High Lights of the Year

 Term 1

Camp. I think Camp was one of the most exciting things we did in term one. I had lots of fun with my friends but its really cold at night in the tent. 

Term 2

We didn't do a lot in term 2 because we started term 2 during lockdown so it was I think the best thing that came out of that was the one google meet I went to (and the last) and I had lots of fun seeing everyone. 

Term 3

In term 3 all of the year 8 girl did self defense. I was really fun and it built my confidence up. 

Term 4

Near the start of term 4 some girls organised for a small group to go to an Escape room. It wasn't really an escape room, it was more like us walking around town solving clues but its was still really fun.

 

Jellie Park Trip

On Friday my whole class went on a trip to Jellie Park for our big day out. We had to get at school at normal time and we were allowed to wear mufti. We took two buses there and it took around 20 minutes or so to get there. Once we were there we changed into out togs and went out to the main outdoor pool. There was a lot of different schools there and it was pretty crowded but it was still fun. We settled all of our stuff down in a grassy area and then we jumped in the water. The whole time I was there I hanged out with my friend Bluebell. Bluebell and I went on the hydro slide together every time and it was so fun. Later Bluebell and I brought a drink and a ice block and ate our lunch. Then Sophie and I raced on the hydro slides. Then we had to leave and we hopped on the bus again. When we got back we just went home.

Tessellation

 So for Maths today I had to join Nogos group because Sharon was busy. In maths we had to make shapes out of other shapes with no gaps, thats called Tessellation.

Here are mine:

3D Shapes

 

In maths we have been learning about 3D shapes and today we had to make nets for different 3D shapes. 

Nets are technically what you would have if you were to fold out a shape.

100 Questions

Today in maths we did 100 questions. Again. Today I got 100/100 in both multiplication and division. 10 minutes for division and 8 minutes for multiplication. 

100 Questions

Yes I know its been a long time since I updated about 100 questions. So today in maths I got 100/100 in my time tables in 10 minutes. I usually get like 9 or 8 minutes but I haven't done it in awhile. Then I got 78/100 for division in 10 minutes, so in both times tables and division I need to work on getting 100 in under 10 minutes.    

Why we need manners in our classroom

What are manners? Manners are treating others and the environment around you with respect. That means not yelling at each other and leaving food on the floor, and as a class this something we really need to improve on. Not just to our teachers but to other students in the class.

Without manners the class would be like a zoo. Animals running around and doing whatever they want with no consequences. And of course kids should have fun sometimes to talk with their friends and just have a good time, but there is a time and place for that and a time to just use some manners and treat others with respect.

Lately our class has had some trouble with their manners. Yelling at each other during lunch, talking when the teacher is trying to give instructions and leaving food on the floor, thinking someone else will do it. But no, other people shouldn't have to clean up other people's stuff.

Like come on guys, step up your game! Being polite and respecting people isn't as hard as you think. Our teachers work so hard to get everything done and on schedule so the least you could do is not talk while they are talking and just listen.

If we don’t use our manners the others around us could just feel really annoyed. Or worse it could make the teachers annoyed, and no one likes a teacher mad. All chaos will be set loose and the whole class will suffer. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like that.

So how can we improve on this? Well first we would have to listen to the teachers and not talk, then we could move on to talking nicely to each other. This might be hard for people who don’t have any manners but if we work as a team and try our very best I’m sure we can do it. But really how hard is it to just not disrespect the environment and others around you.

Persuasive Writing Sample

It is wrong to fight

“It is wrong to fight.” That is the statement that we have been told all of our life and frankly I somewhat disagree. Humans have spent years upon years fighting, over land, over people, over food, over everything. Do I think that we shouldn’t fight? No, I think that in times of need and injustice we have to fight. Let me just make it clear what I mean by fight, fight means fighting both verbally and physically.

