What is Bastille Day?

The French Independence Day is Bastille Day, July 14. It's called that because it celebrates the storming of the Bastille, a famous prison, during the French Revolution, in 1789. With the taking of this prison, the movement to replace a two-person government with a representative government began.

France at that time was ruled by King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette. It was an absolute monarchy, meaning that whatever the king and queen wanted, they got. It didn't matter whether the people were starving in the streets, so long as the royal banquet tables were full.

And it wasn't just the king and queen, either, who got to enjoy royal desserts. Rich people and others that the king and queen liked were invited to dine at the royal table or stay at the royal residence. And all the time, the mobs starved in the streets. Marie Antoinette is said to have exclaimed, to a question of what the starving people should eat, "Let 'em eat cake."

Cake, of course, might taste good, but it wouldn't keep people healthy, at least not in the long run. They didn't have anything to make cake with either.

So France had the very rich (symbolized by the king and queen) and the very poor (symbolized by the street mobs). Caught in the middle were the middle class, some of whom sided with royalty and others of whom sided with the poor.

These middle class people who sided with the poor soon found it very difficult to criticize the king's handling of the growing unrest. The more they spoke out, the more they tended to get thrown in prison. (It was a crime, after all, to criticize one's king or queen.)

And what prison did these people get thrown into? Why, the Bastille, of course. It was one of the more famous prisons (but by no means the only one). At one time, it had a sizable number of political prisoners, including the great writer Voltaire, who were there for no other reason than that they had spoken out against the government.

It also happened that the Bastille had a good number of guns and other weapons. This was the real reason for the storming of the Bastille. The mob had finally had enough of the king's ignoring their pleas and the queen's empty promises. And on July 14, they attacked the prison.

The mob seized the weapons they were looking for and released the prisoners inside. Ironically, only 7 prisoners were inside at the time. But the Revolution had begun.

Before its end, the Revolution and the Reign of Terror would claim hundreds of lives, including those of the king and queen. France would never be the same.

From: Social Studies For Kids.

Bastille Day

Georgina, Rebekah, Libby and Bridie all accepted the homework challenge and found out all about Bastille Day.

We are learning to speak French and we have recently finished the Oui programme. Now we are finding out all about France and we have many questions to research and present on a mini poster.

Fordell school will be celebrating Bastille Day July 14 along with France.

Lunch Time Games

Bridie, Loulou and Connor

Our Cool Playground

We have a lot of fun in our playground every day.

Ripper Rugby

Mr. Osmond is practising with us at lunch times. Our years 5 and 6 Ripper Rugby team is going to be playing against other schools for 4 weeks and then we are going to play in a tournament. We really enjoy Ripper Rugby.

Paper Construction

Our visual art topic this term is construction. We have been to the Sargeant Gallery and looked at other Artists' sculptures and constructions and we have built our own imaginary houses with card using the slot method with no tape or staples.

These are some of our class constructions using different methods of producing texture on a single construction.

                       The Trail ride!!!

The trail ride was at the Cranston's farm as a fundraiser for our school. There were over 100 bikes there. I was the first registered for the kids track. Some kids got told off because they were on the track before they were allowed to.

After we registered we had to listen to the announcer give the rules for safe riding. Then we could ride our bikes on the track.

The first round was scary but after a little while it wasn’t as scary. My bike kept stalling because it was in a too higher gear. Then it stayed in 2nd gear. Eli, Daniel and I had races. I went around the track fifty times.

After that I decided to go on the big track. The first bit was easy but when I went up the hill it kept stalling so a boy called Tyler helped me when I got stuck. It was nice of him to help me. The first bit of the track wasn’t scary but the last bit was. There was a steep hill to go up then down. I nearly went into the pond next to the track.

 The day was the best day of my life.

By Thomas   

Poetry Reading Competition

On Fridays we have a poetry reading competition. To win you have to read the week's poem fluently with no errors, using thoughtful expression which is appropriate to the poem.


This week Rebekah won. She read the poem perfectly so she got to choose a prize out of the prize box.

My Busy Weekend.

 In the weekend we went to my Nana’s house and picked up Karalee and she came to my Nana’s  house too for  a play and  ended up staying the night. The next day we went to the shop by our selves and got a bag of lollies.

Later that day we were going down to Raetihi and stopped at Sammi’s house and got to see the new brown and white calf. Sammi had new baby too called Mania and I got to hold her and then she had to go to Sammi for a feed.

We went back to Nana’s house and went to the pools because it was a very hot, hot, hot  day. The pool was very nice and it was very cold too. Me and  my cousin Mia jumped in the big pool. After our swim we went home to Fordell.

I was happy because it took a long time for us to see Sammi’s new baby and now we had seen it.

By Tineisha

Down South at the Hakataramea

 Mum, Dad, Craig and I went to the Hakataramea for one night. It was the 20th which is Mum and Dad`s wedding anniversary. We stayed at the old Hakataramea school which our friends made in to a place where people could stay.

When we got there we put our clothes in our bedrooms and had a look around. That day we went out Wallaby shooting  near the Hakataramea school. Mum and Dad went one way and Craig (Dad`s friend) and I went the other way . Craig and I saw about 20 wallabies and shot 3. We brought one back to show  my Mum and Dad. I had to carry the gun back to base where the Land Cruiser was. Mum and Dad saw about 30 wallabies and shot five between them. They brought back the one Mum shot.

We got back in the Land Cruiser and went back to the Hakataramea  school about 10 pm. It was a catastrophe to  get up one of the hills. It was dark and we only had the Land Cruiser lights. It was steep and slippery and we had use the winch attached to a metal pole at the top of the hill and winch the Land Cruiser up. It was scary because Dad was inside the Land Cruiser and Mum and I were behind.

When we finally got there we had a party and I stayed up until 2.00 am. Mum , dad and Craig didn’t go to bed until 3.00 to 5.00 am. We got up the next morning, had something to eat and before lunch we went back to Oamaru and had lunch there. Then made our way to Timaru.

This is only part of our trek in the South Island.

By Ella

Paper Construction

Another step in learning about construction is the dynamics we can create with shadow and the depth of spaces we create.

Can you solve our Maths Problem?

Every Day we work in groups to solve a maths problem. This one had us stumped.

Art = Construction.

This term we are focusing on construction in Visual Art. The outcome will be making concrete birdbaths for our gardens. Concrete is one of the most used construction materials in the world. We have several questions about concrete to research as an inquiry. We are learning the elements of construction first, starting with paper. Every art session begins with observational drawing.

Technology Challenge

Russell at Rebekah's

Russell especially liked being read to at bed time.

Two new students in Studio Two

Olive and Luka have moved from Australia to Wanganui. It has been a big move for them and we are really enjoying having them in our class. e

The Contents of a packet of chips.

We estimated how many chips there were in a packet then as we ate each potato chip we kept a tally. We then interviewed everyone in the class to see how their tally compared and we graphed our findings. The contents of Bluebird potato chip packets range from 15 chips to 28.