A week ago we had buddy maths, and now I just think little kids are funny. But what did we do? First we got sent down to the first floor where the little kids were and then the teacher would tell us where our buddies/buddy were.

 

I got two buddies since the intermediate buddy was away. They were both in the same class which was helpful and then we went outside to do some maths. We found some friends and they had a whiteboard and were writing down some maths equations, so I decided to join since I didn’t know where to go first.

 

I wrote down a nice simple equation down for them and one of them got it straight away while the other took him a little bit longer but that’s ok! We did some more equations and one of my buddies was really good at large numbers for multiplication and addition for his age. I felt very joyful at that moment and so were they as they were enjoying maths as well. After that my buddies, friend and I made a maths hopscotch and we knew it was very fun for them because even our buddies friends came to join in!

 

If we were coming back to do another activity i would like to do some sports and P.E with the little kids that would also be safe and would not get anyone injured. What makes a great buddy when working with younger students? I’d say it would be keeping your buddy entertained while staying on task, and make it that your buddy gets excited when the teachers say we are coming back next tuesday. What do you think?

“Bzzzt, bzzzzzzt” the emergency alarms went on our devices “there is going to be a cyclone in New Zealand, be prepared for the worst.” Then my mother got a notification saying there will be no school for the next two days as there will be a cyclone, stay home and be safe”.

 

Who,

 

My mum, dad and I were the ones who were at home(and 5 family friends who rents).We were told to be prepared for the worst.

 

What,

 

During this time we all packed a bag and left it on the table closest to the door so if we got flooded we could still access our bags. After that we just left it as an easygoing day and waited for the cyclone to come / watching Netflix for the next two days.

 

Where,

 

We stayed at home the whole day since we couldn’t really leave the house, but the day before we went to the shops for food because we were getting closer to an empty cupboard.

 

When,

 

Monday and Tuesday, 13th and 14th of February. It was also valentines on tuesday so nothing could really happen since we had to stay home for the remaining days.

 

Why,

 

What was the reason we stayed home? Well.. if we went to school it wouldn’t be the right time to be at school because you have no preparation, your parents wouldn’t be able to pick you up because a tree is blocking the road to your school and because you wouldn’t be with your family.

 

How,

 

How was my experience? Entertaining I would say even though there was a chance of getting badly injured or even dying. I was just relieved that I got to have two days off school.

“Good morning everyone!” Mrs Fawler said as the principal of The Gardens School. “Could everyone please stand u-“ oh! I didn’t see you there! I see that you are a new student at The Gardens School! “Chanel be quiet!” The teacher said, “Meet me at morning tea” I said and once we got sent off I saw her but she looked a bit lost… “hey!” She waved and then we went to go to morning tea.

“Do you want to see the chickens up there near the garden?” “You have chickens?!” Yeah, it kinda sounds funny, they’re  Mrs Davies, she teaches the piwaks and tui’s. I told her to look up to the traffic lights below the library, “red means eat your morning tea, orange means clean up your area if you have finished eating and green means you raise your hand and when the teacher who is on duty says you can go you put away your lunch. This is where we eat each lunch and morning tea, this area is called Central Park. After the bell rang we went to the bleaches and the teachers told us where to go. In fact, I was in the same lab as her in middle block! The teacher gave us our follow up and then we flew off to the sdl space. She wasn’t here for a few days so I helped her catch up after our follow up. I asked if she wanted to go to the makerspace and build something. When we finished eating and got told that we were allowed to go she had her shoe laces untied! Not soon after she fell! I told her to come with me and we went to the triage first aiders. They put the spray onto her grazed knee and then put a plaster on it and she looked happier than ever.

