SKi Racing
On Wednesday 20 September our team competed at Rainbow Skifield.
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Theatre Sports
The Senior children have been learning the skills and challenges of theatre sports over the last term.
To help us and to demonstrate some new activities, the Waimea College team came out to Lake Rotoiti School. A huge thank you to Frank, Lucy, Pete and Stuart as well as Nick Sharpe for bringing the team to us.
To help us and to demonstrate some new activities, the Waimea College team came out to Lake Rotoiti School. A huge thank you to Frank, Lucy, Pete and Stuart as well as Nick Sharpe for bringing the team to us.
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wet days
Rainy days often come in groups and the children can feel confined when it has been raining for most of the week. The juniors like to break out hands-on opportunities for play and our large classroom is perfect for accommodating these activities. This week has been a little wet and so the juniors have been playing with the trainset.
maths and the junior class
Visitors to our school are often curious about how children of different ages and abilities learn in one class. The answer is differentiation and independence. Children work on different activities in collaborative groups, although these activities are linked. In maths we are studying fractions and the maths work has been differentiated to suit the learning needs of the students.
school skiing
Our first week at the skifield was very successful. The children have all found their ski legs and got off to a flying start with their lessons. We all had a wonderful day in the sun and the snow. A little more snow would allow our advanced skiers more scope and so we are keeping our fingers crossed.
snow is coming!
It's exciting to see that we have some snow on the tops at last. All the children are looking forward to next term's skiing programme and for that, we need some snow at the Rainbow skifield!
Cross country running at rabbit island
We were pleased to be able to take some runners down to Rabbit Island to take part in the inter-schools cross country running event. The children did really well taking part in this busy, hectic event and hopefully they will be sputrred on to train harder to up their times for next year! Well done for doing such a good job of representing our school and a big thank you to Karen, our sports co-ordinator, for putting so much time into organising our runners!
Matariki
We all got together last night for a Matariki celebration. Whilst the evening was a little damp and drizzly, our celebration was not at all spoiled and we all enjoyed our lantern walk through the dark and drippy bush following a Matariki waiata from the juniors. The children and some adults had made glass lanterns to light the way and the children were all carrying their colourful oiled paper lanterns. After our walk, we met up at the shelter for supper. Thank you to the Department of Conservation for providing hot drinks for us.
Ngā mihi o te tau hou!
Ngā mihi o te tau hou!
Hunting for fungi with the juniors
The juniors have been taking advantage of our lovely crisp days to take a look at some of the many and varied fungi appearing in the beech forest. The sharp eyed children spotted lots of tiny orange and brown fungi, as well as some spectacular blue and purple specimens. It's lovely being to make use of our local environment - we realise how spoiled we are!
Junior room volcanoes
The junior children have been having a lovely time learning about volcanic islands. As part of their learning, they have made model volcanoes using paper maché and paint, whilst talking about different types of volcanoes and the difference between lava and magma.As well as learning about volcanoes, they have also been working collaboratively and patiently, as the finished items involved several steps and, at times, many pairs of hands.
Making Lanterns for Mātariki
We are looking forward to our Mātariki festival this year and we have started the season with a whole school lantern making day. The children have been working together to create and decorate their lantern artworks , using oil pastels and dye. We are looking forward to seeing the finished products!
senior class art gallery visit
On Monday (22nd May), we had our first visit to The Suter art gallery, Nelson, for a guided tour around the main curated exhibition, 'From Afar.' Students explored the artworks which demonstrated visual tricks and optical effects. They discovered how the elements of art can be manipulated in playful ways. We all had fun developing optical designs in response to techniques observed in the artworks on show. We especially loved sketching our observations and taking our ipads to photograph each other showing spatial illusions around the art gallery artworks!
school swimming programme
Those of you who are eagle-eyed will have noticed that we have coloured pegs on the school - the start of the new pool build! However, in the meantime, and following on from our summer swim programme, all children have been travelling to Wakefield School Pool this week for lessons. We always see such progress when children have the opportunity to have consistent high-quality lessons over the course of a week, so a huge thanks must go to our parents and teachers who have volunteered to transport children to and from Wakefield - your support is really very much appreciated!
New Zealand Sign Language
We are extremely lucky this year that we are able to offer signing lessons to children in both classes. Cathy is coming into school each week (6 lessons per term) to work with our children - a real fun session with lots of skills and lots of games.
play-based learning
At Rotoiti, we love it when the children take part in play-based learning. We have been working to incorporate elements of play-based learning in many aspects of our curriculum; discovery time; role-play in the Junior Classroom and during playtimes etc. When taking part in 'play' of this sort, amazing learning takes place - children role-play getting on with each other in different imaginary situations; they develop their oral language skills and they have opportunities to be creative! Huge thanks to Karen D. who has made this amazing sink unit for children to use in the sandpit (and to Fran for donating the kitchen sink!)
school camp - living springs
We have returned from School Camp! We spent the week of the 6th – 10th March staying at Living Springs Camp, in Christchurch, overlooking Governor’s Bay. The setting really was idyllic (our group sitting room had a balcony with the most amazing view!), the food was plentiful and delicious and the instructors were enthusiastic and engaging.
The children took part in a diverse range of activites; boulder-wall climbing; archery and air rifles; swimming to name a few, along with a number of team activities. We also took a day away from Living Springs to take part in Zoo School at Orana Park (learning about a range of native and exotic endangered species and what is being done to conserve them) and to visit the New Zealand Air Force Museum.
A huge thanks must go to our amazing parent helpers and to KEA whose fundraising for the children made the camp possible.
The children took part in a diverse range of activites; boulder-wall climbing; archery and air rifles; swimming to name a few, along with a number of team activities. We also took a day away from Living Springs to take part in Zoo School at Orana Park (learning about a range of native and exotic endangered species and what is being done to conserve them) and to visit the New Zealand Air Force Museum.
A huge thanks must go to our amazing parent helpers and to KEA whose fundraising for the children made the camp possible.