Long Beach

What an awesome day! A huge thanks to all our parent help. Without them we would not be able to have such great days as this!
I was so impressed at everyone's attitude towards the challenges and each other. It was lovely hearing everyone encouraging each other particularly on the rock climbing. I was thrilled that everyone had at least 2 goes on the climbing and that quite a few even made it to the top of the highest point.

Italy Roadblock

This was always going to be a popular Roadblock! Who can resist freshly made pizza? Again teamwork was important, making sure that everyone brought one ingredient to contribute to the pizza and deciding how the pizza was going to be designed. I was impressed at how well everyone worked together and how focused everyone was. The final products looked and smelt delicious!

Term 4 Week 4 - China Roadblock

It has been a couple of weeks since my last entry but lots of exciting things have been happening.
Room 3 have been motivated with their Amazing Race homework and we are enjoying the Roadblocks which we have been doing in class. Great to see teams building their teamwork skills and completing tasks together.
Here are some of our photos from our China Roadblock. We had to work in teams to carry jellybeans using only chopsticks across the room. Heaps of fun!

Term 4, week 1:

Term 4 already and we are straight into new and exciting learning. We have started the first week of the Amazing Race. This is a great way of learning about other countries and have more awareness of what is happening around the world. Each Friday we will share the work and work in teams to complete a variety of roadblock activities.
Today we had our first German lesson. It was great fun learning how to say hi and ask how old someone is in German. To help with our German language we have been given access to a great website.
www.linguascope.com (click on this link)
The username is otagogirls and the password is language11
Have a go!

And a few more photos from the Emmy awards:

The 2011 Emmy Awards!

What a great way to finish off Term 3 and our ASPIRE work. It was fun dressing up and having an award ceremony to recognise excellence in our work. Our presenters (Maddy and Tom from Room 24 and Patrick and Ella from Room 3) did a fantastic job running the ceremony and a huge thanks to the Emmy Committee for setting up the PAC and also cleaning up after.
Thanks to Mr Clarke being being our guest presenter. It was lovely that his last day at Balmacewen was spent watching and enjoying films made by students- as he said two of his passions on display; ASPIRE and technology.
Here are some of our award winners:

Week 10

It has been a while since my last post!
What a great term it has been. Lots of great work and fun activities especially the rat dissection this week.
The rat dissection fits so well with our body unit as the internal organs of rats are packed in the same as humans. A huge thanks to Mrs Quelch for doing the actual cutting while I was able to take some photos and check that everyone was fine.
Here are a couple of photos of our learning experience.

Balmacewen Writing Competition!

Balmacewen Intermediate Writing Competition:

Task:
To write a narrative about the sentence: “It was so unexpected!”

Entries will be judged on the following criteria:
• The ability to engage and entertain the reader.
• The ability to organise and develop an idea.
• Clarity and coherence in the writing.
• The effective use of figurative language – to show, not tell.
Rules:
• Entries should be no more than 1200 words.
• Both handwritten and typed entries will be accepted. (Must be easily read)
• All work must be the writer’s own.
• Entries close Friday 16th September.

Cross Country

A HUGE well done to Room 3 on their cross country run. Everyone tried their hardest and Room 3 had some great results. Samuel came in 5th and Griffin came in 9th in the Year 7 boy race and Jessica came in 15th in the Year 7 girl race. I saw a lot of happy and satisfied faces after their runs, everyone feeling proud of their achievements.
A huge well done has to go to Georgia for seeing the race right through to the end. She didn't give in and she finished the race in style (giving Mr Clarke a run for his money!)

Cross country update:

Due to the weather and ground conditions the cross country has been postponed until next Friday, (26th of August.)
This will also allow for some more training next week too, ready for Friday.

Week 3

Well, after a snowy start to the week, we are here and ready to go. This week we are looking at the cardiovascular system in topic.
We are also working on narratives for writing and starting persuasive writing.
I have been impressed with the improvements I am noticing in students' writing. I find myself looking forward to reading their work! I had a few chuckles reading the homework task last week: Rewrite the sentence "My teacher was grumpy." There were some very scary teacher descriptions!