It was getting closer to the end of the day and for her first day of school she did way better than me. The next day she had p.e and somehow she already knew to get changed and was all set for p.e at the end of the day, she was on a roll! She told me she didn’t have breakfast this morning because she had woken up later than she normally does, luckily we have breakfast club! This is for children who didn’t have time to have breakfast in the morning so they made it so that everyone can start the day with breakfast and not an empty stomach. It was a Friday and her mother got her lunch from the kakapo cafe since her mother knew she wouldn’t have time to make lunch. I was making the lunches for my job and once I saw her name on one of the serving bags I was proud that she already knew what to do. When she was doing her job application I saw that she signed up for and once they announced the job applications, I heard her name and she got accepted! Later on she asked, “what is this badge that I received at the assembly?” It was her wings badge, “It means WONDER, INNOVATIVE, NURTURE AND SUCCEED”. Then it was 45 more minutes until it was the end of the day. She had to go to a meeting because she was In pasifika AND band!!

She was really focused and independent during self directed learning time (SDL). She has already settled in and made some new friends! It was very delightful how she was staying on top of work and doesn’t need to go to work it out club, in fact she goes to house games every friday because of this reason. If you received news about having a new a new person coming into your group, what would you do and how would you act?

Have you heard about how much pollution there is around the world? Well sir Peter Blake used to be a sailor but then he noticed his favorite bird wasn’t swarming around the boat each time he came and it kept getting less and less of the same bird coming. What was causing this issue? Pollution. So the day before the school paid for the company to come to our school to show us in VR to show all the pollution and what’s in the sea around New Zealand.

The two leaders who introduced us to Blake were Grace and Alice, they gave an introduction for what they like and how they live. What Alice does for a living is that she likes to go snorkeling for a hobby and goes to the beach most of the time, Grace likes to go surfing as a hobby and also goes most of the time. After introducing themselves they started introducing who sir Peter Blake was and his story. 

We all sat in a line and had a VR goggles right in front of us, when they told us to put the goggle on we first saw a school of bluefish and when she pressed play we called look around us since the camera they used to record it was 360 degrees and had cameras mostly everywhere so we could look up down diagonal and even behind us. 

First they took us over an island using a drone to record it, it also had seagulls surrounding the bottom of the island. Then she took us under water, she said before she turns onto the next one she will ask us if the water is healthy or unhealthy. It was a Marine reserve so people wouldn’t overfish the area or take anything from that area or pollute. To tell if the sea is healthy you would see seaweed, lots of fish and clear water. We saw stingrays, whales, snappers, dolphins and in some scenes you would see divers! 

The next place we went to was still under the sea but in a different area, we could already see no fish, no seaweed but we saw one sea animal around all the coral and sea sponges, it was a kina, but how did that happen? At first there’s fish but there’s also a Kina and both of them eat seaweed, but the Kina has 5 teeth and uses them to crawl around and eat the seaweed before the fish can. It’s also not a Marine reserve so it’s not protected and gets overfished by the fisherman, so now there’s only Kina in the sea with polluted water. Oh! Sorry, I forgot to tell you what a sea sponge is, it’s the same as a sponge but it sucks up the clear water and when it’s full it squeezes it back out but since there is so much pollution in that water it clogs up the sponge and it can’t do its job.

After looking at the healthy and the unhealthy seas we discussed how this happened and how to keep the waters clean. We decided to look at a really large whale and we had a stingray high five the camera! Later Alice took us to see penguins and ducks, we saw one staring at us which looked kinda terrifying… lastly she took us to see some bonus clips of other sea creatures since we still had 5 minutes left. After finishing watching them we put back the VR goggles and left quietly still thinking about the sea animals.

We finally finished our session about all the pollution and overfishing and it’s surprising how seas that aren’t like a marine reserve end up polluted and overfished. But If you were picked to go around the world to tell people about Sir Peter Blake, where would you go? 

Have you ever been to a Science Fair? Well for the past two terms and a half we have been working on a STEAM project. 

There are three groups one of them is insulation, the next group is food and the last group is burn baby burn/candle making.

