On Friday the 16th of October, Room 12 and the whole school went to our school assembly hosted by two kids from Room 6. At the end of assembly all the girls in Room 12 were sitting really nicely, and so we all earned the best class award. We earned the award because we were the best class. Once we got the trophy everyone in our class shouted ''yay!". Too bad Mrs Buist wasn't there to see us get it.

By Autumn and Baeli

At the St Clair school field on the 12/10/09 at about mid day the relay squad of years 4 5 and 6 are trying to qualify for the school athletics team.

This week the seniors have been training for the south zones. The best of the best will be chosen

to go to the caledonian . First we did the sprints there were six people in the race. We ran eighty meters. many people qualified we wonder who.Then we did high jump you had to jump over one meter to qualify.The hard thing was to jump ninety cm and one meter.

 There was lots of good sportsmanship like cheering when somebody didn't make it. Next we have to do long jump we think that you have jump almost three meters. It will be interesting to see if the people who can jump high can jump long. Ms Marret will train us the skills.

Next term the south zones will happen everybody is training hard to get in and everybody is excited.

Check out room fourteen doing the high jump.

                                              

By Jessica and Michella

Progressing In Art

Over the past week, we have been progressing on our art with our issues. There are lots of different mediums,  the most popular medium is sculpture with card and paint.

We have been working on these for the last term. We are really enjoying it and we are hoping to get it finished by the end of the week! 

Most people had a really fun time playing with format and paint. What we are trying to do with our art is to change peoples minds to stop bad things like littering happening. We are looking forward to getting them finished. 

By Rachael and Elise.

These are some examples of wonderful art... 

Our Blog has Reached a mellinium

This week our blog has reached a mellinium. That means we have had over 1000 hits since the blog started. The blog has only been running a few months so that is AWESOME. We have also found out that on the blog we have had more hits in the USA than in NZ. After figuring out the hits for the blog we are curious about how many hits our writing wiki has had. Some of the students from the Room 12 maths class are figuring out how many hits our wikis have had since they have been set up.

By Kea.

Check out our Wiki!

South Zone sprint trials

On Monday the 21^st of September St Clair School had sprint trials to qualify for South Zones at the Caledonian the senior team and the eligible middles competed very farley but only if you got through.

 

For the sprints the under 12 boys went first then the under 12 girls, then the under 11 boys and girls went, then the under 10s and some 9s raced.

 

Writing

At the moment Room 12 has been practicing using writing to show the reader not tell. We had a total of 30 minutes to write a page long, detailed piece of writing about a best day ever, or a argument. Room 12 went all the stages of writing with out even the teacher instructing us! Above is Mitchell and Quinn Shaw having a conference about their recounts. We  conferenced so we could share a readers of view of the other persons writing. Then we proof-read our writing so there were mistakes.

By Phoenix and Toby

Shebang!

Today at assembly, we were visited by the new African drumming group called "Shebang!" There were five ladies in the group including our very own Mrs Caldwell and Mrs Amer (Nina and Sofia's mum! They are called "Shebang" because it is an female group and they are banging on their drums. They did three special African songs, which were all folk dancing songs. This was their first ever performance and we would just like to say that they were great!

Toby and Matt

The Senior Team Shares the Music

Yesterday our schools Ensemble, Guitar Group, Violin Group and Choir preformed to the Glendale retirement home and also to the Belhaven retirement home. We had Guitars, Cellos, Choir, Piano, Marimba, Xylophones, Chime bars, Percussion, Recorders, Drums, Bodhrun drums, Violins, Electric guitars, Bass marimba and Key boards in our Ensemble. It was at the St Clair School (our school) hall. The O.D.T (Otago daily times) was there and was taking photos for the newspaper, go to www.odt.co.nz. Sue and Kristy , 2 of our school mums organized for the people of Glendale retirement home and Belhaven retirement home to come to St Clair School to hear our ensemble. Jennie and Helen organised the afternoon teas. The senior citizens came because one of our students parents own Glendale retirement home.

by Daniel and Quinn

Scoopers Tops

Today we have been shown the new Scoopers' t-shirts! The scoopers of the day wear them. They have an ice cream on them and say "what's the scoop?" We are wearing them as a way of letting people know that we are on official Blog Business and are either on the lookout for news around school or have a scoop that we are running with... The T-Shirts are a bit big but are good!

By Mitchell and Sam

Every Child should have to wear a school uniform!

What we think...

Against

Dresses and skirts for the girls are not comfortable

Fashion is art - uniform is not a way to express ourselves

Everyone looks the same - noone is unique!

What do you think? Any reasons for a uniform?