We as humans fight all the time, every minute of every day, when you wake up late and your Mum or Dad yells at you and you bite back, when you aren't paying attention in class and the teacher gives you a long lecture about life and you just roll your eyes. Just the small things that can get you annoyed and you feel the urge to just fight back, but then you remember what your parents would say “It is wrong to fight” and then you're back to keeping your anger deep down. Now I'm not saying rebel against your family's rules, I’m asking that if we keep bottling up that anger when someone attacks us verbally or physically, what could happen? Will we just one day pop and start fighting in a bad way that hurts others. So we have to think about the times that it is okay to fight and to not.

If someone disrespects something you believe in or something you think is right, then you can verbally fight. Of course I don’t mean fight someone just because they don’t think the same as you, I mean if they are really disrespecting your opinion. If someone is hurting you physically, you have the right to fight back, but if someone is doing nothing wrong and you decide to hurt or fight them, that's where I would draw the line. Fighting someone verbally or physically for no apparent reason is just morally wrong. Would you start throwing hands at someone for your own convenience?

If we just keep bottling up our opinions and how we feel, it can cause people to become insecure and not confident enough to share their ideas, which could make it hard to do a lot of things in life. But like I said before, you don’t have to fight with someone every time someone has a different opinion, just when it is needed.

In conclusion, fighting is only necessary in the right circumstances. So what do you think about the statement “It is wrong to fight?”

Mak

3D drawings

 In maths today we had to make 3D shapes out of blocks and then draw them.

Character Scene

 For literacy we have been making characters with making deliberate chooses on what they say and how they say it, how a they walk and look like and their environment. 

So in a group, Sophie B, Olive and I wrote a scene about a knight and a princess going on a quest. My main character is Persephone that is why her dialogue is in blue.

Today we had to get into pairs and highlight each others work. 

Environment - green, appearance - yellow, actions - red, words - blue.

Overall I think I need to add more to appearance and environment. 

This is the first page of my scene.

 EXT. FOREST - DAY  

Persephone and Mary walking in the forest. Mary holding her dress and stepping carefully. Persephone walking up straight in bold armor.

MARY (with loathing)

Fie! I misprise the forest with all the no more brain than stone mud and dirt! We couldst die out hither!

 

Mary kicks some stones and then falls down. Persephone sighs and helps her up.

PERSEPHONE 

Mary! Thou art brother hast been stolen by the Redmond kingdom and thou art out h're complaining 

Mary huffs and keeps walking with Persephone. After a few seconds the shot changes to Mary's face, close up shot.

MARY

How didst thee even becometh mine own brother's knight? thou art just a mistress, thee can’t do whatever thee wanteth.  Thee shouldst be cleaning and s'rving thy husband 'r something

Shot changes to Persephone's face and then back to front view of both of them, middle shot. 

PERSEPHONE

A mistress can do everything a sir can do and bett'r. Thee has't grown up being toldeth your nothing just because thou art a mistress thee has't to has't a husband to be valid and be love.  At which hour very much all thee needeth is yourself and some sort of weapon

Changes to Mary's face with a confused face, close up shot. Mary changes her face to calm. 

Escape Room

Last Friday, Sophie B and Meg organised a group to go to an escape room. Well I guess it wasn't really an escape room because we weren't in a room. We had to go around town in groups of four and do different tasks to stop this virus that had been implanted into half of New Zealand, called Spider Tech.  I was in a group with Azania, Bluebell, Jessica and Bluebells mum, Stephanie. We were given 2 hours. It was kind of a competition with the other team to solve all of the tasks and get back to base first. My team came back first with 20 minutes to spear and  the other team got there just on time to do the last task. Overall it was pretty fun but it was really windy so it was pretty hard to all the tasks. 

Writing from visual prompts

“No…” I blink at the screen in front of me. “No no no no!” I grabbed the closest thing to me, (which was a stapler) and threw it across the room.

I bury my face in my hands. I have just deleted all my life's work and I can’t get it back. I feel tears rush down my cheeks.

My work just flushed down the drain. What am I gonna do? I ask myself. I poured everything into this work, and now it’s gone.

