Year 5/6 Mannequin Challenge

Rangiwhakaoma

What a day we had yesterday exploring Rangiwhakaoma / Castlepoint.

Ranginui must have been in a very tearful mood because the precipitation (rain) didn't want to clear as forecast. But did that stop us resilient Gladstone lot? No way.

Perhaps the moving water aquatics programme didn't happen as we envisaged:

The tears of Ranginui and the mists of Papatūānuku hampering our swimming efforts

Pool noodle fun

Hannah rescuing Eve from the 'depths' with a pool noodle

The rain won't stop us enjoying the water!

Hey but that didn't bother us. Sandy, wet and maybe a bit cold, we met back at The Bunkhouse where we whipped on our clean, warm clothes, filled our bellies and took the next adventure on.

Joe Potangaroa, Rangitane iwi and former Gladstone rugby player, met us for an afternoon connecting our Take Action for Water programme with the land and water features of Rangiwhakaoma. He was very impressed with the students learning and mentioned he didn't have anything to teach them about sustainable water practices that they didn't already know. Ka rawe tamaraiki ma!

We embarked on a fun 'Scavenger Hunt' around the beach which connected us to our learning and the Māori atua in a real way.

Investigating the stream. What could we find living in there?

Especially when the bridge over the stream has this sign on it!

Investigating stormwater drains on the beach

Japhy looking out to sea from the bank

Always a beautiful view at Rangiwhakaoma

Stormwater management at the beach. This is where the water washing off our roads, driveways and and gutters ends up.

Angus and his snail friend

This little fella was a good sign. An elver living in the stream.

An Inquiry into The Bank

We've started to look at the banks of our school creek to work out if there's something we can do to help the school take care of it.

This was our first step: sitting on sections of the bank and mapping what we could find in that plot. Then we 'wondered' about some things we'd noticed.

Wattie's Cans for Good

South Wairarapa Athletics

Sandwiched between rainy days and shaky isles was the fabulous South Wairarapa Inter-Schools Athletics Day. Congratulations to all of our wonderful Gladstone School kids who did their best competing for the Carterton Country Cluster. Also thank you to the fantastic parent supervisors who supported the kids on the day.

Leeroi

Cheering on the long distance runners

Phoebe

Charlotte

Foster

Hamish taking on the 1000m

Natasha

Oceana

Conall

Keeping an eye on the action

Bouncy Billy

Aerial Anika

Nifty Natasha

Hasty Harry

Wattie's Cans for Good

Don't forget to bring in a (full) can or two to donate to The Salvation Army foodbank, this week. We're looking forward to supporting New Zealanders who are struggling this festive season.

Chess Tournament

On Friday a handful of Year 5 and 6 students competed in a friendly Chess Tournament at Carterton School. They had a great day and came back to school buzzing about the experience.

Abi and Ruby concentrating hard

Angus and Summer - which move next?

Tommy vs Hugo. The battle at the end.

Congratulations to the following students for their placings:
Plate A winner - Conall 
Plate B winner - Abi
Round Robin runner-up - Ruby

Aquatic insects and invetebrates

Mrs Rutene found this mayfly nymph in the Tauwharenikau river last weekend.

Its presence suggests this river is in a healthy condition. What can you find in your waterways?

World Record Holders

Wow!! What an incredible experience to be part of. Thank you to all of the parents who came and supported us yesterday - we did it!!

We've made history and should all feel proud of that. We also showed so many of the school values yesterday like Perseverance, Resilience, Respect...the list goes on.

Massive thanks to M.I.S for the great visionary idea, REAP for supporting and organising it, and to Tranzit for donating tens of thousands of dollars worth of bus travel for free!

Finally, thanks to Eileen McWilliam for this great video:

Greats and Grands

What a fantastic day with our Greats and Grands!

What does a 'catchment' look like?

Sometimes it's really hard to visualise a concept. We got a bit stuck when it came to making a picture in our minds of catchments and boundaries. We were lucky to borrow this amazing fibreglass water catchment table so we could make it rain and be able to see what the idea was.

Making it rain on the mountains

What happens to the water when it rains on the mountains (boundaries)?

Water Cycle Bags

Who can tell us what is happening in our Water Cycle bags?

The Water Cycle

We are being inspired in our learning this week and we've kicked straight off into a science based Inquiry Learning unit about WATER.

Today we have been learning about the water cycle.

We looked at the water cycle in a catchment and found out about big words like evaporation, condensation, precipitation and transpiration.

Here is some of the vocabulary we need to know to help us with our learning.

Then we made our own 'water cycles' in bags and hung them on the classroom windows to get the engine (the sun) to start the process of the cycle.

Tuakana Teina Reading

Today we did some Tuakana-Teina (big kid-little kid) reading. We took our Red Riding Hood character descriptions along to the students in Room 1 and 2 and shared them.