5S Citizenship - Term Two

Congratulations to Matt and Alex - who were acknowledged for their outstanding 'Citizenship' for Term Two.

Cross Country Star!!

A big congratulations to Ethan - who has won the Inter-Zone Cross Country Competition. This means that he is the number one runner for his year group in our region.

He is now off to Masterton in a couple of weeks, to compete in the next level of the competition. Good luck Ethan!! :-)

A Quick Reminder!

Dear Parents,
Last week's storm has created a few communication challenges and I do not have access to my email database - so with any luck - you will be able to few this notice on the blog!

I hope you all managed to keep safe and warm on Thursday night and Friday and I'm sure the boys were not complaining about having the extra day off.

As well as not being able to get into school, things were also a little chilly for me on the home front as we lost power our Thursday night and it was not restored until late Friday afternoon! 

My main concern is the boys' Speech Board exam - which is TOMORROW!! It had been my intention to give them all a final "pep talk" on Friday afternoon - but this obviously did not happen.

They need to come to school fully prepared - with any props/charts etc that they need for their talk.They should know their poem off by heart and they must remember to also bring their book, to read their extract from.

They have all worked so hard and I have been very impressed with the performances that were delivered last week.

I'm confident that they will all be fine and do a great job.

Cheers
Veronica

Trentham Army Camp Trip

On Friday 7^th June, Year 5 went to Trentham Army Camp for a visit as part of our current inquiry on Conflict and Peace.

We were told to be at the gate by 9.30am. The first thing we did when we arrived was to have an initial briefing. We met Colonel John Howard and his team of soldiers who were going to be working with us for the day. It was really interesting to see that some of them were wearing the brand new army uniforms that camouflage themselves in every type of terrain, unlike their old uniforms which only camouflage in one terrain.

The next thing that we did was to head over to the field with a couple of P.T. Instructors, who took us for some very rigorous “fitness training.” The first thing he told us to do was 3 knuckle press-ups on the icy grass because some of us talked too much. It was cooold! Then he told us how to play a game called ‘wack-a-bat’ which is like “stuck in the mud” except instead of being tagged, you have to get whacked by a bat.

For the second part of training we had a competition. First of all we were divided into 8 groups, and then we had to move around 8 different activities, spending 4 minutes at each one. Some of the tasks included having to carry a bunch of tyres and a big heavy log to one certain place then build a pretend cannon, rolling a log to a place, lifting things, having to crawl under nets, making structures and having to use speed. All of this on the freezing, icy, cold and muddy grass!

After all that exercise we were starving so thankfully it was now time for morning tea. There were slices of watermelon, rockmelon, mince pies, drinks, sandwiches, cakes and scrumptious types of cheese.

Next they took us to a special place where they keep the L.A.V.’s – AKA Light Armoured Vehicles – even though they weighed 20 tonnes each!!! They could carry about 6-8 soldiers, 2 gunners and 1 driver. They had 2 cannons, two grenade launchers and 2 machine guns. Even though the L.A.V.’s were 5 metres long they were actually pretty cramped.

Next we went to the Ammunition/Bomb Museum. There were parachute mines, torpedos, land mines and sea mines that destroy submarines and bazookas.

We saw shells, grenades, cannonballs and a container made of see-through plastic, full of gunpowder.

We also went to a little concrete area where we could control a $250,000 bomb disposal robot that could do practically anything you wanted it to do. There was a man that was wearing a bomb proof suit. Another student told me to punch the suit as hard as I could, so I did - bad mistake! I hit it so hard I took skin off my knuckle!!

For lunch we shared food from Army Ration Packs and got to meet with some of the S.A.S. soldiers.

After lunch we were all given green makeup compact sets. Inside there was a small mirror and three colours, black, light green and dark green – used for applying camouflage makeup! Some of the students completely covered their whole faces, arms and legs, looking hilarious.

Next there was a machine gun relay race where we had to hold a $12,000 machine gun. The machine gun was actually far heavier than I thought it would be.

