Service Learning Projects

Throughout the year all classes at Maeroa plan and carry out a service learning project. Students identify a need within our school or local community and plan ways they could provide a service to help address that need. In our team we have cleaned chairs, weeded gardens, encouraged students to think about ways to reduce energy consumption, encouraged recycling, issued PE equipment to the school, provided gifts for adopt a family and supported Maeroa Lodge residents by providing singing entertainment and a basket of goodies.

One of Room 21's service learning high lights was our Have a Heart project. We worked with Mrs Libby our visual arts teacher and created small boxes which were traded at the Sugar Bowl cafe. People took one of our heart boxes and in return left us with a sustainable gift such as plant, knitted item, biscuits, jam and chutney. We then passed these gifts onto our schools 'Adopt a Family' and the residents at Maeroa Lodge. We really appreciated the support we received from Mrs Libby and Aaron and the staff at the Sugar Bowl

Final Assemblies

The first Formal Assembly for 2013 was held on Friday 6 December. This was the Recognition Assembly and it was fantastic to see a large number of Totara students receiving awards for the service roles that they have been involved in throughout the year. We had students receiving certificates for Staff-room, PE Shed, Road Patrol, Class Councillor and Ambassador roles. Well done Totara students for volunteering your time in these service roles! We were also very proud of a large number of Totara students who sang in the Choir or were members of the Christmas play who performed at this assembly.

This is a photo of Totara students who received certificates at the first Recognition Assembly. 

The Sports Assembly was on Monday 9th December. The students, in the photo below,  received certificates and we were very proud of their commitment, skills development and fair play skills! It was also great to see students from our team performing in dance performances at this assembly. Special mention must be made of Sam Cook and Jakeb Stent who were acknowledged as Year 7's who made a significant contribution to Sports at Maeroa. We were also extremely proud of Helena Silich who was named as one of the top sportswoman for 2013.

The Cultural Assembly was on Wednesday 11th December and once again a number of Totara students received awards. These are the smiling faces of our awardees!

The final Merit and Academic Assembly was on Friday 13th December. It was certainly another stunning assembly with plenty of proud students, families and teachers. These are the Totara students who were recognised at this assembly. 

New Students for 2014

It was wonderful to meet our Year 7 students for 2014 at Meet the Teacher Evening on Thursday night. The way you listened and the great questions many of you asked show just how enthusiastic you are about your learning journey! Our present Year 7 students were keen to look at the lists on Friday morning and found they already knew some of you through previous schools or sport and cultural activities, and they are certainly looking forward to working with you next year. A big thanks to all the parents who came. It was wonderful to meet you and we also look forward to seeing you lots during next year.

Totara's 12 Days of Xmas

On the first day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
A pukeko in a ponga tree
....

We also have a video of our item at the concert. We filmed this on our new ipad and you will see, as you watch it, we were still working out how to use it! To see the video, please click here

Room 21's Cultural Activities

Recently Room 21 was fortunate to spend some time with the Japanese students from Ritsumeikan High School. They showed us four traditional Japanese activities.

1. We used origami paper to fold shapes like a star, a jumping frog and pikachu.
2. We played a traditional New Years game called Fuku Warai. 
3. We wrote our names using calligraphy pens and Japanese characters.
4. We watched a Japanese tea ceremony called Sa Dou and got to drink this green sweet tasting drink.

We really enjoyed all these activities. Check out the photos!

Learning with Lego

Over the past five weeks Room 19 have been learning about forces, structures and mechanisms.

 

Using Technic Lego kits we have been designing and building devices that can move heavy loads and span gaps. This has been a fun way to learn about science!

 

Have a look at some of our fantastic creations:

Concert Night

We are currently putting the last minute touches to our team concert item.  Props are being made, costumes being sewn and lines being rehearsed.

 

A reminder to families that:

• Concert night is Wednesday November 20th, starting at 7pm
• Tickets for this event are currently on sale at a cost of $2 each.  These can be purchased from your child's teacher.
• There are limited tickets, with no door sales on the night!  

We look forward to seeing you all there!

 

4 Huhu Grubs

7 Eels a Swimming

10 juicy fish heads (being constructed)

Important Dates and Dodgeball

Time continues to fly and it's hard to believe that we are already heading in to Week 3 of the term! We have some important events over the next few weeks, so everyone please make a note of the dates and details:

• 30th October - Grandparents morning
  Assembly starts at 9.00am in the auditorium. Please make sure you have invited your Grandparents along! 

• 31st October - Kapa haka dress rehearsal
  Gold coin donation to watch this before the group head to Nationals.  Rehearsal is at 12.30pm in the auditorium.

