Halloween in America

I thought you would enjoy some Halloween pics.
Ava

Sara and Sailu

This week in Room 24 we have welcomed student teachers, Sara and Sailu into our class. Sara and Sailu taught the class a traditional Malaysian dance that was judged for this weeks roadblock activity. We enjoyed your visit Sara and Sailu, thanks for the great dance moves!

Ross Creek Adventure

What an AWESOME day! What did you enjoy? Learn? Leave a comment.

Orienteering

Team Challenge

Rap Jumping

Harness, 'Check', Helmet 'check', rope tied 'check'. Ready, steady, GO! I run run run! Down the cliff, I look down NOOOOoooo, why did I look down! Arggh! It's like the river it just waiting for me to fall, then it will just swallow me up. But I know I'm safe, I grab the rope just in case. 'It's there, phew! That terrifying eperience is over I will nver do that again. But for some reason I do want to do it again.
By Georgia K

Italian Roadblock

Check out the Amazing Race Teams

Ross Creek Adventure

What you need to bring:
A hearty lunch...
The items below all need to be clearly named:
Sun hat
Wool or fleece hat
Waterproof jacket (incase it rans) we don't stop for weather!
Warm jersey or polar fleece
Spare T shirts (incase you get wet)
Spare pants (incase you get wet)
Shorts
Lace up shoes
1 big plastic bag for dirty clothes

Medicines for the day
Insect repellent and antihistamine cream if needed?
Don't bring cameras because you might lose them in the bush!!
REMEMBER... YOU WILL get wet feet and muddy so wear old clothes and lace up shoes.
With shadows, creeks and moving water in the bush the temperature is always much colder than out in the sun. Be prepared for cold even on hot days. A shower of rain in the bush means clothes will be saturated very quickly so be prepared.

Athletics

Get those running shoes on, Caledonian here we come!! Make sure you bring your WARM gears along. See you there Room 24!

The Amazing Race has begun...

First stop NEW ZEALAND. I'm excited! I know the effort and standard of presentation is going to blow me away this year. Remember what you put in, is what you get out. So get stuck in and dazzle us with your creativity.
Remember team photos will be taken on Thursday so make sure your team is ready to go in your team colours and have an idea of your photo location.
All tasks including roadblocks will be marked on Friday.

Long Beach

Here are some pictures of our Long Beach trip...

Maggi Cookoff dates

Below are the dates that The Maggi Kitchen Showdown will be aired on The Erin Simpson Show…


Thursday 9th September ­ Upper North Regionals
Thursday 16th September ­ Lower North Regionals
Thursday 23rd September ­ South Island Regionals
Friday 24th September ­ Special Maggi Final
Wed 29th September ­ Winning Maggi item

Long beach here we come!

Room 24 will be rock climbing today! Yahoo! Remember to pack: warm layers, raincoat, a hearty lunch, a large drink bottle of water, torch, named trowel and if we're lucky it could even be sunny - so pack a sunhat just in case. I'm looking very forward to it! (Gerard, we have a few more students to travel in your car). See you all at school in good time.

Hever Castle

The wedding was held close by to this magnificent castle! There was a jousting tournament held here the day after the wedding. The castle was Anne Boleyn's childhood residence. Who was she??? What facts can you find out about her or her husband. Find out and leave your answer in the comment box.

Term 3 Week 1 Homework

Ohhh, exciting - the first part of this term we will be learning all about the human body. You homework this week is to check out the BRAINPOP website and complete an activity on the human skeleton.
Check out the BRAINPOP link on the right hand side of the page. You will need to login when you open the site. Our class user name for this week is balmac24 and password balmac24.
First of all have a little explore - there are many many cool things to learn here. Once you have finished browsing check out the HEALTH section. Next click on BODY SYSTEMS, then SKELETON.
Watch the video, then complete the ACTIVITY section link. You can either print out the activity and glue it into your book, or simply write the words and their definitions straight into your homework book. If you like you can complete the quiz section too.
Good work team!