The years lower and above have been working on a STEAM project too, here are some photos

Each photo has a steam project, now you may be wondering what they are! As you can see the first image is Greek art, these vases were used to tell stories about the gods and heroes of the Greek myths. The next image is a beautiful art made out of flowers! The third photo is actually one of our group’s projects! It is from the candle making group and we ended up making a great result. Now in the forth photo this one is by the kahu’s/year 7 and 8 made a video about how to keep yourself healthy. The next photo is actually a cool one, it is a house that kahu’s made, you can see the inside of the house and it also has lights around it! Lastly the 6th photo is quite creative, it’s a cool clay design with leaves around it.

Some of the presentations have some meanings to it, for example in one photo of a volcano there is information on each volcano! Here is a photo. If you are more interested in the presentations here are some other projects.

 

The first photo explains their introduction in Māori it is called pepeha, then they design the pepeha with wool and other types of designs. The second design is another similar one to the flower artwork but it looks quite different. Now the last one is a chemical reaction type of presentation, but does oil and water mix?

I think that all the presentations were absolutely amazing, but what do you think about all the presentations? If you had to decide to make one, what would you make?

Here are some more photos for you to look at.

 

Cockadoodledoo! As the cow screams in the farm after getting off the bus. As soon as we get off the bus we all sit in our groups after the long drive, then we go to do our first activity. 

Now after checking if we are all here, we follow our teacher to the first activity, once we arrive we start smelling a pungent smell, and it wasn’t nice. When we went inside we saw 4 people and 2 lambs on the sort of stage, 2 of the people were sherring he sheep and the other was cleaning the floor and area so the sheeps wool wouldn’t be in the way, lastly the 4th person was bringing out the sheep when they were done shedding them.

 

After the last activity we were going to move onto another activity, now this one was when we were all talking about all the types of wool and what they are made from. Later on we went on a walk and saw chickens, chicks pigs, piglets, cows, turkeys and a peacock. At first we went to go see the lambs and we could see that they were shedded for the summer, because if they weren’t then they would get dehydrated and too hot. 

After having a little admiration at the lambs we decided to go look at the chickens, we only saw two after they ran away by sliding through the fence. So we decided to move on to another area and that’s when we saw a pathway to two areas, one side had cows and the other had pigs and piglets. We patted the cows and left the pigs in peace but still admired them and the piglets, then we saw a helper giving the cows milk.

Then we went to look at the turkey and we saw more chickens! But we saw something behind us, it was a peacock! Everyone was so surprised and after that it jumped off the tree and went on the ground, then the best thing could’ve happened, It fanned out their feathers! Now everyone was even more surprised at the peacock!

Afterwards we went back to the same place where we learnt about all the types of wool and animals but this time we were with another group and we had to name the animals for each fur/wool. After that it was time to eat, 25 minutes later around 12:50 and we went to the same place as the last activity but to do something different, instead we made a type of string out of fin wool! Then we were going to move onto our next activity. This is called felt, it’s when we grab 3 pieces of wool, wet it, shape it and pat it & rub it, then we wash it off and squeeze it until most of the water gets out.

 

Overall we have a special thanks to Jennie and Richard for setting up everything and for making us have a great day at Ambury Regional park! But I have a question, if you had to choose to go to a park for a walk, picnic, or to look at all the animals would you go to Ambury Park.

Kindness. Growing up being judged, harmed, and bullied. As Conner growed up, he didn’t start liking what he has been going through since he was 8. Kids at his school weren’t quite what you would like them to be. They would bully Conner each day laughing, harming, and doing things that they shouldn’t be, then he didn’t want to deal with it anymore, he decided that he would have to tell the principal. 

Later on him and his bullies got called to the office, so it meant they would all have a talk. After arriving to his office while the principal was talking he  mentioned this one word, kindness. After the talk they all agreed that they would stop bullying. 

But the next day the same thing happened, he tried doing something and trying to tell the principal that the same thing happened, he would just say the exact same thing that he did the day before.

