Secret Santa

Our Still Life Art

Tomarata musicians show us their skills

Thanks Martin for putting on a great concert with our clever budding musicians.

Sliding down the hill

Visit to Courthouse and Police Station

The Brainy Bunch

The Life Education trailer is here this week. We have been learning about parts of the body. We learnt a lot and remembered bits from the last visit. Thanks Debbie.

Bible in Schools

For the final Bible in Schools session this year the whole school were invited to participate in the Christmas story. Thanks very much to the teachers who come and share throughout the year.

Japanese classes

We have been so lucky to have Mrs Williams spending time with us and teaching us more about the Japanese culture and language. On her last day with us we learnt how to make sushi. It is very easy and tastes delicious.

Our Gardens

Our gardens have produced an abundance of vegetables. We have feasted on snow peas and we have carrots, beans and beetroot almost ready to pick. Mrs Morrow's green fingers and enthusiasm have have all the difference to our rather sad winter gardens. The cauli's were spectacular.

Acting out!

This term one of our whole class goals is to use appropriate expression when reading and presenting plays. We love acting out!

Our Drumming Experience

Action speaks louder than words. We experienced action today when we had Rhythm Interaction visit. We had an hour of listening, miming, drumming and enjoyment.

Tomarata School Show Day

Visit My Photos - 48 Pics
Show Day 2011

Rugby World Cup Tomarata

	Rugby World Cup Tomarata - 22Pics

Wugby world cup day

Last Friday we had a tournament about the rugby world cup. we had heaps of activities to play like ripper rugby, passing and rats and rabbit.The worst was the obstacle

Xmas Box

Room Five students have been involved in making Xmas more exciting for children in Papua New Guinea. They have contributed $2 towards buying all sorts of interesting articles that would fit in a shoe box that will be sent overseas in time for Xmas. Our box had a notebook, stickers, pens, toothbrushes, soap, a ball, marbles, socks, and a towel. We would be excited to get our box so we know that the children who receive it will be very happy.

Soccer Champs

The Wellsford Sea Eagles won first place in the Grade 10 of the soccer competition. They won all their games except one which they drew. Ethan received the trophy for Most Valuable Player and Matthew got a medal for most improved kicker. They received a trophy for being the top team.

wetlands

On Tuesday the 30 of August Rooms 4,5 and 6 went to study Tomarata lake.
When everyone was out of their cars all the kids ran into the water to see how cold it was. When all the cars were there Mr Stevens told us a bit about Tomarata Lake. Soon after Rachel from Auckland City Council came to help us test the water. The water temperature was 15 which means good because if the water temperature was more than 16 there would be not enough oxygen in the lake and all the fish would be dead. Once Rachel tested the lake she got her net and put it in the water. We got all these different type of bugs. She put them all in a white tray and got some plastic spoons so we could have a closer look at them.

Once everybody was done we went for a long walk to Lake Spectacle. On the way there we had to slip and slide into the slippery mud. When we got to Lake Spectacle we tested the water and it was 15 again. After we had tested it we all started walking back to Tomarata Lake.
By Danni & Darcie

The Great Rugby Robbery Show

Hi! We're here to talk to you about the Great Rugby Robbery Show that we saw last Thursday. It was so cool! Everything was funny. Our favourite part was when the teachers had to go up and do a humiliating bus driving dance! Everyone was laughing.
The people who acted were three young citizens, 2 girls, 1 boy. They each played heaps of different characters, up to four different parts per person! we also enjoyed a time when the bus driver wanted to be a singer (well, famous popstar) so she got up and did a ridiculous shuffling dance. We were all cracking up!
"Everyday I'm shuffling!" Well, that's it from us, we hope you would have enjoyed it too!
BYE!
Lily and Rosa

Tomarata Lake Wetlands Visit

Tomarata lake visit

View more presentations from Brendda Salt.

Congratulations Lily

Congratulations to Lily who was a finalist in the Puffin Short Story Awards Competition this year. There were over 1500 entries so be to be finalists is a great achievement. Lily got some helpful feedback from Dawn McMillan who is a writer and the author of the book "Why do Dogs Sniff Bottoms?".
You can read Lily's story with the feedback on our terrific writers blog.

