Ruma Toru, Wha 2018

We were able to practise our basketball skills on the court today because it wasn't raining. We practised our dribbling, bouncing, passing and catching. Miles showed us how to do chest passes. We needed to hold the ball on each side with our thumbs pointing up. When we pass the ball, our hands needed to turn so our thumbs pointed down. We try hard to catch the ball with 2 hands.

It was cold today when we got ready for the cross country. We wore our House tee-shirts to show which House we belonged to. Mr Hawkins came to get us when it was time for our race. Miss Bisset helped us to warm up. Some of us were nervous. We lined up on the start line and Miss Bisset said, "Go!" We ran as fast as we could over the wet grass, over the hay bales, all around Hokowhitu Park , down the hill and across the court, then up the hill to the finish line. Some of our whanau came to watch. We were puffed at the finish because we had tried to keep running the whole way. We were striving to do our best!

Miles came to teach us some more basketball skills. He showed us how to bounce the basketball. We could only use one hand at a time. We needed to practise swapping hands while still bouncing the basketball. We bounced the ball to a buddy. Bouncing the ball in basketball is called dribbling.

We were treated to a special visitor to our team during Science week - a real scientist! Mr Naffa treated us to some amazing science experiments with dry ice. The scientific name for this is liquid nitrogen. It freezes at -200 degrees!! Brrrr that's cold! He showed us how quickly if could turn a squishy marshmallow into a solid  marshmallow. (They still tasted yum!) We then went outside and Mr Naffa made elephant toothpaste. It made us all go oooh and aaah

We had fun on Wednesday afternoon making volcanoes!! Our mission was to make a volcano with a tray, a trowel, vinegar, baking soda and water/dye. Our special visitor to help us was Mr Pouniu and Jacob! We first watched a video about the volcano in Hawaii! Click on the slide below to see what we got up too. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1loMlvqudYPbN2v-NFq9qzkDjWvEzl1EkktjyVUwO9q8/edit?ts=5afb9be0#slide=id.p

We were lucky enough to have Sarah and Rowena from DOC and Horizons Education come to school and share with us their love of bugs. They told us that bugs are very important to the environment. We then went on a bug hunt!. We collected leaf litter in a tray and then carefully looked under the leaves to find and identify bugs. We also found a BIG spider!!!! We had lots of fun looking for bugs!

Today Miles came to teach us basketball skills. We learned how to "Jump stop!" We have to jump, then stop with our feet part, knees bent and hands ready to catch a ball. We bounced a 'small furry basketball' with a buddy - we thought this was funny and told Miles we were bouncing a tennis ball!