Week 5 - Skip Camp

In Week 5 the Year 5 and 6 students from Waikowhai Primary travelled to Mount Ruapehu for our ski camp.  We were away from school from early Tuesday morning until late Friday evening and we had a fantastic time.

Our first day was mostly travel. This involved stops at Hamilton Gardens for a scavenger hunt, tin Otorohanga to investigate the Sir Edmund Hillary walkway, Taumarunui school for a stretch of our legs and afternoon tea, then we got to our accomodation.  It was freezing and after a delicious dinner we went for an evening walk.


Wednesday and Thursday were our days on the mountain.  The first day was full of challenges and extremely hot but we got there.  The second day we put our skills to use and improved heaps.


Friday was our trip back, we left early for a hot soak in Taupo, then a quick stop to view the powerful Huka falls before travelling back to Auckland via another Hamilton Garden stop.


To find out what we thought about our trip check out our individual blogs.  We have posted a camp booklet each that shares our reflections and the things that happened. There are some of these in the post.


We would to hear what you think about our camp experience too, maybe you could share some of the things that you have been on.

Week 4 - Student led toolkits

Kia Ora Blogging world,

In week 4 24 Waikowhai students had a fantastic experience. We joined other students from our cluster at the student led toolkits.  This was a fantastic day of learning, creating and sharing as well as building connections with other students across our cluster schools.

Five students presented their toolkits to full rooms of eager students. You can see their presentations below and may even learn something new, check them out.



We had two students in a coding challenge using the interesting sphero and a team of 4 working on building a structure in a problem solving challenge.  Check out the photos below.

The coding challenge

Problem solves in action.

The most creative construction.

If you would like to find out more please check out the individual blogs. Some of our students who went have posted their experiences and would love a comment.

Book Week Extravaganza - Week 3

What a busy book week we had last week! Once again our annual book week was a success.  Te Waka Ako went away from our usual programme to immerse ourselves in all things literacy.  It was a special week for us.

Judi Bilcliff (who runs the site rainbow poetry), a visiting author and drama teacher entertained us with a fabulous combined session on Thursday. Lots of us got up, involved and enjoyed listening to her share her hilarious poems with us.


Friday was our dress up day.  The theme was our favourite book character.  From the photos you will see what an awesome bunch we are with most of us getting really dressed up.  Congratulations to Lily from Manukau who was awarded one of the three dress up prizes for senior students in her Mad Hatter costume.


We also had our in class poetry recital competition on Wednesday and the finals on Thursday.  Lily, Amie, Sebastian and Oscar all represented Manukau in the Te Waka Ako (syndicate finals).  The standard of presentations was so high and the seven judges had real difficulty choosing the winners because the quality was so high.  Congratulations to Oscar who came 4th equal to receive a prize, an awesome effort!

Finally, we have created our own rhyming poems, remember to check out our individual blogs for published and illustrated versions of these poems over the next couple of days.  If you would like to find out any more about bookweek please drop us a comment or question below.  We would love to hear from you.