Daffodil Day

Our school had a gold coin donation day for Daffodil Day. The Room 6 students drew a great chalk picture on the concrete and we lay our coins on it. Thanks to all the people who participated.

Our author visit

This week we were very lucky to have a visit from Feana Tu'akoi. She has written heaps of stories for the school journals as well as fiction and non fiction books. We have some of her books in our library. She told us how she became a published author. Many of her stories are based on personal events and she told us some funny stories about things that had happened to her that she later used for a story. We enjoyed listening to her and asking her questions.

Wetlands

Our "Future Focus" topic this term is our wetlands. We are planning a trip to Tomarata Lake to look at our local wetland area so we can see how healthy it is and what we can do to keep it healthy. Mrs Lomas has been teaching us some graphic art skills that we have used to create posters.

Speeches

This term we have spent a lot of time writing speeches and preparing for presenting them. Our topics were "My greatest achievement", "I am an expert at.." or if we preferred we could choose our own topic. Everyone in Room 5 wrote and presented a speech. We spent a lot of time practising so we were able to present our speech confidently. The class participated in judging our class presentations using the success criteria we developed. Nine students from the class then presented them to the school and were judged by our judging panel. Congratulations to Rafe and Joseph who have been selected to represent Tomarata School in the Year 5/6 division. Lily is our runner up and will go as an observer unless she is needed to fill in for our other finalists. Good luck.

The Dental Nurse...

Last week the dental van came to school to give us all check ups Dan Dan Dan some people were lucky to come out unharmed others were not so lucky. No just kidding. The dental nurse was very nice. Good thing it was only a check up. But some had to get fillings. Prescriptions were given out too. On the prescription there are three marks Green which means you are not due back for 18 months orange means your not due back for 12 months and red meant you need to go every six months. Some people didn't go though because they had different dentist I was one of those people. The dental van is gone now though so no need to be afraid. Just kidding!.
By Rafe.

Terrific Tomarata Tales

Tonabata- Wishes Festival

In Japan on the 7th July Tonabata, the stars festival is celebrated. We made origami stairways to heaven and we put wishes on the tree. We celebrated by making rice cakes which we rolled in sesame seeds. What a great festival!

The Tomarata beauty pageant...

Last Friday the assembly theme was "All girls beauty pageant". The contestants were Sammy AKA Sam, Shannon, Samantha and Kelly AKA Rafe. Rafe dressed up as a girl with a dress and high heel boots. (By the way those did not match that dress). He I mean she, also had a handbag, a black coat, and a wig... The assembly was very funny, very funny indeed. We hope there's another one or two or three...
By Rafe and Oskar.

Drummer comes to school

Today Ms Hancox drummed herself onto our assembly area as we sat on the decks watching. She belongs to the City of Sails Pipe Band and kindly volunteered to bring along her snare drum to show us. The whole school awaited her arrival and we heard her coming before we saw her. She was dressed in her band uniform. We had lots of questions to ask. We learnt a lot about the snare drum and her band and her uniform.

soccer and hockey day

On Wednesday Room 4, 5 and 6 went to Port Albert for our soccer and hockey day. There were heaps of people there. All our classes first games were soccer but the year 7 and 8 started on hockey. In our first game of soccer we got lots of goals. Kaleb and Lewis were the ones that got the most goals for our team. At lunch time everyone got their money and went to the club house to get their lunch. The line was so long it was coming out side on to the rocks where you drive in.

After lunch we did hockey instead of soccer but in hockey you had to wear a mouth guard. It was funny because when you talk it doesn't sound like you. Everybody had a great day at Port Albert.

THE DRUG DOG VISIT!

Today a drug dog came to Tomarata School and the dog breed was a golden Labrador. They breed the fine lovly dogs in Austrailia. The whole school and the Tomarata Play centre came to watch. Several teachers stood up and Mr McNaughton had the wallet that smelt like some kind of illegal drug. The wallet had been put into a container for a couple of hours. India the dog came rushing in with her police uniform on . She sniffed all the teachers and sat down in front of Mr McNaughton. Mr McNaughton then shifted into Miss Hancox's old space. India the dog then sniffed out the wallet and sat down in front of Mr McNaughton again. The customs officer gave India a squeaky toy and she went bonkers. She went under Mr McNaughton's legs, around all the teachers and outside. The school asked a couple of questions and then lined up in front of the dog and patted her. We think that that was awesome.