Week 2 - Student report:

Last week some people from Otago Boys and Otago Girls came to show us there very wide musical options. I liked their jazz music the best. Some of the instruments I bet I couldn't play but you never know unless you try.

Georgia

This week we are learning about the muscles. Did you know that involuntary muscles you can't mentally control, for example your heart, and voluntary muscles are the ones you can mentally control, for example your arm and legs.
All for now.

Ella

Week 2 - Brainpop

This week as we have continued to learn about the body, we have being using a website called Brainpop. I have signed up for a free trial which lasts for 5 days. You are welcome to use it at home to help revise or learn new knowledge about the body.
The web address is http://www.brainpop.com

Term 3, week 1

It's amazing how quickly the year is going! Hard to believe it is Term 3 already. I hope everyone's rested and ready for Term 3. This is a great term for learning and already we have started learning about the body.
Homework is back with a variety of tasks each week. Each week homework will cover revision of our topic on the body, reading, spelling, sometimes a writing task and a maths sheet.
I am looking forward to seeing the amazing effort everyone will have put into this weeks homework!

Show, Don't Tell:

This has been our writing focus this week and how to use active verbs and figurative language to show the reader, not tell the reader.

An example of this was the sentence, "It was cold walking down the street."

We pulled this apart, brainstormed descriptive language, and rewrote this sentence to show the reader how cold it was.
Here are a couple of examples:

Billowing winds numbed my exposed face. It was deadly, staggering zombie-like along the brain-freezing street. The whole blistering street was a sheet of horrific crystal-clear teeth-chattering ice.
Patrick

It was like striding through deadly numbness while ice daggers tore through my clothes and got to my sensitive skin as I lumbered down the ice laden street.
Abbey

The blistering bitter winds whipped around my exposed face, stabbing icy daggers into the pained skin on my face. Shivers ran up and down my spine as if frozen metal had attracted itself to my bare back. A swim in a sea of ferocious snow could endanger limbs and lives. Or at least that's what I thought.
Nic

It was mind numbingly bitter, staggering down the path, wind whipping snow particles at my exposed face, trying to mutilate me. In my efforts to escape this deadly blizzard I struggled on. It was about a metre away, the door to the blazing fire of warmth and dryness. I reached out for the numbing metal handle...
Lachlan

It was a deadly, freezing, blistering icy cold. My teeth were chattering like banging a nail with a hammer. I was kicking the snow off my feet, a shiver tickled up my spine like Jack Frost stroking me in the back.
Dayna

Science Fair reminder:

This Wednesday we will have a session of putting our Science Fair boards together for presentation. So testing and writing the drafts of the results and conclusion need to be completed by Wednesday.
We will begin presenting our science fair investigations in class on Friday and complete presentations on Monday.
On Tuesday all boards go to the hall for the setting up. Judges will be in on Wednesday or Thursday and we should know on Friday our results.

Making Pikelets

As one of the ways of practicing our procedural writing we looked at some pikelet recipes. We discussed and identified what was wrong with them then researched to make our own pikelet recipes. Then came the fun part: making the pikelets using our recipes.
Here are some of the recipes:

Ingredients:
1 cup of self raising flour
1 tablespoon castor sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 cup milk, or as needed.

Method:
1. Sift the flour into a medium bowl, and stir in the sugar. Make a well in the centre, and add the egg. Stir with a wooden spoon while gradually pouring in the milk until you reach the consistency that you prefer. Thicker pikelets will need a thick batter, while thin pikelets will need a thin batter. Stir in melted butter last, beating until smooth.
2. Heat a skillet over a medium heat. Coat with cooking spray. Drop by large spoonfuls onto the hot skillet. Pikelets should be about 5 centimetres across. Flip when bubbles appear on the surface, and cook until browned on the other side.

