Funky Freestyle fightters

Olivia on the lelf and me Georgia on th right!

On your marks! Get set go! I do a great dive into the pool. As I hit the water I start kicking like a dophin as hard as I can. Olivia is in front of me, I try and try to get in front of her, but as hard as I kick I am getting closer to the end of the pool. In the end Olivia won than race but I had a great time!

Georgia.

Fantastic Fast Freestyle

Take your mark! Set! Bang! Splash! Dolphin dive into the pool. Stoke School's swimming sports freestyle final heat. There were three of us bullets shooting to the end of the pool.

There's Georgia on the right!

I was pumping my arms to try and beat Georgia. Georgia is my friend and she's about two seconds faster than me. I kept bumping into Georgia and she kept bumping into me. She's ahead of me and then I'm ahead of her. We finally get close to the end.  My arms were getting so tired but I reached out with my hand and touched the wall. I came second but Georgia came first.

What a horrendous finish

By Cheyenne

House compation

                                     cheak it out!!!                               

Evrey term Stoke School has a house compotion there is Omio red, marsden blue, narfato green, and songer yellow, my faverite part is tug of war because I fall over and at the end I get sore hands my hands go red.

by owen.                                                                                                            

Family Fun Night

Yesterday Stoke School had a family fun night a family fun night is when you bring your own dinner and do heaps of fun games. The games were the school parachute, the Tasman sports trailer, the swimming pool was open, the sand pit was open and you were aloud on the playground as well there was also a free sausage and ice block for the children. It started at 5:30pm and finished at 7:00pm. There was a grand opening for the new tiger truf that has just been put down.

The games that they did with the parachute were sharks and lifeguards and cat and mouse they made a tent as well. Sharks and lifeguards is when you pick two people to be lifeguards and two people to be sharks, the sharks go under the parachute and pull the legs of the people on the outside and the people that get pulled in call "lifeguard lifeguard" and the lifeguards try to pull them out. Cat and mouse is when you pick one cat and two mice and the cat has to try and find the mice under the parachute. In the swimming pool it was free time but you could hardly move because there were a lot of  people. The Tasman sports trailer had heaps of equipment to play with like basket balls, stilts, hula hoops, a tunnel, hopscotch and more. In the sand pit it was just making your own sand castles. It was cool to have some old students that used to go to Stoke School there and to meet up with them.


  I am just going to go through what has been an awesome  at family fun night there was a water slide, the pool was open, the Tasman sports trailer was there, the parachute and the playground as well. We had a fantastic time at the family fun night. There was a grand opening for the tiger turf.

FAMILY FUN NIGHT

Last night Stoke School had a night were you could go  on cool games  like a water slide and bring your family along to. and theres  fun  games on the  tiger turf like basket ball other games. there was a free sausage sizzle and ice blocks for us to eat. we played tackle rugby with big kids we lost by two it was a hard game we went back home at 7.00 I was tired after the night I had a lot of  fun.and we had a swim and it was fun in there and I did a ford flip in to the pool .and are principal said about the new tiger turf and then we walked home. Then I went to my friends to get my scooter and left to go home.

By Will and Jontee

house day recount

On wensday the 15 febuery it was house day. House day is when we have four house colers Red, Blue, Green, Yellow'.We play gams in the pool on the feald and the cort. In the pool we did hours races. On the feald we did a scavinger hunt & a water relay

February School Fun

We remember our school vision in the words "WE'RE STOKED! The letters stand for Whanau (family), Excellence, Respect, Energy, and, Seeking, Thinking, Opportunity, Kia tu tonu (get on with it and don't give up), E-learning, and Diversity!

Sometimes Stoke School likes to have fun to learn to think about others wellbeing (Whanau, Respect and Diversity), to encourage effort and determination (Energy, Opportunity, and Kia tu tonu), to support learning and self improvement (Seeking, Thinking, and E-learning), in order for students, and adults, to strive to be the best person they can be (Excellence).

Learning Drama Part II

The actors were given a character with a strange habit ('quirk') to act out during a pretend quiz show.  The audience had two minutes to work out as many characters and quirks as they could.
Can you work it out?