Then we had another competition trying to throw plastic dummy grenades at a target. The person that won got two bars of dairy milk chocolate.

  

Finally we met someone called Daniel, (D.J.). He is a navigator in the NZ Air force. It was great being able to listen to him talk about what he does and ask him some questions about his job. Some of his responsibilities include checking the fuel and making sure that the planes and helicopters are in good condition before they go up into the air.

Just before we left – we had a quick came of touch rugby with 5P challenging 5S and then our parents arrived to take us home.

All in all it was a fantastic trip, with many of the boys saying it was the best school trip ever!

We would like to thank Colonel John Howard and his team for all of the time and effort they put into planning such a wonderful day for us.

Don't forget to check out all the photos in the 5S Star Gallery!

Ben & Alex

World Vision 20/40 Famine

Last weekend was the 20 or for some the 40 hour famine to raise money for people in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, because there are so many families in this area who really need our help.  Many of the villages are not able to grow crops and so all they have to eat is a type of sweet potato. They eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner and therefore are quite malnourished.

Wellesley College has always got in behind the famine and the students are always keen to raise as much money as they can for such a worthy cause. We learnt that just by raising a small amount of money, we could provide enough food for 5 children for 6 months – which is fantastic.

We have set a goal this year to try and raise $10,000. So we went around the classrooms to find out how people went and what were some of the things people did to raise money for the 20/40 Hour Famine.

Apart from the traditional method of going without food for the time, others did some really weird things, such as a few people who decided to live in a card board box. The most money raised by one person was $500 he did this by not using technology not eating and not talking – which must have been especially hard! No wonder he raised so much money.

We can’t wait to see the total results when all of the funds come in and fingers crossed we reach our goal.

Check out the photo below of all of the students in 5S who participated.

By Judd and Rufus

James' Egg Experiment!

Recently James decided to undertake a science experiment to see if he could make a raw egg bounce! Can you research the science behind his idea and find out why it might work??

Last weekend I decided to do an experiment. My Sister had already done this experiment so I thought I’d give it a crack!

I put vinegar in a cup, and then I added a normal egg straight out of the fridge and put it in the same cup. I left the egg overnight and in the morning I hoped that the shell of the egg would become rubbery and turn bouncy.

The next morning I woke up to a big surprise the egg was bouncy and soft as I wished it do.  I took it to school to test it  Mrs Stevens said to drop the egg out of the class room window.

Now this is where I got really nervous. The class were waiting below and began the countdown:  “5 4 3 2 1”. 

I dropped the egg – splat went the egg! I think that the egg shell fell off because the vinegar dissolves all the shell. I was  really amazed that the egg looked like it had been boiled even though I didn’t  boil it so I think that my egg experiment was an average success and I’m going  to try it again but this time I’m going to leave it in the cup for a longer time - not just for one night.

By James M.

E-Postcards to China

In year 5 we have been writing E-postcards to a school in China. We had to take pictures, one of ourselves and also another photo of something that is special to us. We had to write about our school and what we like about it and then we had to write about ourselves, the things we enjoy and about our families.

The postcards were emailed to the school in China a few days ago. The students there are a similar age to us and there are 39 children in the class.

We are also hoping to have a SKYPE conversation with the shortly. It will be really interesting to find out about their school and their lives.

Hopefully we will hear back from them very soon. 

Can you find the school on Google Earth? Here is the address:

Wang Xinzhe, Wuxi Yuying Experimental Primary School,  No.80 Qingshan Dong Road, Wuxi,Jiangsu, China.

By Daniel and Judd

Year 5 - Trentham Army Camp Trip

Wow - this trip will definitely have to go down as being one of the best in my teaching career and I heard many of the boys saying that this was "the best school trip ever!".

A very big thank you to Colonel John Howard and his staff for all the work that went into planning such a fantastic programme for us.

Watch this space soon - for a detailed report and photos showing what a great day we all had.

Cheers
Private Stevens!!