We are back!

Yesterday we returned to school after Monday's aftershocks.

It was terrific to see nearly a full class!

Cody spend his day off on Tuesday baking...he brought some iced biscuits to school for us - what a treat! Thanks, Cody! They were yummy!

Lots of turtles!

Today we had a lot of turtles at school!

Once again we were bombarded with earthquakes. At lunch time a 5.5 quake struck, and like the amazing children they are, Room 10 immediately got into turtle position, then congregated on the field once the shaking stopped.

Parents came immediately to check on their children, and were allowed to take them home if desired. We were left with 9 children for the afternoon. So we thoguht we would play some maths games.

During our game of fraction bingo a 6.0 quake struck, and we had to form the turtle position again, then move outside once the shaking had stopped. School was officially closed for the day.

Room 10 - you were very brave! I know you were very scared, but I thought you were ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

School is closed tomorrow (Tuesday 14th June) while the buildings are assessed. A wee reminder that we are supposed to be boiling our water again (that is if you have water and power!). When school re-opens, please bring bottled water to drink (in case we have not got clean drinking water).

Kia kaha, take care, and look after yourselves.

Maths games

On Friday it poured with rain, which meant no sport skills. Instead, we thought it would be a great way to finish the week with some maths games. We chose a partner and played maths games around the classroom. We had 4 minutes at each game...loads of fun!

The best part was that we learned how to play our new games. Watch our video and see if you know any of our maths games!

Rebuild Christchurch

Rosie and her family found this video about rebuilding Christchurch. Rosie thought her classmates might enjoy it. Thanks Rosie!

Lots of news!!!

It has been a very long time since a post was added to our classroom blog, and so much has happened!

First of all, we must introduce Miss Keeling. Miss Keeling is a Graduate School of NZ Education intern and is working in Room 10 for 7 weeks (she only has 4 weeks left!). We think Miss Keeling is pretty amazing and ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! A big welcome to you, Miss Keeling.

A couple of weeks ago we had another Discovery Time and it was fun!!! One of the activities was the GIANT BUILDING BLOCKS. The children had heaps of fun building all sorts of creations.

Today we had a class reward, as we had earned 20 silver pieces of treasure. So we decided to combine the reward with our blend of the week (SH)....to make sherbet!!! Yum! Yum! We had a paper bag and into this bag we had to put 1T icing sugar, 1/8t baking soda, and 1/8 t citric acid. We were allowed to taste the different ingredients...one was sweet, one was fizzy, and one tasted like orange. It was a great activity to help each other with too.
After school, Cody and his Mum were a little distracted...looked what happened to Cody's sherbet! It went all over his little sister, Ella...oops!

Over the last week we have been busy writing thank you letters to our friends at Halcombe School. Today, just before school ended, we wandered over to the post box, so that we could post our very own letters. A big thank you to Gavin (Robert's dad), Georgina (Joseph's mum) and Reana (Phoebe's mum) for walking with us across the busy road.

Room 4 Halcombe School's surprise!!!

This afternoon we had a parcel delivered to our classroom. How exciting! It was a big box addressed to Room 10, Wairakei School.

When we opened the parcel, we discovered that Room 4 from Halcombe School have been very. very busy. They wanted to make us something to make us smile after experiencing the awful earthquake in February, and the ever-following aftershocks.

The children in Room 4, Halcombe School have designed and made each child in our classroom their very own t-shirt! We think that is very cool! We loved trying them on at school today.

As luck would have it, Room 10 is hosting the school assembly tomorrow, so we will wear our fabulous new t-shirts!

Thank you, Room 4. We have made a video for you.


For art this term we are learning how to sculpt using clay. We are learning the basics first with playdough. Have a look at our video.

Our Cultural Video

We have been learning about differences within our classroom. We discovered that many of us were not even born in Christchurch. We decided to learn where in the world we all came from, so we all brought something about our culture to share with our classmates.

Here is our video.