End of a great year

Hi everyone.

I would just like to thank all my awesome students and their amazing parents for all the support throughout the year. It has been a busy and crazy 4 terms but we have all grown academically and socially this year. My highlights have been camp (where I saw people come out of their shells), Creating our garden, and seeing students win school wide competitions!

I hope that everyone enjoyed 2010 and I wish you all the best for 2011.

Merry Xmas

Kia Kaha

Nick Van den Borst

Our Garden

In Tui Syndicate we have been growing our own vegetable garden. We planted the seeds ourselves and watched them grow into many types of vegetables such as…

Lettuces, Peas, Radishes, Zucchinis, Broccoli, Silver Beet, Spinach and much more.

Here are some photos of Jordan Holford picking some radishes.

CAMP

Well what a week we all had at Mount Holdsworth. The weather was fantastic, we had sun everyday and clear skies for star gazing at night. We had an action packed time filled with activities like Caving, High Ropes, Rock Climbing and Tramping.

It was great to see our students step up to many different challenges like the tramp or braving the cold river! I would especially like to thank our parent helpers who made our week run smoothly.

Here are some photos and videos of our time.

THREE MORE SLEEPS TO GO

Hey all

Just a reminder to everyone to be at the Wellington Train Station at 7.40pm. If you are sick and can't come anymore let me know Sunday night via email.

nick.vandenborst@tawaint.school.nz

Have a great weekend getting everything ready!

Camp Prep

We are all gearing up for our camp in week 4!
Make sure you all have got the following:

For Camp
□ Packed lunch for Day One	□ Drink bottle
□ Scroggin / Energy snacks	□ Camp book & pencil case
□ Waterproof jacket / Parka	□ Woollen hat
□ 2 pairs longs (1 pair track pants)	□ 2 pairs shorts
□ T-shirts (4-5)	□ Bush shirt / Polar fleece / Wool jersey (2)
□ Underwear (at least one per day) □ Thermals – Merino/Polypropylene undergarments	□ Socks (at least one pair per day + warm, thick pair for at night) □ Toiletries
□ 2 towels	□ 4 pegs to hang up wet clothes
□ Sunhat / Sun block	□ Swimming togs
□ Sleeping bag, pillow case	□ Torch
□ PJ’s / Nightie	□ Insect repellent, band aids
□ Backpack (day pack size)	□ Bags for dirty clothes (rubbish bag)
□ 2 tea towels	□ Toilet roll
□ Named knife, fork, spoon, mug, plate, & bowl.
□ Book / Cards – for indoor activity and quiet time.
□ 2 pairs suitable footwear for around camp & walking – Old shoes for wearing in water.

ENSURE ALL GEAR IS NAMED

NO RESPONSIBILITY TO SCHOOL FOR LOST EQUIPMENT - CHECK HOUSEHOLD INSURANCE

NO FIZZY DRINKS – NO CHEWING GUM –

NO ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT – NO MONEY

Image Poem

My beautiful house in Vienna

The snow is thick,

On the footpath below

My beautiful house in Vienna

I sit on my bed,

And watch the wind blow

My beautiful house in Vienna

The park across the road,

Has a blanket of snow

Witch will soon melt away to let the grass grow

My beautiful house in Vienna

By Grace Burt

Olivia in America!

Here is our lastest email from Olivia in America!

Have a look at what she is getting up to!

It is really fun in America. Today I went to Gatorland and I saw loads of alligators.I got to hold one baby gator, two snakes and I got to sit on a huge gator called Jess. Also at Gatorland there was a bird aviary with heaps of budgiesand they just all fly up to you in a big swarm and sit on your head, arms, feet or anything that they can stand on.

Yesterday I went to Ripley's believe it or not and I saw lots of lots of really weird and wonderful stuff.There was a room that was completely round like a tunnel with a bridge running through it. The room spins when you walk through it and even though the bridge doesn't spin it feels like it is spinning. It makes you fall over or no reason because of the illusion.

On Thursday I went to Disney World in Orlando and it was really cool. We went again when it was dark and we saw the Disney fireworks.

I miss New Zealand but it is probably the only time I will get to go to America. It is really funny because none understands our accent so when I said I was from New Zealand they thought I was from England.

I went to universal studios and to the new Harry Potter World and it was amazing.I had a look in the Honeydukes candy store in Hogsmeade and they have chocolate frogs and Berty Botts every flavour beans.

In San Francisco we drove across the Golden Gate bridge, drove down Lombard street in a limosine (crookedest street in the world) , rode the cable cars and had Dim Sim in china town.

I will tell you more when I come back.

From Olivia.

I just received another email from the Nasa with a picture of someone as I was writing this post!

WE REACHED OUR GOAL

We now have had a visit from every continent in the world!
Except for Antarctica but we think that is because penguins have trouble typing.

Report Writing

Today we used the a Google spreadsheet (off Google docs) to write a collaborative report on the African elephant. We were split into groups and asked to research an aspect about the African elephant. We had to research about one of the following: Physical Characteristics, Habitat, Diet, Reproduction, predators and endangerment.

We used the computers to research for the information. We wrote a paragraph about our assigned topic. We collated the information on the Google Doc. This is what we came up with!

