Cross Country runners from Year 6 represented Oaklands School at the South West Zone Cross Country this week.

The SW Zone Cross Country was held at the Halswell Quarry on a cool and brisk Wednesday morning. Mr Hillary went with our students. They had to deal with a challenging course with mud, tough uphill sections and slippery tracks. All of our athletes put in a massive effort and should be proud of their result. The Year 6 students representing Oaklands were Aidan King, Andre Simpson, Carter Baxter, Tia Taua and Isabel McKay-Hatcher.  Aidan qualified for Canterbury Cross Country by placing 11th.

Reward Time

In the Year 6 Hub we have introduced this programme as a way of rewarding the fabulous students we have who are:

•  engaged and focused on their learning
• challenging themselves to be the best they can be
• showing kindness to others
• including other students in their learning and their playground games/activities
• role modelling the CARE Values

All students who have not managed to get to Orange on the traffic light 2 times during the week or to Red once during the week earn Reward Time on a Thursday afternoon for 25 minutes. They can choose from a fitness activity like Jump Jam or they can do reward time inside with activities like Scratch, Reading, Art, playing games like Chess. 

The small group of remaining students complete Community Restorative Time. They work with a teacher to identify what their goals are for the next week so they can work towards earning reward time and then they do jobs for the Hub or School Community eg tidying Maths gear or the classroom, or helping to keep our playground tidy.

Chinese

Students have commenced Module 2 where they are learning the Chinese vocabulary for food, putting these words into sentences and also learning about the culture of food in China. Today 6MR and 6TP learnt how to use chopsticks properly and practised moving beans (counters) around. It was great to see students helping others who were finding it more difficult.

An example of 2 sentences they have learnt are:

Wo xihuan chi cǎo méi dàngāo/I like to eat strawberry cake  or

‘Wo bu xihuan chi shēng rì dàn gāo/I don’t like to eat birthday cake

Writing

Students working with Mrs Patten are writing explanations about an aspect of sustainability in our environment.  Examples of questions are How is electricity made?, How can we reduce the use of plastic?, How was the Earth made?

The following explanation is written by Amelia R.

What is the Greenhouse effect? And does it help the Earth?

Greenhouse gases are certain gases in the atmosphere that trap energy from the sun which causes the Greenhouse effect. For example, these gases are (Water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane etc).

Although, The Greenhouse effect can and can’t help the environment. The Greenhouse effect can help by keeping the Earth warm. The Greenhouse effect can’t help if we (humans) do things that send those gases into the air.

However, without the Greenhouse effect, the Earth would not be warm enough for us to live. If the Greenhouse effect becomes stronger it will become warmer than usual. Even if it just gets a bit warmer it will still be a problem.

But, Scientists think that the things humans do that send Greenhouse gases into the air is making the Earth warmer. Things like driving cars that run on fuel send Greenhouse gases into the air. If we use more Electric cars it won’t be a big problem, but still a problem because there are more things than just driving cars that send Greenhouse gases into the air.

Overall, The Greenhouse effect can help the environment but if it gets stronger it will be a problem. Still, the Greenhouse effect, RIGHT NOW, is getting stronger!