RWC Gear

We have a very lucky teacher aide in our classroom!  Mrs K went to the Rugby World Cup semi-final, All Blacks versus Australia.  She said that it was an amazing game!  Mrs K's husband works at one of the inner-city hotels where the French team stayed during the World Cup.  He was able to meet some of the players who gave him some shirts and most importantly, tickets to some of the big matches, including the final! 

Mrs K showed us the tickets, shirts and some other RWC items that her husband was given! 

  

  

We had fun dressing up in the shirts as you can see!

Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali!

Today is an exciting day for our Indian students who are celebrating Diwali.  While most of the Indian students from our class stayed at home today to perform their special prayers and prepare for a day of fun and celebration a few came to school and told us why it is one of their most important festivals of the year.

 Here you can see KL and RD explaining the story of Ram dressed in their pretty new outfits,

JT tasting some traditional Indian treats...

... and some lovely henna designs painted especially for Diwali.



More Mathletics Champions

While we have been celebrating our rugby champions this week, we have some champions of our own in Room 14!  Three of our classmates have earned significant awards in Mathletics.  Here we have RD with his Gold Award, SC with her Silver Award and RD with her Gold Award!  Congratulations!

Proud as Punch!

Today we learnt a new expression:

Proud as Punch!

This is a common expression that means that we feel very pleased about something that has happened.  People think that the word 'Punch' is a reference to the puppet character from the 'Punch and Judy show'.  Punch was a bit of a bully who would always feel proud of himself when he did something naughty.  These days the expression 'Proud as Punch' has a good meaning referring to the feeling one has when something goes well.

We decided to use the expression 'Proud as Punch' when we were thinking about the All Black's victory at the Rugby World Cup. 

Drawing our All Black heros

We are going to write and illustrate a story about the All Blacks at the World Cup.  We have already started to create our illustrations depicting the highlights of their remarkable journey to victory.  Later on we will write the story and our teacher will help us turn our pictures into pop-up pages! 

How do you like our pictures so far?

Here are our All Blacks performing the 'Ka Mate' haka before a match.

This is Brad Thorn jumping to take the ball in a line-out.

Here is captain Richie McCaw holding the winner's trophy aloft.

 Here are some of our favourite players on the field at Eden Park.

Cory Jane caught lots of balls in the air!

Here is Sonny Bill Williams scoring a try for New Zealand.



Victory parade for our All Black champions

Today Aucklanders had a celebratory victory parade for our rugby world champions!  It has been estimated that 200 000 to 250 000 Aucklanders were there to congratulate their sporting heroes and see the Webb Ellis Cup. 

This is why we are celebrating -

The parade started early in the afternoon with thousands of Aucklanders finding places vantage points all along Queen Street.  Volunteers, dressed in blue appeared first.

Fans were dressed in black, some draped in flags, others dressed in unique costumes but all showing their support for the BLACK team!

Street performers entertained the crowd.

The fans were delighted to see their All Black heroes appear on the back of utes. 

The biggest cheer went up for captain Richie McCaw as he held up the Webb Ellis Cup. 

 What a way to celebrate a championship!

Well done All Blacks!



Our All Blacks are WORLD CHAMPIONS!

What a superbly, wonderful moment to see our favourite All Black team win the 2011 Rugby World Cup!  It was such a nail-biting match but the All Blacks held on to win by just a single point from the French.  The final score for the match was 8 - 7 to the All Blacks.

Woo hoo! 

Our All Blacks are

World Champions!

Long ago, in 1987, the All Blacks won the coveted Webb Ellis Cup at the inaugural Rugby World Cup.  Now, 24 years later they have won it for the second time!  We are very proud of our boys.  It has taken years and years of training, practice, planning and loads of dreaming to get to this moment.  We are sure proud of captain Richie McCaw who has been an inspirational leader to his talented team-mates.

Thank you All Blacks

for giving us such an

amazing moment.

You are worthy champions!

Congratulations.

Look what was said in the newspapers...

Here is a clip showing photographic highlights of the final match -

Enjoy this little clip showing the lego version of the RWC 2011 final!

Rugby World Cup Final - All Blacks vs France

Wow!  Our favourite team has made it to the final of the Rugby World Cup!  How exciting.  The whole country is anticipating the big match this coming Sunday at Eden Park (Auckland) and hoping for a victory against a French side that has been unpredicable this tournament.  (At least the All Blacks have already beaten them earlier in the tournament so we know we our team has the ability to win!)

To be in a final is truly an amazing achievement!  What makes this final special for us is that our team is playing at home, in front of their home crowd.  The New Zealand public are doing everything they can to spur on our team by flying the flags from our homes, businesses and cars, wearing black and sending messages of support to the boys.  We are so proud of them and wish them well.

Go Richie and all the boys! 

You are the best!

Supporting the ABs

This weekend our All Blacks have a big match at the Rugby World Cup. 

We know that they will do their best and we wish them all the luck in the world!

Go the black team!

Celebrating rugby

The whole of New Zealand is talking about rugby at the moment!  Auckland has decorations all over the place, people are wearing their team's favourite rugby shirts and others are waving flags from their cars and homes.  Miss B has taken some photos of some of the excitement.

A driver flies flags of the twenty nations participating in the Rugby World Cup.

A hotel in downtown Auckland flies flags from their building.

The buildings are dressed up with advertising related to rugby.

New Zealand's most famous rugby star is even used in advertising!  Oh la la!

Here are some Fijian rugby fans all dressed up for the match!

The giant rugby ball sits waiting for visitors.

We love Bunnings Warehouse!

The Bunnings Warehouse near our school has kindly donated some plants for the garden at the front of our school.  We are very thankful for their support!

This is what our garden looks like now:

Some of the plants in our garden are special to New Zealand. 

They are called native plants.

Thank you Bunnings Warehouse!