Art

This term we have been doing artwork. We did cityscapes. We tried to make it look like we were looking up at the big buildings with a black background for the dark night sky. This is all of the class's art. Do you do art at your school? What art have you done that you could show us? This is Ria's art.

Gymnastics

This term we have been learning gymnastics.We have also been writing our own gymnastic routines. While we are doing our gymnastics over at the hall, we also work on our routines.We have been working on our tumbling skills, for example, round off, cartwheel or a forward roll, those are some of the skills we have put in our routines.

Last year I worked with a group of other kids learning some gymnastics, so I was pretty keen on learning some gymnastics here at our school.One of my favorite disciplines is the beam, I enjoy sweeping while on the beam. This means your bending your knee and sweeping your foot along the side of the beam.

      Questions

• Do you learn gymnastics at your school?
• Have any of you done gymnastics before?
• Have any of you used sweeping on the beam?

Brian's Winter

A few weeks ago we were reading Brian's Winter, and thinking about how he felt and putting our selves in his shoes. This book was about a teenage boy who is thirteen and he is stranded in the Canadian wilderness because he was going to see his father and had to go over in the Bush plane. But the pilot had a heart attack, and Brian didn't know how to fly the plane. So the plane crashed, and Brian only had the survival kit and his hatchet. One morning  he went hunting and caught a moose.

Question
Do you have moose where you are?

Sking

                                                                                    SKIING

This term we have been skiing up Mt Ruapehu. Do you ski at your school? We ski with instructors for the first part of the day and then go with one adult. Do you have instructors if you ski? We all stay as one big group, the number in my group is six. We all can ski up Knoll-ridge and go on the T-bar's. We all ski except Bryce, he snowboards. He only can snowboard in Happy Valley. Have you got some people who snowboard?  We have areas that have names, there are Happy Valley, Rock-garden, Water Fall, Knoll-Ridge and many others.   

TREE PLANTING

This term we had the BNZ bank come to our school. They helped us plant about 230 native trees. We planted them in what we call our wilderness. We call it our wilderness because it used to be blackberry and willow trees. But we changed it to native trees to bring back the native wildlife. Do you have an area that you can plant trees? Do you ever get people to help you plant shrubs?

Cross Country

This term we did cross country at Owhango. Do you do cross country? It's a long distance race against other people. My brother, Kyle, came 2nd. Blake came 3rd. They were both running 1.5 km (0.932057 miles). I ran 2.5 km (1.55343 miles) and came 1st. If you do cross country, how far do you run? Who was the winner? Ria, Blake, Kyle and I made it to the inter-schools cross country which we are running tomorrow. Do you have an inter-schools cross country?




Bryce.

Questions from Alexis

  Hi, my name is Alexis. I was wondering if any of you live on a farm and what kind of pets do you have? We have dogs,cats,fish,horses,and cows.We also have mountains ,do you have mountains?
We also have rattlesnakes. My family has killed two in the last month. Do you have rattlesnakes or
any kind of snakes? Have you heard of hurricane Harvey and Irma? Harvey has flooded most of
Houston, Texas!

New Kid

I am a new kid at Ola Elementary. Do you have any new kids at your school? Anyway I transferred from Shadow Butte Elementary. It's a school with 600 kids! At first I was kinda sad, but now not so much. I've made a few friends here and I hope that by the end of the year I will enjoy it.

Nathan

Getting Ready!

                                                                    

                                

                      How do you get ready for the end of the day? We always get our backpacks and

  lunchboxes. Do you have backpacks and lunchboxes there? Do you ride the bus or walk home?

Sincerely, 

Travis

Wild Fires

  Dear New Zealand, Do you ever have Wild Fires or Forest Fires??? They are pretty common down here during the summer time when the grass is dry. Right now there are big fires,and one is not that far from Ola. The smoke is horrible and our school is not allowed to go outside. There are a lot of things that cause fires but the main thing is lightning and fireworks. We have big airplanes that drop slurry on the fires that put the fires out, but they are hard to control. We have a assistant fire department in Ola with big military style trucks, and two little fire trucks. Our family has made a plan of what to do if there is a fire. We would set all the sprinklers and turn on the wheel line. We would let the horses and cows out. 

The Falls

Yesterday I climbed down a tiny waterfall. Do you have any waterfalls where you live? We swim at the falls a lot. How many languages can you speak? I can only speak one.  -Olivia

Hello,
How was your winter? We just got out of summer. I stayed home for most
of the summer but, then I went to Utah twice  and Widbey Island. 
  Right now we have a bunch of coyotes trying to eat our animals but my dogs keep them out of our yard. Do you have coyotes there? We have bears and rattlesnakes too, but my dogs chase the bears away and my dad kills every rattlesnake he can find.  Do you have rattlesnakes and bears too? What's the most dangerous animal where you live?
  There are  big fires in Idaho and there is so much smoke that we can't go outside for too long.
   Ezra

Allie

Hi, my name is Allie. This summer I went to Disney Land. What are you going to do during the summer? Now I am back in school. We do a lot of fun things in my school. What do you do in your school?

Hi New Zealand

Hi New Zealand.
 I would like to know how big is your school?
My town is very small.  How big is yours?
Cody.

Cub Scout Camp

Hi, New Zealand.   At my Cub Scout camp, I learned about space. I learned about Apollo 11 and the constellations. I like making the paper air planes. I made the best one because I folded it evenly and it flew 2 yards. Do you guys have cub scouts or some kind of camp? -Sammy

Questions from Jade

What classroom pets do you have?

We had a hamster for a class pet but it is now too old to play with so my teacher took it home. We used to have a pet gecko but we let him go back to his owner, Mrs.Blackford. (He was kind of boring anyway)  What classroom pets do you have?

                                                                                                                   

         Jade

4-H

     
     Hello! How was your winter? My name is Abby and I've got a question. Do you have 4-H clubs in New Zealand? I took a market lamb this year. There is even a pledge, It goes like this: 
I pledge my head to better thinking, my hands to larger services,
my heart to greater loyalty, 
and my health to better living 
for my club, my community, my country and my world. 

We're glad you're back!

           

We have had a big winter here. Our school was even closed a few times because of the snow storms.  Now it is getting close to spring and it is raining.  The snowmelt and rain together cause big floods. Many of our roads have almost washed out.

Why wasn't your summer a good one?  Was it too hot or too cold?

Ice Skating

Hi Ola School

We have been back at school for four weeks, having started a new year. The first four weeks have flown by, so we thought it was time we caught up with our friends in Idaho.

It is summer over here, although it hasn't been a great one. However we do have our school pool up and running, and have been swimming most days. We wondered whether you have a pool at your school? Our pool is only about 10 metres long. It is great for the Juniors to learn to swim, but not so good for us Seniors.

On Wednesday this week we went to a "pop up" ice-rink in our nearest town.

Have any of you been ice skating? Is it cold enough in your winter for the ponds to ice up and skate on?