Tuesday, November 3, 2020

 Athletics Term 4 2020 

All the students in Te Kinga did extremely well in the recent competition. Blake, Mackenzie, Tara, Tui, Elsie, Jimi and Anika all made it through to represent our district in the Westland event happening soon. We are so proud of them all! Here are some photos from lunch time - as you can see the sun was shining and we were all having a great time! 






Highlights from Term 3

Rotary Speech Competition 

Cameron and Eden represented Lake Brunner School in this local competition. Cameron spoke extremely well about the negative aspects of War and Eden made her view point very clear about 'Banning the Bobby Truck'. They both enjoyed the experience and the delicious dinner beforehand! 


Pet Day

Te Kinga organised a very special Pet Day for the rest of the school. This included Pet Rock painting, pet theme cupcake making, and looking at little creatures found in the backyard that may make great pets...




Maths and Science Studies

Year 5 and 6 Te Kinga students explored units of measurement (in the kitchen) and were able to find out the answers to 'I wonder' questions by testing theories. The best part of course, was getting to sample the final outcome! 



Thursday, July 30, 2020

Rugby Skills in Te Kinga

Term 3 Sports Rugby Skills in Te Kinga 

We have started the term with a burst of learning in, through and about our national game. 

Te Kinga students will take part in their own Rippa Tournament in the next few weeks. While they train for this event, they are continuing the PALs programme by teaching rugby skills to the rest of the school - check out the fun times below...







Learning Highlights from Term 2

Students in Te Kinga become Teachers...

At the end of Term 2, Te Kinga students ceased the opportunity to share their learning (based on our Home Studies/Lockdown topics) with their peers by preparing a lesson for the class to take part in. 

All of the lessons were researched and planned extremely well and perhaps the best part - everyone throughly enjoyed teaching and taking part in the lessons. Here are a collection of photos taken over the duration of the lesson schedule...


Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Back at school in Term 2...


Te Kinga have been back at school now for 2 weeks! We have been continuing with our online programmes for topic and reading, as we decided we were really enjoying this type of learning over the lockdown. We have also been trying out whole class is problem solving activities in Maths. The idea is to figure out what the story is (for problems with words) and also what Maths we need to do to solve the problem. Last week we tackled counting triangles and squares - it might seem simple but Te Kinga students had to use a variety of counting strategies to find out the correct answer...

Some used tally marks
Some used a system
Some used colour
In the end we found the solution and then made our own triangle counting puzzles for others to solve - you should try this at home! 


Last week we made a special slide to celebrate the new Predator Free Moana 2050 plan. A few students even went with Shirley to meet the minister! Here is our slide with all the information we gathered and what we have done towards becoming predator free so far...


Thursday, April 30, 2020

Online for the Lockdown - Highlights for Te Kinga Students

Over the past month, students in Te Kinga have been adjusting to life and learning in the lockdown. When Term 2 started again, so did we - via Google Meet and by using online tools, and sites to help us continue with our studies. Everyone in  Te Kinga can be proud of the time and effort they have put into their learning throughout these unusual times - here are some highlights from home...


An interesting first day of Lockdown for Cameron and Kaelyn!







Blake's reflection about Lockdown...



My Favourite time in Lockdown - by Tara


My favourite time in lockdown was probably the day we took our dog Shadow,  for a big run. He was very excited and energetic and was able to keep up with our bikes easily. Since we are now in lockdown we don’t  go to the bush track anymore, we just bike from home to the new garage where we sometimes get supplies like flour of butter when we need it. So we biked down the big hill from our house, down the verge of the main road to the lake where we let shadow have a swim before going up to the shop. After we had our supplies we biked down the road again through corners and back up our annoyingly steep hill to home where it was now starting to rain.


Many of our students got into the spirit of ANZAC by making poppies creating special displays and models, writing ANZAC poems and making ANZAC biscuits!


Elsie and Jimi's poppy and flag display.


Mackenzie with the poppy she made to display in the window.

