School Library Journal 'Trailee Awards' - we're in the finals!

We have TWO finalists in the School Library Journal 'Trailee Awards'!

This is an international competition that recognises videos that do the best job of promoting books and bringing readers and books together.

WOW - what talented students we have at Springston School! These book trailers were made months ago, without knowing such a competition existed; Carol saw the competition later, and decided to put in three entries. Two of these got into the finals!

And now we urgently need YOUR votes for t

hese “People’s Choice” awards.

There are only FOUR finalists in each category of this competition, and we have TWO finalists in one of these:

Student created for secondary readers (7-12 grade):

• Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters (Roaring Brook, 2003) by Gail Giles. (By Morgan and Kachina - Year 8)
• One Door Away from Heaven (Bantam, 2001) by Dean Koontz (By Emma-Rose - Year 8)

The winners will be announced on the evening of October 22 at the School Library Journal Leadership Summit on the Future of Reading in Chicago, IL.

Please vote now. Scroll to the bottom of the voting page to cast your vote - get all your friends and family to vote too!

Voting ends: 9:00 PM CST, Friday October 22.

THANK YOU to our friends at Ruahine School!

Dear Ruahine School

We cannot thank-you enough for your amazing kindness and generosity towards our school. You guys are fab!

We currently don’t know what we are going to spend the money on, but we will let you know after the holidays (which we are all looking forward to).

Please keep in contact with us via our blog and we will keep you updated of the events here in Christchurch. PS your clown costumes are really cool! :)

Mollie (Year 7)
On behalf of Springston School teachers and students

Spiderman (The real version!) - hilarious!

Morgan, Kachina and Libby were our three Year 8 students who made up the Springston 1 Team for the recent CCES Competition (poor Georgia couldn't make it because she had shingles). The girls planned (hmmm, they took all of 1 minute to do that!) scripted, filmed, and edited the whole movie within an hour and a quarter! Amazing!

The theme was 'Super Hero saves the day". You'll need to listen carefully in just a couple of places, but the acting and humour is amazing, with a few special effects thrown in. Hilarious! Awesome work, girls!!

Super Fairy Princess Guy and the Stupid Burglar - Superhero saves the day!

It's about time we had a bit of a laugh and some fun! So, here is our CCES Competition Junior Team's Highly Commended movie! The challenge theme was 'Superhero saves the day' and, as usual, there were only two hours in which to come up with an idea, film and edit it.

Cory, Myami and Oliver worked really well together and came up with a lot of great ideas. Myami has a little song to start and end the movie (listen carefully), Cory's acting is amazing and he is very funny. Oliver has used some clever techniques to make the movie seem like a comic, and watch what happens when the Super Fairy waves his wand! Great effort guys!

Special Newsletter - return to school 13 September 2010

Click on the image to read the newsletter. Double-click to zoom in, click the corner of the page to turn to the next page. Download as a pdf.

School Newsletter Archive including pdf and Word versions.

Back to School!

Welcome back to all our families - it's a beautiful day to be back into our routines and our learning! Thanks to everyone who has supported us, and helped us get up and running again!

Junior students will be working in the Library and side room until we know what will be happening with repairs for Rooms 1 and 2. Aren't we lucky to have these spare spaces!

Springston School Update - Thursday 9 September

The BOT met this morning and the school will remain closed until Monday 13 September. Teachers will have been phoning the parents of children on their class lists to inform you of this.

Our water and sewerage are all functioning as normal. If you have any concerns about this, please send your children with a water bottle.

On Monday morning all parents are welcome to stay as long as you like to assure yourselves that your children are coping well. You are also most welcome to have a cup of tea in the staffroom from 9:00 am.

We look forward to seeing you all back at school, safe and well!

Selwyn Council Updates

You might like to keep up with news specific to the Selwyn District here, especially the information relating to the safety of water from private bores and wells.

Keeping busy during the closures

How are you all? Safe and warm, I hope, and taking great care of each other.

How are you keeping busy during the school closure? It will be at least Monday before we see you again, so if you're lucky enough to have electricity and remain in your own home, then you might like to check out all our class blogs, and do some of the activities and games your teachers have put up for you over the term.

Don't forget that the Library blog also has some games and puzzles. This is also a great time to get out your board games and packs of cards, or to kick a ball around with friends.

If you're in the Media Team, you might like to log in to the News Blog and post some of your news and experiences to share with others. You can email me if you want to know any passwords etc. Or, anyone can post a Comment here to let us know how you are and what you are doing.

