Balloon Car Racing

As an end of term treat Room 8 undertook a balloon car building challenge. Each team was given one balloon to power their car and had to include half a one litre milk bottle in their design. We got an hour and a half to build our cars with each team having two or three members.

(John, Steven and Marc construct their long distance racer)

There was lots of variation in the designs for each team with cars that looked like a dragster through to three wheeled racers. The classroom buzzed with activity and excitement as the cars took shape and there were squeals of delight and despair as test runs proved designs successful or still works in progress.

(Zachary, Bhavit and Marcus admire their first effort)

(Cherie checks out the construction of her teams racer)

At the end of the hour and a half the teams gave themselves a name and then we headed to the hall for the final race off.


There were three awards up for grabs, longest distance, fastest racer and most interesting design. John, Steven and Marc took the prize for the longest distance; Amy, Anna and Gabi built the fastest car and Cheri, Amy and Maega claimed the most interesting design award.

(Haydon gives his teams racer a test run)

We took some video of our cars in action and we will try and post a little movie of our efforts at a later date.

Cross Country

The following piece of writing was written by Gabi after our cross country race.


As I soared through the last bit of the gloomy forest, the finish line appeared before my watery eyes. The beautiful sun embraced me in its warm cloak. A favourable breeze mingled in the misty air. The frost pinched my feet and the birds sang their sweet songs. I was so taken away by this bewildering site that I didn’t notice the deep, dark hole in front of my prancing body. ‘Ahhhhh!!!!’ A startled scream escaped my throat  as I fell down into the mossy grass.

Calendar Art

We have recently completed some lino prints for our calendar art this year. Amy explains the process we went through to make these and tells us a little about her final print design.


Firstly in our table groups we got two photos of Maori carvings. Some of the carving designs that we liked and that were simple we sketched onto paper. We also got to walk around and sketch other table groups’ photos’.

Next we got three pieces of card and drew a koru on one card. Then we cut it out. We stuck the koru outline onto another piece of card and the koru onto the last piece. Once we did that we rolled ink all over the prints then printed them onto paper. We learnt that the stuff you take out is white and the stuff you leave in is the colour of the ink.

We finally got to carve. We got into pairs and got one chisel between us. I did a koru pattern because that’s what we were going to do later on. To carve properly you have to point the chisel away from you and your hands then dig into the lino. We had to print them by rolling ink all over them then printing them onto paper.

My koru designs represent my family. The bolder ones are for the boys and the swirler ones are for the girls. I came up with some of my designs from the carving designs we looked at earlier. 

Free digital collage made with Smilebox