Self Defense

Year 1-4 Production: The Button Box!

On Monday the 1st of September, and Tuesday the 2nd of September, the Year 1-4 students performed a play called ‘The Button Box!’ The Button Box tells the story of how, when Grandma and Grandpa’s two grandchildren, Alice and Jack, are visiting, they have an argument, and they knock over grandma’s button box. They then beg Grandma and Grandpa to tell them the story of each button, and each story is told through song and dance. Mrs Bierwith, our performing arts teacher, wrote the script and choreographed,  Ms Harwood-Matthews, our music teacher, did all the music and she did the choreography too. Mrs O’Meara, 7OM’s classroom teacher, also helped out with the choreography, and many mums were there to help with make up and costumes.

Grandma was played by Sophie Hodgson, Ella H’s little sister, and she did an incredibly good job. Grandpa was played by Paris Hague, and she was brilliant as well. Alice was played by Sophie Thomas, and Jack by Emma Gabriel, and they both were fantastic too!

Then there were many dancers, including: the island dancers, the irish dancers/leprechauns, the Bombay dancers, breakdancers, the crows, and the frog king dance. One of the crows was played by Sarah Cox, Ella C’s sister, and two of the irish dancers/leprechauns were Kathleen’s twin sisters, Sylvie and Evelyn King.

Well done to all the Year 1-4’s, you put on a spectacular performance, and a big thank you to all the parents who helped out, and to Mrs Bierwirth, Mrs O’Meara, and Ms Harwood-Matthews, as well as the Year 1-4 teachers for making the play possible, and we are sure everyone enjoyed it.

Here are some photos of The Button Box:

Tuning In U.O.I Term 3!

To start of our new Unit of Inquiry (UOI) each term, the year 7&8’s come together for “Tuning In.” This is where we do activities etc. and find out what our new UOI will be.  This term we are doing Ethics, so lots of fun and interesting inquiries about things such as cloning and genetics!

We got put into groups of 4 or 5 and had to write about a time we had to make a choice about something. Then we had to think ‘Was this a good choice’. Next we watched a presentation about ethics. After, that, each group got given a scenario, and we had to make a PMI chart (Plus, Minus and Interesting), about our scenario, and then we had to prepare a short presentation. The scenarios covered topics such as designer babies, Frankenstein fruits, genetic modification, and cloning.

To present, some groups prepared a skit, others a powerpoint presentation, and one group also did a short speech! We all enjoyed this tuning in session, and now we are going to be writing our speeches this term based around Ethics and morals, our new Unit of Inquiry.

Here are some photos:

Do you know any interesting facts about cloning, genetic modification, or one of the other scenarios? Please let us know in the comments below.

By Enya and Kathleen

Term 2 Classroom Designing!

Just before the school holidays, most of our school spent the afternoon shifting furniture out of eight classrooms to the Cybrary, as over the holidays our classes were going to be re-carpeted and painted. 
This included our class, 7G, and when we came back ready for a new term, we found our class and stairwell smelling like drying paint, and very blue.
All of the year 7 & 8 classes had all the furniture stacked in the middle of the rooms, waiting to be pushed back into place. But the furniture certainly didn’t get put back in the same place! Our teachers decided to let us redesign our classrooms, and we kicked this off by going into the corridor armed with vivids, and we looked at pictures of interesting classrooms, and wrote on them what we liked and didn’t like. 
Then we went back to our class, and Miss Glubb decided the best way to brainstorm was to get into small groups and design what we wanted the class to look like. We all spent about an hour on these, and while some of the plans were very messy and others very neat, they were all still well designed and thought out. 
Next, we laid out the furniture according to each group’s plan. By the time we had pushed all the furniture into place for around the fourth group, it was quite a hassle changing things round each time, and as everyone was quite taken with the design, we decided to change it around so that it would have some of everyone’s ideas in it. Once this was done, we decided to get rid of nametags, and that each day when we came in we could choose where we sat so long as we were sensible with who we sat with. 
We could sit at a large group semicircle of desks, some smaller groups of four, and if you don’t really want to work with anyone, you can sit at the groups of two. There is also the sofa, chairs, beanbag and the spare blue tables, which we can work at as well. This design is a trial, so if it doesn’t work out we will try something different.

Here are some photos of our planning and our finished room:

Brainstorming

Looking at interesting classrooms

Looking at interesting classrooms

Brainstorming

Brainstorming in our separate groups

The desks of two in our finished plan

The semicircle of desks in the centre or our class and the mat

The desks of four down the right.

Do you know a classroom that has a creative setup? Please tell us in the comments below!

By Kathleen

Kathleen's Tutorial

For UOI (Unit of Inquiry), we had to become an expert in one media tool. I chose to become an expert in voki because it interested me, and it was something completely new and exciting. Below is the voki I made, and it is explaining how to make a voki. Enjoy!


My Voki



I hope this helped you and got you interested in voki's too.

Thanks,
Kathleen

Introducing Kathleen

The Art Walk

On Friday 28th February, 7G and 8B went on an Art Walk around the City Centre looking at various types of murals and street art. We also got to meet some famous street artists! We all had a great time. We met a man called Reuben Woods, and he walked around the city with us, describing the street art. We were paired up with a Year 8 buddy, but that didn’t last long, as every time we came to a road, we all got mixed up and were all over the place, resulting in some unhappy drivers, so in the end we all kind of ended up just finding a friend and walking with them.

Sadly, the good weather didn’t last long either- we were drenched in rain! Good thing we came in our P.E. gear! Despite the bad weather, we all had lots of fun. We met the Christchurch Wizard and Wizard-in-training outside the shop Rekindle - they put a spell on us so that we would have easy homework for at least a month! :) Here is a photopeach of us on the art walk!


The Art Walk on PhotoPeach

By Hattie and Kathleen

Graphic Novels

Today we started our reading inquiry on graphic novels. We started by looking through some graphic novels and we noticed that even though they sometimes can look quite similar they are actually all quite different. Some of the things we learned about graphic novels are:

• Some graphic novels have more pictures than words and vice-versa.
• Sometimes people who don’t enjoy reading prefer graphic novels to normal novels.
• Graphic novels, while they are similar to comic books, are actually more complex even though they follow the same format.
• Another difference is that graphic novels have stand-alone plots.    
• Graphic novels are made up of images, words, dialogue balloons, thought balloons, captions, panel and gutters, as well as the actual story.     

We are both looking forward to reading graphic novels in class, and we are sure everyone else is too!

Do you have any favourite graphic novels? We would love to hear from you.

By Kathleen and Caroline