• 31st October - School Spelling Bee
  Good luck to the students competing from our team!

• 7th November - School Athletics/Tabloid sports day
  All students will be taking part in this.  If you are members of our Totara athletics team then you will be heading to Porritt Stadium to compete. The rest of the Totara team students will represent us at Tabloids back at school.

• 13th November - Music Group concert
  A time for students who have been involved in tuition to showcase their talents.  Also great for students who are thinking of learning a musical instrument next year to come and have a look.

To finish off here are at couple of photos of our Dodgeball game with our Japanese students from Ritsumeikan during PE time on Friday!

 

Term 4

Hope you are all enjoying your holiday! Please use the last few days to ensure all your uniform items are organised and that you have all the stationery you need. Term 4 is always an exciting and busy term with lots of interesting school wide events like the athletics and tabloid sports, the team performance evening, softball for lunchtime sports and the Recognition Assemblies! We have an exciting learning programme planned and are looking forward to seeing all Totara students bright and early on Monday morning.

Room 21's Science unit

 

Towards the end of term 3 Room 21 students completed a science unit called Variable Jellies. We worked in groups and using a basic jelly recipe (not one of the packet jellies) we completed 5 fair test experiments in an attempt to create the best jelly in the class!
During each of the experiments we were only able to change one variable- that means we could only change one of the ingredients or the amount of ingredient used. When the jellies were set we tested them against our success criteria- this was the best part! Our group used this to determine what variable we would change in our next experiment.
We invited 5 judges and they were all brave enough to say yes! We were all proud of our jellies and feeling very confident.

Our judges were very impressed with our jellies!

Congratulations to Te Aomihia, Hannah, Megan and Bree who created the winning jelly which they named Gas Pedal.

Maeroa Oratory Competition

This term our major English focus has been writing and presenting a speech using the school wide speech topics for 2013.

We soon discovered this involves lots of thinking, research, brainstorming and plenty of opportunities to write! Once our draft speech was written we shared it with people in our class and their feedback enabled us to develop it even further. We then wrote our speech onto cue cards and spent the next few weeks working on the delivery of our speeches. This was where we aimed to learn some parts of our speech off by heart. We practised making eye contact with the audience, trying to include gestures and really importantly speaking with expression as well as ensuring we didn't speak too quickly or softly! The motto 'Practise makes perfect' seems to fit well here!

Our speeches were presented to our class, then 5 students were selected from each room to present their speech at the Totara Team Speech Finals. After these presentations our team nominated 7 students for the school semi finals and following these Totara Team had 5 students selected to present their speech at the Oratory Finals.

On Wednesday evening Dana Collins, Stanley James, Bella Scott and Jakeb Stent did a fantastic job presenting their speeches at the Oratory Finals and Totara Team, along with their families, were extremely proud of them. We would also like to acknowledge Jessica Hale who was one of the announcers/hosts for the evening. Huge congratulations to Stanley James who was the winner of Section 2.

EOTC Week

Room 21 would like to say a huge thank you to our teachers, student teachers and our fantastic parent helpers who made our camp at Tui Ridge Park so enjoyable. We had a brilliant time trying new activities, achieving our goals and really getting to know all the people in our team. Hope you enjoy looking at some of the photos and work we have completed about our experiences.

Archery: How to fire an arrow.

Do you want to find out how to shoot an archery arrow? Keep reading to find out how to do it safely.

You will need: an open space, a target, a bow and an arrow.

1. Firstly find the nock in the end of the arrow. Place the string in the nock of the arrow, making sure the odd coloured cock feather is facing outwards.










2. Hold the bow up with one arm and use the other hand to hold the rubber piece on the middle of the string. Stand in the starting position which is standing sideways to the target.

3. Slide your fingers under the arrow, close to the bow. Move your feet and body so you feel comfortable. Make sure the arrow and your arm holding the bow are straight. Look at the target, lining the arrow up with the middle of the target.











4. Pull the string and arrow back as far as you can.











5. To shoot the arrow slowly let go of the string.










 6. If you have more than one arrow repeat steps 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

















7. Once everyone has finished shooting you can all move up to collect your arrows. Put one hand firmly on the target and the other on the arrow and pull the arrow out carefully.










Written by Ruby and Jessie.

All New Zealand Kids Should Go On Camp!

It should be compulsory for everyone to go on a school camp because you can get past your fears; have time away from your family and classroom; and camp gives you a chance to make new friends.

One reason camp is good for you is that you make new friends. At Totara Camp I got to know Callum really well. I encouraged him to do the high ropes and abseiling. I said to him, “You should do it. It’s not too bad!”