Our actors are learning to 'create' a character (what will it look and sound like) and stay in a character for a scene - with mixed results. Our audience worked out 4 of the 5 characters but only 2 quirks.  Answers will be posted tomorrow when the students are back..

Play the video

Place Detective - Answers

Georgia and Nikayla

Secret Number 1
1 x 1 = 1
6 x 10 = 60
9 - 2 x 100 = 700
9 x 1000 = 9000

The secret number = 9761

Secret Number 2
2 x 100 = 200
9 x 1000 = 9000
The last digit is 5
4 x 10 = 40

The secret number = 9245


Max and Marcus

1.Hard 
31 x 1 = 31
10 x 100 = 1000
1000 x 18 = 18000
6 x 10 = 60

The secret number = 19091

2.  Easy
The last digit is 9
The place before the ones is 6
8 x 100 = 800
50 x 1000 = 50000

The secret number = 50869

Coming Events - Week 5

An update for all Room 11 whanau:

Monday
Family Fun Night: 5.30-7.00pm
5.30pm - Opening of the Tiger Turf court
5.45pm - Let the fun begin!
BYO picnic.
Free sausage sizzle and iceblocks.
The school pool will be open with an inflatable water slide.
Supervised games and activities.
Sports Tasman's activities trailer and the school's PE equipment will be available for kids.

Tuesday
The Parenting Show: 7.00-9.00pm
75 Pascoe Street
Father, comedian, and TV show host Pio Terei's "Building Awesome Families" show
Pasifica Youth Team performance
Supper provided
Tickets are free and available from the school office.

Wednesday
Senior School Swimming Sports: 9.15am-12.30pm
Rooms 4, 8, 10 and 11.
There are 3 swimming grades to cater for everyone's ability, 3 events (freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke), 3 age grades, 110+ students, and each student has entered at least 2 events.  I calculate their will be at least 80 races (not including any semifinals and/or finals).
With so many races it is just not possible to give the times of each individual child's races.
The events will start with freestyle and, usually, the year 6 students, followed by the year 5s and then the year 4s.

Junior School Swimming Sports: 1.30-3.00pm
Rooms 1, 3, 5 and 6.

Sunday
Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon: 8.30am (race briefing)
Tahunanui Recreation Ground
Stoke School will have our gazebo at the grounds for students to meet and make sure they have their bikes organised and at the transition area before 8.30am.
Mr Logan (who has done a fantastic job, despite the stresses of entering over 80 kids online, organising students' entries and school support) will give students all the last minute instructions/information this week.

If you want more information about the course (including the course map for your child's age group) click on the link below:

Course Information (click on this link)

Week 2 - Progress Report

Good on Room 11 students!

We have had a steady increase in the number of students who are drafting or publishing their ideas on the blog.  I'm impressed with the students who have returned to edit their posts. Editing is one of the hardest things to teach students to do, once they have finished drafting many do not see the point of returning to recraft or polish their writing.

As far as increasing both our audience, as a class, and the number of views each student receives each term, they are making steady progress.  As of 4.00pm Friday 17 February the class blog has been viewed 674 times in total and 488 times in the last week (186 views this time last week).  The most popular post has been viewed 26 times.

Tenei te mihi aroha ki akoutou ma, kia pai te whakamutunga o te wiki. A te wa!
Much love to you all, enjoy the weekend.  Until next time!

Teach

Place Detective - Try Your Best

We have been learning about digits and place value for maths.
Use the clues to work out the digits and their place value to uncover the secret numbers.
We will give you the answers tomorrow.

1.Hard 
31 x 1 =
10 x 100 =
1000 x 18 =
6 x 10 =

What is the secret number?

2.  Easy
The last digit is 9
The place before the ones is 6
8 x 100=
50 x 1000=

What is the secret number?

By the maths brains Max and Marcus.

Place Detective Good luck

We have been learning about digits and place value for maths.
Use the clues to work out the digits and their place value to uncover the secret numbers.
We will give you the answers tomorrow.

