Hooray for Miss Scott!!!

Last year Miss Scott and her partner, Brendon, set off over to England for their 'Overseas Experience.

When they heard about February's earthquake, they organised a fundraising relay style run from London to Christchurch (Dorset)...which is about 100 miles!!! Whoa!!! The run was held yesterday. We can't wait for Miss Scott to tell us how the run went.

We think Miss Scott, Brendon and their friends are ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

Click on the picture to read an article about the run.

Baa Baa Smart Sheep

2011 NZ Post Book Awards

Every year we look forward to reading the finalists in the NZ Post Book Awards. We are lucky to have a teacher (Mrs Pringle) who has purchased all of these finalists for our school library. Click on the above link to see who the finalists are!

The other day we read Baa Baa Black Sheep...and we rolled all over the mat with laughter! To cut a long story short...it is all about a very smart sheep who tricks the turkey into eating a pile of poos!!! Ew!!! We loved it!

Sadie's 6th Birthday!

Happy Birthday Sadie! We hope you had a fabulous day yesterday. We were all thinking of you.

Sadie and her family have been in Auckland since the February 22 earthquake, so we miss her a lot! Last week we all wrote letters to her, and she should have received them on her birthday.

We hope you liked our letters, Sadie. We can't wait to see you when you come back soon!

Houdini the snail!

So today one of our snails earned his name, Houdini.

Room 10 boasts a super duper fish tank. You can see it above. We have 5 Minnow fish, 1 orange fantail fish (Brocky), 1 white fantail fish (Alby), 1 giant apple snail (Cecil), 3 baby apple snails, and 2 black mystery snails.

Yesterday, when I (Miss O'Neill) got to school, I glanced inside the fish tank and performed the obligatory quick head count, I discovered that one of the black mystery snails was missing! What a mystery (excuse the pun!)! I found the snail lying on top of the air pump (which sits down behind the fish tank). The snail was rather dry and I immediately thought the worst. Something in me, however, decided to put him into a jar of water and "wait and see".

After school I looked at the jar and was amazed to see the snail busy slithering along the side of the jar - awesome! Back into the fish tank he went. I thought that would be the end of the story...

This morning, I arrived at school and, again, I checked the fish tank. One black mystery snail AWOL again! He was not lying on the air pump, not crawling up the whiteboard, not slitering down the table leg, not lying on the ground....hmmm! After quite a bit of hunting...I finally found him! He was lying in the rubbish bin (which sits underneath the fish tank table) and again...I thought the worst. However, I put him back into the jar of water and put it on my desk.

Later in the day Room 10 and I checked the snail and it was alive. So back into the fish tank he went. Yay! We have decided to call him Houdini - named after the famous Harry Houdini the escape artist.

Something needed to be done though. I can't be hunting for a snail each time I come to school. Our fish tank has a glass cover on top, but along the back there is a gap due to our water filter. After chatting to one of school cleaners, Keith, it was decided to celotape a plastic ruler over the top of the gap. Brilliant! The ruler fits perfectly...and hopefully there will be no more escapes from Houdini!

Welcome to Jaxson and Jesse

Yesterday Jaxson and Jesse had their first day at Wairakei School. Before the earthquake they were attending Freeville School. While Freeville School has been badly damaged by the earthquake, Jaxson and Jesse were in the process of moving schools anyway, as they had moved house. We are pleased they chose Wairakei School!

Here is a photo of Jaxson and Jesse. Can you tell who is who? Here is a clue...Jaxson has a wee scar by his eye.
Last week we finished our bugs. We mixed primary colours together to make new colours. We used our creations and turned them into bugs by adding legs and eyes. Don't they look fantastic? They are on display outside Mr Buckner's office...hopefully they don't scare him!

Welcome to Mrs Rodricks

A big welcome to Mrs Rodricks. Mrs Rodricks is a student teacher who will be working in Room 10 for the next 5 weeks. We hope she has a fantastic time in Room 10. Here she is helping some children issue some library books.

We love going to the library and after our break away from school it was great to get back to the library. Here are Emilia, Amelia, Sophie, Madeline, Luke, Shakaia (front) and Joshua (front) enjoying reading on the bean bags.
Robert, Joseph, Daniel, Julie and Rosie were fascinated by the non-fiction section of the library.Robert thinks it will take a thousand years to read this book!

On a more serious note, we are very saddened by the news of a tragic and devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We were very scared in our own earthquake 3 weeks ago, and are thinking about everyone in Japan. A lot of caring families have been asking about Julie family in Japan. I spoke Julie's mum this morning as she was dropping julie to school and all of their family are safe - thank goodness!

Room 3 Point View School

Earlier I put a link to a fabulous classroom in the North Island who have been following us since the earthquake. Oops! It was the wrong link. Here is the new link to their awesome blog.

A wee while ago these Year 1 students asked us some questions. Here are our answers:

Dear Sienna,

My school is okay and I love being back at school.

From Phoebe.

Dear Rohan,

My Mum had to come into school the other day to get my bag. It was lucky because I had some books at home to read. My reading folder was still at school.

From Joshua.

Dear Krishant,

I wasn’t scared in the earthquake, but I was wondering if it was the end of the world. Yesterday we had lunch with our buddy class outside. Part of the fence fell down right beside us…but I thought it was funny!

From Madeline.

Dear Jack,

Thank you for writing. I think it is really cool that you had a Red and Black Day for us.

From Daniel.

Dear Kevin,

I was only a little bit scared in the earthquake. I am very brave.

From Cody

Dear Aryaan,

I did not see the tv because I was playing with Sophie while the adults were watching tv.

From Christian.

Dear Joshua and Gina,

I cried when I saw the buildings fall down too. My house is ok, but my cousin Shannon’s house is broken. He is staying with my family.

