Let's talk!

Term 2 ended today with whole school speech finals at which Zion, Katrina and Saluselo represented Room 10. Zion loves learning about space and the planets and shared some amazing facts, while Saluselo told us all about the WWE wrestler, Joseph Ano'ai aka Roman Reigns. Congratulations to Katrina who came second in the Year 4-6 category with her information-packed speech about Steven Adams. Fantastic!

When it was time for first-language speeches, Julianne, Kuini and Tupouseini looked and sounded so proud to share some personal and family history with the audience.

The Vector Trip - by Saluselo

Following Vector's visit to Ruapotaka earlier in Term 2, a group of students from Ruapotaka, including ten from Room 10, visited Vector Arena in the city on Tuesday. They were lucky enough to look behind the scenes at the events centre.  They even checked out the chill-out zone where the stars hang out. They also explored how Vector, the energy company, is investigating new technologies to charge electric cars.

Thank you, Saluselo, for creating this video at home to share some of the photos from your visit.

What is the area of our garden?

We are learning about area. We are learning to measure the area of a rectangle. We started by working with a buddy to find out how many squares of paper it took to cover our paper "garden".  We all agreed that it took 18 squares.

Measuring my hand span - by Zion

An energetic afternoon!

Yesterday, Vector, the energy company, brought one of its school programmes, Be Sustainable with Energy, to Ruapotaka for Years 6, 7 and 8. We learnt about the different sources of energy that Vector uses to make electricity in New Zealand. Prudence, Saluselo, Zion, Katrina and Tyron created electricity using mechanical energy as they turned mini-turbines, while Pupuke and Azahar demonstrated how solar power can be used to turn the rotors on a model helicopter. What an energetic afternoon!

Is healthy eating a challenge?

This week, Kuini, Julianne, Tupouseini and Zion worked together to discover how much energy, fat and sugar are in some foods by reading the nutrition information labels.  Kuini shared what they found out in a table.

Based on 4 grams being equivalent to 1 teaspoon of sugar, everyone in Room 10 was amazed when they worked out that one 250ml glass of Coca Cola has about 7 teaspoonfuls of sugar.  Jamie Oliver says that 10-11 year old learners should only eat about 6-7 teaspoonfuls of sugar a day, unless it is the natural sugar in fruit and milk.  Our conclusion is that eating healthily every day is a challenge for all of us.

The year ends ...

Celebrating success at prize-giving:

Congratulations to Zion (Year 5 Academic Excellence), Jessie (Most Improved Year 5 Student) and Katrina (Most Helpful Student Years 4-6).

Celebrating our heritage at our cultural festival:

Finding more fun down the back of the chair!

For the first time Ruapotaka School held a poetry recital yesterday.  Three students from each class each shared a poem with the whole school and parents. Saluselo and Zion so enjoyed reading Margaret Mahy's "Down the back of the chair" that they both learnt it off-by-heart. What effort and commitment!  It was a pleasure to watch their shared recital of this amusing poem.

Down the back of the chair!

This afternoon Room 10 were excited to host senior syndicate assembly to share what we learnt and created during our Book Week.  Did you know that the New Zealand author, Margaret Mahy, had over 200 books published for children and young adults?  As well as sharing this and other interesting facts in a quiz, we read her hilarious poem, Down The Back Of The Chair.  Our artwork will be displayed in the library once we have pulled out everything that hides down the back of the chair!

Going to save the world! by Zion

This is one of the first Digital Learning Objects that we created and it was quite tricky.  I chose somewhere in the world I would like to visit one day.  Then I found an image of it on Google images.  Next, I cut around a photograph of my head using Pixlr so I could put  myself in that place.  Maybe I will travel there in the future in real life.

Whakarongo mai!

On the last day of Term 3 we enjoyed listening to the different speakers at the Year 4-6 speech finals. As well as Zion speaking about crocodiles, Tupouseini shared her knowledge of moa and Bella spoke in her first language, Tongan.  Next we were part of the audience listening to the Year 7 & 8 speech finals about rugby, friendship and goals for the future.

All about crocodiles

Thank you, Zion, for sharing your knowledge about crocodiles at the Year 4-6 speech finals on Friday.  You carried out a great deal of research and thought carefully about the facts you wanted to share.  You remained calm and confident in front of your large audience.  Well done!