Memories and the big day out

My favourite memory from this year would have to be either yr 8 camp or the school picnic. Camp was really fun because there was lots of activities and we just got to spend the whole week with your friends. The school picnic was really fun as well because the weather was so nice and we won the sand castle competition. I think that the big day out this year will be at the beach, but its really impossible to tell because there are no clues at all. Last year was really fun because we went to jungle rama, I just hope this year will be just as fun since its my last big day out.

Going off to college

Since I am a year 8 it means I will be a year 9 next year which also means college. I am very excited because it's completely different to intermediate schools and will be an interesting change, but college also means more work which I am nervous for. I am very busy outside of school and will have to change my schedule so it fits in with the Extra work that I will b given. I'm also sad to be leaving st bens because it was a good school and being a year 8 is fun. I'm looking forward to managing my work and participating in lots of school events and especially athletes day which I have heard is fun. The amount of school work will definetly be the most challenging but hopefully I will adjust to it fine.

Book Week favourite things

Last week was book week, we did lots of fun activities but here are some of my favourites.


The golden ticket hunt! Mr Cunningham hid tickets somewhere in the school and uploaded a close up pick to room 8's blog. Every so often we would have to check on the blog to see if it was updated and if it was we would use the clue to find the ticket. once the ticket was handed back to the teacher the winner would get a small bar of chocolate.


Book character parade was also a highlight. Everyone dressed up in costumes and then there was a parade and prizes for best costumes. Me and my friends went as giraffes because we all had janimals and it was really easy. It was cool seeing what everyone dressed up as.


Even though I was not in it the book quiz was cool. I sat at the back with my friends and we saw what questions we think we could've answered. I'll just say I'm sure Ngatoto was glad I wasn't one of the representatives because I new nothing, even though I read quite a lot. Ngatoto did really well and earned some valuable house points.

Green eggs and ham!

So a book that I read when I was younger was green eggs and ham. I don't really remember why I enjoyed it so much but it might have been because it rhymed or because it was the first real book that I could read (I think I thought it was a chapter book) I was maybe 5 or 6 when I started reading it and I remember thinking that it was really long and hard to get through. I think it was about 2 people and 1 of the people wanted the other one to try Green eggs and ham but he didn't want to so he chased him until he finally tried it and ended up liking it. The author is Dr Seuss.

AFL

So on Thursdays now we have to do AFL. I have to admit it's better than I thought it would be apart from the fact that we have to do it with room 10. We learnt how to do drop punts and we leant a bit about the actual sport. A few phrases to help with drop punts are things like arrow arms or something, I cant really remember. I'm exited for the next session and hopefully it will be better weather. 3 things I learned about AFL was...  the skills are kicking, handballing, picking up etc. the team rules are attack with the ball, attack without the ball,  defense ball neutral, one percenters. an AFL game has 4 quarters and each quarter last 20 minutes.

Favourite Book Series

So lately I have been reading the Cherub series and its the most amazing book series I've EVER READ! There are about 14 books in the series I think and I'm up to the 5th one. I started reading it because my friends Mercedes and Abby were reading it and they seemed to really enjoy it so I tried reading the first one to see if I was interested and it was really cool. Its about this boy named James and he joins this organisation called CHERUB were they use kids as spies to go on missions and stuff. I definitely suggest reading it!

Future Job

So my ideal future would obviously be like a professional soccer or netball player but that's never going to happen so more realistically I would be a physio because its kind of related to sport. If you don't know what a physio does basically they work to maintain and promote peoples health and if you are recovering from and injury or have an injury they help it and give you exercises to do. According to the website I went on you need to have your bachelors and some useful subject's to take are English, biology, chemistry and physics. NCEA level 3 is required . I've never really thought about my future before so a physio is probably not what I'm going to be..... whats your ideal future job???

