On Thursday, it was Samoan Independence Day.  This was a huge day at our school, with a massive assembly in the first block.  There were lots of items from classes and teams across the school, including Manulua!  Here is our item...

Museum Visit

Yesterday, as an introduction to our unit about dinosaurs, Rooms 6 and 8 visited the Auckland Museum.  Here are a few photos from our education session with Josh, where we learned all about fossils.  We even got to hold a dinosaur poo - ewwwww!!

Recrafting and Editing Our Writing

Every Tuesday, we recraft and edit a piece of writing from one of my class blogs from over the years (these date back to 2010).  One thing many of our students have in common is that they go straight from their draft copy to publishing, neglecting to recraft and edit their work.  (Ask them about it and see if they can explain the five steps of the writing process to you - we go over this in class all the time.)

Students work with a past piece of blog writing, which they recraft and edit individually.  When they have finished, they compare what they have done with a buddy, discussing similarities and differences in their recrafting and editing.

We then come together as a class and recraft and edit the piece of writing.  Here is an example of what this looks like:

PS Remember to visit our class writing blog - we'd love to see some comments from our whanau!

Belly Flops!!

An annual tradition in Room 6 is our belly flop competition. Today, several brave souls put it all on the line in the name of producing the best belly flop.  Check out the photos below - for the record, Havea was the winner, with Laani and Luseane tied for second.

Ouch!

Op Art

Check out our cool Op Art we have been doing.  It's based on the work of M.C Escher, who is a famous artist who specialised in creating optical illusions in his artwork.  Have a look at some of his stuff here.

Manulua Whanau Hui THIS MONDAY!!

Mihi nui ki a koutou,

We would like to invite you to attend our first-ever Manulua Whanau Hui.  This will take place in the Clendon Park Staffroom at 5.30pm on Monday, 13 February.  We envisage the evening will not go for more than an hour and it will be a very informal gathering.

We will be having a free sausage sizzle at 5.00pm, so be on time if you want to get a sausage!  J

This is a great chance for us to get to meet you and find out more about you and your family, and also for you to meet the Manulua teachers and find out a bit more about us.

Our principal, Sue Dawson, will also be speaking at this hui.

Items we will be covering will include:

- Looking at opportunities for whanau to come in and work with our students, whether it be for sport, cultural events, or anything else;

- Discussing the topics we will be covering this year;

- Trips this year (including our Year 8 trip to Rotorua);

- Homework;

- Questions from whanau;

- And much more!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Counties Manukau Cricket Coaching

Today, we were lucky to have a couple of coaches from Counties Manukau Cricket at our school to teach us some cricket skills.  We played a catching game and learned how to hit a straight drive.  Here are a few photos of the session.  Enjoy!