Secret Number 1
1 x 1 =
6 x 10 =
9 - 2 x 100 =
9 x 1000 =

What is the secret number?
Secret Number 2
2 x 100 =
9 x 1000 =
The last digit is 5
4 x 10 =

What is the secret number?
Georgia and Nikayla

marcus 2012 life.

Tall gangly blond haired thats me! My name is Marcus and I am the son of an English father and a Swedish mother. Also I am the brother of a 13 year old ,a 11 year old and a 6 year old. My family means a lot to me but what I really like is running across short bright green grass and kicking a gleaming black and white football and feeling the glory of putting the ball past the keeper and into the back of the net.

 My memory is so blank from when i was born that it feels al tho I was born 4years old. I learned to talk my mothers language when I was about 4. My dad is English so obviously I can talk that language. Me and my brothers are the only kiwis out of all our ancestors.most of my dads side are from Britain but my mums side are mostly Swedish. Some people think I'm my mum in boy version.

 Football,what a glories sport, I live in New Zealand so most people enjoy rugby,but there are some small societies around New Zealand witch i try to make the most of when they pop up. My favourite part about this wonderful sport is the feeling of glory when you score. Sadly my position is at the back of the pitch, witch means I have to help the keeper to stop the other team feeling the glory,but when they do I just have to lift up my head,shake myself,ready for the next time.

 Playing football and being with my brother is very fun but every now and then we argue and I feel so against them but over all I love my brothers and I love football.

It's a tad ironic given recent weather, but Nelson again holds the title as the sunniest place in New Zealand.

Nelson in the News for Sunniest Place in New Zealand. (click on this link)

Room 11 students have been writing poems about last night's wind and rain, and our run of bad weather in general over the last year.

Read the latest on last spring's flooding and last night's battering.

Weather Batters Nelson (click on this link)

Flood Repairs (click on this link)

Sunny Nelson.

Wet and loud.
Boom.
Big puddles.
Wet trees.
Wind blowing.
Louder and louder.
Rain making splashes on my window.

Latia

Sunny Nelson

Wind swooping
Round the house
Blowing everything down
SNAP!
Trees breaking
BANG!
Falling trees
Rain hitting the ground
Like fireworks
Big puddles
Soaking trees
Everything wet.

Olivia

The Awesome House Day!

Every one is screaming cheering for their house group. At Stoke School we have a house day. A house is  when all of the school goes out sidefor, four different rotatrons around the school.

We have four different house groups. I am in Marsden Blue, The other colours are Ngawhatu,Green Oamio,Red, Songer Yellow. My favourrite bit of the daywas the tug of war competitson. When it was Marsdens turn to have a go, I got the goose bumps. When Mr.Logan the tug of war teacher said ''go''Mardon pulled and pulled. Then evenchly we got the rope over the target we all dropped the ropeand jumped up and down because we had won that game. When we had all walked back to where we where sitting we all looked at our hands and said '' look at my hands they are all red"

Before you knew it, it was our turn to go back up. When we got hold of the rope we all said'' we can do this and we can maken the finals. As soon as we were aloud to start we picked up the rope and pulled and tugged like it was our last day. We were all waiting to hear the wistkle to say we had won and we did. We were all jumping up and down high fiving each other. A little time after that we were up in the finals. Are pulled and tugged again, we were pulling so hard our faces went firey red. In theend we lost but did our best and gave it your all and we alol did our best and we were all proud of what we did I love that big day of fun!

Georgia

Supporting Canterbury - After the Earthquakes

Today was a day to remember the suffering and loss of Christchurch and Canterbury people in the terrible earthquake that rocked the region exactly one year ago.  Many staff, students, and school, and community, members wore the Canterbury colours, red and black to show that the loss of life and ongoing hardship of Canterbury's people has not been forgotten and to show our support for their efforts to rebuild their lives.

New Zealand Stops to Remember (click on this link)

Our principal leads a song of support.

1 minutes silence.

Listen to our song of support for Canterbury.

Listen to our song of support by a professional.
Count On Me (click this link)
Thank you Mr Mars.

