Bike Week

We have been practicing our close control bike skills last week and this week. Friday and Monday saw us out on the courts working on riding our bikes, skillfully and slowly. During the slow bike races it really was a case of slow and steady wins the race!

Today the weather stayed fine and lunch time saw most of the school out on the field cycling around Mr Marshall's obstacle course. Regan was Mr Marshall's right hand man helping some of the juniors around the course.

Great job, Regan!

Here is Room 6 all lined up ready to get some safety tips from Constable Ross, who was visiting Outram School today. The first thing we talked about was how to put on our helmets correctly. We need to make sure that they fit snug: the adjustable side buttons need to be just underneath our ears, we need to be able to fit just one finger between our chins and our straps and we need to be able to fit two fingers between the top of our helmets and our eyebrows.

We worked on some more close control skills with Constable Ross.

Thank goodness the weather stayed fine for us.

Trip to Early Settlers Cottage

What a beautiful day we had for our trip today to Demi's grandad's Early Settlers Cottage. We walked from Demi's grandad's house over to the cottage which was a couple of kilometres.

Demi introduces her grandad to us and he tells us a little bit about the history of the house. It was originally built in 1863 and has in its time been home to goats and sheep!

This is what the house looked like before it was restored to its present condition.

Helen puts the kettle on inside the old cottage.

 Yummy, Wendy baked scones.

Delicious!

Mrs Tansley serves up morning tea, what a treat!

After morning tea we take our shoes off at the cottage door and step back in time....

 The old coal range...

The walls are very thick to keep out the cold. The stones for the rebuild were all found around the cottage and the timber is from an old macrocarpa tree that was felled nearby.

Jacob goes to see what is upstairs... 

Wow! Enough beds for a whole family, in the 1860's the whole family would have slept in one room. We think this would have been very good living for early settlers.

We all enjoy this lovely peek into the past.

There is time for discovering the surrounding fields: Demi finds a rabbit's pelvis.

An old water pump. Just up the hill there used to be a spring that had sparkly water in it. A local drinks company, Thompson's, used to get its water from here in days gone by.

Time to go, what a wonderful way to round up our inquiry unit.

Great Achievement!

We are so proud! Demi and Nick both competed at the Otago Primary Schools Triathlon, in Cromwell. Demi came second in the individual Year 6 event and Nick came ninth in the Year 6 individual event. An awesome result, well done!

Senior Team Singing

Senior Team Singing is a lovely time when all the senior syndicate come together.

Here we are in Room 5...

enjoying singing a few of our favourite songs.