Final assembly

Christmas is nearly here.

The junior team celebrated the end of the year with singing, dancing and acknowledging our successes.

Have a look at the video of our final assembly to see all the hard work we put into our final celebration.

Room 1

Room 2

Room 3

Room 4

Room 5

Room 6

Room 7

Room 8

Room 22

Book parade

Who loves books?

We love books!

What is your favourite book character?
Can you spot our favourite book characters that we dressed up as?

We read lots of books on our own, with our friends and with other students around the school. We made reading fun by exploring books with drama, creating art work and reading around the school. Reading under the trees is lots of fun. Where do you like reading?

BP technology challenge day

Our school had a fun filled day of challenging tasks. The students were separated into mixed level groups from year 0 to year 6 in their house groups, tui, weka, fantail and kea.

The focus of the day was team work and building the house spirit. Each challenge was scored out of 30 with points given for team work, design and construction.

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Have you tried a BP technology challenge? How did you find the challenges? We found they were all fun and challenge although some were easier than others.

Iquiry presentation

The junior school worked hard learning about farming and culture.

The year 1 students investigated the cultures in our school. The key question they investigated was "how can we learn from the different cultures we have in our classroom?”

Have a look at what our wonderful year 1 students learnt.

Room 1 learned about the Maori culture. The girls learned a poi dance and the boys learned the haka. We also learned about the Chinese culture and why they do the dragon dance at Chinese New Year. We all helped make a big dragon to conclude our cultural unit.

Room 2 shared a super Samoan dance.

Room 3 learnt how to sing hello in different languages.

Room 4 compared South Africa and New Zealand. They modeled some amazing masks. One side shows animals from South Africa and the other a Maori design specific to New Zealand.

The year 2 students inquiry was based on farming. The year 2 students key question was "How does farming affect my life?" The students directed the learning, exploring a harvesting crops and dairy farming. An exciting trip to the supermarket taught the students about roles and responsibilities. The year 2 students shared some of what they learnt at the inquiry presentation.

Room 5 asked the teacher some questions about Dairy Farming and how our food comes from the Farm to the Kitchen.

Room 6 were interested in the roles and responsibilities needed to get ice-cream from the farm to the freezer. Room 6 decided the best way to show what they learnt was through a drama of the process.

We started by investigating how to make ice cream. Yum!!!!

Then the different roles and responsibilities, which we shared at the inquiry presentation.

Room 7 has been studying about how farming affects our lives.
We decided to present our learning through a song and posters.
The song title is
“Oh, McDonald milks a cow”.

The super supermarket trip.

The year 2 students went to the local foodtown supermarket, last week on Tuesday. It was fun. Splish splash in the rain to get there and red sizzling sasuages filled our tummies up. We really liked it there. We created photo stories to show you how much fun we had and what we learnt.

Created by TulGer and RajDan

Created by PayHay, NadFel and PaySim

Created by KumAry, SteCod and EllJam

Created by AljIbr and TurGul

Created by NazKal and DicTyl

Dance Festival

The Howick and Pakuranga Dance Festival celebrated dance with a range of local schools and students from year 1 to year 13 participating with their best dance moves.

Take a look at the videos to see all the energy, effort and fun that all the students put into their dances.

A group of our energetic junior girls got their groove on to Miley Cyrus’s song, see you again. The Junior girls will dazzle you with their dance... you will want to see them again... See you again.

The beat, rhythm and moves of Bollywood Bonanza performed by the enthusiastic Year 4-6 dancers of Pakuranga Heights School is a colourful medley of three songs. So hold on to your seat and enjoy the beat.

Bollywood Bonanza music collected from 'Move your body now' from Kismat Konnection sung by Shaan, Suhail, Hard Kaur and Aakriti Kaickar. 'Desi girl' from Dostana sung by Shankar Mahadevan, Vishal Dadlani. 'Jai ho' By The Pussy Cat Dolls sung by A.R. Rahman and Nicole Scherzinger.

