Water Safety

 We had been looking forward to going to Water Awareness lessons for a long time. We were booked in for ten days of lessons from the 8 June until the 21 June. We had to plan and prepare before hand so that we all had togs, towels and most importantly swimming caps. Some of us brought our gear in early, just to make sure we had it at school.

On the first day we were so excited we could hardly do our morning learning! The buses arrived on time and we saw the senior boys leave, then the Juniors and then the Senior girls left last. This is a photo of us girls leaving on the first day:

After we arrived at the CLM pool in Morrin Rd, we went upstairs and waited on the bench for our teacher. We were beyond excited.

We have learned over the last two weeks how to keep ourselves safe around water. We were told that New Zealand is surrounded by water, either the sea or rivers and lakes and we need to be able to stay afloat until help comes. We lay on our backs and spread our legs and arms out like starfish. We also used the boards to hold onto while we put our heads under the water and kicked our legs as fast as we could.

Our favourite day by far was the last Thursday when we got to get into a real boat!! We all had to sit around the edge facing towards one another. When the teacher said 'go' we had to fall backwards into the water. It was so much fun. Also, the teachers made us sit still in the boat and they tried to capsize us but we didn't fall over.

We have really enjoyed our water awareness lessons, even though we were very tired when we went home. Also it wasn't easy getting our togs and towels to dry overnight but we managed. What a wonderful experience we will remember forever.

Table Tennis Skills

 Yesterday the children in Room 6 were fortunate enough to be chosen to attend a lunchtime skills lesson with Dinyar, who represents New Zealand Table Tennis. We have been using 'small balls' as our focus this term and building skills both individually and in pairs. The table tennis balls are certainly small and definitely lighter than the tennis balls we've been using.

Dinyar started by introducing himself to us and then took a photo of us all. He handed out the bats, which are also very small in size and our first lesson was how to hold the bat. He said he thinks the best way is to pretend you are shaking someone's hand. We got that.

Then Dinyar asked us to challenge ourselves to how many times we can hit the ball straight up and down. After that we had to count our hits by turning the bat over each time. That was a bit harder but we are fast learners.

Our very final challenge was to stand very still and try and be the last person standing while balancing the ball on the bat. It was a lot of fun but the windy day didn't help the ball stay on the bat very easily. Thank you Dinyar for sharing your time and skills with us. We hope you can come again soon.