Animals & Family is Georgias thing!

I am a animal lover, a big fan of sport, with long brown hair. Thats me! My name is Georgia I am in a family of five. I love helping animals. Playing with my dag Max and his toys is fun too. Watching my fish Bubbles eat is fun too but not when he poos.

Me and my Mum do lots of baking together. I think my Mum is trying to encourage me to do a bit more baking and cooking. When I was eight I started to play the guitar with my Dad, then a few mouths later I got lessons from school. Dad loves his music. He wants me to learn as much music as I can. He trys to come to all my guitar lessons. He is very pround of me for doing all my music!

My dog Max is a great soft ball catcher, we play lots of catch. Lots of people think my big ball of white fluffy cloud is a big black loud scary monster but he is really he's not!

                                                                                                          This is Me!

My sliver tail skark Bubbles is the perfect type of fish to put in a turquoise fish pond. Bubbles is a fresh water shark that means he is from the rivers of Brazil (the Amaxon.) Me and my family have 11 fish  I have my Bubbles, a sliver tail skark ,Ashley (my 7 year old sister) has a black and white Molly and because of that she named her Molly. Mum has 5 Tetars and Jemma (my 2 year old sister) has 4 neons.

Sometimes I wish I could talk to animals so I can help them enjoy there life and enjoy what they do. I cant wait to get more animals and care for them.

Georgia.

Learning Drama

The actors were given a character with a strange habit ('quirk') to act out during a pretend quiz show.  The audience had two minutes to work out as many characters and quirks as they could.
Can you work it out (the audience managed 3 characters and 5 quirks)?  Answers will be posted tomorrow.

Some actors are still learning but did you spot:
The superhero  - very shy (our audience worked out the quirk)
The student - wants to answer everything (our audience worked out the quirk)
The penguin - loves to sing (our audience worked out the character and the quirk)
The mother - cleans everything (our audience worked out the character and the quirk)
The juggler - can't focus on his juggling (our audience worked out the character and the quirk)
The police woman - moans about everything (our audience worked out the quirk).

Play the video.

Massage in Stoke School

We have been learning how to give (and receive) a massage over the last 2 weeks.  Check out this news story on massage in our school.  Just click on the link.

Stoke School in the News (link) (this is now the right link - sorry we had the wrong link before)

Here are some of our photos we took of our massage lessons (we're still trying to find out how to post Room 5's slideshow of what they've been up to.

Massage buddies.

Forehead stroke.

Brushing the horse.

Sending the massage message.



Our massage message

Learning About Stoke Schools Vision

Whanau, Excellence, Respect, Energy, Seeking, Thinking, Opportunity, Kia tu tonu, E-learning, Diversity.  This is Stoke School's Vision. It is Stoke Schools dream to achieve all of the values. Students will improve in their learning by taking their opportunity in learning. Stoke School students belive thinking and caring for others is important. Stoke School needs students to have Effort and determination!

Keep on going, Stay standent, do as much as you can do,do your best, all pepresent for very important values in our vision they are Energy, Kia tu tonu, Opportunity and Excellence. Students being active and involved is having Energy


Georgia

ciarnas 2012 paridise

Long hair,tall,chubby and always a chatta box. Thats me!Kia ora my name is Ciarna.I am an only child I have two great parents and they both love me so much.My family is huge some of them live in the North Island in New Zealand.
Some of my family live in Austrailia. Most of my family lives in Okiwi Bay in the South Island.

Fishing is what we love to do as a familyin Okiwi Bay and at Nelson Port.Once when we went fishing on the gleming blue water catching slimey cold cod.They are really smelly grose.My uncle guts them and cleans them so we can have them for dinner.

Funky Time With Zaria

Netball,Soccer and Cricket SPORTS is what I like!  I'm a girl that likes Sports Called  Zaria that likes playing sport in gardens.I do a lot of sport even with my brother I had I grow a garden that is pritty cool.

My Perants let me go to Parks to play music or games with my friends I go to fields most So I can play touch rugby and Soccer.

We bike evrywere yesterday my Dad and I went all around nelson.