By Vimukthi

Jaffa Pikelets

Ingredients:
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
25 g melted butter (optional)
zest of whole orange (optional)
1/4 cup choc chips (optional)

Method:
1. In one bowl beat the egg and sugar until thick, in another bowl sift the flour, salt, baking powder.
2. Add the milk and beaten egg mixture into the sifted ingredients and mix to form a batter.
3. Mix in the choc chips and orange zest. (optional)
4. Lastly add the melted butter (optional), mix until smooth.
5. Heat a frying pan, when up to heat pour a spoonful of the batter, cook until golden brown on each side ( might not be golden brown on first go) continue until the batter has run out.
6. Now you have made a tasty snack for you and the kids!

By Ella

Hokey Pokey

On Friday we made hokey-pokey!
It was great fun, especially the anticipation of how it would turn out. We discussed the science between the chemical reaction and also used this as a motivation activity for our procedural writing. I think it worked! I have never seen written work happen so quickly and with such focus!
Here is the recipe we used:

HOKEY-POKEY:
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons golden syrup
4 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Method:
1. Grease a tray with butter.
2. Put the golden syrup and sugar into a saucepan together and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.
3. Once the mixture is bubbling, let it bubble away for 7 minutes (important,or it won't set nice and crunchy - gooey hokey-pokey isn't easy to eat.)
4. Take it off the heat, stir in the baking soda, and then (very speedily) spread it onto the greased tray.
5. Let it set - it should start to set immediately.

Science Fair - Conclusions:

This weeks focus:
1. To present your results in a graph or table (if suitable)
2. To write a conclusion
3. To purchase your science fair board - ready for week 8 and 9

We will have a go at creating graphs using Microsoft excel.

HOW TO WRITE A CONCLUSION...
The conclusion, plain and simple,is the answer to your question. It should be clear, concise and stick to the point.

Step 1:
Summarize your science fair project results in a few sentences and use this summary to support your conclusion. Include key facts from your background research to help explain your results as needed.

Step 2:
State whether your results support or contradict your hypothesis.
Summarize and evaluate your experimental procedure, making comments about its success and effectiveness.
Suggest changes in the experimental procedure (or design) and/or possibilities for further study.

(For more information refer to your homework sheet for this week in your Science Fair folder)

Science Fair - Conclusions:

Orokonui reminders for Monday's trip

Orokonui Eco Sanctuary Reminders
• Wear correct PE gear to school
• A jacket. If it is wet we will still be going. Unless it is really really wet.
• Bring a named digital camera (or disposable) – this is our whole focus for going
• Bring a decent lunch and water
• Bring a towel so you can lie on the ground to get the interesting photo shots
• If you haven’t paid, please pay the $16

Science Fair - week 6

Science Fair – Week 6
This week’s focus: to continue testing for your investigation.
Remember:
• To observe and record the changes made through your testing.
• Measure the changes made through your testing.
• Record your results using tables and graphs.
• Fair testing
o Which variables have you kept the same?
o Which one variable have you changed? Why?
o Have you repeated the test 3 times to observe the same/similar results?
Important: take notes of what you observe.
Take photos of what your experiment/investigation. (Re-read last week’s sheet for tips on taking good photos.)
Put all this information, even notes, into your ASPIRE/Science Fair folder.

Review your research. Are you understanding the science behind your investigation?
Over the next couple of weeks we will look at how to make graphs using excel. This may help you with graphing your results for your presentation.

Science Fair photos of good observations and testing.

Science Fair update:

The next couple of weeks of Science Fair is making sure your method has been signed off by me then start your testing.
What to do:
1. Collect all the equipment you need.
2. Follow your method.
3. Record observations and results in your Science Fair folder.

Reminders:
Keep each test fair - test one variable and keep everything else the same.
Take photos as you go. Good shots could include:
* photos of equipment.
* photos of each (or important) steps in your method.
* photos that show the results of your tests.