But after school Conner was thinking of that one word the principal said, kindness. He would think of that word everyday and it reminded him to be kind and respectful to everyone, he didn’t want other people to treat him the exact thing he gave to the person, he wouldn’t need to be afraid from his bullies because he knows what to do when it happens again. But how would he do that? Instead of going back to the principal he would talk to his parents and talk about what was happening and try to contact the bullies parents, then they would definitely not do that again.

Do you know any mythical creatures? Well today we made new creatures that don’t exist yet. If you made one, what would you make it look like and what could it do?

This mythical creature’s name is Siamese viper, the fish on the right is a Siamese fighter fish. The cool thing about them is that they can breathe air so if you took them out of the water they would still be able to breathe! Now if you’re wondering, what are the interesting things about the viper? One of them is that they’re very venomous, so that’s why they are called a viper because viper is venomous.

Now since this animal is mixed what can it eat?

They both eat similar things like worms so they most likely eat worms most of the time. But the only hard thing is that you wouldn’t find worms around the jungle.

So if i couldn’t put the animal in the jungle I would put it in a garden and to protect themself it would slither in the grass while hidden so it wouldn’t get hurt, but even if it was threatened then the side of the viper would use its venom to protect itself.

But what are the things that they can’t do? Well of course fish can’t live in a bad environment and it’s most likely that the viper snake could die so I would put it in an garden like I said before with good environment around the area.

 

After sorting out what I would do if I had to take care of this pet What would you do if you had to make a hybrid or create a new animal?

Firstly, what do you think Athletics day is? If you don’t know what it is, when you have up to 4 house colours who compete against each other for house points, then the house colour who ends up with the most house points wins.

So, what house colours are there? There is…

Rimu 🟥

3

Kowhai 🟨

Tawa 🟦

Kauri 🟩

 

After explaining what the house colours are, what actually happened when we were there? First after the year 7s did their 1500 race (4 laps around the track) and other older years doing races had finished, it was time for the year 6s 100m race girls. Then BOOM! They started running with kauri in front and came 1st place! 

Later on it was my turn for one of the activities we had to do, it was long jump! We first had a practice round and there was a white line that had blue in the middle of it. If your foot went over the end of the blue line it’s a no jump, we had a practice round first and then after we would do 2 rounds or jumping and when you land without jumping over the end of the blue line the would measure from where you jumped to where your first foot landed, then they would measure it and the house colour with the longest distance wins. Moments later after a few more races there was the relay race… the house captains would choose the top fastest people in their house colour to do the relay. Overall rimu had won the relay race.

 

Woo hoo! Everyone was cheering for their house colour and some were also cheering for other house colours too! Then after packing up all the activities we did we went into our home whanau and went on the bus back to school, and the best thing was everyone had sportsmanship. If you participate in Athletics for your school what place do you think you would get in?

 Te Wiki o te Reo Māori

   The week of te Reo Māori

 

Do you know how to speak te Reo Māori? If you wanted to know, we have been celebrating te Reo Māori for a week. On Monday we practiced a song called Te Manurewa. We performed it at the assembly. We also have a Kupu of the week (word of the week) . It’s when each week we get a word that is in te Reo Māori and the person who used the word the most gets a certificate on Monday (assembly).

 

The days of the week in te Reo Māori is

Monday – Rāhina

Tuesday – Rātu

Wednesday – Raapa

Thursday – Rāpare

Friday – Rāmere

 

The words that we have learnt so far in te Reo Māori is

Pukapuka – book, patai – question, Tino pai – very good/good job, mōrena – morning, Kia tere – be quick hurry up! Kia kaha – be strong keep going, Ahiahi mārie – good afternoon, rorohiko – computer, iPapa – iPad, Kei hea te – where is the, homai te – bring the … titiro – look and our newest one is kai – food. We also learnt some feelings in Māori and more.

 

Now let’s continue on what we did on the other days. On wednesday we had to sing Te Manurewa and we learnt a special dance for it, they would put it on around 11:30 and we performed while the song was playing.