Some of you might like to sign in to ToonDoo and create a cartoon about the Earthquake. You can see some great examples here. Email me for a login and password if you have an idea! I'll put it on the blog!

St Clair School's SuperScoopers Blog students and teacher are very worried about us and I'm sure they'd love to hear you're ok. Others are looking in from all around the world.

Those of you looking for a creative challenge might like to plan or film an entry for the Fair Go Ad Awards - entries must be in by 27 September.

Keep safe, keep well, keep in touch!
Carol

Schools remain closed until Monday 13 September

Ministry of Education Announcement 3:30 pm

ECE centres and schools are closed for children and students until Monday 13 September. Please go to the Ministry of Education website for futher information. Call 0800-225-580 if you have any queries about the website information. A further decision will be made on Thursday afternoon.

Schools to remain closed

Blog updated 4:15 pm 6 September

From the Ministry of Education

Important update: School closures, Monday 6 September

Schools and early childhood centres in Christchurch, Waimakariri, and Selwyn districts will be closed until at least Wednesday 8 September in response to the earthquake.

This follows the Chief Medical Officer of Health advising all public buildings are to remain closed until Wednesday.

More detailed information is available in the Ministry of Education's media statement.

Civil Defence - regular updates here.

All families are being phoned by their teachers to make sure they have this message.

A list of all closed schools in Christchurch and the surrounding area can be downloaded here.

Keep watching this blog or the school's main website for updates.

From the NZ Herald: Where the aftershocks have hit.

Red markers: Aftershocks on Saturday 4 September
Blue markers: Aftershocks on Sunday 5 September
Yellow markers: Aftershocks Monday 6 September
Green markers: Aftershocks Tuesday 7 September
Purple markers: Aftershocks Wednesday 8 September
Pink markers: Aftershocks Thursday 9 September
Dark blue markers: Aftershocks Friday 10 September
Black markers: Aftershocks Saturday 11 September
Red dot markers: Aftershocks Sunday 12 September

View Christchurch earthquake: Where the land shook in a larger map

EARTHQUAKE STRIKES CHRISTCHURCH & CANTERBURY AREA

This is a genuine report, of an extensive earthquake in the Christchurch and Canterbury region, here in New Zealand.

The quake was reportedly 7.1 on the Richter scale and struck at 4:35 am on Saturday 4 September. There have been many significant aftershocks. We are not sure how this will affect our school and families at this stage. Hopefully school families are well-prepared following the extensive learning from last year about how to prepare for a major disaster.

School families should check the Civil Defence website for updates.
Information about storing water.
What to do in an earthquake.

Students' families can leave messages via Comments for this post (if you have electricity and internet etc) to let us know you're ok.

Update: 10:00 am Sunday 5 September. Liz and BOT will be checking the school this afternoon to decide how to proceed. We will keep you updated, as long as electricity and internet are available.

Keep track of aftershocks - strength and timing here.
Latest news on the earthquake from the NZ Herald.


View Christchurch earthquake in a larger map

Inquiry Documentary - Luckiest kids in the world?

We hope you enjoy this documentary, created by Libby, Lucy and Emma (Year 8 students) who have been learning about Children's Rights in their classroom inquiry.

Are Kiwi kids the luckiest in the world? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

Reporters: Lucy, Libby, and Emma

Choice & Challenge 'Movie Stars'

'Movie Stars' is an option for the Junior children to choose at Choice and Challenge time.

They choose the parts they want to play and then practise their lines and choose their costumes. One of the children is the Director, and they film the play on one of the Flip video cameras. Then we take it over to the big screen in the Library and watch our movies.

Here are some snippets of the groups we have had so far. We hope you enjoy them!

CCES Multimedia winning presentation

Our Middle age group Multimedia team (Emily, Megan and Courtney) created the winning slideshow for their group, and also gained the overall multimedia trophy.

They had only 2 hours to create a multimedia presentation, and the topic was ANZAC. Each team was given a folder of images to choose from, some sounds, and text which had to be included on the first few slides (each of which, they were told, had to be 20 seconds long). The instruction was that they had to create a presentation for a war museum. Buttons were also to be used, to take the viewer backwards and forwards.

Here is a movie version of their presentation. The judge commented on how well the team worked together, and how focused they were. She also said that they captured the mood of ANZAC Day very well in their presentation.

We'll be posting the entries from the other two teams (Moviemaking) over the next few days!