McCains- you've done it again

Last week we had a visit from Tony a representative of McCains. He came to talk to us about the importance of eating vegetables and how we can grow our own. He looked at our rather sad garden and gave us some advice to get growing. We need to put in some compost to grow healthy plants. We enjoyed looking at his red truck.

Farewell to the Kevens

We were very sad to farewell Sean and Rebecca last week. They have been Tomarata students since they were 6 years old and they gave valuable input to our class and our school. Rebecca was our student voice representative, elected by the class after she made her presentation convincing us she would be a good leader. They are both very creative writers and we will miss their contributions to our class sharing sessions. We know they will achieve well at their new school and we hope they will keep in touch and let us know how they are getting on. Best wishes from us all.

Soccer, Hockey day!!!

On the 8th of June Room's 4 5 and 6 all went to soccer, Hockey day. It was awesome, very fun. We Played Soccer in the morning until lunch and then hockey. There was also a canteen with drinks, doughnuts, hot dogs and ice blocks mmmmmmmm... It was a great day we really enjoyed it.
By Rafe & Joseph. :)

our museum trip

Pacific Islands Assignments

Our teacher has given us a assignment for the Pacific Islands. I have gathered information about the culture of Fiji. My questions were.. 1 How do they dress?,2 How do they celebrate birthdays?,3 What is their school like?,4 What are their houses like?,5 Whats sports do they enjoy?, 6 What foods do they enjoy?
By Max

Port Albert Soccer

Early on Saturday morning the Wellsford Tornadoes began their weekly game of soccer on the fields of the Port Albert soccer club. There adversaries, the Matakana Ratbags who had won many of their past games, were very strong foes. But today they would meet their match. The first half was promising for the Ratbags keeping the ball close to the adversaries goal. Until James Shadick, the Tornadoes valiant striker streaked up the field with the ball at his feet scoring two goals in a matter of minutes. After a small 5 minute break the two teams continued the game. The second half was much more intense than the first, the Ratbags picking up their game, struggling to get the ball in the goal. The Tornadoes defence was also struggling to keep the ball away from their goal. Their attackers were also slowly pushing the ball closer and closer to the goal, giving James Shadick another chance to put the ball in the goal and that is exactly what he did. In the end the Tornadoes would gust into victory with a 3-0 win over the Ratbags.

Soccer

Early on Saturday morning at Port Albert soccer club it is all on playing soccer for the Wellsford Tornadoes. As the game started James Shadick scored the opening goal against the Matakana ratbags. The ref blew half time. We ran to our coach to listen to what he said. He said, "Defense start kicking it up." Then James Shadick scored another goal and another. Again we won 3. We have three James's in our team.
By Max and James

Sneeze Assembly!

On Thursday some people from kleenex, sneeze safe came in to our school and had an assembly because we won a kleenex competition. They showed us four tips on how to be sneeze safe. Then half way through a GIANT GERM named Achoo came and attacked us but we got rid of him. He looked quite funny though!. We really enjoyed it it was very funny!!!
By Rafe and Joseph:)!!!

Room one's cake stall

This week the junior classes brought in TONS of food to sell for a small donation of 50 cents a piece. The dazzling amount of food consisted of cup cakes, toffee, biscuits, lolly kebabs, cake, sherbet, ginger slices and all sorts of candys to satisfy every child's needs and wants. All in all the class took two days to sell nearly all of their products. But there were still some biscuits and a few pieces of toffee left that did not go to waste and was immediatly sent to the staff for them to eat.