Drama with Miss Sara

Yesterday with Miss Sara ( our student teacher). We did drama after lunch. For drama we played a game called count to twenty. What you have to do is get in a circle and try and get to twenty without talking. You have to watch peoples facial expressions. We got to five. After that we got in groups and  did freeze frames about an issue , we did cell phones at school. Miss Sara came and tapped us on the shoulder and we said our thoughts aloud.We had a fun day with Miss Sara .

Should we have cell phones at school?

By Autumn & Ashleigh

Persuasive Writing

Today we have been doing persuasive arguements with Miss Sara. We had to pick a statement out of: Cellphones at school;  Chewing gum at school; Swings at school or trampolines at school. Here are our reasons for chewing gum at school:

FOR

• Chewing on chewing gum would give me something to do when working
• Chewing gum should be at school because we could have a chewing gum monitor in each class
• You could tell them to have it outside only.

AGAINST

•   If some kids have sugary gum, they may get hyper
  
• Some one might swallow and choke
• People might stick their old chewing gum under their desks
• Kids might not play sport as well as there is a risk of choking

So it looks like against won!

If you have any reasons please comment!!

By Alex and Maddy

Five -a-side

Mr Pearce is doing a five-a-side soccer tournament with us. So far the 'No Names' are in the lead and the Penguins are close behind. We get three points for a win and two points for good sportsmanship and two for a draw. So the total points you can score in a match are five points. We are looking forward to our next game between the Penguins and the No Names.

By Tom and Phoenix

Otago Champs

On the eleventh of September the top ten girls and the top ten boys from Ariki got into Otago champs. Three boys from St Clair school and five girls from St Clair got into the Otago champs.

It went in this order year 5 girls, year 5 boys, year six girls, year six boys etc.

One of the girls from st Clair school came first another came second and another came eighth, all in the year six girls race. in the year five boys race we only had one person representing our school and he came eighth.The girl that came first was from our school and she is the fastest year six girl in otago. So we had pretty good time at Otago Champs.

By Daniel

The Story Teller

Today a story teller came to our school to tell some hilarious  stories.  He told us the true story of 'Cinderella' and The Last Pirate. He also tells stories at Nicols at 11am 1pm 2pm.

Our Room 4 Buddys

At St Clair school we have buddy classes.

Room 12's is room 4. Over the last few terms we have been putting a wiki space up for them and they didn't even know. So They were writing story's and their teacher gave our teacher their writing.

So we had to put it up on their wiki.

At the start of this term we surprised them and showed them their wiki.

fab4atstclair.wikispaces.com

By Daniel

For a while now, we have had Mr Pearce for Thursdays Fridays and occasionally Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He is very good at art, and enjoys playing soccer, he currently involved in a 5-a-side soccer tournament for the Seniors it has been lots of fun and it is improving our soccer skills.

By Toby and Phoenix

10 Minutes ago, there was a special day today, it was... 09:09 9/9/09! Amazing! Next time it will be 10:10 10/10/10. Some people celebrated some people didn't, we are celebrating by putting this on the blog! Two twins turned nine today.

Toby and Phoenix

Kapahaka

Today we saw the Kapahaka group’s dress rehearsal.  On Thursday they are going to go to the Edgar Centre and perform in polyfest.  Their performance was about Tangaroa the sea god.  It was really well choreographed and we hope they will do well on the night!

Ariki Cup

On Friday the Fourth of September We had the Ariki cup (Inter school cross country)

To get into the Ariki cup you had to be in the top Six of your school cross country.

We went and represented St Clair School.

Three boys and Five girls from St Clair got into Otago champs (the top ten from Ariki go to Otago champs. Heres our photo.

By Daniel

Today when Ben came into school he didn't just have clothes... He had a gold medal! The Medal was showing that his Futsal team, had won the tournament! It all happened at 4:30 this Monday when the Vikings Futsal team played a terrific game of Futsal! They are now Futsal champs, 1st on the table!

By Toby and Ben

Is it Art for Art's Sake?

As part of our inquiry, the Senior Team hosted a series of visits by local artists. The artists, working in a variety of traditional and electronic media, spoke to the children about their sources of motivation and their experiences. Our thanks to Anthony Ritchie (composer), Parry Jones (animator), Jared Smith (musician), Anna Henare (actress) and Mary-Ann Roberts (painter and sculptor). Watch this space while we work on using the Arts to express our perspective about a current issue...

Voice Thread

Daniel is learning to publish using voice thread. Check out his first go at his below...

Senior Team Cross Country

Are We Up for A Challenge?

