Poisonball Tournament

Some Year 4 students were selected to participate in a Poisonball Tournament held at Clifton Terrace School recently. They practised beforehand and proudly represented Hira School. These photos show some of them psyching themselves up at the top of the driveway (or maybe they are psyching themselves down at the bottom of the driveway), some of them in action and one random gorgeous photo of the CTS playground from behind bars. Thanks to Marie - our chief photographer on the day. Congratulations to all players and supporters - you did us proud!
P.S Sorry about the lopsided angle of one of them - can't fix it!

Kahikatea Performers

Congratulations to one of Room 3's reading groups - Kahikatea whose members are Emmeline, Logan, Meg, Paul, Isla, Dhillon and Harry. They recently practised, perfected and performed a play called 'A Peach for the Queen'. The performance took place in assembly last Friday in front of the whole school and invited guests - parents and granparents. The group used expression and confidence in their roles. They sorted their costumes and props which were simple yet effective. They were able to present with little reliance on their scripts which meant they could immerse themselves in their respective roles better. Well done you seven - thanks for the entertainment and we hope others will be inspired by your example to do some similar stuff.

Matariki

Last week we at Hira School acknowledged Matariki and celebrated it in our usual style. Lots of families came along to school with food to share together. We sang songs - Kapokapo which is our Maori Twinkle Twinkle Little Star song and Te Aroha.Rod accompanied us on his ukulele and Josh on his flute. After we had feasted on delicious food, we lit lanterns, turned on torches and trudged round the Hira School Highway in the starlight - what a delightful evening! In these photos Paul, Sophie and Macey are about to walk around the highway with their Matariki lanterns and stars

Hira vs Victory Soccer Game

Last Friday a soccer team came from Victory School to play against a team from Hira School. Harry and Logan were the Room 3ers in the team - the rest were kids from Room 4. While the game was on the rest of the school cheered on the sideline as spectators. In these photos Hira School are the players in blue and Victory are in red. Logan said the game was quite fun and challenging. Emmeline thinks everyone played well. Macey said that everyone was being a good sport while Cameron said it was a very peaceful game.  Cameron and Chi were the chief photographers and what a fine job they did. Most of the photos we have chosen for this blog entry were of Logan and Harry of course but one is of a truely amazing supporter with a placard - who do you think it is? The one of Logan looking lazy is actually him being subbed off. Harry looks exceedingly happy in his photo even though Hira were beaten  5 nil by Victory - this just goes to show that we play for the love of the game and that it's not all about winning!

Fundamental Skills

Every Wednesday, Room 3 have a fundamental skills session with Helen Clark. We have been learning how to throw and catch balls properly, to move while doing this and to hit and field balls in games. It's all lots of fun and our skills are developing along with our fitness levels increasing. Do you know that we all run around the Hira Highway 5 times each morning for our fitness session and none of us puff, none of us race, we all just jog at a steady and manageable pace. Here are some of us playing a game called Skittle Ball. The rules of this game make it a bit like netball. Pammie has just taught us a game called Evolution where we have to prance around the court being eggs, ducks, dinosaurs and super heroes and we definitely have to know how to play Paper, Scissors, Rock.

Hira School Cross Country

Last week the whole school trudged over to Hunters property to participate in our annual cross country event. Room 3ers had been doing some serious training over the past few weeks and were well ready! The course was up and down hill which we found quite challenging. However - everyone competed and completed with no major dramas. Emma even managed to run with a sore leg and by doing so earned herself a piggyback ride back to school courtesy of Pammie! . Here are some photos of some of us. Wren and Emma are running down towards the finish line as are Logan and Harry. The other photos are of the boys and girls lined up waiting for the starting whistle. You go Room 3!!

Uke's Rock!

Ariane Turton recently had a bedroom garage sale to raise money for charity. Some of us brave and courageous ukulele players fronted up on Saturday morning at the Wakapuaka

Hall to support Ariane by playing and singing. We were trying to attract customers! Fabian played the melodica, Rod, Ariane, Emma and Pammie played ukulele and Laura conducted! Thanks to Morag, Karen and Burkhard for jiggling and singing along with us.

Book Week at Hira School

For Hira School book week we did lots of interesting activities. The two big highlights were the book fair in the multi purpose room and the book character parade on the last day. There were hundreds of books displayed for us to enjoy, browse through and buy. The theme was 'Camera, Lights, Action' so there was a stage, dressups and makeup - we had such fun times. For the book character parade we all dressed up as our favourite book character and paraded on the stage in front of all our mums and dads and whanau members. Here are some of us - Dhillon, Paul, Holly and Isla.

Room 3 Class Photo

This week we are working with the Kia Kaha programme which is about creating a safe environment where we can all feel respected and valued along with revisiting appropriate and effective strategies for responding to others who try to bully us. Constable John O'Donovan is working with us. To begin with we are examining similarities and differences we have within our families and with our classmates at school. To do the latter we have taken two Room 3 class photos. One is sensible and one is silly - can you tell the difference?

Reading Rocks With Adrian Kirk

Adrian Kirk is from Christchurch and performed for us on Thursday. He was giving us a message about how great reading is and books are and showed us some of his favourite books. He is a very clever juggler and showed us the book that he learned most of his juggling skills from. He kept saying that we can find out almost anything we want if we just find and look in the right book and to do this we need to be able to read! Adrian did a trick with Tessa from Room 1 and attacked Jarred - Cam's young brother - when he was pretending to be a Star Wars character. Adrian juggled with Hani - well he tried to and Hani tried to catch his flying balls - she missed them all though. We laughed and laughed at his jokes and his tricks. Finally he put Max on his shoulders while he rode his unicycle / looneycycle! Tonnie was asked to catch Max after he'd done a somersault in mid air. None of this happened and they all - Tonnie, Max and Adrian ended up in a pile together on the floor!

Life Education Programme With Victoria and Harold

At the beginning of this term, the Life Education caravan visited Hira School and ran a week long programme all about Food and Nutrition. Room 3 learned more than they already know about why healthy foods help our bodies and brains to work better and have happier days. We learned about three different sources of foods - food from the ground is kai atu whenua, food from animals is kai atu kararehe and food from ingredients is kai atu wharanu. We also studied the passage that food takes once it is swallowed - some facts are fascinating and some are a bit gross! Harold taught us a new song and came to visit us in assembly - we so love him. Here are a couple of photos of us in the Life Ed caravan with Victoria and Harold.