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?

 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! 

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...

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...

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!