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Posts tagged trips
Parakai Trip 2011
On Friday 9th December, all the wardens and librarians from Matipo went to Parakai Pools for their end-of-year day out! The weather was fabulous and much fun was had by all! The children were, as always, a credit to our school!
Cross Country
On Tuesday, the 30 best senior cross country runners from Matipo attended the cluster cross country event at Taipari Strand. Thankfully, the weather turned it on for us. While there were some strong individual performances, we just weren’t strong enough this year, coming 5th overall. Good effort though to all involved and with a bit more time to train next year, we should expect a better result. Special mention to Sydney Magnus who came 3rd in the year 5 girls.
Below is a full gallery from the Matipo Cross Country last Thursday.
Trees for Survival 2011
Room 11 is responsible for the Trees for Survival (TFS) this year. However the Year sixs went to an Intermediate open day and the Year 5’s from Room 14 joined the Room 11 Year 5’s for a days planting at Waitoki.
The reason we plant trees is to stop erosion, increase the native bush area and help keep our waterways clean. The plants come to us as seedlings that we grow to plants about 30-40 cms tall. We then plant them on farm land. We have been going to Waitoki for about 6 years.
We first have a bus trip of about 45 minutes, the last part is quite windy, but we get welcomed by Phil and enjoy a nice morning tea, then it is down to business.
We get shown what is to be our toilet first, a chemical sit down in a small hunt about 1M x 1M. You pump water in then open a trap door to get rid of the deposits.
We are shown how to plant the trees and make them firm so the pukekos can’t pull them out. The plants were spaced out ready. We set to work. For the next 2 hours it was heads down and bottoms up. It was hard, tiring work but it was worth it. Most people planted about 40 trees. At one stage we were told we were the hardest working group that had ever been there. Less people planted more tress in a shorter time that even last year.
We felt good, impressed, satisfied, but weary. All of a sudden we had finished planting. We got told there was no pizzas this year. When we got washed we found out it was yummy sausages instead. A cheer went up. We zoomed into line quickly when we were told they were ready.
After lunch we were told again that we were the best group ever.
On the bus trip back most of the kids dropped off to sleep, at least 2 fell off the seat. It was a very exciting trip. The Year 5’s get to do it again next year.
Bluebeard Day
Tuesday, 12 April was Bluebeard Day at the Auckland Blues’ training ground, Unitec.
A mixed group of boys and girls from Years 5 and 6 were invited to join the entire Blues squad. What a great day. First all the Blues were introduced by Pat Lamb, the Blues coach, then we had a fun relay, tackling a bag, running zigzags, passing, getting past a Blue and scoring a try. We came second in the primary schools.
We then went with some Pro Sport, and Blues for some great activities. Running, passing, star jumps, and heaps more.
The day ended with everyone getting a pack with a free pass, chocolate bar, stickers, Blues postcard, and a huge poster.
Then to the luxurious bus we were given free back to school after a tiring but awesome day.
Room 10 Goes Planting For Trees for Survival
On Wednesday 16 June 2010, Room 10 went planting on a farm in Waitoki. The owner of the farm is Phil. It took ages, like a century to get there. Our driver was Graham who is in Rotary and also helps us plant. Finally we were there.
We went up the hill to a huge barn for morning tea. There were brownies, orange juice and tea for the adults. We sat on the steps in the barn. There were 2 dogs, a Labrador and a Great Dane.
After morning tea we had a play and then we hopped back onto the bus to go where we were going to plant our plants. Gail from the ARC showed us how to use the camping toilet and how to dig a hole and plant a plant. Kate also from the ARC was with her.
We had nine very helpful parents with us, they were, Gina, Donna, Grant, Tamati, Michael, Kylie, Shane, Chris, and Brenda. What an awesome group they were.
We started planting. First you dig the hole, make sure it is deep enough, plant the plant, place a blue fertiliser tablet next to it, firm the soil around it and do the pukeko test. That is you give it a tug to make sure pesky pukekos can’t pull them out. We had to put a blue tablet in with the plant so it could grow more easily. 550 plants later we completed the task.
Then we had delicious pizza, soup and more brownies for lunch. Then all of room 10 jumped over all of the horse jumps. It was a really cool day but then unfortunately we had to leave.
We come home tired, but very satisfied with our efforts. We really enjoyed the planting and year fives can go again next year. My favourite bit was lunch and the planting.
Intermediate Visit
Today the Year 6’s visited Te Atatu Intermediate. It was an opportunity for the children to spend some time in the Technology Rooms. The children were divided into 6 groups and went to a Tech Room to either do Science, Visual Arts, Workshop, Soft Materials, Hard Materials and Food Technology. They thoroughly enjoyed their visit!
Parakai Trip
On Tuesday 1st December, all of Matipo’s Road Patrollers and Librarians went on a trip to Parakai Hot Pools. This was a special treat to say ‘Thank You’ for all their hard work and commitment throughout 2009.
The sun was shining, the water was warm and we all had a great time!
Room 10 Planting Day
On Wednesday 17 June Room 10 went to Waitoki for a planting day. We probably got there at 10 past 10. We were to plant up to 300 plants we had grown from seedlings and were now up to 30 cm high. There were 200 more plants there in addition to ours so we had a huge task ahead of us. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day. When we got on the bus the weather was terribly cold but when we got there it was so hot nearly everyone had to take off their jacket, my it was hot!
When we first arrived we all were excited about the planting so the first thing we did was get some morning tea, have a tour of the house, get told how to dig, how to hold the spade and how to plant the plants.
After everyone got a spade we all started to plant. It was a long time before we got half way down the hill but it was fun because we got to play with the dogs, get a few photos taken, slipping in the mud and nearly every girl screamed because of a worm, that was hilarious I’m still laughing about it. We worked in ever changing groups, soon we were struggling to find a plant to plant or a space to plant it in.
By now we were hungry, we cleaned up and then got told we were going up to the big barn for lunch but we were to go in the back of a horse float. It was fairly dark, we couldn’t see where we were going, the road was bumpy and we had to sit on the floor. Oh no, have the horses done stuff on this floor? The ride was a bit like being on a bucking bronco, well not quite. It was only about a 3 or 5 minute ride and was very fun.
For lunch we had pizza, brownies, juice and some hot milo, mmmm! can still taste those yummy pizzas. They made the bases for Hell’s Piza but this was heavenly, yum. Everyone got to have 3rds!
The place where we had lunch was a huge garage that was 2 or 3 times bigger than room 10. In the garage there was a race car, tractor, an old car and heaps more. After lunch we had to sit on the steps a have a little assemble about saying thank you for giving us lunch and they thanked us for our planting efforts. It was then we were told we had planted over 500 plants.
When we got on the bus it was not that noisy for some reason. After a while 5 people fell asleep one started to snore ha-ha. When we got back to school it was nearly three o’clock so we all went home slept like a log because of the long day.
Te Atatu Intermediate Vist
On Tuesday the Year 6′s went for their visit to Te Atatu Intermediate. This is part of their transition process to an Intermediate School. The children visited a Technology Classroom and were assigned an activity to complete during the morning. These included Science, Visual Art, Workshop, Soft Materials, Hard Materials and Food Technology.