From Amelia.

Dear Orlando

We did not get any mud in our house, like lots of other people did. Our power went out for a little bit. My family and I went to Timaru to stay, to get away from the earthquakes.

From Robert.

Dear Jacey,

My car is okay. I have seen some cracks in the road by my place, but we can still drive over them. You must feel lucky to live in Auckland.

From Sophie.

Dear Bradie and Ashira,

I wasn’t too scared, but just a tiny bit scared. I was at school and it was lunchtime. My nana had to come and get me. We went to her place.

From Alura.

Point View School held their own Red and Black Day. They raised $3,333! How cool is that?

Back at school!

It was a fabulous day back at school today. 21 out of 23 students returned with big smiles. We hope Sadie and Te Aroha will join us tomorrow?

At writing time today we wrote about our earthquake experiences. Here are some examples.

Madeline wrote "I was eating lunch when the earthquake happened. It was really scary. I went to the field. People were crying. Everything was wrong!".














Luke wrote "When the earthquake came I was very lucky. We had water and electricity and our house didn't come down".





Caitlyn wrote "Last night we had a aftershock. 3 bricks fell off the roof. I stayed in the lounge for a wee bit and then we went to bed".














Alura wrote "I helped Nana. Her house is not safe".
















We had a super day...even with the 4.1 aftershock at lunchtime!

A big super thank you to Christian and his family. They gave everyone in Room 10 a Pinky Bar. Thank you!

Don't forget to bring your boiled water to school tomorrow.

Point View School

Wow! We have attracted a lot of interest from around New Zealand. If you look at the comment spaced on the previous post, you will notice heaps and heaps of comments from a Year 1 class at Point View School (Auckland). They have asked many questions, and tomorrow we will try to answer them all. Thanks, Room 3 Point View School.

On another note, I have been looking after Room Ten's class teddy bear, Mr Bojangles, since the earthquake. He has been busy helping me with many jobs. One of his main jobs was to boil water each day for our drinking water. He also helped dig up some liquefaction...he had big strong muscles for this job!

His favourite job was to look after my pet cat, Sook. Sook was a bit frightened since the earthquake, especially during the aftershocks. Sook needed lots of cuddles and company.
Mr Bojangles has loved staying here with me, but he tells me that he is very excited to go back to school tomorrow (he has his own drink bottle all ready too!) as he has missed everyone terribly. He can't wait to choose someone from Room 10 to go home with tomorrow!

It is official...school is back tomorrow!

Yay!

School starts at normal time of 8.50am.

All children need to bring their own named drink bottle filled with boiled water. The water at school is still not drinkable and is a lovely khaki colour. There will be a supply of boiled water to refill drink bottles during the day. We would love some parent volunteers to help with the refilling at 12.20pm...please pop along if you are able to help. There will be water stations in each area of the school. Thank you.

At lunch time our buddy class (Room 6) will be joining us for a shared lunch. Children can bring their usual lunch, or bring a plate of finger food to share. Parents are welcome to come along and join us too.

There are still school bags in our cloakroom. If you would like to have these before tomorrow, you are welcome to collect these before 3.30pm today.

See you tomorrow!

A comment from Robert.

Robert has been looking at Room 4 Halcombe School's blog. Here is a comment written by Robert and his Mum. Click here. Well done, Robert! I'm glad you are enjoying school down in Timaru.

I hope to see you at Wairakei School on Wednesday! I'm sure you will have lots of stories to share.

Re-opening the school

Yay! Engineers have thoroughly checked out the school and it is structurally safe and sound to re-open. Here is the process of re-opening:

1. Monday - school is open for staff only. Between 10am and 2pm parents may come and collect school bags and lunchboxes etc. Please note - NO CHILDREN are allowed on the school grounds. This is because the school has only been given the ok for adults only at this stage.

2. Tuesday - builders will be onsite to repair the damage. Some staff will be onsite. NO CHILDREN to be onsite.

If the Civil Defence clears the school ready to re-open at this stage then on:
3. Wednesday - school open for children. School starts at normal time of 8.50am. From 8.45am parents are invited to meet for a coffee in the community lounge (by office) for a cuppa...and I'm sure there WILL be some yummy food too.

All children MUST come to school with their own named bottle of boiled water. All water in Christchurch is still to be boiled for atleast 3 minutes (the council has put chlorine into our water, but this is not enough to clean the water for all of Christchurch).

I can't wait for school to start...just need a good nights sleep first - yeah right! Hopefully, I will see you all on Wednesday!

Red and Black Day

Apparently it is Red and Black day today. This is where people all around the country are wearing red and black to school, work, or just around home, to lend their support to Christchurch. Some schools around New Zealand are also holding cake stalls, coin trails, and the like, to raise funds.

How amazing is New Zealand?

Here is a gorgeous photo of my cousin, Paula's two girls (Alex and Olivia). Alex (on right) started school earlier this year in Wellington, and her school is holding a red and black day today. Of course, Olivia (my god-daughter who is 3 years) had to dress up too. Well done, girls!

N.B. Alex's school (I'm not sure which school) is having a their school gala soon, and they have decided to donate 75% of their profit to a Christchurch school in need. Last year, their gala raised $59,000!!! This is amazaingly generous!

Room 4 Halcombe School

Room 4 Halcombe School

Wow! A positive from last weeks earthquake has been Room 4 Halcombe School, Manawatu. They are a Year 4/5 classroom who heard about the earthquake and found our blog. Room 4 have been reading our blog over the last few days and have even left messages (in the comment boxes)....how cool is that!

Thank you Room 4 Halcombe School - we really look forward to further communication with you once school starts back.

If anyone wants to look at Room 4's classroom blog, just click on the above link.

Here's a challenge for Room 10 students - find out where in New Zealand is Manawatu?