New Improved Room

A major change around and a lot of sorting and cleaning has seen a transformation in Tian's room.

Getting crafty for the woofie

Today I unleashed my inner craft-person. I sewed up one of our old polar fleece blankets and then stuffed it with some of our alpaca fibre. Finished product is one very comfy, warm and odour free dog bed.

Music Competition

Today Tian competed in the Music Festival at Te Awamutu.
She placed 3rd twice with her two pieces - Jasmine Flower and The Elephant and then she and Paige placed 2nd in the duet/trio section with a section of Symphony # 9.

Term Three draws to an end

Another term bites the dust. I got a lovely letter, box of favourites and M&M's from one of my ALL students, a delicious carrot cake from another family and a wonderful text from Josephine thanking me for my hard work. Things like that make the job all worth while :-)

Oh plus a nice glass of wine after a long nine weeks.

Kuranui School Ag Day

The Room One children and their chosen animals; 1 x kid, 9 x lambs, 5 x calves.

Lambie Loo

It's tough at the top :-)

Happy birthday Ellie

Today is our gorgeous cousin Ellie's birthday.
This picture is from her graduation.

We love and miss you Ellie - hope to see you soon.

Reading Fair Boards

Here are our completed Reading Fair boards - I'm really proud of what the children have achieved.
It was nice to have our first judge come today and be impressed by what we had undertaken.

Little Bo Peep

Today I thought that it would be fun to put mischief into a bonnet. I did this with Kaos in year 6. Mischief looked so cute.

Northern Region Pool Surf Champs

A successful day overall at Northern Regionals.
Tian and Shinae won the Under 14 womens 100m Patient Tow with Fins.
Tian, Shinae, Jenna and Kaylie got third in Under 14 womens 4 x 50m rescue medley relay.
(the same team got second in the 4 x 50m brick relay but were DQ'd for resting ont he lane ropes after they had swum - as did most other teams but they weren't DQ'd, never mind)

Bronze - East Waikato Science Fair

Tian is a happy young lady and we're all very proud of her as she achieved a bronze award at the East Waikato Science Fair.

Even better inside the envelopes were cash prizes which always make for smiling children

Only one to go....

We've even resorted to watching America's cup boat racing on a Tv at school before classes start. We won the first race and the second one was called off due to strong winds.
We only have one more win needed to secure the cup - come on boys bring it home tomorrow!!!

Full Moon Fever

View from our paddock as the moon rises.

Good luck Team New Zealand

Have our fingers and toes crossed for our Americas Cup team - go hard Team New Zealand, bring home the cup (and no more of this stuff)

Professional Development

A day of professional development - third session of my Incredible Years course.

This is the pyramid that underpins the programme.

Aims Swimming

Three races:
200m back 1.5sec pb
50m back 1 sec slow
100m back bit slower again.

Not bad with toes which still aren't fully healed. Very proud of Tian for making it there as the qualifying times are exceptionally tough now. It was a very small team with only two swimmers from Matamata Intermediate making the times. Jorja swam all pbs which was good for her. A big thank you to Karen Raymond for doing all the organising and entries and taking Tian across today.

The 10th AIMs Games

Today was the opening ceremony for the 10th Aims Games.
The inspirational speaker this year was Dillon Boucher, NZ basketball player. He spoke really well and talked about the fact that he got where he is today not by being the very best at what he does but by wanting it the most and thus training the hardest to get there.

http://nzaimsgames.co.nz/

7500 people present at Opening Ceremony

6500 competitors

196 schools; 6 from Australia and 1 team from Cook Islands

This is the largest single sporting event in New Zealand

TV Lamb

Bonding watching a spot of TV

Hmmm

This is what happens when Tian is slightly bored on a Friday evening before watching a movie.
Maybe this is what really happens when Friday the 13th runs comes around.

Kids of all ages love art

Multi level art to retell a Maori myth

Motoring Milestone

My trusty car clicked over into a major milestone today on the way to work.

Birthday Dog

Happy 8th Birthday H.T. it's hard to believe it's been 8 years already.
We love you loads even when you're a tad naughty. Looking back on these pictures you were gorgeous then and continue to be gorgeous now.

Stream Planting

For the third year our school has planted along the river/stream bank that runs behind our school as part of an ongoing project with environment Waikato.

Here we are hard at work:

Practise makes perfect

Flute practise late Sunday morning.

Training Time

First surf pool champs training since Tian hurt her toes.
Swimming itself is improving but wearing a fin is still not a happening thing.

Natural wonders

Sometimes the weirdest of plants have an innate beauty even when they are growing in a giant pile of dung.

Sunsets

The light lately has been really beautiful both in the morning and at night.
This was one of our sunsets this week, the sunrises have been even more amazing but the camera always ends up being in my bag in the trunk of the car.

ALL kids

At school I'm lead teacher for a great programme that we're privileged to be a part of - Accelerated Literacy Learning or as we usually call it ALL.

These are my harding working and enthusiastic students. I run two groups a junior and a senior group each with four children, our focus is reading.

Pet Portraits

I've been experimenting with my gorgeous new Nikon and a number of our pets have been the lucky models for it, such beautiful subjects.

All's fair in love and training

Miss Mischief was a very good lamb on her drive back to the farm this morning. We popped back this afternoon to enjoy the sunshine and do a little training. It was also a chance to play with my new toy (Nikon camera)

Settling In

This is the picture we see each night now (Friday - Sunday), somehow I think the Monday - Thursday lamb is going to find it a bit of a hardship.