Quatrains

I saw an eel,
It was real,
So I declared,
I was scared.

I saw a star,

And started to smirk,
Then I found a car,
And went berserk.

I know a pig,
It’s very big,
It wears a wig,
And likes to dig.

Good Shepherd School Fair

The Monsters Are Coming!

Calendar Art

Unitec Marae trip

Last week we went to the Unitec Marae. They welcomed us and then we went into the wharinui ( the meeting room) We got told a Maori legend. After that we went into the wharikai (food room). At the end the year 5 and 6 boys did a Haka. I enjoyed it and would love to go again.
  

Mixed Media- Visual Art

You hold the future in your hands.

In Term 2 our Visual Arts focused was on Mixed Media. We finally finished our pieces of art at the end of the term. We started off by creating two hands, most of us copied our own hands as templates. One hand represents our past and the other hand our future. We used lots of different materials and symbols to make our artwork as well as exploring a range of different techniques with watercolor paint. This is my art work.

Room 6 Assembly

Last week Room 6 performed their assembly. Our main entertainment was a drama circle on occupations. We also displayed our mixed media we made in term 2. Some people also shared about what they put on their art and why. We all had so much fun preparing and presenting our assembly. Here are some photos:

Room 6 School Prayers

On Monday the 5th of August Room 6 hosted whole school prayers. Our theme was The Gift of Faith. We did a song called ‘Open the Eyes of My Heart’ and Jiwoo, Zara and Maggie made hand actions for us. There were also people who did the prayers of the faithful. Overall prayers was a big success and everyone enjoyed it.

Here are some pictures of our prayers:

Room 6 Hockey

On Friday we had so much fun with Sport NZ as they came in to teach us hockey. We got to do warm up and drills with the hockey sticks and played against each other in teams. We are already looking forward to next Friday’s session. Here are a couple of pictures:

Cook Island Language Week

Week 3 has been a very busy week with so many celebrations. Good Shepherd School celebrates our multicultural school with our Cook Island Language focus. We looked at the culture through our reading and made fun fact files. We were also lucky to have Alessandra and the cultural leaders teach us a Pure (prayer) to sing.
We learnt Aro’a mai te Atua iaku. See if you can say/sing this pure too.

Aro’a mai te Atua iaku.
Aro’a mai te Atua iaku
I te au mea taku kite nei
Te anuanua kua iti mai ki roto iaku
Aro’a mai te Atua iaku

My God loves me
My God loves me
And all the wonders I see
The rainbow shines through my window
My God loves me

Mary Mackillop Feast Day

Another celebration for Good Shepherd School in Week 3 was the Feast Day of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop. St Mary MacKillop a vital part of Good Shepherd School, this is because she was the founder of the Josephites aka the Brown Joes. The Brown Joes travelled all over Australia and New Zealand helping the poor and those in need. They built schools and that is how we are all students at Good Shepherd School. We celebrated the Feast day by going to a Mass for St Mary of the Cross and also having fun with our buddy class Room 4 as we worked on a St Mary MacKillop Art project.

Water Cycle Explanation Writing

The Water Cycle

I am learning to inform my audience through an explanation

By Liam

What has been around since the start of earth and all life needs it to survive? It’s water, but did you know water goes through a complex cycle called the water cycle. A cycle is a series of steps that repeat over and over again. The scientific name for the Water Cycle is the Hydrologic Cycle. Water is super important because all life needs water to survive. The water on the earth covers three quarters of the earth. 97 percent of the water on earth is salt water and the remaining three percent is freshwater but you can only drink one percent of that. There are three main stages in the water cycle and without each part the water cycle wouldn't exist. The stages are evaporation, condensation and precipitation. The first stage is evaporation.

Evaporation is when the sun’s rays heats up water on the ground or in lakes, rivers, streams, the ocean and even plants! After the water heats up enough it turns to a gas called water vapour and rises high up in the air. Did you know water vapour is invisible! If salt water evaporates the salt gets left behind. This is good because it makes the water potable. Potable means drinkable. Once the water reaches a certain height it cools down and starts to condensate.

The second stage is condensation. You can see condensation if you breathe onto a window on a cold day. When water vapour gets cold enough it turns back into water droplets and comes together to create a cloud. Did you know the average cloud weighs around 500,000 kgs or 100 elephants, and a cloud can contain billions of kgs of water! There are 8 common types of clouds and three of them are stratus, cumulus and cirrus. Eventually the cloud will fill up with lots of water and start to rain.

The final stage is precipitation. Precipitation is when water falls from clouds. The water has four forms it can fall in. They are rain, snow, sleet and hail. The most dangerous form of precipitation is hail. Hail is super dangerous because it is a frozen ball of ice and it can fall around 50 kilometres an hour. In America hail can be the size of a baseball! Most of the precipitation that falls lands back in the ocean. If it lands on the ground it is most likely to evaporate really fast. If rain falls onto concrete it will either collect in a puddle or run off the concrete because the rain can’t soak into the concrete. After the rain collects the evaporation stage happens again completing the water cycle.

