WELCOME TO TOTARA.  We are a class of 26 Year 7 and 8ʻs. Our teacher is Mrs Pettigrew.

2018 - Our theme for the year is "On A Journey"
Term 4 - Back To The Future
This term is all about the past, with the junior classes learning about old toys and the seniors are learning about Dunedin and itʻs history because they are going to Dunedin for a week on camp, starting  on the 19th of November! They are all very excited.
Term 3 - A Scientific Safari
This term is all abuzz! We are studying a science topic from the Living World and it is going to bee fantastic! Bees! We started the term with a whole school Bee Day. Everyone was put into a mixed age group and every half hour we rotated around the classrooms completing a different activity in each room. We made model bees from a cardboard tube, paper, pipe cleaners, wool and acetate. We made bees ʻflyingʻ into a honeycomb. We iced cup cakes to look like a bee. We made bee puppets and we made buzzers from popsicle sticks and paper - when you blow into them the paper vibrates and makes a buzzing noise. It was a great day and everyone had fun.
Week 9
Adrenaline Forest
This week our class went to Adrenaline Forest on a REACH trip. At Adrenaline Forest you have climbing courses with lots of obstacles that you have to climb to get to the top of the trees. There are flying foxes to get between the trees, ladders to climb, barrels high up in the trees to get through and ropes to climb. At all times you are harnessed to wires that follow each of the Levels. Each level gets harder as you go along with Level 6 being the highest level, 25m above the ground! All children managed to do at least 3 of the Levels with a lot going all the way to Level 6. Level 5 was the hardest level out of them all. At the end of the day we were all tired and we had sore hands and arm muscles.
Week 8
Terrific Technology
On Wednesdays Totara travel to Rangiora Borough School to learn about Food, Woodwork, Sewing and Visual Design. This week was their last week for the term. Next term they will be able to choose their own subject and make something of their choice within the four subjects. The year 8ʻs have been in Food and the year 7ʻs have been in Woodwork, they have both had a blast in their classes. 
Week 1
Blue Lights got Talent Competition
On Thursday the 28th of July a team of eight jump jammers went to Riccarton High School to compete in the Blue Lights Got Talent show competition. They came fourth in the competition and won the wild card prize, which had a bunch of prizes in it like; ice skating vouchers, clipʻnʻclimb vouchers and passes to Orana Park.
The best part was coming on stage and seeing everyone smiling at us. Hayley entered the ʻdress as a policemanʻ competition and she got some vouchers for winning.
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Term 2 - Hiking For Our Hauora
This week we have started practicing for the Cross Country. In Totara we have to run 3km! For some of us this is a breeze but for others of us we have to use this termʻs value, ʻperseveranceʻ and a growth mindset to make it around the course. Each day we practice we try to get a little further in the allotted time than we did the day before. Week 1 finished on Friday with our annual ANZAC ceremony. Every student in Totara had a role to play with most of us having a speaking part. Members of our community come to the ceremony which is held outside around the memorial. We pay tribute to the fallen soldiers and  mention each of the local names on the memorial. We are fortunate to still have descendants of those soldiers at North Loburn School.

31 May 2018
This week at Technology the year 7ʻs did cooking class with Mr James. We made salad wraps choosing 5 or more different fillings. We got put into groups of four with Maori colour names. Each person in the group was assigned a letter which represented the job they had to do at the end of the class to clean up. I liked my wrap because I put pineapple in it! I am not allowed it at home because my brother is allergic to it. Amy Calder.

22 June 2018
Last week Mr Ward organised our own FIFA World Cup. He announced it to the whole school and told us that there will be teams of 4 and 3 people on the pitch. 12 teams entered and Mr Ward put the teams into 2 Sections. Section 1 including Uruguay, England, France, Senegal, Australia, Spain. Section 2 including Germany, Belgium, Costa Rica, Russia, Portugal, Brazil. The tournament started on 11 June with Uruguay v France and Germany v Russia. The Final will be held on the 6 July. The whole school is coming to watch the games which are played at morning tea time.
I think that the tournament was a great idea. The two year 3 teams have done so well with the crowd getting behind them.
Mr Ward has refereed every game so far. The players have been very disciplined so far with Mr Ward giving only 2 red cards.
​I have enjoyed the world cup and I canʻt wait for more action to be played. My favourite bit so far was the chanting, with the best chant being (Who do we want to win, COSTA RICA). Charley Ward.

29/06/2018
On Wednesday 27th June six students from the school went to the Canterbury Cross Country at Halswell Quarry. All six students did very well with Finn Yardley placing 10th which means he is off to Nationals at Roto Kahuta Reserve. Ella Stewart was 28th, Sophie Ward-Martin was 79th. Harry Witt was 23rd. Daisy Jones was 56th and Lillie Wilson was 54th. These were impressive results and a great experience for the runners.
On Thursday 28th June the Totara students went into Christchurch to the Roxx climbing centre as part of their REACH experience. We were challenged by experiencing all kinds of levels to climb. Some children chose to go on the Leap Of Faith or the Death Drop or both!. Unfortunately the Death Drop was broken so the children that wanted to go on that had two goes on the Leap of Faith. The Roxx Climbing Centre was really fun. We had a great day and we appreciate the parent helpers that transported us and Mrs Hughes who organised the trip. Ella Stewart.

​Term 1 - Amble Through the Arts
We have been learning about Growth Mindset. We know that challenges will help us to learn, making mistakes will teach us resilience, and asking ourselves: ʻIs this the best I can do?ʻ will improve the outcomes from our learning.
We are using the programme Banqer to learn financial literacy. We each have an Everyday account and a Savings account. We can transfer money from one account to another. Mrs P hands out Banqer dollars for ʻgood thinkingʻ ʻgreat answersʻ ʻusing our PRIDE valuesʻ and other things during the day. We earn a ʻwageʻ which is paid weekly for being ready to learn, wearing our correct uniform and doing our duties each day. Each week we have to pay expenses - desk and chair rental, wifi connection, power and cleaning etc. We have to pay tax on our income and for this Mrs P makes sure we get at least one game a week!
During Topic time we are ʻtravellingʻ around the world looking at different art techniques. We have done Serengeti silhouettes from Tanzania, fish kites from Japan, Aboriginal dream paintings from Australia, Hieroglyphics from Egypt, paper cutting from Poland,  and pastel portraits from the Galapagos Islands.
To encourage us to read at home Mrs P has set up a cycling track around the classroom. We have made little cut out people on bikes and attached a photo of our heads on top (wearing a helmet of course). for every minute we read at home we get to kove along the Tour de Reading track. P.S. Year 8 winners were Gwen 1st and Calvin 2nd. Year 7 winners were Amy 1st and Charley 2nd.
The Flower Show was held on 26th February. We did war silhouettes with red pastel poppies for our art entry. They look really spectacular and we have had many favourable comments about them. The decorated cakes section produced some yummy and elaborate looking entries. The judges found it hard to give out their 1st, 2nd and 3rd stickers!
In week 3 we went to Waikuku Beach and spent the day learning to surf and playing beach games for our first REACH Day. It was heaps of fun and nearly everyone managed to get upright on their board. Perseverance was the key to success! See the REACH page for some photos.