We might grow a garden with Carrots,Peas,Lemons,Potaoes,herbs,Straberry,an apple tree and lots of flowers.

Ive got a good life with the world now that my friends helped.

Fun Time With Talia!

Short hair,short & I have glasses. Thats me! My name is Talia and I have three sisters.I love siwmming in my pool at home and at school.

I fight a lot with my sisters. My old sister she always wins its not fair! I always lose.We all have to go to our rooms and tidy it up. When we fight I srceam so does my second olds sister she also is my second best sister
her name is Leilani.

Siwmming is my best sport it is awesome. I siwm at home and at school I have a coach his name is Andy. Time I told you about my pool well I have a bowlup dolphin.I can siwm a whole length of my pool and of the school too. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever siwm in a triyatholon competing agasiant perfeshional?                                                                                                                        

Lillees best life 2012

Hi my name is Lillee,I have brown hair,and brown eyes and I am 9 I have two sisters and they nice are nice to me. we do lots of fun stuff .We like to flip the dinghy it is lots of fun.We like to make fishing rods with sticks and me and Chelsea caught 3 fish at the wharf at Marahau.We like to swim and jump of the wharf.

 My mum and dad I love my mum and dad thay are really nice to us dad likes yacht racing . He goes yacht racing with some friends and he likes it.He works at Best and West.My mum is the best  mum in the world .She likes to do stuff on the juke box and she works at McDonald's she works on the front counter and in her spare time.she likes to go camping at Marahau were we go to stay.Dad some times comes with us cause he.

Me on the right and my friend on the left

 My toys if I don't have my toys I get scared . I don't get to sleep . I have five toys and there names are Cornwell,Melody cat, Little Elephant ,Duff,Millee,Cornwell is a boy and Melody cat ,Little Elephant ,Duff and Millee are girls.I like to play with them some times. I love them. My family is the coolest and we have the best life.                                                                                          

I love my mum and dad,Eden and Chelsea!!                                 

The Legend of Ngāwhatu

It is a bloodthirsty and terrible story I have to tell you tamariki mā¹.  You know that our whare² at Stoke School is called ngāwhatu after the valley up the road where some of you live.  But do you know that Ngāwhatu means "the eyes" in Māori or how the valley got its name?  Well then, whakarongo mai³ and I will tell you my bloodthirsty and terrible story.

We have to go back 700 years in time, back when New Zealand was empty of any people.  We have to travel to the Pacific Island of Rangiiatea, near Tahiti and visit the great chief and sailor, Kupe.  Kupe and his people were having trouble with a giant wheke⁴ who was stealing his fishermen's bait and scaring away the fish from the village's fishing grounds.  The wheke was called Te Wheke o Muturangi⁵ a pet of the chief Muturangi who lived on the other side of the island.  Muturangi was jealous of Kupe and would not stop his pet.  "Then your pet will die," Kupe vowed, although he knew killing the very powerful wheke would not be easy.

It took many weeks but Kupe prepared his revenge carefully.  A large ocean waka⁶ was built and a crew handpicked for the dangerous mission.  Finally they set off to find Te Wheke o Muturangi.  When they caught up with the monster it was ready and a great sea battle began.  Kupe struck the first blow with his mere⁷, cutting into a tentacle.  His warriors quickly joined the attack and the wounded wheke was filled with murderous rage.  It erupted from the sea, towering above the waka.  Kupe chanted a spell to stop the wheke diving deep beneath the ocean to hide.  He and his warriors cut and slashed at their enemy and soon the sea was crimson with the blood of both the wheke and Kupe's injured and slain men.

The number of Kupe's men forced the wheke to change tactics.  It swam off across the surface of the ocean and Kupe gave chase.  For weeks they zig zagged across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean.  Two or three times a day Te Wheke o Muturangi would stop to attack and although it suffered awful wounds, including two or three severed tentacles, Kupe always lost two or three men in the attacks.  At last, a long white cloud⁸ was spotted in the distance, a sign that land was near.  The land underneath the cloud was New Zealand and Kupe chased the wheke down a seemingly endless coastline.  Once again Te Wheke o Muturangi had changed tactics and swam on without turning to fight.