I hear a small knock at my open door and see my husband, John, with a worry and confused look on his face. “What happened?” He asked, glancing over the stapler that was now on the wall.

“My work” my voice broke as I spoke “it’s all gone, it's just gone”

John walked over to me and pulled me into a tight embrace and I just broke.

Life as we know it

 Life, what is life, is it love? Is it hate? Is it something in  between? I’m not sure. But what I do know, is that it’s not easy. 

Deep, I know. Usually I don’t talk about life, just like me, most of us just try to live it. But is that really what we should be doing? I mean don’t get me wrong we should try our best to live but we shouldn’t try pushing what we can’t understand. 

Look at life and the world, how it’s trying to kill you. You’ll be having a great day and then life just throws things at you that you can’t handle. Sure, there are good things to life, like your friends and family but sometimes life likes to take those things away from you. 

Life thinks it's okay to push you into a deep dark hole that you just can’t escape from. And while you're in this hole you can hear voices telling you things you want to say aren't true but you believe they are. You scream out as loud as you can but it feels like no one can hear you. 

Once and a while you’ll invite someone into your life, you’ll give this person some of your heart and they’ll just break it. You don’t want to believe they have betrayed you because life makes them look so pretty. Soon that person will leave with your heart shattered and then come back to fix it with one small bandage but it's too flimsy and falls off. Then you're left with your heart still broken. People keep coming in and you make the same mistakes every time and never learn. In the end you’ll be left with nothing to hold on to. 

To make things worse, there is a thing called ‘The Imaginary Audience’ 

Let me tell you about ‘The Imaginary Audience’ It was made by life and it’ll make you think that everyone has their eyes on you, all the time. Making you think what you look like, what you say, even what you're doing right now; is bad. It’s called imaginary for a reason, because it’s not real but somehow we still believe it is. It feels like you can’t do anything good for this “audience.” The feeling of the “audience” gets so bad that you can’t leave your room or get out of bed. It’s the same feeling when you hear thunder outside or when an earthquake hits.

Now that we have established how bad life can be, we need to talk about the smallest things that make life a little better. 

When I say small things I mean when someone gives you a hug when you're sad or, if someone just stays with you in silence so you can just be with them for company and get it all out. When someone surprises you with a gift. When you go out to dinner with someone special who you know won’t break your heart. When it’s been raining for weeks and then it finally clears up and the sun just shines. When you make a new friend. When you give someone a compliment or someone gives one to you. When you make someone smile. When someone actually listens and hears your voice.

So I think I know what life is now. Life can be cruel and heartless and make you think it’s trying to kill you but really it's trying to tell you that even through the hard times, you are loved and you are enough for the world. That is how you should try and make other people feel but don’t forget to look after yourself. Don’t put the pain that the people around have, on yourself and think that you always have to make them happy. 

Just balance loving yourself and others, if you can. 

  

Character Plan

 This term we had to start writing a character plan about our own character that we make up and write or video a scene with them in it. 

The main point of doing this is to make a character and to show who the character is in a short scene with how they speak, move, look and act around others.

I'm working with Sophie B and Olive on making are own character. We have a plan on who the character is.

Our character is a female knight named Persephone Winstone on a mission to save the prince alongside the princes sister, Mary Stewart. 

I can't really in too deep about our character but when we film it, I will be posting it. 

Essay

 Introduction - Authors and Directors create characters that are easy to identify through actions, costume, words and sounds. 

Appearance - The way a character is dressed or described lets us see what his or her personality is like. For example Snape in The Sorcerer’s Stone, he has pale skin, greasy black hair, a hooked nose and dark robes with a mysterious presence. The author has done this because usually people who wear dark clothes are stereo-typically bad characters.

Environment - The environment is very important to give us more clues about the character, for example, Snape's class is in an old, dark dungeon where he teaches potions and talks about it in a passionate way, which leads us to believe that he his passion is potions and he likes to be in dark spaces.