My Holidays - A Day Out

So on the last day of the holidays Mercedes, Imogen, Abby and I went into town. We went to Café Eis and all bought ice cream, I had a double scoop of chocolate and coconut. In my opinion Café Eis has the best ice cream in Wellington. Afterwards we just walked around because it was really hot out, and went to this place where you an walk along these boatshed roofs. Mercedes pulled her very first needle with a completely straight leg!!! Then we headed down to the beach and did some tumbling and stunts. I got my standing back tuck on the beach (tumbling on the beach is really hard because the sand kind of slips from underneath you) and Mercedes got her standing side Ariel. We did lots of fun stunts like prep, cradle, straddle extension etc. Afterwards we got REALLY thirsty and went to Starbucks, Imogen got a candyfloss Frappuccino (which she didn't like), Mercedes got a double caramel Frappuccino and me and Abby got a hazelnut chocolate Frappuccino. It was a fun day.  

Favourite Art

My favourite piece of art work that I have contributed to is...

I like it because we did lots of blending and it looks really pretty and fits with our theme of Skyline!











My favourite piece of art from another classroom is room 12's astronaut! It looks really cool and I can tell it took them a long time. Its awesome how they hung it from the roof.

One more piece of art that I love is Mercedes and Abby's birds and tree thing! The background is really pretty and the tree and birds are really detailed.

POEMS....

I think the best poem that I have written this term is...

"there once was a small little duck,
who had the best of luck,
till one strange day
he lost his way,
and landed in a pile of muck.

I'm not that good at writing poems but I think this is the best one I have written this term, its a limerick. I like this poem because it rhymes and flows really well!

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh is the artist I have hosen to do this blog post about! Van Gogh was born on the 30th March 1853 and died 29th of July 1890 at just the age of 37. The type of art he is known for is drawing and painting. He has many famous paintings such as Starry Night, Sunflowers, Bedroom in Arles and  Sorrow. I remember when I was in room 8 a few years ago our artist that we based our classroom around was Vincent Van Gogh, one piece of art work we had to do was our own version of Starry night. I like starry night because its kind of abstract but you can still tell what it is and Vincent Van Gogh has taken something ordinary like a night sky and turned it into a famous piece of art.

Sports Fest (after)

For sportsfest I played netball. It was really fun but we lost all of our games apart from the last one. We lost our games by about 15 points but the game that we did win we won by 22 goals!!!! We played really well that game and I even played a bit of GD which was really fun. I normally play GA, GS, C or WA. I think the courts we played at was a great location and the weather was amazing (although sometimes we got too hot). I wish I was doing it again next year but unfortunately I'm not going to be at St Bens anymore. The whole thing was organized very well.

Regional Sportsfest

On Wednesday the year 7/8's are going to a sports fest. I'm participating in netball with some of my friends. I think I can encourage my team to make it a fun day and even if we lose a few games we just have to keep our heads up and I think by doing this we will make the most of our day off school. I'm really exited because it's just a day filled with netball which is one of my favourite sports and I'm spending it with my friends (and cousin). I'm sure it will be a fun day for everyone and I hope it doesn't rain and get cancelled.
What sport are you participating in?

Don't change the flag

I personally think changing the New Zealand flag is a very bad idea, even though it looks pretty much exactly like Australia, and why are we putting so much effort into changing our flag can't Australia just change theirs. The main reason I think it is a bad idea to change the flag is because its completely fine just the way it is, it has the blue background for the royal navy, the stars to show our county's location in the south hemisphere and the Union Jacks recognizes New Zealand's historical origins as a British colony and dominion. Anyway if I had to choose my top four if we were going to change the flag it would be.....



But really I think if they changed the New Zealand flag then I will move back to America (not really, just trying to prove a point)
Anyway if you could choose whether to change the flag or not, what would it be?




ART!

The sort of art I enjoy doing is sketching because it only uses a pencil which is easy to use. I am pretty good at sketching and its fun. I am best at looking at photos from the computer then sketching them onto a piece of paper. I would like to improve painting because I am not good with a brush and I normally mix colours and cant paint very straight. One thing that I don't like is collage because it takes sooooo long! But it does end up looking pretty cool, here is my amazing art work

Dinner with some guests

If I could invite anyone to dinner ever I would invite Maddie from dance moms as my real person and for my fictional character SpongeBob Square Pants.