Well, bloggers... This could be what we have been looking for. It's a way to increase our profile, make new friends and learn how to be a better blogger along the way. Looks like we could learn something and have fun along the way! Starts on the 6th September. We have decided to enter because it will be a great opportunity for all our keen bloggers.

http://room13news-room13.blogspot.com/

During reading and writing sessions, we are looking more closely at other classes on the web. We really appreciate feedback from Nayland, Morrinsville and the Boys' Class from Aussie! We are really enjoying all feedback and over the next week, we will make a point of giving them some feedback in return!

http://web.me.com/jarrod.lamshed/Boys_Class/Welcome/Welcome.html

http://rm10mis.blogspot.com/

http://npsroom3.blogspot.com/

http://npsrm3.wikispaces.com/ Check out our partners' writing and give them some quality feedback!

Today Room 12 did drama with their student teacher, Miss Sara. They were learning about freeze frames and some other games called zoom and mill and grab. 

their goal from miss Sara was to freeze frame as a family.

Here are some photos of us doing freeze frames.

Room 4 Focus

In room 12 we have been putting together a wikispace for our buddy class, room 4. We have been putting up their storys and giving them decent feedback. This week we are going to share with them their wikispace and see what they think. We have been learning to give a good post by having something you like, something that is linked to it, and something to improve or change.

This is our buddy classes wikispace http://fab4atstclair.wikispaces.com/

Book week

It’s National Library Week in NZ, this week.  St Clair School is celebrating with many competitions and special events.  One of the highlights is the daily quiz!

 

Can you guess the titles of these books?  Post your answers and we will see how good you are!

Clue 1:

                                                                            

Clue 2:

Our Musical Assembly

On Thursday the senior team had a music performance the house was packed with an audience ready to hear the talented musicans. The show was packed full of wonderfull preformances from the choir, Guitar and Chello groups, ensemble and the classroom preformances. The guitar group opened up the assembly, and then we heard from the very talented classrooms. It was all very fun and exciting, all of the songs we preformed took alot of hard work and practice. We wish you were there!!!

Twibes!

The past couple of days we have been trying to connect with Room 3 on Tribes so we can give eachother feedback about our writing!  So far we have not had much luck, hopefully we will connect with them soon!!!

Is Art Just For Arts Sake?

Over the past two weeks we have been learning what art is and that it is created to get a response. During the finding out sorting phrase of our inquiry, we have been to the art gallery where we learnt about parihaka and how artists such as painters , dancers and singers have shared their thoughts about it . We are now exploring  current issues. e will choosing an issue that is important to each of us and presenting our ideas using all of the arts. we used to think art was just on the wall now art is different things  such  as dancers,painters,sculptors,singers,taggers,carvers,actors,models, writers,hairdressers,architects,Gardner's,tattooists,movie makers and animation. 

Kahurangi-Maori peforming arts group!!!

On Tuesday morning the 28^th of July Room 12 went to watch Kahurangi performing arts group. The whole school went to see it because it fits into their inquiry about the arts. The group done a series of Maori dances. They came from Hastings, everyone enjoyed it.

The performers were all wearing flax piu piu (skirts) and the boys had bare chests.  The girls had singlets with patterns on them most of the performers had moku (tattoos) either on their arms or legs.

The men performed using Ti Rakau. They were originally used for hand eye coordination practice and hunting. They danced with the sticks and the sticks were quite colourful with red and white. They are long but thin.

Ti Titorea are short sticks they were used to help eye coordination of warriors. They were exercise sticks for the upper and lower body. At the show, Kahurangi with them.

Kahurangi used two types of poi, the long poi and the short poi. The short poi represented heart beat and life. The long poi represented the native birds of New Zealand. It is difficult to do two poi at a time, let alone four! 

Kahurangi dance company gave 100% to the performance when mistakes were made the audience hardly even noticed. It they used lots of dramatic facial expressions. they did lots of coordinating tricks with their sticks. As one of them said "practice makes perfect!"

Kahurangi Dance Group comes once a year. The boys really like tirakau and most of the girls enjoyed the poi's. They did some ricks with the titiorea and the audience thought it was great. the hope to see them again and they will be looking forward to it.

CHECK OUT THE NEW PLAY EQUIPMENT!

In the first week of the holidays Mr Buist and his workers bought 

some wood, nails and cement and built some new play equipment

for St Clair School. The cost of  the equipment was about $5000

and the money was raised by the PTA from the  2009 St Clair School school fair. The new play equipment is great for climbing

on and practicing your balancing. The children and Teachers would

like to thank Mr Buist,his team and the PTA.

By Alex and Autumn. 