 

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO

 ANIKA'S AMAZING ANZAC BISCUIT SLIDE!


Follow this link to 

Toby's Terrific Poppy Slide




Gunshots ringing
A dead body in the corner
Light the fuse! “kaboom!”
Large rats as big as cats
Itchy lice, ticks and flies
People dying of misery
Only stew and corned beef 
Little to no good food
IF You survive, you're a hero
Acrostic Poem by Tui

Remember Gallipoli by Blake

Remember the days of bombing

That was Gallipoli.

Remember the big gun we held

That was Gallipoli.

Remember the dust in the trench

That was Gallipoli.

Remember the gunshots firing at us

That was Gallipoli.

Remember the mud in the trench

That was Gallipoli.

Remember the fear 


That was Gallipoli.


Gunshots
Army soldiers 
Loading guns
Laughing at the other team
Ink for the letters
Poison bombs
Oil of the machines 
Lying in the trenches
Injuries 
Acrostic Poem by Kyle



This is Cameron's diorama of the WW1 battle at Gallipoli - WOW!














Thursday, March 26, 2020

Family Quiz Time

I've been doing these for some time and now I see there is a Kids Quiz - so here is the link if you're interested...Stuff Quiz

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Twisted Recounts

Twisted Recounts 

After returning from camp we wrote a recount about the event. The next writing challenge was to turn our recounts into narratives (with a suspense/horror theme). 
Our focus for this piece of writing was to draw the reader in, and to help them to see our words unfold in pictures in their minds. To check if our stories made sense and 'flowed' for the reader we acted them out! 
Here are the beginnings of some of our stories - most of Te Kinga have the complete version in Google Classroom. 

Kaelyn

On the first day we had a really long boring drive, till finally we came to Bridge Valley but it was way too quiet. The activities that day were rock climbing and low ropes. Low ropes is a fun challenging activity with lots of ropes! But I noticed Que the instructor was a bit pale and had surprisingly long teeth. It must have been my imagination because he acted normal. I played Rambo which is a game where some people hide and you collect their signatures, but you have to collect Rambo's last. Glenys was Rambo, but what everyone didn't know was that they were signing something, something that they never would have dreamed of…..

Kyle
Early in Term 1, I went on a camp with my class to Bridge Valley, but I knew that this wasn't any normal camp...
The first day Te Kinga drove to Bridge Valley. The drive was mysterious and odd.... it took 4 hours to get there, because we spent an hour avoiding dead animal bodies on the road near Bridge Valley. I did low ropes first and there was a big black hole under one of the obstacles. All of the instructors for rock climbing were acting very strangely and I asked my friends if they noticed it as well and most of them said they did...

Tui
Near the start of term one, I was going on an amazing adventure to Bridge Valley Adventure Centre, well that's what I felt like at the start, so little did I know something very unexpected would happen...
Day one was a loooong day, it took four hours of driving to get there. Once we arrived, I got settled into my cabin, everything seemed pretty normal. First my group did low ropes and then rock climbing , rock climbing was my favourite because I liked floating to the ground, but that's when the strange things started... After I had climbed the first wall, the instructor Que opened a door on the side of the wall. I peered, cautiously inside the dark musty room. “Go inside, it's a caving unit,” said Que.
“Are there any spiders?” I asked, I was scared to hear the answer.
“Well, I don’t know about that, but if you feel anything hairy and see red eyes then don't move” he joked.
“That's reassuring,” I said sarcastically, so I proceeded to step inside. Once inside I looked around and other people were starting to come in, suddenly I realised the room was crawling with...spiders!

Sophie
One morning in February this term, my classmates and I started to show up to go for a camp at a place called Bridge Valley but after what I saw I would call it Death Valley….
Everyone was in colorful mufti clothes. We had been driving for 4 hours and finally got to the camp later on in the day. We all got out our bags and  headed to our rooms but on the way I thought I saw an instructor dragging someone into a shed by the leg. I thought it was a dummy for one of our activities so I left and carried on. Later on we went to our first activity. I checked my list… I had Rock Climbing First. I walked to the massive rock climbing station until I noticed blood on one of the climbing harness the instructor was holding. My breathing got fast and my hands started to get sweaty. The instructor started to stare at me through all my activities that day.
I couldn't stop thinking about what I saw...

