Hoppy Easter!

I'm sure people are aware that Easter Holidays are upon us, but how much do you know about Easter's origins?

 

WHAT IS EASTER ?

Easter is the celebration of Jesus Christ's rising from the dead (called the Resurrection) after his crucifixion which took place on what we now call Good Friday.

According to the Bible, Jesus' tomb was empty three days after his death, suggesting he had overcome death, so the biggest celebration for Christians is on Easter Sunday. 

HOW DID EASTER GET ITS NAME ?

The English name "Easter" is much newer. Before Christianity in early England, the people celebrated the vernal (spring) equinox with a feast honouring Eostre, the Pagan goddess of spring. When the early English Christians wanted others to accept Christianity, they used the name Easter for this holiday so that it would match the name of the old spring celebration. This made it more comfortable for other people to accept Christianity. 

Some believed that the word Easter came from an early German word "eostarun", meaning dawn and white. Newly baptized Christians wore white clothes as a sign of their new life on Easter. The modern day Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and coloured Easter eggs are derived from Eostre too. Hot cross buns may also have started back then, or possibly in ancient Greece, but now the white cross is generally considered a symbol of Jesus' cross.

Week 8 Already!

What a busy week again art week! We had the 1000K Challenge And Sports Expo Day on Tuesday, Contributing Schools Sports Expo on Wednesday and a School Interchange with Riccarton High School on Thursday and Friday.

Camp Was Awesome!

Year 8 Camp 2013! I think the sun must have gone to our heads :>

 Here's a selection of photos from our recent camp down at Pukerau, Southland. The weather was great -perhaps even too hot at times - but that did mean the water slide and pond were very popular!


Poor Dylan broke his arm after a stumble, not even related to the outdoor activities, so he had to do a fair bit of watching but otherwise the Year 8's got into everything. It was so exciting to see so many students push themselves to do things that were new and/or rather scary - some of the climbing activities and also that Speed Slide and Flying Fox were nerve-wracking for some.

Thanks again to the parents, Year 13 Peer Supports & Hospitality students, as well as the KVC staff and Year 8's for making this year's camp such a positive and fun time!
Ms Flett

Starting the High Ropes Course

Archery - a few modern day Robin Hoods?

HIgh Ropes Course

Raft Building - even if it didn't float, the water was a great place to cool off!

Climbing Wall - harder than it looks!

Camp tomorrow!

Gosh time has flown by and there's only one sleep before our Outdoor Education Camp! We've been thinking a lot about keeping safe in the outdoors, looking out for each other and challenging ourselves to try new things.

We had a fun day at out school Athletics Day recently and lots of 8FL did really well in both heats and finals. Well done! Our official Year 7&8 Athletics are at the end of the year when Primary Schools have theirs too.

On Friday we were lucky enough to have some special visitors to KVC - some top sportsmen form the Highlanders and visiting Warriors Rugby League players! They took a coaching session for some junior players and also posed for photos and signed lots of autographs too - really friendly and encouraging for our juniors.

Hopefully also, students have been busy getting sponsorship for our upcoming 1000K Challenge and Activity Day - a great initiative to have a go at sports we may not have tried before and also to do a bit of fundraising for things we want to have. Last year we put the money towards a new school van,which  is already well used for both sports and cultural outings.

Week 3 about to start- it's going to be busy!

Firstly, congratulations to Mr and Mrs Burden on the birth of their second son, Riley, this Thursday. All well. I visited today and he's a lovely baby boy. Yay!


This is going to be a busy week! We've got Camp preparation to do (PLEASE keep those registration forms and parent helper forms rolling in!),  'Meet the Teacher' Evening on Tuesday night, and KVC Athletics Day Thursday!

 We still need parent helpers for camp, especially some Camp Dads and someone with a firearms licence so we can use the slug guns! I promise it's a fun time and not really hard work - we don't even do a tramp, but there's plenty of opportunity for you to have a go at High Ropes, Flying Fox, Speed Slide, Raft Building etc. We'll feed you well too!

Tuesday 7pm in the Hall we gather for 'Meet the Teacher/Parent' Evening before breaking off into class groups. We're in C3, where you are welcome to do a desk inspection while we chat about the plan for the year. Not compulsory of course, but a great opportunity to meet and put a name to the face!

 KVC Athletics Day this coming Thursday, weather permitting. We're going to use our great school grounds this year as we did in the past - this makes for such a fun day, with the whole school getting behind the events. For the Year 7 & 8 students, because we haven't had a long time to practise properly, we've replaced the discus with a good old fashioned gumboot throw - try explaining what that is to a newly arrived student from Greece! I tried...Macintoshes, galoshes, Wellingtons...but I suspect itmight not get muddy enough in Greece to need such a thing. I settled for a boot that you throw- why? Hmmm, not sure but anyway, Mariza is going to give it a go and throw a gumboot! Might see you there - on the bottom two fields.

Day One!

Well we all survived a VERY hot first day of school! We managed to actually do some work, locker tags, All About Me poster and a spelling test :>

We had a T-ball skills session with Mr Reddington then vs 8Nk in period 5. Would you believe it all came down to the final ball for a win...but it was a 16 all draw!

I think we'll all come back tomorrow!

BRAND NEW YEAR!

Welcome to 8FL 2013! 

This is our Class Blog, where hopefully we will have some fun publishing our work and sharing what we've been up to at Kaikorai Valley College. It's also an opportunity for all students to have a go at uploading digital photos, sound or video.

There is space for you to comment or add your opinion about what we present. Remember that all comments are moderated before display - only positive comments will pass the censor (me!).

Let's enjoy a great year together!