Actions - Another thing that tells us about our character is their actions. In The Sorcerer's Stone, Snape has a very strong presence and always has the class silent “the gift of keeping a class silent without effort.” When he integrates Harry with questions, he ignores Hermione and mocks Harry “Snape's lips curled into a sneer.” After this he answered all the questions he asked to show how experienced he was in his job. 

Words - The type of language the character uses and how they say it can tell you a lot about a character. Like Hermione in The Sorcerer’s Stone, she uses quite proper words like “I expect we should be arriving soon” instead of “We are gonna be here soon”. But Ron is different and uses more slang like “bout” making him seem more lazy with his words.  

Conclusion - In the end, an author or a director can tell us a lot about a character by what the character looks like, what's around them, what they are doing and what they say. 

Play

 I have written play around two months ago and I finally have a full cast. Next we have to get a tech team and some understudies. We will start rehearsing next term. 

Tuesday

 Today half of our class so skiing so this is what we did. we played a Kahoot about New Zealand, after we went out and just hang around track in the backfield. After play we did a quiz-let on 12 times tables in teams of four. And again we went out to the track and after we went out to break. Now our class is writing blogs and commenting on the year 6 blogs.

Science Project

 For science this term and term 4 we have to plan, create or design a garden. Now we won't be actually planting anything but making a plan if we did and what plants we would use and why. 

Their are three different types of gardens that you can do. A garden that can feed your family all year round, a garden that is a safe space for native birds, and lastly, a garden for healing plants.

My group and I are doing a safe space for native birds. So far we have make a outline of what our garden is going to look like and what plants we are going to have. 

Next we have to find out what plants like each other and what don't. 

Writing from visual prompts

I drop as I feel a strong sting go straight through me. I cry out in pain, looking around at my dead friends scattered around me. 

I try and get up but the barbed wire pulls me down, stabbing into my legs. I keep trying and trying to get up but it’s no use. 

I just want to get home to my family and friends. Why did I sign up for this? 

As I lean down onto the grass and lower my gun, I think about my wife and the times we had together in the forest that was in our little town. I remember craving our names into one of the trees. MJ+HS. Mark Johnson and Heather Smith. 

Tears rolled down my face. I remember more of her.

I just hope she and others will remember me

Fractions

 

Fractions

Writing From Visual Prompts

 In literacy we have been doing small pieces of writing that is based off a picture we are given.

My goals are 

1. Writes using abstract ideas and vocab that require interpretation.

2. Paragraphs,  making the ideas flow.

White powder falls down on my nose and eyelashes. I smile as I walk down the familiar path of long white trees. My small friend, Cole, barks at snow as it falls on his face.

I haven't been here ever since the war. As I’m walking I see a heart carved into one of the trees, I stop right in my tracks and walk over it. I graze my hand over the initials carved in the middle of the simple heart. MJ+HS. Mark Johnson and Heather Smith.

I wiped a tear from my eye. Why did he have to go? I should of stopped him from going to that stupid war. I still remember those distant memories when Mark and I would come here in the summer, living our life and doing whatever we please.

I remember when we found Cole hidden over some leaves in autumn, we looked around everywhere to find his owner but it was no good. So we kept him and he was a great friend when the war started. He would wait by the door everyday, waiting, hoping for Mark to come home, and honestly so was I. 

If only he were here.

Maths

In measurement I am learning the difference between linear measurement and area. They are marked in mm, cm, m, or km for linear and area is measured in sq mm, sq cm, sq m, sq km. 

100 Questions

 Today we did 100 questions, again. Last week I got 100 in nine minutes. Today I 100 in 8.05 minutes. 

I can give evidence to measuring, can you?

On Wednesday we had to do a measuring of different things and then we had to take a photo of us measuring for evidences.

While I was measuring I got messed up with the inches and the centimetres so I had to go back convert all of the inches into centimetres.   

 

Debate

Yesterday I did a debate, the moot for the debate was cats should be banned.

