Pounawea Camp

Claudia catches an eel. "Yum, smoked eel tastes like trout!"

                       First yabby of the day - caught by Mr Hutton, on a piece of string loaded up with stinky meat.

Jack finds an empty crab shell at the rock pools at Papatowai. We found many awesome creatures including a small yellow foot paua, anenomes and a range of very cool starfish.




 Jacks hollow paddle crab shell has red spots on either side and spikey bits on the front.

The population of bug city in Earthlore is 2,000,000 bugs and growing.

Erosion Challenge- Alex Jack Callum

Last Monday we had an erosion challenge where we had to build a block house to put on a sand hill. Then we had to defend the house from weathering, buckets of water, with bark, sticks and other materials. Here are some photos of our groups creation-

Our final creation had a rock buried in the hill and bark buried around the hill.

Our house after the first downpour.



Our house after a bucket of water.

After a second bucket of water, our house was demolished.

Overall, our group came second. Something we could improve on is making the house sit on the flat bit of the rock. Some things we did well were making supports under the house and putting bits of bark around our hill, making the water run straight off the hill, keeping the sand from eroding. In the end we were proud of our defences from the weather and the design of our house. By Callum and Rowan

Ape Escape

Ape Escape

In the weekend, three Gibbons escaped their enclosure at Orana Park in Christchurch. All the people visiting the zoo had to go into special cages to prevent getting attacked by the small 14kg apes. One of the teenage Gibbons got excited and swam over the moat which is very unusual because Gibbons are not swimmers. The biggest cause of death for Gibbons in zoos is drowning. Two other excited Gibbons decided to follow their friend over the moat. Orana Park has had the enclosure for eight years and has never had this happen before. The small but deadly apes are strong enough to rip you apart, can grow up to 1 metre tall and can jump up to eight metres high. After an hour of chasing monkeys around Orana Park, the Gibbons were finally captured and put back in the enclosure without the use of tranquilizer darts. The male apes didn’t go very far from their enclosure because they didn’t want to leave the females and babies alone. The zoo staff only knew about it when a visitor took a video and some photos of the ingenious Gibbons escaping over the moat. The incident was said to be very serious and Orana Park will investigate into how to prevent this from happening again in the future. A presenter from the Erin Simpson Show was at Orana Park when the Gibbons escaped and posted on Twitter “I’m at Orana Park and an ape has escaped! This is like real life King Kong”. Callum           9.09.13

"I must protect this pole"

Two adventurous Gibbons take over

Two adventurous Gibbons take over

 

Fighting Pirates

Fighting Pirates

Yesterday some New Zealand Navy ships set off from Devonport to defend against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Africa. They are going to spend seven months stopping the pirates from taking other ships hostage. Part of the reason why New Zealand is sending out ships is because they are looking for a seat on the U.N Security Council and this is all part of the campaign.       Callum 13.08.13

 

 

 

Gymnastics

In Room 2 we have been doing gymnastics with Ms Bell. We did cartwheels, dives, flips and forward rolls. Here are some photos and short movies of us doing those things.

By Callum



 

E.E Seed Identification

We had to identify seeds in E.E. Some of the seeds were corn, radishes, peas and beans. By Callum

Golf Tournament

Golf Tournament

Yesterday there was a golf tournament at the Toko golf field. Our team was Aaron, Alex and I. We scored 101 points over all 9 holes. I won a golf ball because I was using the coaching to get better. I think my biggest hit off the tee was when we were on the last hole because it went about one quarter of the way to the hole.                 By Callum         27.8.13

 

 

 

 

Tirohanga Camp Cross Country

Well done Waihola students  Everyone put in such a big effort and should feel very proud of themselves.  We all enjoyed the competition, the mud and the sunshine. Thanks parents for being involved. Congratulations to the following people who performed in the top 10 at our Taieri Schools cluster.    Yr 4 boys: Ryan Smolders 8^th  Yr 5 boys:  Nathan  10^th Yr 5 girls: Stevie 10^th Yr 6 boys: Rowan  4^th, Callum 10^th Yr 7 girls: Holly 10^th Yr 7 boys Alex 5^th

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A Visit From The Experts

Last week we had a visit from Bob Lloyd and Esther Haines who are professors at the University Of Otago. They talked to us about wind and solar energy. We learnt that the biggest wind turbines in the world generate 5 megawatts or 5,000,000 watts while the biggest ones in New Zealand only generate 3 megawatts. The most shocking thing we learnt was that France has the most nuclear power plants in the world.  The biggest wind farm in the world generates 100,000,000 watts of electricity. We really enjoyed having Bob and Esther and hope they come back soon. By Rowan and Callum.  15.8.13

Road Safety J Walking

We learnt about road safety at school and made these videos with the I pads. This video is about using footpaths. 

Beach Riding

Beach Riding

In the holidays my family and I went to Taieri Beach to ride our two Honda motorbikes along the sand. We have a 70cc and a 100cc. Dad, Nathan and I rode all the way to Taieri Mouth and went through a river on the way, while Mum and Rhys waited in the car. While we were at the beach, Dad taught me how to change the gears while using the clutch. I hope we get to go back there next holidays. Callum             29.7.13

Hockey Tournament

On Thursday, the 11^th of July Harvey, Wiremu, Callum, Rowan, Aaron, Nathan, Stevie and Holly went to the Hockey Tournament in Milton at Milton Primary School’s field. Their team name was the Waihola Terminators. The team worked together, and won the tournament. They played against a team from Waitahuna in the finals, and bet them, 6-2 points! It was an exhilarating day which had everybody puffing by the time they got back to school.                          By Holly                12.7.13

Getting ready for the first game



We're in the semi finals



In the final match





And the winner is... the Waihola Terminators.



Rippa Rugby with Mitch

Today we had Rippa rugby training with Mitch and Nicole. We played a game where we had to stay in a set square and rip as many tags off other players before time ran out. It was very hard to keep your tags safe from attacking players.  The most tags I got by the end was four. It was a hard and exhausting job.                      By Callum and Wiremu   

Extreme Weather

We made weather reports at school as part of our weather inquiry. This is one of the videos.

 

Big Sad Wolf

Big Sad Wolf

On Thursday we went to East Taieri School to watch a play called The Big Sad Wolf. It was a play based on lots of different fairy tales. The funniest part was when they made up another version of Gangnam Style. My favourite character was Hansel because he kept doing this weird hand shake and talked in a German voice. The play was about a vegetarian wolf that was sad because he had been accused of eating The Boy Who Cried Wolf’s sheep so he hid in the Enchanted Forest. The disgraceful boy blackmailed the wolf by threatening to post a picture on Facebook, Twitter and Trade me of the wolf looking as if to eat a sheep. The only way the wolf could stop the boy posting the picture was to blow down the three little pigs houses. The wolf was allergic to straw and sticks so he couldn’t stop himself sneezing the first two pig’s houses down. When he got to the brick house, the boy who cried wolf set fire to it. The wolf tried to tell the pigs that their house was on fire, but they wouldn’t listen. The wolf accidentally blew down the house when he was trying to blow out the fire. Near the end, the wolf went to court because he had been accused of eating granny. The wolf sneezed and the judge’s clothes came right off. It was really the boy who cried wolf. He had been trying to wipe out all the houses to make a freeway through the enchanted forest and make the wolf get blamed for it all. Just then, the wolf sneezed again and blew the boy’s clothes off completely. At the end they all sang a made up song called “Big Glad Wolfy Smiles”. It was a good comedy play for the end of a busy day.       Callum                4.06.2013    

Art - Our Summer Holidays

Callum and Holly have published their summer holiday stories ready for our class book. Come in and read it sometime.