   

Kids really enjoy learning new things at camp. It gets boring doing school work inside all the time so it’s a treat to go outside to learn. It is also nice to be away from your family so you get to live with your classmates for a few days.

Camp gives you a chance to overcome your fears. One fear people may have is heights. At Tui Ridge Camp there was a flying fox and it was 85m up in the air. I know that Kane overcame his fear by doing the flying fox. Another fear some people may have is speed. On the mountain biking people overcame their fear of speed by riding down the mountain bike trails.

Another reason kids should go on camp is to be active and stay off the electronic devices.

Every student in New Zealand schools should be able to go on camp so they can have fun learning outside, be active, make new friends and overcome their fears.

By Maddy

EOTC Week

The students in Room 20 had a fabulous time at camp. This is just a snapshot of what we got involved in - you really had to be there! Some of the kids overcame some huge obstacles and achieved heights that they had never dreamed they would.

High Ropes at Tui Ridge

Jack said, “ The instructor ended up flying because she couldn’t take the weight of some people!”

Markus said, ‘One of the parents who was with us let us down really fast and then stopped it so that we bounced! I went down spy style.”

Daniel barrel-rolled off the log and Heidi, a parent, came flying forward!

Ailee said it took Tiana 5 minutes to get to jump off at the end and Ailee liked making the bridge wobble.

Shagufta didn’t go because she is afraid of heights but enjoyed watching everyone else.

Mountain Biking at Tui Ridge

Euan didn’t enjoy the mountain biking at all!

Markus’ shoes started out with white and ended up brown!

Tiani said, “I came down this hill and I did this big drift thing and I ended up falling off my bike! It was fun!”

The puddles were big enough to swim in as Bella discovered!

In the car park Daniel was riding along and wanted to test how good the brakes were. He flew over the handle bars! He concluded that the brakes were good!

EOTC Week

We had an amazing time at Tui Ridge and below you'll find a selection of photos for 3 of the activities, together with some quotes from Room 19.  Even the weather didn't dampen our enthusiasm, in fact, we think it made it more fun!

We hope you enjoy viewing these here as much as we have enjoyed reliving our experiences in class.

Air Rifles

Confidence Course

Flying Fox

Karate Workshop

A local Karate Club came to Maeroa at the end of Term 2 and took our team for an introductory lesson. We really enjoyed the workshop and some of us were keen to join the Club which takes lessons at Maeroa on Saturday mornings.

Jump Jam 2013

Congratulations Totara Team - School Jump Jam Competition Winners 2013

And more photo's here.....

Cross Country

Our school Cross Country was held on Thursday July 4th. A big thanks to lots of our families who came to cheer us on! Totara had lots of students participating in Courses 2 and 3 and we are very proud of their individual efforts. We are looking forward to the results being announced next term and are hoping some Totara students will be selected for the Inter-Intermediate training squad.

Rooms 19 & 21 Animal Enrichment Toys

Animal Enrichment Task

A few years ago, zoo enrichment programmes were a novelty. Now they have become accepted practice. The goals of behavioural enrichment are to:

1. Encourage animals to use their natural abilities
2. Increase their activity
3. Allow them to make choices
4. Give them new experiences.

Animals in a stimulating environment have fewer physical problems, breed more successfully, are better parents and live longer.

Challenges and stimulation make animal life in captivity more normal and visitors are more likely to see natural behaviour from behaviourally-enriched animals.

Food, or rather the way an animal gains access to food is a major component of behavioural enrichment. Presenting food in a way that makes animals search, forage, climb, jump and cooperate, will stimulate them.

2013 BP Zoo Challenge Guidelines

The animals chosen for the 2013 BP Zoo Enrichment Challenge are the Tiger and the Australian Parrots (Galah, Musk Lorikeet and Princess Parrot).

Sali the new female tiger arrived at Hamilton Zoo in August and next year an unrelated male will arrive as part of the breeding programme and so this is a perfect opportunity to have an enrichment toy for two new zoo animals.

There is also a new mixed exhibit which will see all the birds mentioned above together and later the introduction of Australian reptiles.

TASK: Design an enrichment toy for either a tiger or Australian parrot.  

Have a look at our creations!

Room 19's Gingerbread making with Mrs J!

 

PE - Team Football

Totara Team enjoying the great weather during PE on Friday!

Term One

Term One has been a really busy term for the three classes in our team. We've had the school swimming sports, the touch competition for lunch time sports, lots of exciting learning within our classes, goal setting conferences and also plenty of our students getting  involved in service roles and extra activities throughout the school.


The sea of purple!