Roald Dahl - The Twits

Room 6 is enjoying reading stories by Roald Dahl. We have started with reading The Twits. Have you read The Twits? We have decided to read Fantastic Mr Fox next. What is your favourite Roald Dahl story?

What is some of the mischief Mr and Mrs Twit get up to?
What prank are they going to play next?

Do the Twits show kindness and consideration?

Room 6 decided playing tricks like the Twits do on each other do not show the bee values and are not very nice. It is much better to show kindness and consideration to others.

Can you see what writing ideas we have borrowed from Roald Dahl the author of The Twits?

The Twits

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Can you tell us about your favourite story?

Will it float or will it sink?

Science experiement - to find out what can float and what sinks.


20 of us used to be learning about recycling. Now we are learning about science topics. We used tinfoil, play dough, a pencil, a stick, boats, paper, and water. I thought my boat would float. My two little tinfoil boys sank because the boat sank in the water. This was because my boat had a big hole in it. I made a tinfoil boat. It was enjoyable.
By KumAry


We used:
1. Purple play dough
2. Paper
3. Tinfoil
4. Plastic containers
5. Water
6. Stick
7. Pencil
8. Boats
We got containers with water.
Everyone got into their thinking buddies and we made tinfoil boats. We made a play dough ball. We tested them out. We got one rock that was gigantic and one rock that was tiny. We tested it out. Two of them sank.
By AljIbr


Firstly we filled a container of water. Then off we went to our own tables with our thinking buddies. My buddy was Geri. Miss Campbell gave us a silver tinfoil paper. Some of our boats sank and floated. I thought the big objects would float. The small play dough sank because Miss Campbell made a big hole in it. It was heavy. It was exciting.
By RanDan


We used:
1. Play dough
2. Paper
3. Tinfoil
4. Plastic container
5. Water
6. Stick
7. Pencil
Firstly we got 2 containers full with water.
Secondly we used paper, tinfoil and play dough to test it.
Thirdly we made a tinfoil boat.
Then we put it in the 2 containers.
Next we talked about it.
After we wrote about it and it was exciting.
Last we tested it lots of times. Like five times.
I thought that a big rock would sink.
We found out that heavy things can sink and light things can float.
By HuaXia


We used:
· Play dough
· Paper
· Tinfoil
· Plastic
· Container
· Water
· Stick boat
· Pencil
We got containers filled with water and paper and gigantic play dough to see what would float and what would sink. I found out that rocks sink.
By MatCoo

Junior Team Inquiry Presentations

On Monday 15 June 2009 the junior team meet in the hall to share their findings from their environmental inquiry study.

The Year 1 classes were looking at how to attract butterflies back to Pakuranga Heights School. What would be the best habitat for a butterfly? What did they need to live in? What did they already know about butterflies? This is what the Year 1 students found out...

Room 4 told us facts about the different parts of the butterfly. John pointed to the parts while the children read out facts.

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Room 3 shared with us a powerpoint about what how they made a butterfly garden. Here is their presention:

Making A Butterfly Garden

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Room 2 did a dance about the lifecycle of a butterfly. Here is their dance:


Room 1 drew some lovely butterflies and labelled the parts. Here are their monarch butterflies:



The Year 2 classes looked at waste and how we can reduce, re-use and recycle. This is what they did...

Room 5 have featured in a previous blog post showing their fantastic recycled robots. Today three children shared some of their writing about how they made the robots and did a funky robot dance. Listen carefully to their presentation:


Room 6 have shared many findings already on this blog. They did a brief presentation on the types of waste that we have at PHS and they recommended that each class have 4 rubbish bins to sort waste into landfill, paper, compost and recycling waste. Room 6 then played their made musical intruments that they made out of re-using boxes and found objects while Room 7 modelled the t-shirts they made re-using clothing bags. Here is a short video of the "fashion show" by room 7.

Room 8 made robots from recycling boxes and found objects. They also made paper puppets out of newspapers.