LONDON!

Holidays and Term 3

Wow wee!! School holidays are almost over! What have you all been up to? How was Central Otago, Wellington, Australia, Ashburton, Christchurch, Moana pool, football watching (go Spain! Olivia, your team 'the Netherlands' was so close) and the movies??? Have you been getting fit ready for the cross country? I have had the most lovely time in London! I have caught up with many friends and been running in all my favourite places. It has been hot hot hot over here! I popped in to visit the old school that I used to teach at and happened to stumble upon their Sports day. It was great fun catching up with them all.
I'm now looking forward to heading home and seeing you all on Thursday. Term 3 will be a great term! We will start the term by learning about the human body, focusing on the skeletal, muscular and respiratory system to begin with. Ukulele and marimba are also coming up for Room 24. In writing we will be looking at persuasive writing and maths we will concentrate mostly on fractions, decimals and percentages.
I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful holiday and are ready for an exciting Term 3! (Maggi team - I hope you sneaked in a few practises over the holidays.)

Young leaders day.

All of the school council reps and myself went to the Regent theatre for the 2010 young leaders day. There were lots of speakers that talked about what makes a good leader. But my most inspiring speaker was Mark Ingles because he always had a dream which was to climb Mt Everest. But when he was 35 years old, whilst climbing Mt Cook he got frost bite on his legs so they got amputated off. But after 5 years he made his dream come true by being the first man to climb Mt Everest with artificial legs. But on his way down him and his 3 crew members got stuck in a ice cave for 13 days!!! After being rescued he recovered in hospital but when he wakes up he had no fingers due to frost bite. This man taught me that if you want to achieve your goals there is always a consequence and that only those that take risks will achieve their goals.

If you have any more comments about what makes a good leader post them


By Tom Hanson.

59% to 88.2% in 4 weeks!!!

What a finish! Super effort Room 24. You've come from the humble beginnings of 59% to achieving a whopping 88.2% yesterday. This will give you a good head start in learning more complex multiplications and divisions now. Keep the practise up. We still want to crack that 90% mark. Post a comment to show much did you improved by?

Term 2 Week 6

Great news in the Mega Maths results... Room 24 raised the bar from 78% to 82%. Rumour has it we'll hit 90% this week. Let's go out with a BANG this week and really get those multiplication facts down pact.
The Science Fair projects are coming along nicely. Most of you will be getting into the testing over the next couple of weeks. For those that are testing on humans, you'll need to make sure you have shown me your parent consent forms.
We have a special guest to Room 24 - Connor's Mum 'Mrs Sutherland' to give us some tips about presenting our information onto the science fair boards.
Well done to the Room 24 students taking part in the famine this weekend to raise money for those in need overseas. I'm looking forward to hearing how you got on at school on Monday.

Word types

Today we looked at different types of words and their 'job' in sentences. Try this interactive activity to practise what you've learnt today. (We haven't covered the last two in class yet. See if you can figure them out.) Post a comment telling us how you got on.

MEGA MATHS WEEK 2

Go Room 24. Two weeks ago our average was 59%, last week we raised that to 71%. This week (drum roll please) we have climbed to 78%! The even better news is that we still have two more weeks left of May to get high up into the 80's and beyond! Keep learning those tables team.

TABLES SPEED TEST TOMORROW!!

Tomorrow will be our first Friday multiplication speed test. I'm looking forward to seeing the average score going up!

UPDATE:
From 59% to 70% in five days! What a great start!

Term 2 Week 3

Tomorrow we head off to the Eco-santuary. I'm looking forward to our visit, I'm also excited about all the great photos you will be taking. We'll put a selection up on our blogpage.

Science Fair
I am quietly impressed with some of the ideas that Room 24 are developing. Now we need to continue researching for background information and look at how we can write the information into our own words. By Monday of next week I would like to see evidence of background research, an aim and a hypothesis (what do you think is going to happen and why)

By the end of next week the method for the experiment should be completed and the actual experiment should be underway.

