Monday 22nd - Top Team comes to Town! 

The week began with the Top Team challenge...

Te Kinga students had a lot of fun in their house teams with the rest of the school! 

More Science...

This week we have been creating and sharing our learning with the other members of our class. Blake was interested in erosion as part of our geology studies, so we made some mountains and created 'rain' with the hose. By putting in controls to his experiment, Blake was able to show how light rain to heavy rain affects landforms. It was interesting to see that the landslide on nearby Mount Te Kinga looked very similar to the ones we created in the sandpit!

 Super Swimming & Sports Stars! 

In the past two weeks Te Kinga has taken part in the Midland Line Swimming Competition as well as the Midland Line Athletics Competition. 

All of our swimmers enjoyed the day at the Greymouth pool. Kaelyn, Zoe and Mackenzie will go through to the Westland competition in Westport this week - well done girls!

 

Although the results aren't official yet, our students tried their best, and excelled in all of the events. It was also great to have so many of our families come and support us on the day. Here's lunch time at Anzac Park for Te Kinga... 

 Digging in our ancient sea-bed...

For topic this week Te Kinga students really enjoyed being 'paleontologists'. They were able to carefully extract some interesting fossils and plant material hidden within the limestone sourced from the Te Ana Wai River bed in South Canterbury (one of Whaea Nic's favourite places!)...

The students had to wear face masks to protect their lungs from the limestone dust (luckily we had plenty on hand!). With simple tools like toothbrushes, compasses, and small nails, slowly the limestone revealed the fossilised sea creatures such as tube worms, bivalves and scaphopods that were buried thousands of years ago within the sediment at the bottom of the ocean. WOW! 

Bus Monitor Training

Our bus monitors; Sophie, Blake, Leo, Jacqueline, Krystal and Solomon had some special safety  training from the police this week. We are always proud of our students who want to help others and serve the community!  

 Exploring Rocks...

Last week Te Kinga spent some time closely examining and making observations about a range of rocks. The rocks came in all shapes, sizes, colours and textures - we recorded our observations using Google JAM. By using information from a video, we then discovered that there are three main types of rock; igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. The next challenge was to group the rocks into rock types. We got there in the end! 

Time for a tidy up in the school gardens...

Blake, Solomon and Flynn lead the gardening team last week and everyone did a superb job of preparing the gardens for Autumn planting...

 

2021 - HERE WE COME!

Te Kinga students have had a great start to the year despite having two changes in lockdown levels already! 

This was our day one challenge - turn the tarp over with everyone remaining on it (in level one of course) ...

We worked it out in the end! 

We have also been doing some 'team art' - with our amazing Rita Angus inspired mural of Te Kinga... 

...not quite finished yet but nearly there! 

Geology is our topic study for Term 1 - We learnt a little about earthquakes and liquefaction last week - this week we are looking at rock types - can you identify these rocks?