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.

A fitting end to Term One

At the end of Term One, Waikowhai Primary School held a special assembly to acknowledge ANZAC day. This is because it will happen while we are away from school on our school holiday break.

As you can see, the school hall was set up beautifully by Ms Sands.  A poppy garden was created at the front of the hall.  Children from each class came up to lay poppies in remembrance.  We displayed the crosses honouring fallen soldiers from our ANZAC centenary presentations two years ago at the front of the class.

A group of our Senior students helped by sharing a little bit of information about ANZAC day with younger members of our school community.  We also listened to the last post, observed a minute's silence and used our fabulous singing voices together as a special way to finish of the term.  We then finished the assembly as a syndicate while Ms Sands read us an ANZAC related picture book. You will be able to find this in the sophisticated picture book section of the library.

Room 8 focused on some ANZAC activities during the week.  One of the highlights was the creation of acrostic poems.  Below you can see the shared writing that Room 8 did before we went to create our own from the word bank below.

We would love to hear how you acknowledged ANZAC day.  Please leave us a positive, thoughtful or helpful comment in the comments section below.

Ako Hiko - student led toolkits

The second annual Ako Hiko student led toolkits were held today at Hay Park School.  12 eager students from our Year 5/6 syndicate joined representatives from the other 7 Ako Hiko schools for a day of fun, learning and collaboration.

Students had the chance to sign up to three different sessions last week to experience some of the amazing skills, hits, tips and tricks other students were willing to share. From Tinker-Cad to Makey-makeys to coding to storybird to google drawings there was something for everyone! Our students thoroughly enjoyed their new learning as well as connecting with other students in the cluster.
Ricky and Lily from Room 8 presented "Code studio in the class Room" in the first round of toolkits, then Safa from Room 8 and Izzy from Room 9 shared "Creating shared books and yearbooks using google drawings". The third and final session was a chance for all 12 participants to enjoy some more learning.  We had an amazing day and had the chance to learn lots of new things and about ourselves as well.  Thank you to Hay Park School, Mrs Archer and everybody else involved in the organisation of this day!

Experimenting with Electricity

Waikowhai Primary Senior Syndicate welcomed in the new term with an afternoon of fun and learning.  We have continued to focus on electricity within the context of integrity and spent the first afternoon of the term collaborating with others from different classes using the "Brain Box" circuit kits. We collaborated, concentrated, did some learning and created some circuits from the book as well as our own special creations.  We have taken and filed photos to create a DLO to then share out our learning using our individual blogs.  Please check these out to see what we have found out so far.