Mega Maths Month
We are busy with our mega maths month. Remember we need to become faster and more accurate with our times tables. Our class average is 59%. I would love to see it increase to at least 80%. So get practising!

MEGA MATH MONTH!

For the month of May, we are having a major school wide push on times tables. Over the next 4 weeks we are going to 'get stuck in' learning our times tables. Every Friday we will be tested on 100 times tables. The test will be timed, with a cut off of 3 minutes.
Down the right handside of this blog page I have listed some helpful websites for you to practise your times tables.
Tomorrow we will find out what our target score is - let's work super hard to achieve this target!!!
Leave a comment to let us know which game you tried out tonight!

The REPORTING stage

A ha - I have got the printer working so you will receive a hard copy of this tomorrow. We discussed the information below in class today - everyone should have a clear idea about what is expected.

On Friday I will collect in your ASPIRE folders.

What should your folder look like?
In your folder there should be evidence of background research; this should be notes, highlighted information, photocopies pictures for example. There may be notes from your interview, emails from people that you have emailed and any other information that shows us what you have been doing ‘behind the scenes’.

Where to now?
On Friday I will be expecting you to hand in your folder, evidence of your interview (this may be a DVD, a MP3 recording, on a cassette, written form, photo story) as well as a SUMMARY of your interview that basically pulls all the information that you have found out from your interview, your background research and it should ANSWER the big question! You will have to think hard about this.

You will present your findings to the class on Friday (Thursday if you'd rather get it done sooner). You may like to present your information on a poster, give a small speech, PowerPoint presentation etc. Remember for this ASPIRE I am most interested in the process.

Well done with your progress so far!

Science Fair: The first few steps...

This week we will talk about the Science Fair next term. We will talk much more about this next term. Below, I have included some things to get you thinking about what is involved in the Science Fair and how we will go about completing it.

Research: Start off by finding out as much as you can about your topic. Visit the library, browse the web, discuss your ideas with your parents, your teachers, your friends, arrange to talk with an expert . . .

You can access a wide range of encyclopedias and other reference material online through the Wellington City Libraries.

Your Question: Now that you know something about your subject, you need to decide on a problem you can investigate: a question that you can test by doing experiments e.g. how does ______ affect ________, or a device or gadget that you can design, build and test to fulfill a task. Use your imagination, be different, but also be practical: make sure you have the resources and the time to complete your project.

Plan your experiments: or your design. Try to be methodical, logical and organised! You have identified one variable you want to investigate, but are there others?

For example, I am investigating how much baking powder I should put in my cake mixture to make the cake rise the most. But what other variables might affect the way cakes rise? Other ingredients in the recipe? Cooking time? Cooking temperature? Brand of baking powder? . . . All these other variables must be kept the same throughout my experiments if it's the amount of baking powder I want to check.

Think carefully about how you are going to make your measurements 'How do you measure how much a cake has risen? '

How are we shaped by the past?

How has Gallipoli shaped New Zealand today? Write your thoughts and opinions backed up with a fact on our ANZAC accumulation page. You can find the link on the right hand tool bar.

We meet Sam!

Thank you Will for bringing Sam in to meet us today. We all enjoyed your talk on caring for a puppy. The visit has certainly made me want one!
Room 24 tell us about your dog, or a dog you would like to own one day. What mischeif do they get up to...

Science Fair

Yahoo, Science Fair next term! Here are a few of the goodies from last year to inspire you. We will have a chat about what is involved in Science fair towards the end of next week.

Freshman Shield Challenge

Well we didn't walk away with the shield... but we did walk away knowing that we all tried our best. It was great to see some excellent small ball skills being put into play. We also came away with some good strategies to use in future challenges.

Week 8 - Whoa, already!!!