THE AMAZING AFRICAN ELEPHANT

The African elephant is the largest land Animal in the world.Its scientific name is Loxodonta Africana.

The African female elephant has slender Tusks and a pointed forehead. Male elephants are bigger than the female elephants. Male elephants have thicker tusks male elephants have a slanted forehead. Their grey hairy skin is often covered with mud to protect them from the sun. Huge floppy ears are coincidentally shaped similar to the continent they live on, Africa.

African elephants primarily live in savannas, woodlands, mountains and desert areas; however they prefer thick moist tropical forests. Clean water and plentiful vegetation are the major requirements for their habitat selection. African elephants are indigenous to Africa with the vast majority of populations, residing in conservation areas.A wide temperature range from freezing to 48.88Celsius is tolerated by the elephants as long as water and shade are available.Elephants are not dependent upon other species for survival.

Elephants consume about 5% of their body weight and drink 30-50 gallons of water per day. Young elephants must learn how to drink water up their trunks and pour it in their mouths. They eat a big variety of vegetarian food including grass, leaves, fruit, twigs, bark and seed pods.

When mating, the male elephant stands up on his back legs and rides the female elephant from behind. He holds on to her with his front legs and have sex with her. The mating takes a few minutes. After mating, the two elephants spend time together touching each other with their trunks and even entwining each others trunks in an embrace. The two elephants may spend as much as two weeks together before the male leaves to live apart from the females again.

African Elephants don’t have any predators because they’re so big, but the calves are vulnerable to lions and crocodiles and sometimes to leopard and hyena attacks. Humans are the elephant's major predator. They hunt Elephants for meat, skin, bones, and tusks. Tourism and plantations attract sport hunters. Trophy hunting still happens today. The population of African Bush Elephants was halved during the 1980s. Scientists said that, if they didn’t protect elephants, they would be extinct by 1995.

The African elephant is endangered because of habitat loss. They have two worries, the lions eat them and humans hunt them for their tusks because their ivory tusk make great piano keys and jewelry.

Written by the whole of Rm 7.

What constitutes abuse?

During our Keeping ourselves safe unit we have been debating what acts are classified as abuse.
The debate got intense when we discussed whether smacking a small child to warn her not to touch the fire. We were given a whole lot of different scenarios and we had to decide what type of abuse it was. The categories were Sexual, Physical, Emotional, Neglect and Not Abuse. Some scenarios were being burnt with a cigarette, being grounded, using put downs, not taking a sick child to a doctor etc. Here are some photos of us doing this.

Keeping Ourself Safe

Today we listened to a variety of different scenarios where people in that scenario felt unsafe. Our task was to act out different solutions to the problems.
One problem was "Imagine your are walking through the subway at Porirua Station, a couple of older men are smoking and are looking at you funny, what could you do?" Some of the solutions we came up with were really good, like turning around and waiting for a group of people to walk with.
Here are some photos of us in the role plays.

Rhara, McKenzie and Lidiah dealing with the pressure of smoking. Tohu, Elis, Jordan Dominic dealing with what to do when there are big scary people smoking in the subway.

Term 3

Welcome back, sorry we haven't been blogging lately. We have all been on Holidays.
I personally had a great time on my break as I was lucky enough to go to Samoa. Listening to all the stories is sounds like a lot of people have had a great holiday too. Richard also spent time in the Islands, he traveled to Tonga and said he had a great time.

Our first week back involved a lot of sorting out. We have PAT tests, spelling tests, writing tests and maths tests coming out of our ears. Its fair to say that we all look foward to P.E time so we can run around and play dodgeball.

Training is in session for the Inter-class Dodgeball Tournament. We are planning our attacks with strategies and its becoming very intense. Watch this space, I hope to be able to say soon that we make it through the first round.

Remember don't be shy, leave us a comment and we are only one continent away from reaching our goal so if you know anyone in South America send them our link!

Mr V.

Soccer Triumph

Seems like the All Whites glory has caught on here in Room 7. Today we faced the strong Room 10 team in our first round of the Inter class football competition. There are three rounds, one round is for boys, another girls and the last one is a combination team. After a spine tingling first round from the boys who drew we had to watch the nerve wrenching girls game. We managed to draw with them too thanks to some handy footwork by Steph Blackford!

Crunch time came, the last round. With two draws whoever won this round would make it through to the next stage. We played really well and ended up scoring the first goal. The rest of the game saw a lot of close calls from Room 10 attack but we held them off to win 1-0.

CONGRATULATIONS, what a cool class room 7 is!

We face our neighbours Room 8 in the next round next week!

Aliysha Visits the Gold Coast

Aliysha was lucky enough to take some time off school to visit the Gold Coast.
Have a look at some of the things she got to do!

Disco Fever!

Last Thursday evening the Tawa Intermediate Hall hosted the Syndicate Pride Disco. Those who attended dressed in their syndicate colours and danced the night away.
George and Dominic proved quite the Shufflers by showing the whole school their moves. Dominic and Kerstin also won prizes for best dressed.
Here is some evidence of the night, turns out dancing can win hearts! :P

George and Jenna

Kerstin, Grace and Olivia

Mr V and Andy's Friends (Andy at the end)

George and Charlie Shuffling up a Storm