Inspired by ...

Normally on a Tuesday, we would be working on Being a  Detective, but since Mrs Taylor wasn't around Mrs Spragg decided to get arty. This was very exciting because as much as we love being detectives, we also love art!

Did you know that Rimu Year 5/6 have a really good idea what Matariki is? 

Well, they do and after a brief discussion, we watched a wee video to help to fill in any gaps we had. Mrs Spragg also asked us to look at the style of the art that is used to tell one of the Matariki stories. It is in Te Reo, so we had to use our reading skills to follow along.

Mrs Spragg then read us the story of Mother Earth and Father Sky by Gavin Bishop to help us understand the background of the story we saw in the video. It is in this book.

Mrs Spragg also zipped us through a different Matariki story to help us understand that there can be one or more stories to explain phenomena, like the Matariki stars. 

We did have to keep an eye out for interesting artwork to inspire us in our own artistic creations. 

Explaining the process of what we were going to do, Mrs Spragg drew a design on the board. She then explained that we were going to create our own design inspired by the stories and artworks we had seen. Next, we were to sketch the design onto our pieces of paper, drawing lightly so the pencil wouldn't show through. Using black PVA glue we were to paint over the pencil line and let it dry.

Once our paint was dry we began to add watercolour paint to our pictures. Mrs Spragg explained how we use watercolour, adding a little bit of water (not too much or we soak our paper) to the paint. We had to make sure it wasn't too dry either. We were then shown how we can blend the colours. We had to be careful not to mix the paints together, this was very important! 

What a lot of fun we had. These photos probably say more than words can. What do you think?

Mrs Spragg is going to back them onto black paper and hang them up. These will be shared when it is finished.

Do you like art? Have you used watercolour before? Does your school or class have plans for Matariki?

Who is the Blogger of the Week?

Our Brilliant Blogger this week is ...

Click on the link to check out Julia’s awesome blog and her fantastic writing about dreams that come true!

Link to Julia’s Brilliant Blog

Rimu stood up to Bullying!

Last Friday was Pink Shirt Day. A day where people all around New Zealand wear pink to show that we don't tolerate bullies in our playgrounds, classrooms or workplaces. 

Rimu was no exception. 

We don't think that bullying is ok. In fact, our class treaty has a number of agreements that talks about how we should treat each other. We review this treaty regularly to remind us of what is expected. 

Sometimes we do forget. Sometimes we aren't kind and caring towards each other. But we know that we need to keep learning this. The thing that helps us with this lesson is the adults in our lives modelling kindness and caring towards the people around them. And thankfully our parents do. 

They also support us by giving us their pink things to wear. 

Don't we look SUPER!

Did you wear pink on Friday? What do you do to stop bullying?

Winter Sport is Back for 2019!!

Last Friday saw the return of our local Winter Sport competition. This is where our Sports Teams travel to Hornby High School to play against other schools. This year we have 6 teams. They are ...

For many of our children, the sport they have chosen to play is new to them and they have been practising new skills and learning new rules. Their coaches have been very impressed with their enthusiasm and dedication during training sessions.

All children were very excited that the first day of the competition was finally here. From all the recounts from teams, everyone played well and with great sportsmanship. There were some wins and some loses but everyone enjoyed themselves. We are all looking forward to playing again this Friday.

Here are some photos from the Yaldhurst Explorers Game.

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Does your school take part in something like our winter sports competition? Are you playing a new sport this year? What do you think the hardest thing about trying a new sport is?

Announcing, (I need a drumroll ........)

Announcing our brilliant Blogger of the Week!

Drumroll please ...

This week our Blogger of the week is ...

Parwin is one of our fabulous Year 8 students in Rimu and is part of our cluster media team. She writes fantastic blogs that you will really enjoy about a range of different topics. We love how she uses different apps and programs to make her blogs exciting.

Ka pai Parwin, you are our brilliant blogger of the week. Click on the link to check out Parwin's awesome blog.

Link to Parwin’s Brilliant Blog

Shhhhhh ... It's a Secret!!

This week in our 'Be A Detective Project,' our Year 5 and 6 children looked at secret messages. We decided to try and create our own secret messages using resources we could find at home. When we researched it, we found four different ways to do this so we decided to organise a science investigation to work out which way was best. Our investigation was:

Which create/reveal the clearest messages?
- lemon juice and an iron
- baking soda, water, grape juice
- salt, hot water, pencil
- full fat milk

We split off into groups to test this out. We carefully read the instructions, worked out what we would need then off we went.

  

   

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We wrote up what we did and then compared our results. We found out that messages are revealed through a chemical reaction. Which one do you think worked the best? Let us know in the comments and we'll reveal the result at the end of the week.

YMS B'Ballers got some air!

One Friday afternoon our bouncing basketball team, the YMS B'Ballers, had their first game for the session. This is the second year the team have played together. Ants, the coach (Rhys' Dad), has been working hard with them on defence and offence, as well as shooting some great hoops. 

The game was exciting and fast moving. We played Hillview and Toby kindly offered to play for them as they were short a player. Everyone worked hard to 'mark up' and to keep the ball moving towards our goal. Toby did say it was confusing at times to get the ball and then have to remember not to throw it to his friends. 

By half time we were well ahead in points and so a few people had the new job from the coach of getting others to have a go at getting a goal ... and boy they did. There were much cheering and excitement from the sidelines as everyone shot for a hoop. 

 

Well done team on a great win! And congratulations to Toby who not only selflessly played for the other team, he also played incredibly well for our team in the second half, scoring a magnificent goal. 

Special Note: Thank you Ant & his fab crew of men who came and put in the new basketball hoop at school - Arc Projects you are fabulous and we so appreciate the time and energy it took. 

Our Best Blogger of the week is .....

Another busy week in Rimu! Lots of excitement, lots of discussions, lots of blogs. Our brilliant blogger this week goes to ....

Teegan is an enthusiastic blogger who is known for his humorous blogs. This week's spectacular blog is about how to use the programme, webcam toy. There are some very clear instructions and great visuals. Click on the link below to check out his awesome blog.

Link to Teegan's Brilliant Blog

While the cats are away ...

While the cats are away, the mice will play!

Well in this case the cats are our Year 7 and 8 students and on a Tuesday they go to technology at Lincoln Primary. This leaves our fabulous Year 5 and 6 students to "play" in Rimu. Each term (on a Tuesday) we 'play' as part of a special project and this term our project is "Be a Detective!"

The project has started with us looking at fingerprints. After getting a little messy, we've learnt that finger prints are made up of whorls, loops and arches. All of our finger prints are unique to us and while some of our prints might look like others they are not the same.

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We then used our finger prints as inspiration for our art work. We magnified part of one of our finger prints and  then used pastels. We think they turned out pretty awesome, what do you think?

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