My team was the affirmative side. We did a lot of research on the bad things about cats like the diseases they spread, the native birds they kill and how they don't really do anything to help our world.

My team didn't have very good eye contact but we had a lot of good research with good facts. 

The other team on the negative side was really good at eye contact but their speeches lacked a lot of facts and research.

The scores were 180 and 185. 

The negative won.

We didn't have a time penalty if we did we would have won because the other teams speeches were short.

Next time I will try and make more eye contact and be more confident then I was.          

100 Questions

Today in 100 questions I got 100 in 9 minutes and 10 seconds. 

My goal last week was to learn 8 x 8 and know it off by heart and I did. This weeks goal is finish in under 9 minutes.

I kind of like doing these 100 question, when we first started doing them I hated it and I was really stressed but now they are kind of easy and I don't really care about them.   

Photosynthesis

In class we had to do a diagram on photosynthesis but we weren't aloud to copy and paste information. 

 

100 Questions

Today we did 100 questions and I got 100 in 9 minutes. I really straggled on 8 x 8 but I still got it in the end. My goal is to know that times table off by heart and get finish quicker. 

Measurement

We are learning about measurement, and we did some different activities.

We had to find out the perimeter of our hand and find someone who had the same perimeter as you.

First I traced my hand on a piece of paper then I got some string and put it around the hand. After I used a tape measure and measured the string and found out that the perimeter of my hand is 1 metre and 1 cm.

Then I used estimation and guessed that my friend Sophie had the same perimeter as my hand and she did.

William Pike

This is my progress in William Pike. As you can see I don't have any in my community service but I plan on helping out with refugees and miners. For my out door activity, I have the ski trip coming up soon.

I know about M.R.S.G.R.E.N do you?

For this term we are doing science. We are learning about biology. With my partner Jelani, we made a slideshow about what M.R.S.G.R.E.N is and what it has to do with living things. We choose birds as our living thing.

Reading a ruler

WALT: read a ruler accurately

This is the experiment we did.

My scores were 26 cm, 29 cm, 12 cm
My best scores was 14
My average scores was 22.3 cm

Tech

Tech

At tech today in cooking I made fried rice. it was quite easy to make but it was very hard to clean the pots and pans.

In electronics I finished the base and all the wiring and made my design. Next time I just have to make the bottom for the base and stick on the design.   

Watch out, its another poem!

Envelope Poem

The night time catches me
I tried to sleep
The feeling of eyes watching me
My feet tiptoeing on the floor
A shadow shushes past
Coming closer and closer
The night time catches me

Marble Jar

Maths

William Pike

This year we are doing the William Pike challenge and for my passion project I am doing a news channel with my friends and some waltzing. My waltzing partner, Zara and I have finished the  dox step and the foxtrot. We are still working on the american waltz.

Tech

We went to tech today and in cooking we made creamy pasta. It was very quick and easy to make.

At electronics I finished my circuit and add my LED. I also started on the base for my game.

William Pike

We have to do the William Pike Challenge and for my passion project my friends and I are doing a new channel for our school. We have planning before, during and after lock down, so we have a lot done. Our goals are to get the first episode done quickly. I am also learning how to waltz.

For my community service my friend and I are working at a preschool. Another friend of mine and I are trying to spread awareness for autism.

I haven't done much for outdoor activities.

Bio Poem

Bluebell

Who is ambitious, frank, passionate and reliable

Parabatai of Mak

Who loves Shadowhunters, music and movies

Who feels gleeful, sorrow and rage

Who fears needles, spiders and dolls

Who is the winner of a talent quest and distinction in english 

Who hopes to see a Broadway show and release an album

Lives in Christchurch, New Zealand

Barr

Haiku Poetry

At school we had to create a haiku poem. Haiku poetry is like a normal poem but you have to have five syllables in the first line, 7 in the second and five again in the last line. Usually haiku poems are about nature but they can be about anything.   

