What a Week - or Two!!!

Wow....we have been so busy.....and I am noticing some very tired children - the end is near - just two more weeks to go!

The highlight of the last couple of weeks is too hard to choose - first we had the White Ribbon Day and White Ribbon Riders visit our school. The roar of a Harley Davidson or five certainly caught the attention of the children! The message was even more powerful - and the students certainly did pay attention. Amazing people who travel the South Island sharing the message that violence is NOT okay. The students loved having turns at sitting on the motorbikes and talking with the riders.

This week saw many of our class head down to the Quadrathon. The behaviour was amazing and the racing even better! It is always a first class event and Rosebank students did very well individually and as a team. Quadrathon (an extended version of my favourite sport, Triathlon) is always exciting and a real challenge to many. Well done students!

Swimming Sports was held yesterday and we saw some amazing racing! Kaka won the coveted student relay - with Hoiho a galant second!

Friday was Fun Day!!! We started the day by watching the Junior SOHS students' drama production - it was amazing!!! Cast and costumes, sets and scenery were fantastic. Bad Jelly the Witch was great to see and the students really enjoyed it. The rest of the day was Whanau Groups and lots of fun hosted by the Student Council. I am sure the highlight for everyone was the massive waterslide down the bank on the field!!

What a week! Next week is the Year 8 Supper - it will be sad to see our Year 8's heading off to High School but what a journey it has been for them. I hope to see all Year 8 parents there!

I'm exhausted just reading this!!!!!

What a Week!!!! Senior Social followed by Cricket

The Senior Social was a huge success - the students looked amazing! It was a great night full of lively dancing, laughter and fantastic outfits! Aymaan, Michael and Byron (Room 5) looked particularly amazing in their suits and the rest of the boys looked awesome in their formal outfits. The girls were beautiful, their dresses gorgeous and their hair and nails done.

It was awesome to see boys asking teachers to dance, and it was really special to see the students dancing with their parents, grandparents and other family members. The beauty of the dances we learned was that they are dances that are timeless, and as such parents remember them too which made for a great dance when they were asked to join in.

The highlight had to be Copperhead Road - students maintaining the beat and their lines while parents tried desperately to go right and not left, forward and not back. You could see students helping their siblings learn the dance and also laughing alongside their parents.

The supper was delicious and a huge thank you must go to all our senior students' parents and families for treating us with such great food! Thanks also for all the effort that goes into getting your children ready for the Social - it's a milestone, especially for the Year 8 students. What a fantastic night.

Wednesday saw a lot of tired students from the Social, but they backed up to play some great games of Cricket down at the Toko Showgrounds. Rosebank fielded three teams, Roseband Red (Boys), Rosebank Blue (Boys) and the Rosebank Girl team. There was a lot of excitement. The girls made it all the way to the finals, only to be beaten in a very close game by the girls from Toko High School. The boys' teams ended up playing each other for 3rd and 4th position in their competition. It was a great day weatherwise, not too hot and fine! There were two games before lunch and then semi finals and finals after lunch.

Well done to those who took part and to those who showed their best sportsmanship on the day!

Rosebank Blue (4th place)

Rosebank Red (3rd place)

Rosebank Girls

Rosebank Cricket Players

Room 6 Medly

Girls looking gorgeous!

Boys waiting to start

Last Week SWIMMING...This Week CRICKET....Next Week DANCE!

We were lucky enough this week to have Dion come and coach our class for cricket. He showed our class some great games to play to improve your speed and accuracy with the cricket ball. Fast paced games help students not only with their co-ordination, but also thinking ahead and planning their next move. It was great to see such enthusiasm, even though the southerly wind was blowing a gale and we were feeling the cold snap!!! Nothing like a bit of running around to warm up though!

With the upcoming cricket tournament at Milton, the two sessions with Dion were so valuable. Thanks must go to Mrs Sinclair for organising this and we really don't thank her enough for all she does...so here is a hearty THANK YOU from Room 6 - we really do appreciate what you do for us!

Next week is the Senior Social - we have been practicing our dances and they are coming along well. These dances bring back a lot of memories for me and I am sure they will for a lot of parents too! We look forward to seeing you all at the Town Hall on Tuesday night. Put on your dancing shoes!

Water Safety Fun

Another great week of water fun (except for getting rained on walking down to the pool one day) has been had by Room 6. This week we did not only swim our lengths to improve our swim fitness, but we also had fun on the kayaks in the pool, learning the vital skills of climbing back on without touching the bottom, to simulate a real kayaking tip. This had a lot of students laughing so hard that they fell off anyway!

