Sunday, 18 November 2012

Below are three videos of some of the things that we did in class, as well as pictures of the fun day.










Julie "smoking"

This is a picture of Julie "smoking." Julie put a tube into a clear, plastic bottle and then put a cigarette partly into the tube, outside the bottle. Julie would then squash the bottle, and then let go again so that it represents someone smoking. In a matter of seconds, the bottle was so cloudy that you couldn't see through it.

I can not believe that that is what happens to humans lungs when someone smokes. It was really frightening, and I don't EVER want to smoke!




Thursday, 15 November 2012

Words of Wisdom

below are three of my favourite words of wisdom:


'Yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift, that's why it's called the present.'

I like this because it is basically telling you to enjoy everyday as it comes, and not to worry what is going to happen tomorrow.


'Success is a journey, not a destination.'

I like this because you should work on, and enjoy what you have now, instead of wait for the future.


'A strong man stands up for himself, but a stronger man stands up for others.'

I like this because it has a lot of meaning behind it. It is basically telling you that you need to be strong to stand up for yourself; and if you stand up for others you are even stronger.

DARE

For three weeks, Constable Julie came into our classroom for part of the day teaching us about drugs, relationships and a lot more.

Before we started, I already knew a bit about drugs and I thought that I knew most things that I needed to know. Turns out that there is a lot more to learn! What really helped me, was to hear real stories, about real people. Even though I got freaked out, it really helped me realies just how dangerous drugs can be.

I really enjoyed playing all of the games that Julie played with us. It wasn't only fun, but it also really helped me get all of the information into my head, because I could get a break between all of the facts and rather scary, but interesting stories.

Thanks to the DARE programme, I have a better understanding about drugs and the horrible affects that they can have on you. Because of this, I am going to me extra careful with drugs and make sure that I never use drugs that will be harmful to my body.

Corporal Punishment


Corporal Punishment

Imagine, you are sitting in class, terrified, the teacher’s eyes on fire, while she asks you to go outside. You were only asking your friend for a pen; and now you are going to get the strap.

I believe that corporal punishment is horrible and should be banned in all countries. Corporal punishment, is when physical punishment is used to make children behave and learn from their mistakes. I believe that there are better ways to discipline children and that corporal punishment should no longer be used in any school.

When children know that they will get beaten; once they do ANYTHING wrong, they will soon be too scared to ask questions, and can therefore not learn as much as they should be able to. To learn, you need to ask questions, and then find the answer. However, if you are too scared to even ask questions, then how are you supposed to learn? It is proven that children that are brought up with corporal punishment have an increased risk of mental illnesses, such as depression; and decreased physical health.

Leading expert, Prof Ramon Lewis, said that corporal punishment does not work; and researchers agree as only very limited evidence shows that corporal punishment has ANY positive outcomes. As well as that, simply telling the children that they have no right to interfere with other peoples learning works better than the strap.

There are many alternative ways to discipline children, without using corporal punishment. For example, making children stay inside at morning tea or lunch to write an apology letter, not only annoys them because they can’t play outside, but it also makes them think about what they have done, allowing them to learn from their mistakes. Otherwise, you could make them write lines, do some chores or go to the principal. Those are only some of the ways that you can use to discipline children without using corporal punishment. As well as not having to hit the children, it works better as well.

Some people might say that corporal punishment should be used as the last option; in case nothing else works. Although it seems like a good idea at first, I believe that there will always be a better way to discipline children. Maybe we just need to be more creative, or maybe something else is going on in that child’s home. In that case it would be best if the teachers would just talk to him/her to find out what is really happening.

As you can see, corporal punishment is not the answer. There are many different ways to discipline children. As well as that, children are more likely to achieve their full potential when they don’t have to fear the strap. We want the future generation to be the best that they can be, don’t we? Well, in that case, the best thing we can do for our children is to abolish corporal punishment completely.

By Carlotta

Sunday, 11 November 2012

DARE work

These are my favourite pages:

The first page is a mind map with things about myself, my favourite food etc. The page beside that, is a list of all the things that are cool about being our age.

The third page is, as you can see, the words of wisdom page. On this page are different quotes that Julie gave us that have something to do with what we are learning.

The last page is where we made a poster, asking for new friends, and we had to write down the qualities that we are looking for.









Thursday, 8 November 2012

DARE mind map

This is a mind map of some of the things that I have learned in the DARE programme.

Sunday, 14 October 2012

NIWA certificate

This is the certificate that I got from the NIWA science fair.


DARE

Today was our first session of DARE with Constable Julie. We started to talk about the different sorts of drugs there are. I was really surprised to hear that chocolate is actually a drug! I was also amazed that every drug can kill you if you take to much! We then did a fun activity were we made a list of the "great things about our age" starting with each letter of the alphabet.

I enjoyed our first session with Constable Julie and I'm looking forward to our next session and I wonder what we will learn next.

Sunday, 23 September 2012

Asstle Writing

In my writing, I did well at making an introduction, telling the readers what it is about. I also used a number of similes and metaphors to describe Juliet so that it is easier for the reader to imagen what she would looked like.

To improve my writing, I need to make sure that my spelling is correct and I need to use more complex punctuation. I also need to stick with a character description and make sure that I don't start to write a story instead.


This is what I wrote:





Sunday, 9 September 2012

My Inquiry homework

This is what I did for the two week inquiry homework.












