Making Ice Cream!

Wow - what a fun way to end the term and who would have guessed that science could be so fun!!


Making Ice Cream on PhotoPeach

Grandparent and Special Friends Day - 2013

Today saw another very successful Grandparent and Special Friends Day - tinged with a bit of sadness, being the last event to be held in our old school hall. 

The hall is being demolished over the school holidays and we hope to have a new one built by the end of April, next year - which is all very exciting.

Grandparents and Special Friends Day, 2013 was once again a fabulous event and the weather even remained fine for us, as the boys enjoyed the opportunity of being able to share Wellesley with the special people in their lives.

We began with some oustanding performances in the hall, highlighting the artistic, musical and academic abilities of our students, followed by the singing of the school song, for the very last time within the walls of the hall - a moving tribute. Next the boys embarked on a tour of the school with their guests, chats with the teachers and refreshments.

Such a wonderful Wellesley tradition and a lovely way for the boys to celebrate and share their achievements with their loved ones.

Please take a look at our Grandparent and Special Friends Day Photos in our Star Gallery.

 

Tournament of Minds - A 5S Perspective!

It all started one day after math when Mrs Stevens told four of us that we had been selected for Tournament of Minds or TOM as we soon started to call it.

Mr Girvan told us and some year six’s that we had been selected for TOM and that in the next 6 weeks we would go about completing our challenges and if we won we would be going to Canberra, Australia. That really got us thinking.

We had a choice to enter Social Sciences, Applied Technology, Maths Engineering and Language Literature. Two of us chose Language Literature, while the other 5S students took up the challenge of Maths Engineering.

For those of us doing the Language Literature, we had to pick two main characters from a list of books and portray their character through a ten minute script, we chose Rue Elsie from the Hunger Games and Pearl Barley from Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley. Then we chose a topic from a selection of topics, we chose Harmony. Then we set about making the script. It was all about racial discrimination.

The whole script was based around a picture book, so we took a copy of the script and made some changes printed it out and turned it into a 12 paged physical picture book. Then we decided who would play each part and practiced, practiced, practiced and practiced. On the day we had to be dressed in black because that was the etiquette for the day.

This year the challenge in Tournament of Minds for the Maths Engineering division, was to build an adjustable timing device that could be used to time ten seconds and then a randomly chosen time between twenty and forty seconds. We made a pendulum powered device that was designed to bang against wood, to alert to when the set time was up. It was extremely tricky and required a huge amount of fine-tuning.

On Saturday 14^th September we all nervously arrived at Hutt Intermediate School. The day began with the spontaneous challenge; we didn’t know what the challenge was until about 5 seconds before our time started. We had 4 minutes to come up with an answer to the challenge then we had 1 minute to present your answer to the judges. Then we had a 45 minute break in which we squeezed in as many practices as we could. Finally we were summoned by the judges and we performed our ten minute skit.  

When it was all over, they had the prize giving and to our surprise it was announced……..“Language Literature, Honours goes to-Tawa!” and then “the winner of the Language literature is- Wellesley College!!!!!!”

By William, James, Matt and Tom.

WE LOVE CHOCOLATE!!!

Wow - congratulations 5S for winning Week 1 of the Gala Inter-Class Competition - by bringing in the most chocolate!!
A huge thank you to all of the parents who supported us, bu providing SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much chocolate for the boys to bring to school!!

Art Week Report

Monday 2^nd September, was the start of the much anticipated art week for Wellesley College. This is where we pretty much throw out the programme for three and focus solely on art.

There were 21 options of art that we could choose to opt into, so there was definitely something for everyone and it was really interesting to see so many different types and styles or art being produced.

 There were lots of extra people who came into help and we even had our own ‘Artist in Residence’ – Ben Timmins involved, to share his ideas, expertise and creativity.

We got to do lots of fun things like smash up tiles, to create mosaics, carve out of Oamaru Stone, paint umbrellas, construct tree houses, make stained glass windows, kites, carry out weaving, photography, clay sculpture, banners and carve out of wood for printmaking.  

In masks we had to cover them in plaster of paris. In clay you had to draw a design. In banners you had the option to put 3d paint on them. In stone carving you had to paint and cover them in a type of seel.

The theme for art week was nature so we had to create and design something to do with nature. For each piece we had to make a title for it, what inspired it and add your name.

Art week was fun because you could go to different classrooms and work with other students and do art instead of school work.

We’d like to thank all the teachers and helpers for enabling us to have such a successful art week.

Please don’t forget to check out our photos in our 5S Star Gallery and of course come to our art evening on Wednesday 18^th September at 7.00pm.

By Judd & Caleb

Art Week

Wow - what a fabulous three days of amazing creativity. Check out 5S in "artistic action" in our Star Gallery.
A report on this is to follow and please don't forget to attend our Art Evening on Wednesday 18th September - at 7.00pm in the school hall.