Kupe sailed on until they rounded the end of the coastline and arrived at the biggest harbour they had ever seen, later called Te Whanganui-ā-Tara⁹.  Here the wheke doubled its speed and into a wind battered and terrifying stretch of water, Te Moana o Raukawa¹⁰.  Finally Muturangi's pet turned for the final battle.  The wheke's tentacles smahed at the waka, trying to tip the crew into the icy waters.  Kupe and his men gave as good as they got in the battle, roars of rage and pain came from the beast, but many men screamed their final cries as they died.  Slowly the wheke was getting the better of the tiring and dwindling number of Kupe's men.  In desperation, Kupe threw some water gourds overboard and the monster, believing they were people, turned to attack them.  Kupe jumped from the waka onto the back of the giant wheke and struck the killer blow to its head.

A wheke is not easily killed though tamariki mā, but Kupe knew this.  He took his mere and cut out the eyes of Te Wheke o Muturangi to make sure it was dead.  Then he chanted a spell and threw the eyes over his shoulder.  The eyes flew upwards at an incredible height towards the island on the other side of the strait.  On and on they flew until they landed in a quiet valley just up the road from our school.  That is why the valley is called Ngāwhatu, 'the eyes', and do you know what?  Ngāwhatu House is green like the colour of the valley and the members of Ngāwhatu House are strong and cunning like the wheke, but most of all, we are very difficult to defeat.

tamariki mā¹ = (all my) children

whare² = house
whakarongo mai³ = listen to me
wheke⁴ = octopus

Te Wheke o Muturangi⁵ = Muturangi's Octopus

waka⁶  = canoe (ocean waka were double hulled with sails and could transport 100-200 people)

mere⁷ = a short sharp edged club

long white cloud⁸ = Ao-tea-roa (the Maori name for New Zealand)

Te Whanganui-ā-Tara⁹ = the Maori name for Wellington (the capital of New Zealand)

Te Moana o Raukawa¹⁰ = the Maori name for Cook Strait



Artwork by Cliff Whiting
From The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand





While All the Cats are Away

Some light Saturday viewing to see how Stoke School and Room 11 bounce 2012 styles from photos of our school's big day out at Tahunanui Beach.


The swimming hooter goes and...!

 


Kai time before hitting the beach.




Longest Standing Sandcastle House Challenge




Some of da girlz!






Smiley posers.

 









Room 10's Mr Logan watches our flock.



The Firm (Rm10 and Rm 11 veterans)



More veterans







 







 







Fun in the sun and the sea, gotta love Nelson.



The only swimmers heading out of the surf.



 





 







  

Day 5 - Progress Report

Before I do disappear on day 5 of 11online/2012, I thought I'd report on our progress.

Our aim is to increase both our audience, as a class, and the number of comments each student receives each term.  The cold hard facts show that the class blog has been viewed 186 times in the last week ending 6.00pm Friday 17 February.  One students has 9 views, another 5 views of their only posts to date and one student has 7 views of the two posts she has made so far.  We're also very happy to have 5 views from the U.S.A and 1 from Germany.  It means our blog is international now!

If I think with a little more emotion than statistics it has been a good start to blogging by my students that has actually put a smile on my Professor McGonagall like dial.  Despite the spelling and punctuation mistakes (it will interesting to see how much this improves over time) in their initial posts 10 students have managed to make contributions to 11online/2012 and another 4 have posts drafted but not yet published.

It all gets a bit hard when your teacher is insisting that you proof read and edit your posts for spelling, punctuation, grammar, the use of precise language that grabs and holds the reader's interest, and writing for audience understanding and interest.  What a killjoy!

Busy Bees Though Bro!

Busy as bees bro!  As my (Maori) cousins up on the East Cape would say.  So busy that Room 11 students have only been able to edit their posts from yesterday on this frenetic Friday.  We've managed to cram in a truckload of bees today though.