Room 5's Recycled Robots

Room 5 has been learning to make robots using recyclable materials. We wrote recounts using time connectives ie. first, next, finally. Have a look at our awesome robots and enjoy reading our fabulous stories.

First I made a plan. Next I used egg trays to make the shoulders. I used old packets to make the body of my little robot. Then I used sellotape to stick the robot together. Finally my teacher took a photo of me and my robot.
By Brenda Yang

First I got some recycling materials. Next I glued the head and arms on. I used two boxes for the head, two yoghurt pots for the hands and one tissue box for the body, one empty tea box for the legs and one bottle for the rocket. Finally I painted the robot red.
By Jacob Bates

First I drew a plan. Then I got some recycling materials. Next I put it all together with sticky glue. I used lemonade and ginger beer bottles for the legs, a bottle cap for the nose and creamy rice cans for the eyes. Finally I made the hair with silk and I french plaited it. My mum said “Wow” when she saw it.
By Anna Perry

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What a load of funky music!

Room 6 started to explore how we can reuse rubbish. We created some musical instruments using a variety of materials. Thanks to a generous parent we had lots of tubes and vinyl that we could use. We wrote some recounts about making our musical instruments. We are learning to add interesting words to our writing. Have a read and look at our photos to find out how much fun we had.

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What a load of rubbish... what we want to know!

Room 6 has been working hard trying to define what we are going to explore to help solve our problem and key question. Thank you to those who commented on our last blog. Your comments helped direct our inquiry questions.

Scenario: PHS has a problem. The bins are full. There is no place for waste. What do we do?

Key Question: What can we rethink, reduce, reuse and recycle.

Have a look at the video to see the questions we created to help answer our key question and solve the problem.

Can you help us answer any of the questions?

Room 3's Sunflowers

Our sunflowers have been growing really big! To help them grow we used stakes and tied the plants up. They have grown really big now. Have you seen them outside room 3? The sunflowers are taller than us and they are starting to flower. Everyday we look to see how many sunflowers are out. We still water our plants and look after them. We LOVE having sunflowers outside our room.

What a load of rubbish

The year 2 students at PHS are starting an inquiry unit on rubbish and recycling. Have a look at Room 6's scrapbook to see how they started their investigation.

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Splish Splash Day

The Junior school had a Splish Splash day on Tuesday - 10 March 2009. Room 5 would like to share their stories with you.

Splish Splash day was exciting. I went in the shiny sparkly water. It was fun. I was cold and freezing. I wrapped my towel round me. We played on the flutterboards.
By Latonya

Wow! Splish Splash day was the best swimming day in school for me because there were lots of people but there was only one thing. When I went in the water I saw leaves and they were floating at the end. My toes were fizzy. After some time I got warmer.
By Callum

It was amazing. We went swimming up and down and around. It was super. We had lots of amazing fun. It was freezing cold. We had so much fun that our ears almost popped off. We were excited. That was the best Splish Splash day ever.
By Thomas

Room 8's Self-Portraits

In Room 8 Mrs Driver has worked with us to make some lovely portraits. We learnt all about the proportions of our face and we learnt all about what a portrait is. Mrs Driver showed us a website all about portraits, you may like to look at it too by clicking here. We used black, grey and white crayons to make our portraits. We hope you like our self-portraits.

Sunflower Planting

In room 3 we are lucky to have a garden right outside our room. Mrs Simons and the year 1 children wanted to make our outside environment special like our inside environment and thought planting sunflowers would be a good start.

We all helped each other and worked as a team. Have a look at how well we did:

First we dug holes for our seeds in the garden. Ava helps to dig the holes.

Then, we carefully got a sunflower seed ready to plant. Look at our little seeds!

After, Gabrielle helps push the dirt to cover our seeds.

We took turns to water our seeds. Elise waters the seeds so they will grow

Everyday we are going to look after our sunflowers seeds and water them. Come back later and room 3 will update you on how they are growing.