In conclusion the water cycle is very important and all life needs it to survive. Evaporation, when liquid turns to gas, condensation, when gas turns back into droplets and precipitation, when the droplets fall down. Now you know that water is really important and you should do your part by saving water.

GSS Book Week 2019

Room 6 was hungry for books during our book week. We had a whole week celebrating all things books. We had author visits from Stu Duval and James Russell. Stu presented workshops on storytelling, cartooning and writing. James shared his books and told us stories. We did lots of cool book week activities in class like making dust jacket covers, wanted posters, bookmarks and story cubes. Finally our favourite day arrived, Friday. We got to dress up as our favourite characters and partake in the literacy treasure hunt. Overall book week is a fantastic week every year. Room 6 LOVES BOOK WEEK! My book week character was Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. Here are some photos: 

Cross Country

Good Shepherd School had been busy training for cross country this term and finally the day arrived. In week 6 we all arrived at school in our running gear and had our house colours painted onto us. We were eager and ready to go and win house point. Overall the race was long and required a lot of stamina, but we were prepared. Here are some pictures from our races.

Water Care

Water, water everywhere! On Friday of week 6, we were lucky to have Sally from Watercare come to teach us more about the water. We did a drama activity and experiments. Firstly we examined the process that water goes through to become drinkable water in our households. Our drama was based on the process that the water goes through to be cleaned. We were the water going through each stage. We had so much fun as we ventured around the school. Once we learnt how water is cleaned we then had to try and clean the dirty water ourselves. We had to create a filter system in partners. We had to do four different tests for our experiments. We experimented with a range of filters to try and test which filter system was the best. 

Basketball Inter-Schools

On Tuesday I went to the basketball inter-schools. We played five games and lost all of them. The games were 17 minutes each and in between the games you could practice your shooting. It was  really tiring but I really enjoyed it and I hope I can do it again.

Kids Lit Quiz

On Monday I went to the Kids Lit Quiz. I was a reserve but Otis wasn't there so I took his place. There were around 5 year 5 and 6 teams and my team came second out of them. You could choose one round out of ten as your double points round. Some of the rounds were emotions, fairies and harry potter. I loved it and I hope I can do it again.

Science in a Van

Last week Science in a Van came to our school.  My favourite part about science in a van was all the experiments they did. One of the experiments was to put a bit of solid carbon dioxide into a tiny container and then the lid exploded off.

Water Cycle in a Bag

This week for science we some water cycle experiments. One of the experiments was a water cycle in a bag. You had to get a zip lock bag, then put some water in it and stick it to a window. We got to put some food colouring in it and had to draw the water cycle on the bag.

Holy Spirit Pyramid

This week for R.E we did holy spirit pyramid. We had to put the gifts Faith, Hope and Love on each side and on the remaining side we put the sentence Baptism and the Holy Spirit. This is my pyramid

The Season of Easter

Today for R.E we made Easter pin wheels. We had to draw Jesus on one piece of paper then write a sentence about what Christians hope when they die and draw three different pictures. This is my Easter wheel: 

Up,Up and Away- Dr Seuss

This is my hot air balloon that we created to show that our goals are going to take up to new heights.

Growth Mindset- Goal Bunting

Each student in room 6 has made a bunting triangle to show our Growth Mindset goal and motto that we want to work on. Come and check them out!

Jesus Strand- Religious Education

During term 1 we have been learning about Jesus the Son of God. This is my cube on how Jesus showed us that God loves us all as his children. We are all blessed with the gifts of Faith, Hope and Love.

Saint Joseph's Day Tabloid Sports

Tuesday 19th March was St Joseph’s Day Feast Day. The whole school attended mass to celebrate the leadership Saint Joseph showed. Saint Joseph is also special to our school because Saint MacKillop and the Sisters of St Joseph were inspired by Saint Joseph. Saint Joseph is also the foster father of Jesus. The following day, the whole school came together to celebrate with fun tabloid sports in our houses. We all got to play so many fun and exciting games. Thank you to our leaders who prepared this.

My Accident Story

CKK CRASH!!!

February 2019

By Liam

I am learning to entertain my audience with a recount.

CKK OOFFF ARGHHHHHH. This story is about my first major accident, what was yours? It was the last Friday of the summer holidays. I was playing on my trampoline while my dad and sister were in the pool. I was bouncing really high, trying to do an amazing slam dunk. I went too close to the net and when I did the slam dunk and I got my toe caught in the net mid-jump! The really annoying thing was it was the trampoline companies fault because the net was faulty. I ended up falling with my toe still in the net so I twisted my knee but that was the least of what happened!

Since my dad just thought it was a twisted knee he gave me some ice and just said to rest it. When my mum got home she didn’t see my knee so she thought my sibling and I had been irritating each other and we were off avoiding each other. However when it was time to go out for dinner we decided to go to A&E first as I was still complaining. Arriving at the doctors it was minutes after 6, the doctor just checked for ligament damage. The doctor gave me crutches and said it would be fine so try to rest up and not put too much pressure on it during the week.