Well Room 24, we have an action packed week ahead. On Friday we will pack up our classroom in preparation for the move into our new classroom. How exciting! We will spend next week in the Learning Centre. Lucky us, we will have books and computers galore!

Last week we ticked off the 'A' in our ASPIRE inquiry. You have all accumulated good open ended questions and have found background information from at least two sources of information ready for Tuesday. First up this week we will learn how to sort (the 'S' in ASPIRE) though that information, sussing out what is relevant and what is not. At the same time we will highlight keywords and take a few notes of the important information.

Later in the week we will hit the 'P' in ASPIRE and PLAN our interview.

We will start our Nigel Brown paintings in Week 9, however we have some planning and practise to do first. This week we will be collecting ideas and practising drawing them.

Week 7 - Into ASPIRE

Make sure you browse though the trip photos below and leave a comment on at least one of the posts.

Today we started our ASPIRE inquiries, where our aim is to answer our big question 'HOW ARE WE SHAPED BY OUR PAST? We discussed what an ASPIRE inquiry is. Basically a process to guide you through your own learning/inquiry. It will continue to become clearer to you as we go through the process. Each term we will revisit the process. Next term the ASPIRE inquiry will be your science fair project.

A key part of any ASPIRE inquiry is to manage your time carefully. Your large ASPIRE timeline will help you to do this. We will compete the timeline in class after each ASPIRE session and tick off each task as it is completed.

This week we are working on the 'A' of ASPIRE - the ACCUMULATING stage. First brainstorming open ended interesting questions, then later this week gathering together a range of information to give us some background knowledge of our topic.

You came up with some great ideas today in class. I'm looking forward to seeing how you have built on them after discussing your ideas with your parents and caregivers at home.

Early Settlers Museum and Chinese Garden,

After learning about the Whalers in class it was interesting to see the actual equipment they used to hunt the whales and turn the blubber into oil. Dustin checks out a whare.
We peacefully made our way around the Chinese Gardens taking careful note of the intricate variety of patterns used in the garden.

Room 24's Scottish families.

Here you all are, looking stunning. Leave a comment to say what your 'Scottish family name' was for the activity.

Room 24's History and Culture Tour...

What a neat experience we had today at the Early Settlers Museum. We had a glimpse at what it would have been like aboard the Phillip Laing enroute to New Zealand. Imagine squeezing at least four family members per bunk, the stench when the ocean waves came aboard via the long drop, the frequent unpleasent seasickness and the length you were aboard the ship sharing such close quarters.
Leave a comment on our blog explaining what you think it would have been like?

Nigel Brown

Our first stop was to the Milford Gallery where we came face to face with Nigel Brown's original artwork. It was fantastic to see them in real life and to discuss what all the symbols he uses in his artwork mean. Great ideas were contributed to the discussion - good work. I'm looking forward to seeing what you masterpieces you create next week, when we get our art shirts on.
Your challenge is to add a comment about what is a symbol that Nigel Brown used in this artwork. What does it represent?

Golf

Today Room 24 had their golf lesson with Melanie Harper. There were plenty of balls flying through the air at great speeds. Room 24 had many budding golfers.

Week 6

Well done Room 24 on a great week of homework. We had an interesting time sharing the story behind our street on Friday. It was good to hear students finding information in a range of places not just the internet. Some found out from elderly neighbours, others contacted the Early Settlers Museum, the DCC, library and more.

Last week I focussed on your spelling presentation for the 'homework points'. This week I will be looking across the board. Your camp booklets should be pretty much finished as we have spent a decent amount of class time on them. We will cover Haiku poetry tomorrow, in case the poetry page is concerning you.

I'm pleased you have successfully planned out your homework paired timeline activity with your partner. Remember if you do not have a partner and I have spoken to you, you will be pulling out all the stops to dazzle me with your time management this week.

On Friday our class will be on 'tour'. Hitting the Milford Gallery, Early Settlers museum and finally the Chinese garden. Thank you to the parents who are able to provide transport on Friday. Meet Room 24 in class at 8:45am. We will aim to leave before 9am.

