At our 'Christmas Wrap 2011' we enjoyed sharing songs, students playing glockenspiel and ukulele and farewell speeches from our departing Year 6 students.  
We made a conga line for Feliz Navidad and had a surprise finale from the staff!

Students from Matariki and Mahutonga were invited to perform some of their own compositions and some other songs at the Wellington premiere of The Muppets movie - very cool!

On Fridays over the last two terms we have been indulging in our 'passions' with help from enthusiastic teachers and parents.

The Kapa Haka group has learnt to perform Toia mai. Other popular choices have been paper craft, sewing, outdoor education, soccer and skateboarding.

Postponement was not an option. We never even considered it. We braved the torrential rain and took our music to the streets of Wellington.
Students from Mahutonga and Matariki busked on Courtenay Place and in Havana coffee roasters singing their original material.

They did extremely well and boy were we rewarded! Not only did we make $128.10 but we have secured a Gig!  

It was great also to share some music at Clyde Quay school, building our connections to the City.

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another...





In Tautoru we have been doing lots of activities based on the classic picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.



We have learnt some great vivid vocabulary words like chaos, mischief and rumpus!

We have drawn our own wild things and written stories about them.


We have done some great paintings of scenes from the book.


We have been learning about the sequence of the plot and painting either the beginning, middle or end.

We have even had our own 'wild rumpus' wearing our wild thing masks!

We have all had great fun.

The sun shone as we celebrated all of the students who have played in a Worser Bay school  team this year for miniball, flippaball and netball and their wonderful parent coaches.

Giving these sports a go results in improved confidence and skills for the team members, as well as heaps of fun.
None of this would be possible without parent support so congratulations to all involved.

Two excited students from Worser Bay School represented the Eastern Zones at the Inter Zone Athletics on a stunning Wellington day.

One managed to secure a place among the seven best high jumpers and came fifth in her 80m sprint.

The other made a spectacular long jump of 361cm coming second overall at the Inter Zones and qualifying for the Regionals.

Congratulations on an awesome effort!

“At first I felt very nervous, but after my second jump which was 3.61m I was feeling much better. That jump got me through to Regionals!!
I came second by 3cm!”

Our Inquiry focus for this term in Tautoru and Autahi is ‘Floating and Sinking’. We have been making predictions about what objects we think would float or sink and then observing what happens in a variety of interesting experiments.



Did you know that diet soft drink cans float but normal soft drink cans sink?


We also looked at what happens when you mix vegetable oil, honey, food colouring and water in a clear container.

Some of the scientific vocabulary we have learnt includes prediction, hypothesis, observation, conclusion, density and displacement.

 

 We put the duck and the marbles in to see if  the water rises. The water rose.

 Rowan

 We were trying to find out what displacement  means. 

 Liv

In Mahutonga, The Mission started with a Skype call from Imon Starr, a former member of the group Rhombus and now with his own group Olmecha Supreme. He challenged us to create music that contained emotional and logical information, and to take it out to the world.

Since then we have formed groups where each person has a role such as song writer, designer, band manager, publicist etc.
Some of our bands are Purple Elephant, Super Epicness, Crash, Dr Wam, Orange Floating Tic Tacs, Bad Swans, Mo Brothers and Katie and da Kitty Kats. Very rock star!

We have begun song writing in earnest and have already produced such great songs as Slime!, Big Bang, Summer Time, Happy Birds and
Boss for the Week!

In spite of wet weather our children showed their great flexibility and resilience, as well as determination at the Eastern Zone Athletics.

They all tried their best and gave it their all. A huge THANK YOU to our parents that volunteered and came along to support us.

We couldn’t have done it without you!

Many came from far and near to help celebrate our day of Independence. John and Fleur led the way with the children's parade, Sadie officially declared the fair open and revealed her winning flag design and off we went with a hiss and a roar! Bargains were had, games were played, sumo challenged, beer tasted, sausages sizzled, burritos wrapped, and the sun shone down on our amazing community having fun.

A heartfelt "Thank You" to the whole of the Worser Bay School Community for their support. We had parents, grandparents, teachers, staff, board members, past parents, past board members and many local businesses lending us a hand to make this the sucessful day that it was.

Kia Ora.

In Mahutonga and Matariki we had a visitor from The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra come and share his instruments.

Steve played his ukulele and the lap steel guitar. He talked about where they come from, both Hawaii, and gave examples of how they can be used.
John and Steve performed John’s song Raylene.

 “To live in China in the early years of the  twenty first century is to be surrounded by  change, on a scale and at a pace arguably  unprecedented in human history…”

 Getting Rich First, Life in a changing China
 by Duncan Hewitt

 A window on the world of the future?

 
 Education is so highly valued and seen as a  key for success in a highly competitive world.  There is pressure for places and exams  need  to be passed and huge numbers of job  applicants.





 Schools have much more autonomy than I  anticipated - the ability to develop the  direction of individual schools came as a  surprise.




 In the schools visited, alignment between what  was said and what was done appeared strong.

 Starting school ceremony – first day of the  new school year at Confucius School in  Jinan,  Shandong Province.



 A red dot is placed on each child's forehead to  symbolise the opening of their minds to new  learning. Parents also played an important  role in this ceremony.

