Last week on Monday, the majority of the year 8s went to Dunedin for a week long camp. I was in a van with two of my friends and we talked Talei’s ear off.  Each day, a different activities group went to different activities. The activities I did were: Art gallery, Museum, Cruise, Heritage Museum, Chinese gardens, Planetarium, Albatross colony and Baldwin street. My favourite activities were going to the Planetarium and the museum. My least favourite was obviously walking up Baldwin street, the steepest street in the world. But I used resilience and did it anyway. I also did Volleyball for the first time. Some of the kids, including me, set up a boys vs girls game that went on for hours until the teachers told us it was time for bed.

I would rate Dunedin camp 10/10 because it was my favourite camp I have ever been on. I made lots of inside jokes with my van, my activities group and I had a blast!

Today for circle time we talked about feelings. We learnt that knowing and understanding your feelings helps you understand yourself and others understand you too*. We also looked at the feelings wheel by ALLTHEFEELZ. If you were feeling sad then you could also be feeling lonely, bored or apathetic.

* Direct quote from Talei.

This week has been a tiring week. We didn’t do maths which was good though. The highlights of my week were the disco and Mamma Mia!.

I helped make the stars that get hung up around the hall for the Matariki disco. I also ran limbo/spin the bottle/dance competition. The hardest thing about the disco was that we couldn’t get the microphone working, and everyone had to have shifts guarding the fire exit doors to make sure that the kids didn’t escape because we didn’t have many teacher helps. This was my last Rawhiti School Matariki Disco which made me sad.

On Tuesday, some year 7s and 8s went to Avonside girls’ and Shirley Boys’ High school to watch them perform Mamma Mia!. When I first arrived I knew that two people I know were in it, but as the pay went on, I started recognising more ex-students from my school. They made a few small changes which I really liked. Overall, as a massive ABBA/Mamma Mia! fan, I really enjoyed their adaptation.

I can’t wait to see what next term will bring.

Oxford Maths.

This year we have been learning with something called Oxford Maths. Oxford Maths is something that the government has installed into our learning system for schools all around NZ.

 We have been split up into year groups and so far the year 8s have learnt about whole numbers, decimals/percentages/fractions, factors/HCF, prime numbers/prime factorisation, surveys and data sources/types and polygons/circles.

 How Oxford Maths works is that we log onto their website and you click on the pretest. The pretest is so you can see your knowledge prior to learning about the subject. After that we get ranked O (on), B (below) or A (above). After you do the pretest we do an in depth session about the subject. After your in depth session you do the post test to see if you have improved.

 My opinion of Oxford Maths is not the best. We only learn about it for a day or two and we just really skim over it. I can’t remember how to do most of it so I feel like we need to spend a longer time on each subject. I don’t think my maths is improving, but then again, I always beat my teacher in the Quick 60s.

This term for Action Stations I chose to do Earring Making with Fi and Erica. In the first week we sketched out our designs . I missed the second but in week three we created our masterpieces. I made dangly evil eye earrings.  I found it hard because my clay wasn’t claying, but I got there in the end. My advice to anyone who wants to make any is have an idea in your head before you start creating.

Last literacy session we learnt about timelines. We found out that spelling really matters, it shouldn’t look like it was made by a five year old on Google draw, simple is better and that it should flow easily from start to finish. I chose to do a time line on the Canary Girls because I have been learning about them recently. Here is a link to my learning.

Link

Link to piece of writing.

For the past few weeks I have been working on an unfinished story. I was focusing on describing emotions better. IN this example I used words like ‘scream’ and ‘merry’ to help the reader see, hear and imagine the story. I think I did well at using the five sensors. Next time I will write a smaller story so I can finish it.

This week has been a really good week. I had a great student council meeting and I now have access to the Te Reo O Rawhiti website (Our student council name is Te Reo O Rawhiti)

Today Anika and I led Assembly. I was a bit nervous as I had never led Assembly before but when I started I instantly forgot and just had fun. Tangaroa did a flash mob and did the line dance to “Fireball” by Pitbull. I was up in  the front and the little kids loved it. They were screaming with joy and bringing joy to them makes me happy.

The hardest part of the week I was so tired after Bluelight Camp.

I can’t wait to see what next week will bring.

This term for Action Stations I have been doing Drama and Theatre Sports. Each lesson we started out with small games such as what are you doing? Then we worked on our plays. My play was about life in the twenty-fifth century seeing what it was like in the twentieth century. I was the guide showing everyone around.

This week has been a really good week. I helped out with the junior triathlon, did a new Choice and Challenge and learnt more of the year 7’s names.

We learnt a new line dance to the song “Fireball” by Pitball. It was really confusing at the start but Malaya and I quickly caught on. After that we taught the rest of our friends it. They sort of know it now.

The hardest part of the week was adjusting to the new maths resource but I’m sure that I will get the hang of it quickly.

I can’t wait to see what next week will bring.