We also had a swimming race with life jackets on - students were heard saying "This is so easy"....well it wasn't! There was a lot of arm action and not a lot of movement! We really enjoyed these experiences, it's a great skill to have. Students also took turns at being a conscious and unconscious swimmer being rescued by others and towed to safety. These skills are so important to have, especially with summer just around the corner.

The end of the week saw students dress in their pyjamas and then swim two lengths of the pool. Those who bought their 'onesies' found this hard going! Those furry pyjamas because very heavy, very quickly. Students were then required to tread water and remove their pyjamas. Why? Because when you fall into a body of water fully clothed, the experience is a lot different to swimming in your togs. Clothing becomes water logged, heavy and hard to remove. It was a struggle for some, but all students eventually got their extra clothing off and to the side of the pool. Well done Room 6!

Maths Games to Start Term 4

Welcome back!!! Term 3 was so hectic and Term 4 is shaping up to be another one where our feet barely touch the floor! We have two weeks of swimming and the Year 7/8 Social AND the Year 8 Supper - just to mention a few items!!!

At the end of Term 3 we were working on our Maths Games to share with younger students and to help our class and the younger students with their fractions. Room 6 were given a criteria to meet and they had to select a Maths Stage to target their game at. Then they set out, with their partner, to create a game. They were only allowed to use a manila folder as their board and they needed to draft, write rules, practice their maths, ensure all the answers were correct - and then present it to the class.

WOW!!! I am so excited by the levels students went to. I have seen some great games (and played a few too!). Students were so enthusiastic that at the end of Term 3 I was asked daily if they could continue with their game production! Today we launched our games in Room 6. Each pair of students had to put their game up for testing. Each game was tested a minimum of three times by other students and then critiqued. It was tough for some students to receive the feedback, but after careful consideration, most have seen it as a way to improve their game. Students were also asked, after they received their feedback, to critique their own games. They are much harder markers than I am!!!

We have had a great time making games and cementing our own learning in the process. Now we look forward to sharing them with others. Room 6 are loving the opportunity to complete Maths projects like this, alongside traditional book work. I am so proud of their efforts and fully intend to try ALL the games!!!

Production......What an Event!!

We did it .... it's taken me a week to recover....but we did it!! With the expertise of Mrs Penn, the Year 7 and 8 Production went off without a hitch (well, except for a certain person falling OFF the stage!) It was a great couple of nights, and the students performed brilliantly. We have had several comments from parents, emailed in, saying it was the BEST production they have seen - this is GREAT!!

We had too many highlights to mention them all, but for me, as a teacher, the highlight was seeing the beaming faces of our talented students as they came off the stage from their scenes. They were smiling and happy and excited. Their acting skills keep on improving, lines were added, ad lib, and the laughs got louder and more hearty from the crowd.

There are so many people to thank for helping with production - and I am sure we will forget some, but please, accept this as our thank you - from Room 6 to you all - THANKS!!! A special thank you to Mrs Karen Sinclair and Mrs Gail McElrea for helping me knit leg warmers - an essential part of the 1980s!!! Also to the lighting man and the stage builders - without you guys we'd have been lost! A special thanks to Mrs Penn for her coaching of lines and to my prop builders and painters - all of you, despite the mess you kept leaving me, did a GREAT job!!!

Here are some photographs of the night - ENJOY! We sure did (but I am glad it is only once every 2 years.....we are all exhausted!) All students have access to a range of photos from the night (thanks again Mrs Sinclair!), so are able to share these with you from their Google Drive.

Delusia and her Minions

Ethan staring as Rumpel

Caitlin "singing" to the trees

Jess as the cookie munching 'Red'

Sarah as 'Snow' with Shania as 'Delusia'

Prince Charming (Brooklin) with Delusia and Cindy (Latoya)

Too many stars to mention!

A lovely pair of Princesses!

Volunteer Army Complete Their Task

The Volunteer Army, Year 7 and 8 students, have completed their task with the help of the rest of the Rosebank School community. Our Year 7 and 8 students took on the challenge to gather goodies to put into Compassion Boxes, and then send these out to people in the community who might have fallen on hard times, or might just need a boost.

When we started this project we thought we would be able to make 6 or 7 boxes, however, with the generous support of our community, we were able to put together 15 boxes! These boxes contain lots of different items including toothbrushes and toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand lotion, tinned food, pasta and pasta sauce, snacks for lunch boxes and lots of other little bits and pieces. It was so good to see the enthusiasm of the students as they painted their boxes, sorted items to put in to it and then wrap the boxes.

With the help of Mr. McLaughlin, these boxes will be distributed to those people in the community who are struggling or who need a boost. We wish them well, and hope they enjoy the goodies and the thoughtfulness put into these boxes.

Volunteer Army - stand down!

A few of Room 6 with some of the boxes before wrapping

Some boxes waiting to go !