QUESTIONS FOR MADDIE!




1. What made you want to start dance?
2. What is your favourite food and why?
3. Who is your favourite dance mom and why? (it cant be your mom!)
4. If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be?
5. Do you think Abby Lee Miller favours you over everyone else?




QUESTIONS FOR SPONGBOB!




1. How come you never grow up?
2. How old are you because you look the same in every episode?
3. How long have you been working at the Krusty Crab?
4. How many Krabby patties have you made and eaten?
5. Can you make a Krabby patty for meeee?

Memories....

So this week we have to share a good memory we have had with a family member but I'm just going to do a memory that included the whole family. So last Christmas my family plus my cousins and aunties and uncles we all travelled to Wanaka and spent 4 days there. It was really fun and we did lots of things like swimming, hiking, biking, walking, tubing, dancing and jumping of planks of wood.... It was good having the family together and being able to spend Christmas with them in a place like that. I really hope that we can do it again sometime!!!!

Holidays

I had one of the best holidays ever! In the first week I got to fly to Sydney with my FTC football team and play in a tournament against other Australian teams! But it wasn't just all soccer one of the days we got to go sight seeing around Sydney. We went to a stadium that had over 86,000 seats and had a private tour around there, jet boating in Sydney harbour, up the Sydney sky tower and shopping! It was so much fun probably one of the greatest experiences of my life! But after the six days in Sydney me and my dad hopped on a plane to America and spent just over a week there! There was a lot of shopping involved and we did so many fun activities! But now I'm jet lagged. Have you ever been to America or Australia?

Nairnville!!!

This term we have been going to Nairnville every Thursday for sport. I've been finding it really fun especially the first few weeks when we did gymnastics! I didn't really learn anything during our gym sessions because I could already do everything but after that we did ripper rugby. It was more fun than I expected and I think I got a few useful skills out of it even though I don't play it. Last week it was soccer and I love soccer! Even though most people didn't enjoy it I still loved it. I didn't really learn anything and it was like the gymnastics because I still had fun. I can't wait till tomorrow to do it again!

German

This year we have been learning German with Ms Rodgers as our language. I'm actually learning quite fast and can count to 100, but the thing I struggle with is putting it into sentences and asking questions in German. I think German could help me in the future because if I ever go to Germany for a holiday I would be able to ask simple things and be able to find out simple information. I don't think I'm taking German at college so it probably wont help me there but I'm still finding it really fun to learn as a little extra thing. 

E.P.I.C

The school values are a big part of our school, there is Empathy, Perseverance, Integrity and Creativity which spells out E.P.I.C. We have to write about a time this week where we have shown one of these values. This week we had to write a creative story about just anything and I used the value of creativity and perseverance because it was really hard to just sit down at the computer for a while and just write a story. I also showed empathy during fitness when we had to run up and down touching each line because I could've ran really fast but since my friend was slow I hung back with her, she showed the value of perseverance.

The Fault In Our Stars

Recently I read a really good book called the Fault in our Stars. Its basically about these two teenagers, a boy and a girl that have cancer and fall in love. There names are Augustus Waters and Hazel. They do everything together and are pretty much cancer free until one day Augustus is diagnosed again and everything goes downhill from here. Its a really sad but good book, one of the quotes is "I'm on a rollercoaster that only goes up my friend" and "Okay? Okay"  I recommend it for older kids that want a cute but sad love story!

Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos Islands has been a really interesting topic for the term. I learnt lots of things like.... how animals adapt, what sorts of animals live on the islands, how the islands formed and it has helped me understand what evolution is. Another thing I would like to learn about the Galapagos Islands is discovering more animals because all the animals we have learnt about so far have been really interesting so I would like to learn about some more of the species the live on the islands.

Responsibilities!!!!

At the beginning of the year we all wrote letters to different teachers to get different responsibilities like first aid, librarians etc. I became a sport leader, so Imogen, Eva and I got given a day to be on which is Wednesday. Every Wednesday we go to morning tea and lunch early to pull out the P.E cart and take care of the sports equipment. I have enjoyed the responsibility and helping kids at break.