 Industriousness- everyone contributing to  society on many different levels- the energy  and the drive!








 Those key competencies are more  important  now than ever -  tolerance,  resilience,    adaptability!  


              

              


              

 Contradictions- the tradition, the old alongside  the incredible modern and forward  looking………the growth is immense but   some  elements like the family system,   remain very  strong, in fact stronger than in   most western  societies.

 The recent high speed maglev train crash is  being considered as a metaphor for the   speed  of change…..going too   fast…..becomes  unsafe and unstable.

 How do you tell an original from fake? 

 Everyone is out there together, united, young    and old.        
“Nobody wants to miss out, but at the same  time…the competitiveness and stress of  modern society is ratcheted up yet another  notch, leaving many searching for new  meaning in an increasingly unfamiliar world”

 Lonely Planet

 Continuing to look forward, not dwelling on the  past or sitting idle.





 A focus on sustainable change is required.

“It is better to light a candle than to curse the  darkness”

Chinese Proverb.

 In Mahutonga  we have been tuning in to our  music Inquiry  
 The Sound of Music: What would the world  be like without it?



 Musician Brannigan Kaa came  in to perform  for us. He played some songs in Te Reo and  English.  

 It was interesting to hear his  version of ‘Sing  a Song of Sixpence’ and a  song about a  male bus driver called Polly! 

He encouraged us to think for ourselves, to be an individual and to come up with our own voice and ideas.
               

 Brannigan Kaa and John share a song from  John's upcoming album!

 We also explored the physics of sound and  have discovered that sound moves in waves.
 

 We  listened to different pieces of music and  recorded the colour and the size of the sound  waves on blank paper.

 As we shared our drawings, we noticed that  each type of music affected us differently.  

 We experimented with different volumes of  water in bottles.


 We observed how the change in water  volume varied the pitch and tried to produce
 a  tune that everyone would recognise like  ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘The Pink  Panther’.


 When I was creating a song, I found that it  was hard to get the right amount of water to  get the perfect pitch.

 We explored how blowing air through  different lengths of straws can create  different pitches and made a connection  between vibration and sound waves.  

 We are learning how sound travels in waves.  The high pitch sounds were more frequent  than low pitch sounds.

 We used the ideas of New Zealand artist  Gretchen Albrecht as an influence to create  an art piece using colour, line, shape and  texture to reflect a mood.

  In learning a new language, children will  recognise that language and culture is  organised in particular ways and also make  connections with their own language(s) and  culture(s).
The New Zealand Curriculum

 As part of our on-going focus on developing  the students’ global awareness and a  celebration of what is the same and different  about us all, we are learning different    languages.

 The children will be introduced to  French,  Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, German and  Te Reo Maori. They are learning simple  greetings, colours, body parts and even a few  songs along the way to make learning a new  language fun and engaging.  

 We are taking advantage of the wealth of  language knowledge in our staff and parent  community.

 We are also fortunate to have Anna Luke, a  Masters student of Asian Studies teaching us  Mandarin. 

 We are learning how to write our names in  Japanese and singing an old classic  “Atama, kata, hiza, ashi – head, shoulders,  knees and toes!”

 Thanks everyone for coming along to our  'White Lights' disco.

 We had an excellent turn out, with some  great dancing and brilliant glowing  costumes.

 Thank you to everyone who helped out and  contributed to this fun, family night out!

 

 What better way to celebrate the arrival of  lovely Spring weather than a game of  'Capture the Flag' at Worser Bay Beach!

 

 Students from Matariki and Mahuntonga
 went on a Fraction scavenger hunt around  the school grounds.



 It was great to see the children sharing their  knowledge and making connections with  equivalent fractions.

 Understanding fractions requires working  with concrete materials. What better place to  explore this than in our concrete playground!

  On Saturday August 20, Worser Bay School  participated in a Wellington on a Plate event  by having a stall at the Hill Street Market.

 The  stall was run by our very capable  children  ranging from Year 1 to Year 6.

 Many children  had also been involved  behind the scenes creating wonderful treats  to sell at our stall!  

 To reward their efforts, Worser Bay School  won "Best Presented Stall" and raised  money for our school!

 It was a great  fundraising event!

 History was made on Monday August 15  when it snowed at Worser Bay school.

 For many children and some teachers it was  the first time they had seen falling snow, let  alone in suburban Wellington!
 We had an exciting morning tea time  watching it, feeling it and even tasting it
 and a  few (rather small) snowballs were let  loose.
 Another great experience to inspire creative  writing and art.

 Students from Mahutonga have been busy  building a whare (Maori house) in the school  grounds. This is helping us imagine what life  was like on Te Whetukairangi Pa many  years ago.  

 We moved the wood, laid out  the  foundations, cut the wood into the right  lengths, dug the holes and put up the frame. 

 It was lots of hard work!  

 
 Now the whare is nearing completion with  nikau palm fronds on the roof.  

  We are aiming to line the walls with  bunches of bamboo and toi toi to make it  waterproof.

 It is already making an interesting playspace  during lunchtimes!

              

In 2011 Assembly is every second Friday at 9:10 - come along!