Fundraising for our Room 5 Camp

Camp on a yearly basis is part of our Haumoana School culture. There are various reasons for this taking place, including to-
   * Develop a sense of class unity and well-being.
   * Learn how to get along with others by listening, responding and sharing.               
   * Recognise ways of keeping strong, healthy and fit.
   * Appreciate our environment, nature and sustainable conservation.
   * Encourage independence, leadership and safe practices.

To ensure all children can afford the cost of going on a class camp we encourage a variety of activities to assist in fundraising. This is in itself an important component in the outdoor education experience, by learning how to be organised, resilient, creative and supportive of others.

The traditional, yearly Shop Day was met with positive responses for children to team up with another student and arrange a variety of products and services to be sold to the rest of the school at lunch time.
Here are two stories shared by pupils on this event.

                                                         Super Shop Day
     I burst with excitement as children raced to a stall. My stall had sherbet, weet-bix fudge, a raffle which the prize was a big teddy bear and toys. My sister bought 3 bags of sherbet!

       The first person to come had a ten dollar note and we had no change, so we told him he could stand aside till we had the right change. My sister’s friends told others so they knew to come to my stall. My partners were Tyla and Sophia.

       We were so popular we sold out of sherbet. In the end my stall made about forty five dollars for camp.
                                                                           By Kaiya Read-Butcher

                                                                                        Shop Day
There were children pouring in from around the corner. I was bursting with excitement. All the desks were set up in a sort of square shape. Our first customer was coming up to us, how exciting!

 “Would you like to get a soft toy?” I asked the little girl.

 She nodded. She obviously wanted one.

“That’s only twenty cents.” I said to the girl.

 She handed over the money, put her hand in and grabbed a teddy and then walked off with a big smile on her face.
                                                                                 By Renee Thompson

As another component of this fundraising exercise the children are given an opportunity to suggest and drive the activities. When asking the class to contribute other ideas for raising money for the camp, an idea provided was, “Have a water fight.”
The teacher’s response, having rather dubious thoughts initially, was, “You will have to elaborate Tobias.”
“Well,” began Tobias, “You get people to bring along water guns, pay an entry fee at our school pool gates, get changed into togs, and squirt each other with water.”
What a Capital Idea!
So here is the notice formulated to advertise this event.

                                             WATER PLAY
Room 5 are providing an opportunity to bring along water guns, water cannons and water pistols to fire water at each other in a water battle of epic proportions.
This will take place in the swimming pool on Wednesday 19 March between the times of 12.45 and 1.25.
The cost to take part in this water battle will be $1.00 entry fee through the swimming pool gates for a 10 minute fight, squirting as many people as you can in and around the pool area.
You can bring your own guns on this day or pay to hire one as part of your entry fee. You must bring togs and towel to get changed into. At the end of your ten minute allotted time you can pay $1.00 to take part in another water battle or get changed back into clothes and leave the battle zone.
Please remember to bring $1.00, a water pistol, togs and towel on Wednesday 19 March. Thank you for your support
From the children in Room 5

When meeting with parents to discuss the camp arrangements, there were twelve parents who attended with four apologies, and a robust discussion on ways to meet the costs of the camp.

This was one suggestion; to have a green dress up day on Monday 17 March, Saint Patrick’s Day. Above are some class photographs of this very successful event.

                       Beach 5’s Rugby Tournament
                       Thursday 13 March 2014
This was a rugby tournament played on the beach with five players per team. Rugby is recognised as New Zealand’s National sport and kiwi children are encouraged at a very early age to participate. In its rawest form it is basically tackling the ball carrier, passing the ball back to players in the team, and getting points by scoring a try.
The games played at Ocean Beach followed similar rules with modifications such as two-man scrums, one-man lineouts and immediately releasing the ball when tackled.

  Ocean Beach was the perfect site for beach rugby with its lovely long, golden, sandy beach. Many Hawkes Bay residents enjoy this seaside recreational beach;  this strip of coast has a very small community with very few roads, and not having its own shops deters many by sending them further southwards to nearby Waimarama, another beach a few kilometres down the coast. 

The land almost immediately behind the beach is extremely hilly and the one-way road going down the eroded cliff face is very steep. Ocean Beach has an unnamed river made by runoff from nearby farmland which comes through steep valleys further up in the outlying hills.  This river ends up in the sands on the beach and creates unusual water features that either form a delta, a lake, a lagoon, and sometimes beachgoers create canals from these lakes and rivers to the ocean. At the end of our rugby tournament it was used by many school children as a quick cooling down place before the long 35 minute drive back to school.

Ocean Beach also has a strong rip current and usually has large waves and is therefore popular with surfers. One dad who offered transport for some of our team members wanted to take full advantage of this.

I recollect a story, maybe ten years ago, of so-called secret documents between the nearby Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule and a syndicate of developers that approved new roading and over 500 houses to be constructed at Ocean Beach. The area, mainly owned by local Maori, was to become a town and residents were outraged, a battle that still persists to this day.
__________________________________________________________ 

Eight players from our little school expressed interest to participate in this rugby tournament. Return slips of consent were returned very quickly with three parents generously offering transport. More than enough for our little troop. Even when it was pointed out to parents that we have excess transport, the response was, “I want to come and watch the kids play anyway.”
Thanks to our parents Mike, Shelley and Amanda.

