Last week Miss Salton left our classroom. We welcomed Mr McCallum. He spent the last year in Teina which is our junior classroom at Poroutawhao School. Mr McCallum has many interests which include; the environment, native birds, plants and animals, and his family. Mr McCallum is already very impressed with the technological skills of Poutama. We are all helping him upskill in this area.
Today is Miss Salton’s last day with us. Next week, our teacher becomes Mr McCallum who is moving up from the Junior Class.
Yesterday, we had a shared lunch to say goodbye, it was our class as well as most of Tuakana (our senior class) as Miss Salton has also taught them throughout her time here.
We will really miss Miss Salton when she has gone. Some of our favourite memories with her are:
– Learning to play Ki-0-Rahi (2022 and 2023 class) and going to the tournament
– Going to Cloud 9 and the Lido (2022 class)
– Doing our galaxy and paper mache planet art (2021 class and 2023 class)
– Learning with Miss Salton
– Learning new computer skills
– Cross Country (Colour Run)
– Swimming Sports
– Tech lessons
– Our first blog posts
– Getting to play football
– Lots of PE
– Helping us with our writing
– Being our coach for different sport teams (Football, Hockey, Waterpolo, Netball)
– Going to Kimberley
– Scaring her with spiders (because she does not like them)
– Shared lunches
– Watching movies and listening to music
– Watching us play our sports
Miss Salton is going to be working for Manaiakalani, being an in-class facilitator.
Today, Craig and Greg from Otago University and Otago Museum came to visit us to teach us about the Science of Medicines. Each class took turns visiting them to find out more.
Vani got to add in liquid into a test tube, 3 different times, which changed the colour in there to show how antibiotics work.
Liam, Jonty and Zephy got to drop different types of pills into liquid to see how fast the reaction time was.
Layla, Kaliah-Rose, Emma and Sinead got to throw ‘covid’ at dolls to see if they would fall, and the whole class played covid ker-plunk.
After that we all got to look around at the different things that they had brought. We got to look at things under the microscopes, and used a computer and iPads to look around at images of illnesses as well as play different games.
There was also a 3D model of the covid bug.
We learnt lots!
On the last day of term 1, our whole school went out to Kimberley Reserve. Kimberley Reserve is near the Ōhau River with lots of places to swim and go on bush walks. There is also a huge field you can play on.
Our Senior Class (including Vani) stayed out the night before and did things such as an Easter Egg hunt, spotlight and went down to the river to look at the fish and went eeling. The seniors really enjoyed themselves.
The next day, when the rest of us joined we broke up into our classes and did 3 activities. First, we did the slip-n-slide, if we had our togs (and some of us did it in our clothes) we got to run up down the tarpaulin getting covered in soap and water. Those of us who didn’t want to do this, played different sports out on the big field.
Our second activity was going down to the river, Whaea Krishna walked with us down there and some of us went into the river. Lots of people walked to the other side of the river but Kaliah-Rose, Ngarongo and Rex investigated what was over there. Some other people swum most of the way across, but it was very, very cold! Those of us who didn’t swim, were able to explore around the outside and skipped stones along the river. Retia and Remi found lots of rubbish and we helped clean up some of the area. We also sae a fire pit, so someone had been out there keeping warm!
Our last activity was the bush walk. Luckily, Tiare’s mum was with us, because she knew the way through (Miss Salton didn’t). We got to see lots of birds, Pīwakawaka were everywhere. We also got to see lots of native trees, and some fungi. Unfortunately, Remi got stung! But he was OK as Sivannah’s mum had some sting cream that he used.
When we got back from the bush walk, it was lunch time! We got to have sausage sizzles (cooked by Retia’s dad and other parents). Just as we were getting our food, the rain came down and we all ran back to the shelter. The rain didn’t last very long (only like 2 minutes) so we got to come back out, eat and play a bit more while Miss Salton set up the final activity, which was a house activity- Tug-o-War!
We all had to face-off in Tug-o-War, with our points being added up to work out who would face for 3rd/4th and 1st/2nd. Takitimu and Te Arawa faced off for 3rd (Te Arawa won) and Tainui and Aotea faced off for 1st/2nd. Tainui won overall! In our last matches, the teachers joined in with their houses to help their house.
Here is the final with Aotea (and Mr McCallum) and Tainui (and Miss Salton). One of our Senior Students took over running the event so Miss Salton could compete.
AFTER the house competition, Miss Salton had ALL the adults that were there come up and compete against the seniors. The adults won!
THEN, we had the adults VS the ENTIRE SCHOOL! WE WON!!!!
After that, we waited for parents to pick us up. We really enjoyed our day, and had a great time!