Mr Newton

Today Mr Newton our principal celebrated  his 10^th year at St Clair School as our principal!

We had a celebration for Mr Newton. 10 years at St Clair School is a long time. It wasn’t just 10 years at St Clair School -  it was also a special birthday for him. Mrs Newton came and shared the celebration with us all. It was her birthday as well! We tricked Mr Newton because he thought it was an end of term assembly for Mrs Tapp (she is leaving us for a while) but we gave him a surprise with a song called Mr Newton! It was re-written lyrics to the tune of "Here's to you Mrs Robinson!" Every class gave him a special certificate about what they liked the best about Mr Newton. Some were serious and some were funny.  We said how we like the way he is often seen leaping tall fences in the name of rescuing our sports gear!

Mr Newton is the best pricipal in the world!!!

Mr. Hall the Story-Teller

Today Gordon Hall joined us in the hall for some crazy stories. The stories were called Skunks, The Taniwha, The Rubber Bands and Warmonger The Dragon.

Gordon hall had three rules to join in, to laugh and to listen. Gordon had three types of stories, such as the rubber band story

Witch was a circle story and the warmonger the dragon story

Witch was a story in a story story and a skunk story that was really

just mayhem.

 He also gave us helpful hints for writing.

Music's in the Air...

Over the past couple of weeks, Room12 has been learning three pieces of music with Mrs Caldwell. The songs that we learnt included Mascarade Ball, Cabbage Cafe and Click Sticks. The instuments we used were the marimbas, xylophones, glockenspiels and the chime bells. These were our first few songs that we managed to have the bass, soprano and Alto sections playing all at the same time. We need to give Mrs Caldwell, our specialist music teacher, a huge thank you for her patience and skill!

.

Room 14 Science Fair

Today Room 14 set up a science fair. Some Room 14  kids found out that Jazz music is a GET OUT OF BED kind of music. Pink Batts is best for sound proofing because it has more holes for the molecules to travel through. They had fair tests and lots of fun !

Mr Chittock

Mr Chittock the builder  came to talk to us on monday about sound and soundproofing. Did you know that there are 2 different types of pink batts (shown in picture) the green is for soundproofing and the pink is for warmth. He also showed us some light and some heavy concrete.

Futsal

Today we learnt about futsal with Michel and Simon.

It was founded on the streets of Brazil and its now played international. Futsal is a type of modified soccer.

You use a small non bouncy ball and play on a indoor court the size of a netball court.

The goalie doesn't kick the ball he throws it but you kick it in from the sideline. We played futsal with Simon and Michel and Room Seven. We played captains coming to warm up then we played cats and mice and also we played a futsal mini game. They are starting up a special junior winter tournament in term three and also the summer season starts in September.

Custruction of Instuments

Here are the instruments we made with Mr. Willis. It took a lot of persistence, patience and skills to make these complex instruments. These whistles consist of 3 main parts, the tube, body and plug. Each part has their own job. The body makes the whistle type sound. The plug is the part the helps change pitch and the tube consists of the mouth piece and connects the body.

Andrew Wills

Today we were lucky enough to have Andrew Willis came to teach how to make home-made instruments. We learnt how to make Drums, Guitars, and Recorders.  Each class gets to have a session with Andrew and make a certain type of instruments. There were four kind of instruments each class is making, membrainophone, aerophone, chordophone, idiophone. This is the instrument we are making!

Godspell!

Today the senior team went to Kings & Queens Performing Arts Centre and saw a musical. Kings and Queens high school students were rehearsing their performance. The play was about Jesus Christ. There was lots of singing and dancing. It was very well done and it was very moving. Well done Kings & Queens!

Stars on Stage

Today we saw some very talented  st clair students perform their dress rehersal of stars on stage. It was about how the birds got their colours. It was a very well performed dance and we hope they will do well on Wednesday when they do it in front of lots of people at the Regent.

Snow day

Snow day in Dunedin on Tuesday!

We all had lots of fun building snow men , having snowball fights, and making snow angels. Some of us just stayed inside all warm, away from the freezing snow. There was no school on Tuesday!

On Wednesday we had a late start because of the ice.

Mr Harris to the rescue!

Today Miss Sara was away so Mr Harris was teaching us. We learnt about many new things and in the morning we had a big discussion. Here Mr Harris is seen teaching symmetry at maths.

Planning Our Instruments

This afternoon we planned what we would need for our instuments we are going to make.We thought about the different materials that are needed to make that wanted sound . We were thinking about recyclable things we could use. Some of our ideas were:

Ice-cream containers, milk bottles, cardboard, chopsticks, yogurt pottles,

drinking straws and carpet ect.