rolls a 6, and you're still standing, you lose all the numbers you have. It's like greedy pig. 

Risk v Reward

KiwiCan Reward

We won the term points! Today we got to celebrate with action packed fun and games.

We played some classics...

The Chocolate Game

The Chocolate Game

Musical Chairs

Grandma's Green Undies

Waiata O Aotearoa

We were lucky enough to be invited by Linwood Avenue School, to their performance of Waiata O Aotearoa.

Other schools in the audience included: Linwood North,School Te Waka Onua, Omihi, Bamford, and Tai Tapu.

Performers ranged in age from 5years to 11 years old. 

Student voice:

• People were singing along to the songs.
• They were talking about the olden days so they showed us what it was like when our parents were young.
• I really liked the bird costumes. 
• They put a whole lot of thought into that whole performance.
• I enjoyed the time machine and how it put the disco lights on, was shaking and making noises.
• I liked the army and how they went out excited and then came in hurt.
• I liked how the transitions were so quick
• I liked it how they used the time machine to go to the different places.

Not your average start to morning tea

Just before morning tea, three trucks rolled onto our courts today! Thanks to Dani & Riley's Dad for hooking this up!

Azire @ Gilberthorpe School: Matariki

Azire @ Gilberthorpe School: Matariki: Here is Azire's Matariki slide. We have been learning about Matariki and what each of the nine stars mean. I thought I had a firm favourite... until reading Azire's! Now I'm struggling to pick one because she makes them all sound so fantastic!!!

KiwiCan

We recapped last week, where we talked about conflict and resolution.

This week we are talking about point of view.

"Problems don't just go away, it all depends on what we say."

For our game, we had to think about something that is unique to us. It has to be true. It might be...

I have three older brothers. 

If anyone else has it, they need to sit down too.

It was really frustrating when someone said "I have a cat" because lots of people had to sit down.

We discussed what we think a point of view is. Different people see things in different ways. One person might have the point of view that they like something... but another person might not like that same thing. We linked it back to when we talked about respecting other people's opinions. It's a lot like that. 

Kiwi Can

We recapped in last week and talked about positive relationships mean.

We played "people to people" and had to connect the body part , with a partner, that was called out... so "elbow to elbow" you touch elbows with your partner. If "people to people is called, you have to find a new partner. 

People to People

We had to use our positive Relationships skills when finding a new partner, particularly with people who we wouldn't normally work with. 

We are talking about keeping each other safe.  It links back to when we learned about listening to others.  When we were talking about what we learned about the community, we remembered about how we need to be safe roading the road, even on a zebra crossing.  

We did an activity, called Raging Rapids, where we had to work as a team to get each other from one side of the room to the other. We were given equipment that we needed to cross with/in.if we fall in, we may be eaten by a shark or crocodile.

Raging Rapids

We had to really work together and talk to each other as we went. Just like last week, we were encouraging each other as we went.

Encouragement

Kiwican says all aboard the leader ship. 

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way,"

Playing the game "Seven".

We had to count to 7, using our legs. When we said "7", we lost that leg. We kept going around the circle until everybody was "out".

We talked about what it means to encourage someone. If someone doesn't want to do something, then you can encourage them with your words to keep trying. 

We worked together as a team, on our activity, which we did last year too. We had to step on the right cones in the right order to make our way through the mine field. We had to watch the person in front of us carefully to remember where to go. 

Minefield Game

It was great to hear such positive encouragement in the comments being made around the room. The high fives were a nice touch too!

We have come such a long way in the values that we show at KiwiCan. Today, we were being there by paying attention, encouraging each other and making the most of every opportunity. It paid off... we earned full points (20/20) plus a bonus point from Owen! No-one has ever had a bonus point before.

Life skills

We were lucky enough to have Nigel revisit us and teach us some more life skills. 

We were practicing self control, remembering that we can't control what other people do but we can control what we do and how we react to it. 

Kyle loves MMA

Kyle has been patiently waiting for the last few days to share this story with us. Stuff came to his MMA class and filmed it the other week. 

Every one was really excited to watch the short video clip about it and see what happens there. He's only been doing it a few short weeks but really enjoys it!

Check out the article here.