Manual at Rodney College

Every Tuesday Year 7 & 8 travel to Rodney College to do activities and learn important skills about certain topics. The topics we have are woodwork, engineering, textiles, food, horticulture and graphics. Year 7's have been working with Mrs.Parker at horticulture and have been learning about plants, tools for the garden and the food pyramid. They have also completed The Life Cycle Of A Plant. In Engineering, which is year 7's second activity, we have been creating wooden trucks with LED headlights that light up when you press a button at the back. First we had to measure the correct size of the wood, Then we sanded them to make them clean and sharp. Next we drilled holes in the bottom of our wood for the four wheels. After that we had to make the holes for our headlights to go into our cab by using the drill again. Then we glued the pieces of wood together, which took some time because you had to get them exactly right. I got mine wrong the first time so I had to pull it apart and do it again! The experience was fun and we will continue to do it next term.

The new teacher

Today room5 has a new teacher called Miss Hancox and she is going to be here for 5 weeks because she is learning how to be a teacher.
Miss Hancox can play the saxophone and the drums and the school she went to was university of Auckland and Massey university.
Miss Hancox enjoys being with children.

Our Student Teacher.

Today is the first day at school for Miss Hancox a student teacher from Massey University.
She will be with Rm:5 for 5 weeks to help us and to teach us. She is also here to learn how to be a teacher. Her interest is Music, she can play the Saxophone and the drums. She enjoys being here with children.

You have to be in to win!

Today an Ashton Scholastics representative delivered a box of books for our class as a result of a competition we entered last month. Max's entry into the competition won him a $20 book voucher, his teacher a $50 book voucher and books for each student in the class. We had a great time looking at all the books and making our choices. There will even be some for the library. Well done Max. It just shows that it is worth entering these competitions.

New Classroom Signs

Mrs Lomas has finished the signs she worked on last term. They are now fixed to the classrooms. Our class chose images that represented the learning that happens in our programme. We have five subjects that we enjoy. All the signs look great.

Picasso's Girlfriend

Our Bird Prints

Tawharanui Trip

On Wednesday the 16th of March we went to Tawharanui bird sanctuary. We had a walk a swim and the park ranger talked to us about some of the pests that are killing birds. He told us we should all help to stop these pests from killing our native birds and then he showed us some dead pests there was a Hedgehog, a Stoat, a Cat, a Rabbit, a Rat, a Ferret and a Weasel. He also showed us some traps he tested one of the traps by putting the Rat in it. Our walk took two hours but it was quite fun and we really enjoyed the swim.

Art with Mrs McCracken

On the 30th of March Mrs McCracken came and taught us about Picasso.
We made some of his art and she thought it was all lovely. First she said to draw a wonky oval. Then we add efects like a half face and eyes and a mouth. This is some of the amazing art we did. It was really fun.

JAPANESE

Room 5 have a awesome Japanese teacher and that is MRS WILLIAMS. We do Japanese every Thursday.(Fact:Thursday in Japanese is Mokuyoobi)This is a story on how we learnt it and it was really fun. First we started off with Ohayoo gosaimasu which is good morning. Then we learnt Konnichi wa which is good afternoon. After thatwe learnt that Konban wa means good evening. (fact:onamae wa na desu ka means what is your name)
When you reply to onamea wa nan desu ka if you are a girl you would say watashi wa Samantha desu and if you are a boy you wuold say boku wa Rafe desu (by the way the way of pronucing desu is des) After a while we learnt our numbers. We learnt up to twelve.We have leant way more. We think Japanese is fun and someday we want to go to Japan and learn more about the Japanese people. By Samantha and Abbey
Jamata (means good bye)

sanitarium weet bix tryathlon

For some very keen Tomarata school students, Sunday 20th March was a very busy day. The Sanitarium Weetbix Triathlon has been a very popular sporting event for over 10 years and still going strong, testing the abilities of kiwi kids all over new Zealand. Around 2,200 children aged 7-15 competed in the event, with official photographers there for every shot, and the famous weetbix guy supporting the runners as they neared the finish chute. Celebrities such as Hamish Carter, Jo Lawn and Maddy Dillon cheered on the enthusiastic triathletes. Competitors stepped up to the challenge as they swum 200m, biked 8.km and ran 1.5km. Some confident teens have been doing the tryathlon ever since they were seven! Overall this was a great memory for everyone who competed, and we will hopefully see more smiling faces next year.