We also have golf on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have got! If it is your first time - you'll love it! There is something about getting it all together and pulling out an amazing shot.

Camp Survey

It would be great to get some feed back on camp from students and parents about what was enjoyed and what went well along with any room for improvement to make the camp an even better one in the future, It would be great if you could take 5 minutes to complete the survey



Click here to take our Online Survey

WHAT A CAMP!!!!

It was an absolute pleasure taking you all on camp this week. What an awesome bunch of students and super group of parents! Everyone got stuck in and made it a camp to remember. The manners were top notch, attitudes superb, weather amazing and food delicious. You can't ask for much more than that!

To remind us of our time on camp I would love to get hold of the photos somehow (unfortunately my camera conked out on the first day). I saw a few cameras snapping so we should be able to put together something.

Room 24, what did you think of camp? Tell us your funny camp stories... Highlights... Firsts...

A couple of camp reminders...

2 MORE SLEEPS!
Remember - A Newspaper and a decent sized drink bottle for the tramp.
If you have any last minute questions, post them on here - I will make sure I post the answers on Sunday night before camp.
I can't wait! See you all nice and early on Monday!
Happy baking!

Getting ready for camp!

Yahoo! I can't wait... only 11 more sleeps untill we head to camp Waihola! Oh what fun you are in for!!!
We would like to sleep in tents both our nights at camp. So Room 24 is on the hunt for '4 man' tents. We will take exceptional care of them. Please let me now quickly if you have one that we could lend.

Here is a sneak preview of WHAT TO BRING TO CAMP:
Bedding
☺ Sleeping bag and extra blankets if required.
☺ Pillow or pillow case
☺ Bed Roll
Clothing and personal items
☺ P J’s
☺ Shorts and T shirt (3-4)
☺ Sturdy shoes (waterproof is best) suitable for walking (gym shoes are fine)
☺ Another pair of shoes (just in case)
☺ Socks (3-4)
☺ Long trousers/track pants
☺ Underwear (3-4)
☺ Warm top (1-2)
☺ Jacket – waterproof if possible
☺ Wetsuit/Swimming togs(in a plastic bag)
☺ Toilet bag and personal gear (toothbrush etc)
☺ Towel and Tea towel
☺ Sunhat and sunscreen
Other equipment
☺ Torch
☺ Any medical requirements
☺ A plastic bag
☺ Writing gear
☺ One container of Baking. Everyone shares this for supper, morning tea etc
☺ Lunch for first day
☺ Water Bottle
Students may not bring
• Radio’s, walkmans cd’s, cell phones, ipods
• Money
• Pocket knives
• Make-up, perfumes, hairspray or other unnecessary hygiene products

I will be sending home a notice tomorrow (Friday) afternoon and also answering any questions you may have.

Here is a question for you: What are you looking forward to most about camp?

What a start!

What a great start to Balmac you have all made. You have settled quickly into Room 24 and are ready to get amongst the awesome opportunities on offer at Balmac. I have been so impressed by your positive attitudes and level of support towards one another already!
The baby photo competition took place on Friday. What a bunch of cute baby photos! It was a rather tough task to match the baby to the Year 7. We will find out on Monday how you all got on.
Well done to those who have managed to cover their books already - they are looking very stylish.
Remember we have swimming this Wednesday - don't forget your togs! I'm really looking forward to another super week! I'm 'dog-sitting' my sisters dog (a very excited border collie lab cross called 'Lacey') today, so we are off to the beach for an adventure.

Welcome to Room 24's blog page!

Welcome to Room 24's blog page. You will visit this blog page lots over the year. This is where you can check out our photos, sports information, cool websites, post your comments on topics of interest and a few more bits and pieces.
I'm looking forward to an awesome year!
Happy posting.

My first question for you is...
"How did you feel before and during your first day at Balmacewen?"