Athletics Day, Bushwhackers, Cave Dwellers, and Adventure Girls

I am sure that you have probably been wondering where exactly I have been teaching the last 3 weeks so I decided to add a picture of my classroom. Keep in mind that this was before the day started so kids are just being kids and having fun in the classroom. On that note, welcome to Room 13!

And this is the block where my classroom is. There are 5 blocks in the school that all have classrooms in them. My particular block has 8 classrooms in it and is 2 floors. We are on the left hand side of this building on the second floor in the corner.

Today has been quite the day! At school, we had Athletics day where students are participating in athletic events throughout the entire school day. We lucked out today and had an absolutely gorgeous day with a perfectly blue sky and the sun shining down on us. I even ended up getting a little tan from being in the sun all day so I can't complain :)

All day I was in charge of helping Miss Carter fun the shot put. We had to get all the kids in a grade level through in 40 minutes and measure the distances of the top 5 boys and the top 5 girls. Needless to say, it was a very busy afternoon! However, I really enjoyed being able to get to know all of the students in the school and spend some time to get to know all of them better.

So I secretly felt like I was at Hogwarts all day because the school is divided into four houses that are separate colors. The houses are competing for points to be the "top dog" and just like in Harry Potter, points can be given and points can be taken away. From day one, everyone told me I should be in the red house (Slytherin) because they always win. It was like I was really Harry Potter! I ended up being in the yellow house and this is the flag that we made to represent our house. It says yellow in the Maori language.

Students preparing for high jump.

One of the year 6 girls doing her long jump.

Our Yellow House flag!

The top year 5 girls running their final relay of the day!

After a very busy day at school, Rachel and Jan (My house mum and Miranda's house mum) took us to one of the beaches that it is near by. The cool thing about all the beaches on the West coast is that they are black sand beaches. I tried to take pictures of the sand but you just couldn't really see the color. The beaches were gorgeous and they were so sparkly. It looked like someone had poured glitter all over the sand! So we got to the beach and Rachel told us that we were going to be climbing up all the way to the top of the mountain in the picture below and we would end up right where you can see one tree sticking out. Needless to say, Miranda and I were a little bit concerned.

However, it was amazing going up the mountain and we had some of the most beautiful views ever imaginable. I never realized that our little town of Swanson was so close to all of this beauty. It was quite an adventure going up the mountain. We followed this really tiny path that was just part of nature. We need some bushwhackers with us at some point and maybe a chainsaw to cut down some of the huge tree branches! It was really amazing to be in nature like that and truly see the beauty that New Zealand has to offer.

Once we got to the top of the mountain, we took some time to take in all the views and we started our journey back down the mountain. It was actually really easy to climb down and Miranda and I made sure to make some time to take pictures :) 

We officially made it to the top! Just call us Mountain Ladies!

Help! I need a bushwhacker!

When we got to the bottom of the hill, it was time for another beach walk. This time we were going a different way and we ended up at a cave that was on the beach. While we were walking on the wonderful sparkly black sand, I  made sure to take a bunch of pictures. What was surrounding us was so beautiful that it is hard to describe.

Needless to say, the beach was absolutely amazing! This weekend, Miranda and I have ventured to Devonport and are going to the zoo tomorrow. You will get an update on that very soon! I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend so far and I miss you all!

Stay relaxed, because that's the kiwi way!