Swimming - Term 1 2012

What exciting last two weeks we are having inTerm 2! We have swimming in the morning from 10:30 to 11. We were in different groups with a tutor teaching us the necessary skills and techniques. Here we are in the bus going to Graham Condon Leisure Centre in Papanui.




















We're waiting for our tutors to call us.







Out tutor was giving us instructions so we have to listen carefully.


















We waited for the bus after swimming. We looked tired but happy. We enjoyed it very much.











Wow, we have nine days of swimming each morning. We are feeling more confident each day of our lesson. It has been fantastic!

Bee Lesson with Room 1 and 2

On Wednesday February 29 we had the opportunity to join with Room 1 and 2 when the Bee man and woman visited their class. We listened to a lot of interesting facts from them about what they learned about bees.


We observed how bees behave in their hives.



There are three kinds of bees in a hive: queen, worker and drone.


Only the queen in the hive lays eggs. It can lay about 1,500 eggs a day.


Bees have five eyes - two compound eyes and three tiny ocelli eyes.


Do you know that the female bees sting and the male bees (also called drones) don' t?


Bees have two stomachs - one is for eating and the other special stomach is for storing nectar collected from flowers or water so they can carry it back to the hive.


The only insects in the world that make food for humans are the bees.


A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.


Scott talked to Mrs McDonald what he knows about bees.


We asked questions about bees and we learned a lot. We thanked Room 1 and 2 for sharing with us this time in their study about bees.

Days in the Tent

What exciting nine days we had in the tent! For sure this will be one of the memorable moments of our school days at St Mary's. We will not forget this when we get older. The experiences we had will enrich us and it was a lesson for us. It was fun when we had the great weather for eight days. Our last day was not good because of the rain and and strong wind. Although it was warm with the efficient gas heater, the strong wind was flapping the tent. well done to all the children in Room 4! We appreciate being back in our classroom.



It's prayer time after the bell rang in the morning.




We had group discussions.






We were engrossed in our buddy reading.



















We had to do our buddy reading outside the tents on the days when they were so hot inside.





We did our Religious Education activity by grouping the different ways of expressing our faith, hope and love.







On the last day of our stay in the tent we had a visit from Fr Chris Orr. He spoke about the wonderful experiences he had in Antarctica.