My Olympic Knowledge

This is a mind map of most of the things that Margarita and I know about the Olympics.


Thursday, 6 September 2012

Lichtenstein art

This is my calendar art based on one of Lichtenstein's artworks.


Thursday, 23 August 2012

Dear Abby letter


Dear Abby,

I have a very big problem. You see, my parents want me to marry this man called Paris, but I am already married to the beautiful, charming Romeo. However, I can not tell my parents this. You must understand that Romeo, who is my husband, is from the Montague family while I myself am a Capulet. Our two families are at war against one another and it has been like this for many generations. I do not know what started it, but now, whenever our families met, there is a fight, and it will often end in blood or death. Not knowing that we are from the different families, Romeo and I immediately fell in love as soon as we laid eyes on each other. We decided to get married in secret, which we did the very next day. Now I am supposed to marry this man that I don’t even love. My parents are furious and up set with me rejecting their offer. I can’t even tell them the real reason of why I do not wish to get married, because, as you can guess, there would be a massive fight.

Please help,
Second wife to be.


Dear Second wife to be,

As I can see, you are in a rather large problem. I understand why you do not wish to tell your parents about the secret marriage between you And Romeo, however... honesty is always the best way to go; even if it is hard and may bring some consequences. You must remember that you are their daughter and they love you very much! if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have arranged a marriage for you. I believe that if you take the time to sit down with your parents, and explain everything to them; your reasons and feelings, you will be able to sort it and make it work.

Abby

Wednesday, 8 August 2012

Mini Olympics

This year our school is going to have a mini Olympics and the Year 7 and 8 had to make up the events. This is what my group came up with.


Romeo



You must understand that there is a war between our two families: the Montagues and Capulets. It has been like this for many generations and this hate for each other goes right down to our servants. Because of this, we are not allowed to be friends, let alone love someone from the other family. Therefore I think that Romeo is extremely brave to met me because I am a Capulet myself, and Romeo is a Montague. Even though we are from different families it doesn’t stop Romeo from being with me, and because he is a determined person he will do anything to stay with me, and will even risk getting killed, as nothing could ever pull Romeo and myself apart.

The first time I laid eyes on Romeo, with his beautiful light brown hair that dances around his beautiful dreamy eyes, as sparkly as diamonds, and when he walks he seems to dance towards me. I immediately knew that he is the one for me. After the party Romeo did something that only someone as brave as my dearest Romeo would do, he climbed over the wall into my garden, not worrying about the risk of possibly getting killed so that he could see me again.

Romeo is the son of Lord and Lady Montague and is their only child. He is the kindest Montague that I have ever met. Because of my love for him I have also changed my mind on the Montagues and the war between our families. Now I think that the Montagues might not be so bad after all and that the war is extremely unnecessary. Romeo is the opposite to the rest of us, he is not a fighter, but instead he is a peace keeper and he tries to avoid the quarrels between our two families and stop them. However because of this he sometimes seems to get drawn into the fights instead. 

Romeo often writes poems, and when I read them my tummy starts to flutter and my eyes melt into the beautiful words written especially for me. His dreaming eyes, as sparkly as diamonds always seem to be in a different world. When his friends are in trouble he will stick up to them and will try to help them out as much as he can. He is kind, caring and loyal and the one thing that he cares about is love. He is the best husband that I could ever wish for.

By Carlotta

Olympic info sheets

In class we have been making information sheets about the Olympics for our buddies. These are mine.




Monday, 16 July 2012

Prior Knowledge of the Olympics

This a Mindmap of some of the things what Margarita and I already know about the olympics.


Thursday, 28 June 2012

Science fair

This term for our homework we had to do a science project. This is A Self Assessment on how well I think that I did.

Take Action For Air Mindmap


This Term our inquiry topic was Take Action For Air. This is a mindmap of all the things that I learned in this topic.

Sunday, 24 June 2012

cross-country



This is my evaluation on the cross-country.

Buddies

Every Friday we go to our buddy class which is Room 5. Every time we go there we test our buddies on their spelling words and then read to them or do another fun task with them.

My buddy is Rose. I really enjoy going to our buddy class because I enjoy playing with little kids and I have a lot of fun with them. My favourite time so far was when our buddies came over to our class and we did an artwork together. I also enjoyed helping them get their portfolio's sorted.

Clay











I was lucky enough to be able to work with clay with Mrs Leniston and some other students and do some more clay work with them. Mrs Leniston showed us how to make pinch pots and then stick two of them together with very muddy and soft clay to make a sort of body. We then showed us how to make different things to stick onto the pinch pots to make a funny and crazy creature. we then stuck everything onto the pinch pots and made a hole into them to let the air out incase we are going to fire them so that they don't explode. This is my creation.

Mask making


At the beginning of the year, we made some comedy and tragedy masks. First, we had to chose what kind of mask we want to make,(comedy or tragedy) and then we made the shape of the face using clay. We then molded the clay to make the the facial expretions, eyes and mouth. After we finished moulding it we put gladwrap over the clay and then used papier mache to cover it. At the end we painted it to make wonderful looking masks. This is my mask.

Handwriting Sample

Every year we do a handwriting sample to see how neat our handwriting is and and if we have improved. Tis is my handwriting sample.

Basic facts

At maths, every now and then, we do a 4 minutes basic facts test. Because we are focussing on division at the moment, all of the questions in the test are division. This is a graph of my results so far.