Wednesday 20th September

Author Visit

On Monday we were very lucky to have a visit from Kyle Mewburn who is a New Zealand author. He has written books such as Old Huhu, Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck!, Chick’s Sick, Seesaw Po, Duck’s Stuck and the Dragon Knight and Dinosaur Rescue series. Kyle lives at Miller's Flat which is about an hour away from our school.

Kyle shared some of his books with us and talked about why he writes the books he does. He mentioned where he gets his ideas and inspiration from for his books. Being an author isn't an easy task, you never know if publishers are going to accept your books or not so you can not rely on making a huge income from being an author! It can take up to two years to write a book.

Kyle took three groups of students doing some writing workshops with them. It was really neat for students to get to work through a different process for writing a story. Kyle got these students thinking really hard and they did some cool writing!

We also had a book character dress up day. Caitlyn who was Harry Potter and Esther who was Cat in the Hat won $10 credit at Scholastic for being best dressed!

Thanks for coming to see us Kyle, we look forward to getting more of your books for our school library in the future!

Friday 15th September

Clean Up New Zealand afternoon

This afternoon the whole school picked up rubbish around the Waiwera South area as part of Clean Up New Zealand week. It was great to be able to do our bit to help but we wish people wouldn’t dispose of their rubbish in our beautiful countryside. Thank you to Anna, Leanna, Donna and Julie for helping out along with all the students for being so keen to make a difference.

Monday 11 September

Art Day

Last Friday the whole school had an Art Day! The students completed monster art using bright pastels and dye to go up in the foyer. We also started some collaborative tree art using paint. Check out some photos of the children busy at work.

Wednesday 6th September

Tony Tourell Memorial Golf Tournament

Today we entered four teams into the Tony Tourell Memorial Golf Tournament held in Clinton. Our four teams were:

James D, Ashley, David and Brayden.

Taylor, Bree H, Bree C and Esther.

Koben, George, Alex, and Flynn.

Lucy, Holly, Julienne, and Maddie.

Each team member teed off on every hole. We then chose the ball that went the furthest and took turns hitting the ball until it reached the hole. We had to complete 9 holes. There were some awesome skills on display and we found out that golf can be quite a tricky sport to master!

Thanks to Anna, Hamish and Miss Ward for helping transport and coach the teams. We all had a fantastic day!

Tuesday 5th September

Grant Milne Touch Visit

Today we had a visit from Grant Milne from Otago Touch. It was a beautiful sunny day to get outside and get some exercise. We played many games and drills to help us with our touch skills. We worked a lot on our defence and working as a team on defence. Grant also helped improve our attacking skills and tactics of how to get around a defender.

We really appreciate Grant coming to Waiwera South to help us improve our skills and we are looking forward to using these skills in our touch teams this year.

Tuesday 5th September

Speeches

Over the past few weeks, we have been writing speeches. Our aim was to try persuade our audience. We had a variety of topics including:

• We need to look after the environment.
• Why I am the best person for the job.
• The best animal is...
• We should stop hunting animals.

Today the Middle and Junior Rooms presented these speeches in front of parents, the Senior Room and Miss Ward. It was a very nerve-racking experience having to stand up in front of a lot of people and speak. Leading up to today we had practiced using loud clear voices, making eye contact with our audience and having good posture while speaking. Even though many people were nervous, everyone did extremely well and enjoyed the experience.