Bokashi Magic

Today Sheryl Stivens came to talk to us about our Bokashi system. We learned about how Bokashi was invented in Japan, quite by accident. We were reminded to keep the lids on our Bokashi bins to keep out the wasps  and other bad bugs. Sheryl told us that she finds lots of whole apples in Bokashi bins and how wasteful that is. There was a little bit of juice in the bottom of our bucket and no zing in our food bucket so we had to sprinkle that in as well. The zing is full of good bugs and start the fermenting process. Nikita had to put her hand inside a plastic bag and push the fruit down to make sure  that all the fruit makes contact with the zing.

Interestingly enough, the stinkiest bokashi bin in the whole school came from the staffroom. The teachers need to sharpen up.

Hannah wanted to know if you can put mandarin skins in the bucket and yes we can.

Isla wanted to know if bokashi would help her mum's lemon tree that isn't growing lemons. Sheryl said that the juice would be best.

We watched a video about using Bokashi in the community. Some cafés and restaurants are using Bokashi bins for their scraps,  which  then goes into the community gardens; win win.

Opuke W 2017

This is us, giving it large in Opuke

Ski 2016

Every Friday students from Opuke and some Year 4 students travel to Mount Hutt for Ski option. We leave at 11 to be in time for a lesson at 12.30. Each student is required to take a lesson from an instructor for one and a half hours. During these lessons they learn ski technique which they can then practise during free ski time with their group and adult. We have children who range from a level one ability right up to level 6. Three teachers accompany the students each week as well as a number of parents.

Speech Competition

Term three is speech time. All term the children have been busy writing and practising their speech hes. The children were required to write a persuasive speech and everybody delivered their speech to a group of their peers. While some kids loved delivering their speech, others were very nervous but everybody was an MPS STAR .

On Wednesday this week we held our year 5 and 6 speech finals competition. We had 11 students presenting. Congratulations to  our winners:

3rd equal - Emily Watson and Hugh Redfern
2nd place - Lucy Reeve
1st place - Toby Robinson

Toby will be going on to represent us at the Rotary speech competition in Ashburton. Toby will be up against winners from other schools in out district.

Clockwise from left  Andy- why dinosaurs shouldn't be brought back to life   Hugh - why I need a holiday from my sister

Toby - why teachers should wear a uniform   Emily - why the price of lollies should be increased

Caleb - why we shouldn't wear school uniform   Jonty - why the Olympics should not be held in Rio

Genna - why we should all live on the moon    Zanthe - why we shouldn't wear school uniform

Top: Lucy- why you shouldn't trust a pigeon   Middle:  Abi- why homework should be banned  Bottom: Ben - why dairy farming is the best

Commenting on the blog

Commenting on the blog is a great way to give feedback to other children about their work. Below are some guidelines for blog comments (sourced from Rakaia - mahitahi blog) You can check out their blog from the link on the right or follow the link here

What makes a good Comment?

All Comments need to provide Constructive Feedback.  Comments must follow these guidelines:

1.  Appropriate language must be used, i.e. no put downs.  Your comment must be posted as a personal response (“I” statement) and the comment should be justified.  For example, “I think you have presented your point of view well because …” rather than, “Awesome work”.

2. Comments must be positive & helpful and be structured in the following way e.g what you liked:
“I like the way you … because …”  
"I liked the way you used adjectives to describe the animals."
"I liked how you used a video to present your book review."

3. Write about your feelings, opinions, ideas - Your comment should make the poster think!  For example: 
"It would be interesting to …”
"What would happen if …”
"I agree/disagree because …”
“I think next time perhaps … because ...”
“Next time would you consider …"

4. Or you could ask a question to clarify something in the post, for example:
"What programme did  you use to make the video?"
"What problems did you have making it?"
"What are you proud of?"
"What might you do differently next time?"

Golden Gladiators SWAY

This group have been doing a concept-based inquiry on form and function. This is the SWAY that we all contributed to. We have written some information reports on an animal we created from scratch. We have described it's FORM and the FUNCTION of its adaptations.

Maths has been looking at perimeter and area of shapes. This exercise required us to estimate how many people we could fit in 1 squared meter.

We checked and then estimated how many we could fit in 4 squared meters. It worked out that we squeezed 4x the number of people in 4 squared meters, about 52. How many people did we fit in 1 squared meter?