Week 10 Term 2

The last week of school!

We found out this week that we have speeches next term!!  YAY!  I'm really excited, but I need to find a good topic like the one I had last year which was 'Is technology affecting face to face communication?' It was a really good topic and I got 2nd place!  I haven't thought of a topic so far, but I hope I can think of a good one!  Even if it take me the whole holidays just to think of one I know I can write it fast because I'm a pretty good writer.  

This week is also Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori week, and each class went on a marae visit.  My class went on Wednesday, and it was quite a cool experience.  The marae we went to was called Mangatoatoa Marae.  When we got there there was a porhiri to welcome us, and then we were split into groups so we could do all the activities set up around the area.  The activities were singing, where we learnt a new sing, a maori stick game, where you each had a quite tall stick, and then stood in a circle, until someone called left or right in te reo maori.  I forgot how to say it though.  Once they called left or right you had to move the way they called and grab onto the next persons stick before it fell.  Then there was another game where instructions were called in maori, and you had to run, walk, fly, hop, or whatever they told you to do, to the place they told you to do it.  The last person to the place was out.  Next was capture the flag/ripper rugby.  This was fun, and there was no te reo maori learning about, but I'm not sure why.  Then there was the rako stick activty which was definitely one of my favourites.  We were taught each movement, and had to do each one four times each.  It took us a while to get it all right, but then after that it was really fun.  Then we learnt the haka with Raiha, who was a very good teacher.  I mostly remembered the haka from last year so it wasn't to hard for me luckily.  Then we did a colouring activity where we went around the marae and placed our te reo maori books on one of the carvings, and then ran a crayon lightly over top and it imprinted the pattern into it, it was very cool.  Last, but definitely not least we did fry bread, where we copied down the recipe for it and then got to try some, it was so yum.  I really enjoyed the visit to the marae I wished I could've gotten the opportunity to do it last year as well when I was a year 7.  

Also this week on Thursday I went to Indoor Bowls in Hamilton, and there were heaps of people!  There were four teams for the girls from our school, and four teams for the boys, but the boys were on Wednesday.  Each team played three games and then a final.  Me and my buddy Waiare got the top placing out of our four girls groups, our placing was 16th.  Really big thanks to Mrs Grace who tooks us to and from Indoor Bowls, and put up with us crazy girls.

Au Revoir!

See you next term!

Week 9 Term 2

Second to last week of school.  Yay!!

From Monday to Wednesday we had the Science Fair judging, and I was a finalist, but didn't get a placing sadly.  My project was on milk and pH levels and my question was 'How does the fat in milk affect pH levels?  It was an interesting experiment to do, and I learn quite a bit.  How I id my test was I had three different types of milk, trim, lite, and regular, and I had nine beakers, three for each kind of milk.  I put 100 ml of milk in each beaker, then kept them in a container in a dark corner, and tested their pH level every day, morning and night, for a week.  It was a lot if testing, and the milk started to smell quite bad after a couple of days which was not very nice.

Also this week we started a new tech art, and us year 8's are doing food!!!  I've been really looking forward to doing it.  On Tuesday for our first lesson we didn't do much but we did get to make cheesy roll ups, and dipping sticks.  It was quite a simple recipe so I should be able to make it at home.  Then on Friday I was supposed to make bread, but I didn't go to school because I was sick.  It's very annoying being sick all the time because I like school!  My sinuses have been playing up a lot from the cold, so I keep getting quite sick.  Hopefully I don't miss to many more days!

Can't wait for the holidays!
Au Revoir

Week 8 Term 2

Bonjour Everyone, the term is almost over!

This week in tech arts we did dance and we had to create a dance using the song Freaks, but the version we had was kind of a remix though.  In my group was Hadlee, Caitlin, and me, and it was quite fun.  We had to use different elements of dance like cannon, which is where you pass the move along, mirror, which is where you go opposite another person and copy what they do, freeze frame, which is where you have to hold your pose/position for four seconds, and I think there was a few more which I can't remember.  The hardest thing probably was trying not to make our moves too similar because the beat was repetitive throughout the song.  I think we did okay though.

On Friday I had Jump Jam workshop which was quite cool.  Brett Farweather came, and help us make our moves look better when teaching other schools.  He told us key words we had to remember: Posture, Big, Clarity, Head, Energy, Sharp.  We had to remember these words to help us make our actions look good.  We learnt about verbal and physical Q's, and some people went of stage to try and Q everyone.  It was fun, but hard.  I would really like to go to another Jump Jam workshop because they're really fun, and you learn heaps.

Au Revoir.