Elsie
A few weeks ago my class had what we thought was going to be a great camp. It took us four long hours to get to the worst camp ever...
Once we got to Bridge Valley we unpacked our luggage in our bunk rooms. As we were unpacking the teacher suddenly called us to come outside so we all ran outside to find out what was happening.  As we went to the teacher she just wanted us to know that we were going to have a tour around camp after we unpack. So once we unpacked our things we went outside and waited for the rest of the class. After we were all gathered round we started to walk towards a black water slide, and as the instructor was telling us how not to walk or go across the black slippery water slide I saw something moving in the water. It was very unusual I thought - was it an eel or a fish? Right after the instructor stopped talking I asked him,” Are there any eels or  fish in the water?’’
He said, “Oh no don't be silly of course not!
I wasn't sure if I should tell him that I saw something so I just moved on. 

Blake
A few weeks ago, I went to Bridge Valley Camp with my class. It took 4 hours to get there and it is a place that I will never be able to forget. We went there for a fun camp but what we got was a nightmare...
As soon as I got there I had a bad feeling. I had a look around the and I also had lunch.The next thing I did was an activity. It was the low ropes,but when we were doing them I looked into the distance,and I saw something white. I really wanted to go have a look at the mysterious white thing. It was good our activity was nearly done. I had a fun time at the low ropes but I really wanted to go and discover what it was. I had to decide if I wanted to take someone with me… but I decided not to. I went over to the white thing...I was feeling nervous. I got really close to it, I found out that it was a skull.... I saw a note written on the side of the skull,it said 'I'm coming for you' ...

Cameron
Early in term 1, I went to Bridge Valley Adventure Centre with my class for a camp, but it ended up as a traumatizing nightmare!
On the first day I left with the class from school around nine and arrived at Bridge Valley at one. After lunch I got into my team for the first activity. We were walking down to the low ropes when I noticed someone was missing...Toby. I looked everywhere for him but couldn’t find him. I told his mum but she didn’t know he was either. Then we slowly walked to the rock climbing wall. After we finished climbing we went into the caves. Blake went
first and everyone poured in behind him. I decided I would try and find Blake, but he was nowhere to be found. He went in but he never came out!









Digital Technology in Te Kinga


Learning to use Remove b.g ...

Is it Godzilla?! No, this is Mackenzie's creation using Remove bg



Is is a bird? Is it a plane? No it's SUPER-KAELYN! 


BLAKES BACKROUND REMOVER!

In the Te Kinga class we were using background remover and this is what I did.


Science in Te Kinga


Science in Te Kinga 











Over the Term 1 students in Te Kinga have been refining their powers of OBSERVATION in Science. It started with the Year 5 and 6 group looking closely at the properties of baking ingredients...


Then something terrible happened! (No teddy bears were hurt in the process of this experiment!) 

No photo description available.

So it was the job of Te Kinga students to figure out what and who was involved in the  events before 'Gingy' the library bear disappeared ...

 

...the students can tell you what was discovered!

Last week the Year 5 and 6 students made Hokey Pokey - with a scientific perspective of course! After looking at the reactions between different substances in our Gingy Bear investigation, we wanted to look further into this area. We also used Google Explore to help us find describing words for our ingredients/observations. Here is Hokey Pokey made with Baking Powder and Hokey Pokey made with Baking Soda - can you tell which is which? 


Last week we were fortunate enough to go to the Science Roadshow in Greymouth. The experiments the Science Teachers showed us were very interesting and the hands-on learning was a highlight for everyone! Before we left we had a look and these images - and asked ourselves, is this science? What do you think?

WHAT IS SCIENCE?