A week later my dad kept on nagging me because I still found it painful to put pressure on my knee. My dad decided to take me back to A&E because my knee was still sore. When we got there we told the doctor and he said to have a x-ray. We had to wait for ages but when I got the x-ray done it showed I had broken my knee. It was so bad I had to have surgery on it!

In the end I have learnt my lesson about going too close to the netting. I'm all good now and my knee is all better except for some clicks sometimes.

Shine Week

Shine Week

A sea of orange flood Good Shepherd School on Friday the 8th of March. This week was shine week. We raise money to help people whose lives are affected domestic violence. In support we all wore orange clothes and brought a gold coin donation to help the charity. Here are some pictures

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

Today was Ash Wednesday. We went to church and sang some hymns, got the ashes on our
foreheads, sung happy birthday to a little girl starting school on her birthday! We then went up and got a blessing. We did make an attempt to keep our ashes on our foreheads, but that was a fail due to swimming and itching it off. We had a good day and hope everyone else did to. During the lent season we have to remember to pray, almsgiving and helping others. else did to. During the lent season we have to remember to pray, almsgiving and helping others. This year for lent I am focusing on giving up lollies and being more kind.

Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday

Today was Shrove Tuesday. We all had a great day in room 6. The festivities started with the burning of the ashes on the turf. This was a new and exciting experience that not many of us had seen before.
Later on during Religious Education we learnt more about Shrove Tuesday and Lent. People used to get rid of all their luxury items such as flour, sugar, butter, eggs and milk by making pancakes. We were even able to enjoy some pancakes of our own. We all thought it was a great start to lent and we are looking forward to the lenten season as we prepare for the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are the season of Lent and it is a time of preparation.

Swimming Sports

Swimming Sports

Room 6 had a wonderful day at swimming sports. When we all went to the turf we split up into our houses. Thank you Sharyn and parents for helping us with the non competitive swimming and competitive. Also thank you parents for coming along and supporting your children. Good shepherd students thank the teachers very warmly, as every year as they set up and prepare this event for us. I’m sure that every student enjoyed the event. I saw everyone compete with my own eyes and they all did well. The people who lost don’t have to be sad because they should be grateful they got a swim in the warm weather also because there’s always time and effort to improve.

My Mihimihi

Mihimihi 

Liam

I am learning to: introduce myself and others, and respond to introductions using my personal information

Tēnā koutou katoa,

Nō Ngati Ahitereiria ahau

Ko Maungawhau tōku maunga

Ko Waitematā Harbour tōku moana

Ko Yarra river tōku awa

Kei Tāmaki Makaurau tōku kāinga ināianei

Ko Te Hapara pai tōku kura

Ko Bowles tōku whānau 

Ko Ronan Bowles tōku pāpā

No Jersey ia

Ko Justine Clifford-Bowles tōku māmā

No Christchurch ia

Ko Liam Bowles tōku ingoa

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Year 6 Leadership Role

This year I am proud to take on the role of PE/PA. I look forward to this role because it is looking after sports equipment and helping kids with sports.

Piece Of The Puzzle

In Room 6 we are all a piece of the puzzle. There are 29 students and we each complete our puzzle. Without one of us we would not be Room 6. During the second week of school (once the year 6 were back from camp) we spent time learning about each other and completing our piece of the puzzle. We learnt that we are all different and unique made in the image of God. But we also learnt that sometimes people need a little helping hand to make learning fair. Check out our pieces of the puzzle in Room 6 foyer to learn more about each of us. 

Charism

Did you know the reason Good Shepherd School named their syndicates Connolly and Sheridan? Connolly and Sheridan were the names of the first two sisters that worked at Good Shepherd School when it opened. That is just one of the fun facts we learnt this week when we explored the charism of our school. The charism of our school is the flavour of our school, it is what makes us Good Shepherd School. Over the week we looked at the history of the school and unpacked the visual Image of the Good Shepherd Cross with the values, scripture, feast days and the St Mary MacKillop sayings. We unpacked the values and why we have those values. In groups we identified what each value looked, sounded and felt like before making up definitions. Another new fact I learnt was that the Josephites nickname was the Brown Joes.

Year 6 Camp

While the rest of the school was sleeping, enjoying their last day of the school holidays the year six were awake grabbing the last of their essential camp items. Stuffing the cars full of luggage we hit the road making our way up to MERC, Long Bay Beach for the annual Year 6 Leadership Camp. It was a fun, busy and hot week with lots of activities and things to do. There was so much to do with out amazing instructors and helpers, activities like paddle boarding, archery, abseiling, kayaking, rock climbing, giants ladder, stack’em and the list goes on. After the camp day we had plenty to do at night with the camp mass, school council voting, the talent quest and even a spooky game of spot light. My 

two favourite activities were Giant paddle boarding and abseiling.