Wellesley College Easter Service

Stream Fieldwork

Year five have doing stream fieldwork, which involved us looking at a range of different aspects about our local school stream. During this time we took a look at how many plants, creatures, and rocks were found in our stream, during the quadrant count. This was done by marking out a square metre with string and counting what we saw within the quadrant. We also measured water clarity by pouring water into a special water clarity measuring tube. We then very slowly moved a small disk away from the person who was looking at the disk. When the person could not see the disk they called out “STOP” and we looked at how far the disk was and recorded it. This gave us an indication as to how clear our stream water is and how healthy our stream is. We also measured temperature in certain places of the stream, we did this by putting a thermometer in the deep water and the shallow water and recorded temperature. Each recording was taken several times, to enable us to find the average reading. Finally, we measured the water velocity by dropping a Ping-Pong ball into the stream and timed it to see how long it took the ball to float five meters when it had finished we recorded the time. by Archie & Flynn

5S Citizenship - Term One

A big congratulations to Judd and Flynn, who were voted for citizenship in 5S for Term One. The boys spent considerable time discussing the attributes of a good citizen and carefully considered this information before casting their votes. It was great to see so many of the boys being recognised in this manner and it was a very close election, to select our top two.

Success Outside of the Classroom

Last weekend, Hugo experienced success outside of the classroom, when he entered into the children's section of the local "Wild Food Challenge" and came 1st!!! Here he is with his creation and an explanation of what he made: WILD GORSE FLOWER TRIO Cordial, Cupcakes and Ice Cubes I wanted to think of a very new dish to enter in the wild food challenge. I thought about all the plants and animals near our house. In the end, I choose gorse because people think of it as a weed, and it would be interesting to see how it tastes. I went and got the gorse flowers from around the Pencarrow coast. I used wire clippers to get the big pieces of gorse and picked all the flowers by hand. It took me two days to pick all the flowers as I did trials for the cordial and the muffins. I didn't get pricked much as I went for the bottom of the plants – a strategy that worked out well. When I got home I had to soak the flowers overnight to make them edible. All the eggs that we used were free range and organic. I was surprised that the gorse flowers smell and taste like coconut. I really like the taste of the cordial and muffins and will carry on making them for my family.

Stadium Day

On Tuesday the 12^th of March 30 boys from Year 5 were lucky enough to go to the Westpac Stadium in Wellington.

When we got there we had to line up on the stadium seats and each school got called out to go to different activities. Our first event was tennis and it was exciting because we played “bonus bal”l and “last man standing”.

Next we had Kiwi Kick or AFL as the Aussies call it, we played crazy catch were we had to make up different catches and the amount of points it was worth. 

Following this, we had netball it was alright, although not really our kind of game. Finally it was lunchtime – as we were sooooooo hungry.

After lunch we played soccer it was fun, as we played a game called British Bulldog.  It was an exciting game, a bit like bullrush, except instead of running you had to get a ball past some defenders and you did a little dance before you started.

Next we played some mini games with six teams and three pitches and then lastly we did Karate it was fun because we learnt some punches and kicks.

We would like to thank Mr Parker and the parents for taking us and Mr Houston for getting it organised. It was a great day!

Don't forget to have a look at all the photos in our star gallery.

By Judd.A and Daniel.F

Year 4-5 Swimming Sports

The 2013 year 4-5 swimming sports were helod on Friday 8th March and were a total success. So thank you to the teachers and year 7’s who made it possible. I think that everybody did very well with no upsets or mishaps.  Here are some of the outstanding winners. The year 4 champion is Cameron Pattison and second equal were Sam Plimmer and Harry Zangouropoulos.

The year 5 champion is Archie Chandler and second equal James Johnston and Archie Treadwell.

The houses came in this order 1st Wellington with 275 points, second Croydon with 224 points, third Selwyn with 205 points and fourth Marlborough with 154 points.

Another thing that was fun was the parent verses student relay which was narrowly won by the parents.  

Check out the rest of the photos in our star gallery!

By Matt B.

5S Useful Information Page

I have just added a new link to the blog, which will take you to the 5S Useful Information Page. The link can be found down the right hand side - under "Other Useful Sites".

On this page you will find the following:

• 5S Weekly Timetable
• Ministry of Education Guidelines for Year 5 National Standards in Reading, Writing and Maths and how you can support your son in achieving these.
• Basic Facts Practice Sheets
• Essential Spelling Lists
• Suggested Reading and Booklists

If there is any other useful information that you would like added to this page, please let me know.

5S Class Councillors

The caliber of boys running for the two positions of class councillor in 5S this year was outstanding and I certainly don't envy the class, in having the task of voting.

The process initially began with a class discussion pertaining to the types of qualities that we felt students representing our class should have. Following this, I called for nominations and it was wonderful to see just how many of the boys were recognised as having these characteristics and were nominated for the job.

Not all of the boys accepted the offer, but those who did, were then faced with the challenge of having to prepare a short speech, to be delivered to the class, detailing why they should be voted for.

It was at this point, that I was extremely delighted with the level in which these boys performed. They all spoke with confidence and clarity and had all given the role a lot of thought and were able to provide extremely convincing arguments - making a tough job for the voters.

James M gave his presentation with a poetic twist:

I'm James McD – why vote for me

I’m cool, I’m fun, I’m a leader on the run.

I’m slick, I’m quick and

I want my name on a brick.

If you vote for me and you’ll see,

A big improvement – at Wellesley.

I’ll take your ideas to the top,

And make sure they don’t flop.

So finally after careful deliberation, the votes were cast and although it was extremely close, we would like to congratulate James and William, who have the honour of taking on this position for 2013. 

Week 4

Amazing - another week down - this term is certainly racing by!!
This week has been mainly dominated by PAT assessments - which have no doubt, not been such a highlight for the boys!!
However, they did rise to the challenge exceptionally well and it is great to have them behind us, ready to get stuck into a whole range of new and exciting projects next week.
I hope you have had an opportunity to look at our "5S Star Gallery" to see what we have been up to. There is a great slideshow of camp, detailing all of the wonderful activities the boys enjoyed during the three days.

Year 4-5 Camp

Last week was year 4-5 school camp. JJ

On Wednesday morning at 8:30 the boys started arriving with their Mums and Dads to pitch their tents on the field. Then at 9:00 came the dreaded tent inspection, after that the boys went up to the Inner Quad for morning tea. Later they were split up into groups and the parents drove them to start of the tramp to Butterfly Creek. This took about three hours and was quite challenging in parts. Afterwards the boys went for a cold swim at Eastbourne Pool for a much needed cool down. The first day concluded with a delicious picnic tea with families and then a team building exercise, which involved designing and creating a Pikau (packback) out of specific materials. It was amazing to see the different styles and designs.

The next Day, Get up, Run, Swim, Eat….. before the toast gets cold! The groups departed and went to their activities, Fishing, Camp Art, Paddle Boarding, Orienteering, Camp Cooking, Rock Wall and Kayaking.

That night the boys had fish and chips, a boat building challenge and race, beach walk with the juniors and then a full on game of spotlight in the dark. J

The next day Get up, Run, Swim, Eat….. before the toast gets cold. The boys had two more activity rotations, in the rain, packed up, and then went home. 

Overall it was a very successful and fun camp and enjoyed by all. We would like to give a huge thank you to Lara Baker (“Camp Mum”), all the parents who helped and of course the teachers for making it all possible.    

By William & Caleb