The day started off with swimming (we'll introduce you to our professional swimming coaches the school board pays to help teach swimming one day soon), choosing our student of the week (People's Choice), class photos, organising our assembly programme (Room 11's turn to run the Friday school assembly), and allocating assembly jobs (everyone got a job).

After morning tea scripts for speaking jobs at assembly had to be written, music playlists compiled, yesterdays posts edited, a House Day slideshow put together, egos massaged, anxieties calmed.  By crikey we were busy.  The arrival of Kirsty to take massage in schools (she teaches the kids how to give massage) was a welcome break and we definitely got more than the 15 minutes we were supposed to have.  Then it was time for class reward to celebrate all 5 class groups reaching their points target the previous week.  Thirty wet minutes of 'paint ball', but with water, crossed with capture the flag and Tigers had won.  We snuck 20 minutes in the pool at lunchtime to finish off the class reward.

Our starring role as school assembly host was just one hour away after the 1.30pm bell rang.  A few unfinished jobs and last minute problems later and we were in the school hall ready to have a run through.  Halfway through the run through the first class walked in and after I was revived from my heart attack, we took care of most of the technological glitches except functioning microphones and the slideshow, which simply refused to be found (thank you Mr Thompson for helping out my AV techs with their problems - don't know how you run an assembly rehearsal and manage the inevitble AV hiccoughs with a class of 6 year olds).  Some of the glitches were sorted as the assembly continued (some weren't sorted at all).  Despite the absence of microphones and the number of audio visual problems I thought our students did a great job.  Well done all 27 of you!

The one thing that does annoy me about today was that nothing was photographed or filmed except swimming (want to show the students what we mean when we're talking to them about technique).  Time to go home now.

Emily making big progress after 2 weeks of swimming lessons.

House Day

Every once in a while Stoke School has a house competition. There is Omaio, the red house, Ngawhatu, the green house, Songer, the yellow house, and Marsden, the blue house. I'm in the red house. Yesterday we had a House Fun Day. We got to have a tug of war. It was exciting.

Check out a Ngawhatu's team winning their tug of war in this video.
Owen

You should have seen Miss Kemp when she was wearing a bee costum.  Man it was fun!  House day is cool but it's sad it's only on once a term.  I wish it was on every week because of the screaming and the yelling in my ears.

Cheyenne

Once a term there is a thing called House Day.  There are 4 house groups Omiao is red, Songer is yellow, Nafatu is green and Marsden is blue.  I'm in Songer House.

The best part of House Day was all the noise  there were some people saying, "green will, green will, rock you", "Songer yellow!!!", "blue, blue blue blue!" and, "red stripes!"  It was loud!  Everybody wears there house group today.

Zaria

It all starts after morning tea at Stoke School.  It is the first House Fun Day of the year.  On House Fun Day you dress yourself up in your house colour that the teachers gave us.  The house colours are red (Omaio), blue (Marsden), yellow (Songer) and green (Ngawhatu).  Ngawhatu won (the first year - 2010) and got their name engraved on a trophfy that was made especially.

Ciarna

On Wensday 15th Feb it was House Day.  We have four house colers red, blue,green, yellow.  House Day is when we play gams in the pool on the feald on the cort.  In the pool we did lilo relay races.  on the feald we did a scavenger Hunt and water relay.  On the cort we did a Blind Fold game.  My faverit one was the races in the pool.  after all the gams and Rellays we Had tug of war game all four Houses did tug of war.

Larissa

I am in Omaio Red.  My favourite part of the day was the challenge in the pool.  The pool challenge was in our School pool and we had 4 horses from both teams and I was one of them.  We used big floating seats in the pool and we had to pull as many people as we wanted over to the other side of the pool.

Sarah

Woah!  That was a blast!  Every term we have a House Day when the whole of Stoke School gets out and joins together as a big group.  After we join together we get into our 4 house groups.  Ngawhatu the green house, Omaio the red house, Marsden the blue house and songer the yellow house.  Im in the green house.  Everyone dressed up in there house colour so they could score points for thier house group.  My favourite part was when we did the scavenger hunt with Mr Logan.

Shimya