Mega Math Month:

We started the month of May with our Mega Math Month where we focused on our time table knowledge. We wanted to improve both our accuracy and speed of our time tables. This year the focus also included knowing the division as well as the multiplication. This made it slightly more challenging!
Our class average for our baseline test was 44%. This definitely allowed us a lot of room for improvement!
Week 1's average then increased to 54% - which was a great improvement in less than one week.
Week 2's average increased to 64% - which again we were all thrilled about - a good steady improvement.
Week 3's average - mmmm.... well, that wasn't as good. We dropped from 64% to 58%. There were a few disappointed faces in Room 3, mine included!
The final week was a big week on practicing our time tables.
Week 4's average was 76%. We were all thrilled! Yay! The hard work had paid off.

Week 4 - Student Report

This week we had a big push on time tables, due to last weeks disappointing results. Our class average went down from 64% to 58%. Mrs Garthwaite was over the moon when we got our average up to 76%. Great work Room 3!

Samuel.

On Friday we finished our Nigel Brown art. It took a long time, but it was worth it. They look great!
It was also the last week of MEGA MATH MONTH. Our class average went up by heaps!

Georgia

Science Fair - examples of methods:

Week 4 - Science Fair Homework

Science Fair – Week 4:
Continue to research the science behind your topic:
Remember to collect information from a range of sources:
 Websites (note down the name and address of the website in your logbook)
 Books – the library has a whole reference section (note down title, author, publisher and published date in your logbook.)
 Clickview – assessed on the school computers
 Interviews with experts – interviews can help you gather information which you find hard to find somewhere else. It could help you fill the gaps in your knowledge and understanding.
Method:
Plan and write your method for your investigation/experiment. Write down all the materials and equipment you will need. Write this as a list.
Next, write your method. This involves step by step of how you are conducting your experiment. Remember the steps must be in order. Your method must be clear enough for someone else to pick up your method and copy your experiment perfectly.
Draft of my method:



Fair Testing:
Fair testing finds relationships between variables. A single variable is changed while keeping other variables the same.
Identify what the variable (the one thing you are changing) and then observe or measure the change to your results.
Example: Crazy Canisters: we changed one variable, the amount of water used, but kept the amount of baking soda and tartaric acid the same. We then recorded the difference it made to our results.
Fair testing also involves repeating the experiment 3 times (if possible). This allows for you to check if you can get the same results each time and prove the validity of your experiment.
Record: What are your variables:
Which variable are you changing?
Why?
Which variables are you keeping the same? Why?

Week 4 -Student Reports:

Nigel Brown.
I have been developing a piece of art based on Nigel Brown. I have been doing a face that is half Captain Cook and half tiki. I have been mixing different shades of green to create interest. I have been enjoying this. This is part way through the process. Look for the photo of the finished work soon.
Corbun

Week 3 - Student reports

This week in Room 3 we have been doing science experiments. First we made butter then we did Crazy Canisters. I can't wait for more science experiments!
India

On Friday the 13th of May Mrs Garthwaite read to us a story of the 3 little pigs. But it was a twisted story. Then after we had to write a fairytale story and twist it. The story writing had to do with narrative writing.
Losena

Armchair descritive writing

The rosy red armchair sat abandoned in the dark corner. The bottom sagged so low it almost touched the ground. For such an old chair I was surprised that it had no holes in it. As I sit down the chair puffs up around me so much that I think it will pop like a balloon. Dust wafts up around me in a choking grey cloud. I rest my arm on the arm of the chair and stroke it. When it was new it would have felt nice and velvety but now it feels crusty, like bits of food were stuck on it, the longer you sit in the chair the further down you sink until you feel the springs poking into you. The old light bulb flickers as I stand up, the chair sighs as if in relief.

Georgia

Week 3

We have finished our armchair drawings and descriptive writing and it is on display. It is great to see the splashes of colour around the room but also to be able to share each others' writing.