Eagles on 3...1-2-3 EAGLES!

After 10 weeks of competition, the Year 7 Eagles played their final game of the 2019 Netball season on Tuesday night. The girls have come such a long way since Term 2 and the first grading game with most of the players having never played netball before. Thanks so much to Ana Henry for stepping in to be the coach - she gave up her Monday and Thursday afternoons to train the girls and build up their confidence and netball skills. All that effort has paid off because the Year 7 Eagles finished the season UNDEFEATED! Congratulations girls - don't forget to bring your whanau along to the Pt England Netball prizegiving on September 12th to celebrate!

See if you can spot our very own Room 2 players - Mamarae (Tunui) and Jazzelle! Well done girls!

UPDATE:
Our team won their grade! The girls attended the end of season Auckland Netball Prizegiving with their whanau. Silver Fern Bailey Mes was the special guest who shared her journey from playing as a school kid to representing New Zealand

Piñata Day - A Traditional way to celebrate!

For the last two weeks, the JACKSON reading group have been learning about piñata, highly decorated containers made from papier mache, pottery or even cloth and filled up with lollies. Piñata have links in history to different parts of Europe as well as Latin American countries. In Mexico, piñata are traditionally made for birthday celebrations for children.

This week, Nahea, Rozaidah, Skye, AJ M, Ash, Filipe and William worked together to create two Easter Egg piñata.

STEP 1:  Cut or tear up strips of newspaper and use PVA glue to cover a balloon with a couple of layers to make the outside shell.

STEP 2: Listen/watch Skye and Nahea show you how they fill the piñata.

STEP 3: The last layer of the piñata is decorating it with crepe paper to make it bright and colourful!

Check out Rozaidah's blog to get her instructions on how to make your own piñata.

Finally, we got to have some real fun. Ms. Tapuke tied one end of the piñata to a piece of string and hung it up on a pole outside Room 2. 

Everyone had the chance to try their piñata skills!

    a)  First they had to wear a blindfold, next

    b) they were given a stick and then they were

    c) turned around a few times and afterwards had try to hit the piñata. 

The best job was holding the string tied to the piñata - by pulling the string up and down, you could have fun making sure the person with the stick kept missing! 

Well there was lots of yelling and excitement as we watch everyone trying really hard to break the piñata  - it's not as easy as it looks!  Some of the boys gave it a good crack and at one point, the stick went flying over the carpark at one point!

In the end, we took turns smashing up the piñata after each one fell on ground and when they were opened up, we shared out the chocolates.

What traditions do you and your family follow to mark special occasions like a birthday?