The old houses

Fences hiding the life

The cold path

Today we started doing 100 questions again. Though I did get 100/100 in 10 minutes, I did struggle with my 8 time tables. Next time I hope to get 100 questions under 10 minutes.

Found Poem

In literacy we had to do a poem about lockdown with a page of The Hunger Games.  It was a found poem.  We had to find words in the page and make it into a poem. We were only allowed ten words.

 My Poem

I was alone
and weak
Sleeping
on a chill night

William Pike

I have logged into the William Pike Challenge.

Rounding whole numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1000

Tech

Today we went to tech for the first time in seven weeks. We went back to our normal groups. I did sewing and cooking.

In sewing I finished my design on my bag and did some sewing on it. The design for our bags were environmental themed, so did mine about trees. I didn't have a lot of time to finish it so our teacher did it for some of us.

In cooking we made scones and they were really good.

Before we left our sewing teacher gave out the bags and this is what they look like:

100 Questions

Today I got 100/100 in ten minutes. My goal is still the same, to get 100 under 10 minutes. I really need to work on my sevens and eights times tables, because they really slow me down.

Camp

Last Thursday I went to camp at Spencer Park with the year 7s and 8s. The most challenging thing was the long walk that some of us had to do to get there. The walk was 1 hour and 44 minutes. At the start it was really hard because we had to walk along the beach but when we got to Bottle Lake Forest, it was nice and peaceful. When I got there my friends, Bluebell and Jasmin had already set up our tent, which was great because I was really tired. After a little bit of resting we had to make dinner. Tess, Bluebell, Jasmin and I were all in the same food group. Tess made cheerios, Bluebell made chicken nuggets, Jasmin made wedges and I made a salad. Jasmin's wedges took really long to make but it was worth it. While I was waiting for Jasmin to finish, one group made a really big pot of mac ‘n’ cheese that they couldn’t all eat so they gave me some. After dinner and doing our dishes, almost everyone went to the playground and we played predator, we had 6 lives and by the end of the game I had 5 lives left. When we finally went to bed I was really cold during the night and didn’t get the best sleep. In the morning I got up and had 3 helpings of breakfast. Later on in the day we packed up our tents and then we did our activities. Before camp we had to choose one activity to do and I choose baking and making lunch. After we ate lunch we got ready to go. Lucky we didn’t have to walk back and we got driven back. When we arrived at school we unpack all of the trailers and went home.

Maths Groups

This week we worked in groups, to solve maths problems. We worked well when we talked to each and tried different ways to solve the problem. And when one of us didn't understand, we would help them to understand.

100 Questions

I have achieved my goal to get 100 questions in 10 minutes, because I pushed myself to do better. My new goal is to get 100 questions under 10 minutes.

This Is Just To Say Poem

Kawa Of Care

100 Questions

Today again we did 100 questions. Last week I got 83/100 but today I got 66/100. I think I didn't improve, because I didn't want to do the 100 questions to be honest. But next week I'm going to push myself to get to 100 questions.

100 Questions

Today we did a 100 maths questions and I got 83/100. I got all of the questions that I answered right but I didn't finished all of the 100 questions, so my goal is to get all the questions right in 10 minutes.

First Week Back At School

When I first came back to Rawhiti I was a little scared because I am a year eight now, and thats a little scary. But I got to see all my friends and make new ones. The start of the week was a little confusing because I wasn't used to the new system and routine, but I got used to it. We have our own computers now, which is really cool because last year people would fight over them but now they have their own so there is no need to fight. We did rotations for most of the week, doing different activities with each teacher in groups. So that was my first week back at school. 

The First Day Back At Technology

The first day back at tech was surprisingly really fun. In my tech group I have almost all my friends. My first class was fabrics, with Mrs Pretty. In fabrics we are making bags and the theme is saving the environment. So we have to put something on our bags that shows environmental problems.

My next class is cooking, with Mrs Lee. Today we made quesadillas and salad. We had to partner up, so I went with Sophie B. We had to do one each, so Sophie did the quesadillas and I did the salad.