Finacial Stuff

Yesterday a guy named Vane came to our school from ASB to talk to us about being wise with our money. He was really funny and he gave us some good tips on how to earn money and be careful with it. We played some fun activities and and did some exercises but mainly he did alot of talking, which was fine because he had really good humor and made us laugh alot. I think i did learn some things about money and eftpos cards and that there are 2 ATMS in Antartica but only one of them works. It was fun!

Mission Fair!

Last Friday was the Mission Fair, I was in a group with all my friends, (there was like 11 of us). I had so much fun and we raised lots of money. At my stall we had lots of activities and food like Jelly, Donuts, Sherbert, Fudge, Waffles and games like Lolly pong, choc coin throw, Hairspray and face paint. The whole thing went really well but one thing I would change would be nothing! Unfortunatley this was my last year doing the mission fair so I'm glad we raised lots of money and had fun doing it.

ANZAC Day

What have I learned???
I have learnt lots of things about WW1 because to begin with I didn't know  that much any way. I mainly learned about how many people lost their lives in Gallipoli, and about the medals the soldiers could earn like the Victoria Cross.

I attended the light show on ANZAC Day but I didn't go to any of the parades. The light show was really cool and lasted about 15 minutes. I also went to the Pulse game and before it began there was someone who played the trumpet, did a speech and ended in a moment of silence. I think it is good how much people do for the soldiers who fought in the war and it is very important that we commemorate their bravery.
 

CAMP!!!

Last week was one of the greatest experiences of my LIFE! We spent five days up in Tongariro on camp. Although it was a long and hard four hour drive to get up there it was worth it. Some of my favourite activities we did was caving and the flying fox. I enjoyed caving because there were lots of challenges like having to squeeze through tight gaps and not getting to scared of being in such a small area. The flying fox was also AMAZING! It went over a massive river  and trees and had an amazing view. I think it was also really good because there were some people in my group who were scared of heights but everyone encouraged them to do it and when they got back up to the top they said it was the best activity. Something that I found easy was high ropes. I first thought that it was going to be kind of difficult but it turned out to be super easy. My proudest moment was probably when I jumped off the super high bridge into the freezing water, and when I canoed to the camp site in the back of the canoe the whole way there. My favourite moments were in the evenings where we just got to hang around the house and do gymnastics on the lawn. I actually did a lot of gym skills outside that I was proud of.

Group work skills

Over the past 3 weeks we have been doing projects in groups. Mr Cunningham put us into groups of 2 or 3 and gave us a country in the cricket world cup to gather information about and put into a poster and a PowerPoint. I was in a group with James and we were studying West Indies. I think we did really well working together because we had the best PowerPoint presentation in the class and our poster looked really well. I prefer working in a group because people have different things they are good at so the quality of work is higher.

Things I have learned this week

The country I am Studying

The country I am studying is West Indies with James. I have learned that they have won the Cricket World Cup twice - once in 1975 and the other in 1979

Something I have learned about Someone else in the Class

I have learned that Lottie has an allergy to nuts and eggs and we found out how to use an epipen (don't know how to spell it) in case she eats one.

One other thing

I have learned what a box and whisker graph is in math. Only the India math group knows this though because we were the only ones who got taught it.

Soccer

Something that I have been highly interested in for a while now is soccer. I first started playing when I was three and from then I have really enjoyed. Last year I got asked to come to a trial for the FTC team (federation talent centre) so I went along to that in Petone and  got accepted. I am in it again this year and am still really having fun and improving my skills. It interests me because there are always things to learn so you aren't just repeating things you learned years ago. Also there are really nice and fun people to play with and against and its good to make friends.

Back at School

The first weeks back at school have been average. It's always difficult when the holidays end but at least I'm  a year 8. It is different being the older ones in the class rather than the younger ones and having people look up to you is different. All the privileges that come with being a year 8 is pretty cool. Its good being the ones who know how the task system works so the tasks have been pretty easy.