MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Hi again, and farewell!

The last three weeks were very busy and on Friday we farewelled the Year Sixes as they head off on their holidays before beginning their new schools next year.

It was really nice to have parents and staff here for a shared lunch, followed by some words of advice from Mr Richards (the BOT), Mrs Pask (Bible in Schools) and Mr McKenzie (Principal).

Mrs Coyle handed out everyone's current and previous Achievement Reporting Books - quite a pile for those who have been at Edendale School since they were five!

Friday followed a very successful week of concert practices and performances.  We had a matinee on Wednesday afternoon and held our prize-giving concert on Thursday night.

Congratulations to Anton for being selected as the top Year Six student for 2011, being awarded the Jubilee Trophy and Honours Board prize; the full list of prizes is available here on our wikispace achievements page.

Thursday was the last day for the Year One-Five pupils, with the Year Sixes returning on Friday morning to help with final tidy-ups and to have the special lunch.  Thanks to the Home and School for helping with the lunch.

Our Pupil Power elections were held on the Tuesday, with pupils from Rooms Tui and Kereru and Kokako all voting at our special election booth in Room Kokako.


Maria issuing the ballot paper to Kieran.





Voters in action




Keryn issuing a ballot paper to Thea.



The official counting team

Results for the Edendale Electorate were as follows:
PARTY VOTES                                   CANDIDATE VOTES
Smurf Party 10                                        Daniel Hart  10
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 11                  Gabrielle Knapp  10
B.A. Team 25                                        Thomas McKenzie  30
Deadnuts 10                                            Keryn Casserly   5
DIYG  12                                                Mckenzie Smith  14
NZ Kiwis  7                                             Madi Fleming  5

So, as you can see, Thomas and the BA Team were very successful and we wish them all the best for their term in the Pupil Power Government!

Exciting news this week - we have all been waiting for Henny Penny's eggs to hatch and yesterday three chicks appeared - they are now all off to the post-natal maternity centre at the Milne farmlet where they can receive some safe chick-care! Well done Henny Penny and Steve the rooster!



Three fluffy black chicks - one day old!

The final Student Council event for the year was the disco - held on 2nd December with $91.05 funds raised going to our sponsor child Grace in Tanzania.  The Student Council also collected cans of food for the Salvation Army - check out the donations shown here! Thanks everyone!

We were thrilled to be able to perform our Kiwi Night Before Christmas recital at the school concerts - here is our dress rehearsal - enjoy!



And finally, we spent time this past two weeks with more art from around the world - Asian batik and Polish wycinanki (pronounced vy-shee-nan-ki) (paper cutting) - check out our tree of life papercutting designs:



So, to end, farewell to the Year Sixes, and happy holidays to all the Kokako pupils - enjoy your holidays and have a safe and Merry Christmas! See you all again in 2012!

Term 4 Week 6

Friday again and we are looking forward to the weekend!

Thank you to all the parents who were able to call in this week to review our goals with us - we have all improved immensely with many of us achieving our goals and others getting very very close!  It was great to be able to show you the evidence of our progress and to share with you other work that we have been doing and we hope you all enjoyed seeing our work.

We have taken our Achievement Reporting Books home for a closer look and will bring these back by next Friday.

This week the pupils will reflect on something we are proud of having achieved this year in Room Six Kokako...

Term 4 Week 5

Well well well! One month until Christmas - who would believe it has come around again so quickly! The year has been busy and we are all ready for a big summer holiday!
 

This week we have been flat out with finishing off our inquiry presentations - we have created posters explaining some similarities and differences between life in NZ and another country; we are now each making a shoebox diorama model to show one aspect of life in that other country and these look really effective! We have ‘travelled’ to all manner of countries including Italy, Spain, England, Tonga, Mexico, Mozambique and more!  We have learnt about clothing, food, sports, houses and celebrations.

Mrs Shepherd was with us for a couple of days this week and we ‘travelled’ to Australia to check out Aboriginal art and create some Dreamtime snakes and artwork – next week we hope to travel to Asia to do some batik and also to Poland to do some paper-cutting.

We will be busy also with practising for our super-fun item for the concert – we know you will all be highly entertained!


We are all excited about having our parents come in next week to review our goals with us and to see the progress we have been making.  It will be nice to show off the work we are proud of!


This week we will reflect on something we have learnt about the country we were researching...

Term 4 Week 4

Science experiment - making a candle burn in water! (?)

Today is Mr Pirie's last day with us and we wish to thank him for his input to our class and within the school over the past three weeks as he carried out his first year teacher trainee posting.  We have enjoyed his musical talents, artistic talents and his sense of humour and his natural style of teaching.  Pupils will comment about what they have enjoyed with Mr Pirie.

Term 4 Week 3

Hi again! Five days in the classroom this week and busy as usual!

Yesterday we had the privelege of going to Gore for the Fonterra Science Roadshow - we learnt about changing the properties of matter, the five senses and other scientific concepts to do with communication, movement and forces, light and sound.

There were many interactive displays as always and Hannah and Mckenzie also had the fun of helping during the two demonstrations - videos will be added soon!

This week the pupils will write a reflection comment about what they enjoyed at the Roadshow and what they would like to know more about...

Term 4 Week 2 - Pet Day

Excitement today as the Lower Mataura Valley Pet Day was held - attended by pupils from Edendale, Wyndham and Glenham.


The Wyndham Showgrounds were busy, with lambs, dogs, ponies, goats, calves, cats, birds and rabbits on show.

 The sheds were full of fruit and vegetable creations (some very clever designs!), beautiful floral arrangements, models, inventions...
...and lots of delicious-looking baking (thanks to Hannah who treated the staff with her chocolate cake afterwards - yummo!)

 
 Everyone from Edendale School who entered should be very proud of their efforts - well done to you all!

Thankfully the weather was mostly on our side and we got the day out of the way before the southerly squall turned up - the Tour of Southland cyclists will be pleased about that too, as they made their way through Wyndham just before lunchtime.


Thanks to all parents and staff and community volunteers who helped make Pet Day such a good experience for the pupils!



Mr Pirie helping Mrs Wallis with judging

 This week we welcomed Mr Graeme Pirie to our classroom for the next three weeks as he carries out his teacher-training posting for the University of Otago.  Mr Pirie is great to have with us as an extra pair of hands and we are looking forward to having him teach us for different lessons over the next two weeks.  We hope you enjoy your time with us Mr Pirie.

This week we have been writing and publishing our instructions on how to be a...(certain character) - these are very funny to read so look out for them on our pupil blogs!

For maths we are back in our numeracy groups and looking at multiplication/division. Our art for the next couple of sessions will be based on creating our own version of batik on cloth!

Term 4 Week 1 - the countdown is on!

Welcome back everyone!  We were all excited to be back on Tuesday - it was awesome to have Labour Day off school to be able to celebrate the All Blacks' fantastic win of the the RUGBY WORLD CUP!!  Well done guys, we are all very proud of you and think you all did a super job and are awesome Kiwi blokes!

We have all come back feeling refreshed from our holiday and ready for the last eight weeks of school - the last eight weeks at Edendale School for our 16 Year Sixes!  It will be sad to farewell our classmates as they leave for college and we look forward to enjoying their last term with us together.

So, what has been happening?

Our Pet Day pictures are ready to go - the theme is machinery and we worked them with pastels.
We have been completing some publishing of our responses to the Bear Grylls' recount that we read last term and preparing to write instructions on how to be a...(All Black, mother, shopkeeper, Santa Claus, kiwi kid, father, teacher, farmer, or Silver Fern).
We have begun swimming - Wed and Fri afternoons.