Each player was given a task to attend to while playing in the tournament.
Caleb, using his weight, was to run straight through.
Shae, using his strength, was to wrench the ball from the opposition.
Tobias, being lightweight, was to run in the heavy sand.
Zahn, being a speedster, was to hang wide for the ball.
Lila, also a speedster, was to hang wide on the other side.
Katelyn, with wiry strength, was to use her straight arm to fend tacklers.
Max was to add bulk and drive straight through.
Blake, was to be captain, be halfback to feed out the ball, and be the kicker of the ball.
“Gee,” says Blake, “I’m going to be busy doing three jobs.”

Our round robin segment of the tournament did not meet with success. The children didn’t play to potential, and were daunted by the size of their opposition. They lost their three games.
The second part of the tournament was playing in the Cup for the top teams, the Shield, the Bowl, and the minnows of the tournament, the Plate. We played in the Plate.
In this section we managed a draw and two commendable wins, the children having warmed to their allocated tasks, building in confidence, and responding to bribes of an ice block if they win.
“We almost won the tournament,” was one elated comment from a team member at the end of the games.

One of our girl players was introduced to the harsh realities of competitive rugby. She had her arm twisted and rubbed raw by an opposition member during a rolling maul. She was not happy with this strategy.
“He cheated,” was her outburst when she jogged off for the half time break.

Here is a story from one of our Year 5 players who participated in the tournament.           

                       Beach fives

Try time. Zahn scored a try. That was the first try of the game.

On Thursday the 13 of March there was the Beach Fives at Ocean Beach. I was the only one in the room 5 class.

It was awesome. It was only Primary Schools. In one of our games the crowd were screaming  out our names.

It was like the red carpet.

There were some monster players and some speed machines.  We got selected for the last round robin.

 We won two games in that round robin and lost one.

By Tobias Murfitt.   

Thanks to Errol, the father, and Marty, the son, for organising another most successful tournament. Marty Hantz has taken over the reins of running the Beach 5’s, but dad still can’t keep away, being the time keeper and blowing the hooter. Marty was too preoccupied for such strenuous activity. He was out in the field refereeing every game he could possibly manage.

Cool Schools in Room 5
Cool Schools is a health programme identifying social problems that could arise in the school between pupils, such as bullying, game rules disputes and arguments. It encourages the setting up of a mediation system by a group of diligent students to solve and remedy these conflict situations.
Classroom teaching was done over a period of time following a set format. Let’s see how we progressed in Room 5.

The first lesson was related to conflict, the opening question posed by the teacher was, “What is conflict?”
One eager girl was able to respond to this question with numerous, relevant ideas -
 “Bashing up someone.”
 “Swearing at them.”
 “Pushing people away.”
 “Kicking them.”
This particular little girl was involved in the occasional dispute herself and in some cases employed the above suggestions to solve conflict. We know that this programme will support all students to be encouraged to use more constructive strategies.

Our Writers Journal was full of ideas on conflict, with an example being displayed by this proud owner. The bubble map indicates various definitions of conflict and how this can deteriorate into different states of negativity.

The class had been encouraged to recognize the destructive forms of conflict.  With continuous reminders of constructive dialogue, displaying mediation skills and solving differences of opinion, this did not marry in with the book the teacher was reading to the children.
The book was ‘The BFG’ by Roald Dahl. The section being shared with the children, after discussing the negative aspects of violence, happened to involve an altercation between all the giants, witnessed by Sophie, our little heroine in the book. Our local community would be thankful that this would never occur in our school playground.
The dialogue goes as follow….
‘The two giants rushed at the Fleshlumpeater and began pounding him with their fists and feet. He woke up and roared into battle, and in the bellowing thumping rough and tumble that followed, one sleeping giant after another got stepped upon and kicked. Soon, all nine of them were on their feet having the most almighty free-for-all. They punched and kicked and scratched and bit and butted each other as hard as they could. Blood flowed. Noses went crunch. Teeth fell out like hailstones. The giants roared and screamed and cursed, and for many minutes the noise of battle rolled across the yellow plains.’
Whatever are the teachers reading to the children these days?
Oh, by the way children, can you spot a simile in Roald Dahl’s writing?

Blake was asked whether he would like to publish his story on conflict. It is full of meaningful observations and wise suggestions.

Conflict is when friends have a disagreement with each other. Someone might get quite badly hurt. Someone might start crying. People can offend each other by swearing and stuff like that.  There are two ways that people fight, physically and with words. But both ways hurt feelings. Some people fight with weapons.  

“Don’t forget to underline your headings in red pen,” I was repeatedly requesting.
But still children kept forgetting. One male student underlined in a green pen. He also used a green pen to do some writing. In his Writers Journal when planning ideas on the results of conflict it was a rolling field of green; green writing, green lines and green borders.
“Pete,” I asked, “You use green a lot. What country do you come from?”
“Ireland,” he replied unnecessarily.