Financial Literacy

Today Room 10 had Financial Literacy with Rachael. Finacial Literacy is where people come in and talk to us about how to be good with money. For today's session, we talked about credit and what we use it for. We use credits to buy cars, house, food, furniture, insurance, bills, medical, university, etc. We also talked about people we trust.

Next, 4 volunteers did a skit. Keti and Voni's skit was about lending your friend money and the friend saying that they will pay the lender the next day. Me and Baden's skit was about you lending your best friend your favourite DVD, and the friend returns it back all broken and scratched.

Later on, we had to fill in a little paper before we finished.

Trip to Stardome

On Thursday 12th November 2015, Rooms 7, 8, 9 and 10 students and teachers went on a trip to Stardome. We travelled in 2 buses, rooms 7 and 8 went on one and rooms 9 and 10 went on the other.

Stardome is located in One Tree Hill so we had to travel several kilometres to reach our destination.

Once we reached  Stardome, we had lunch and played for an hour. We played on the Flying Fox and the Octopus Arms. The boys were playing Bull Rush, my friend and I wanted to play, so I asked if the girls can play before we joined in.

An hour went past, we walked inside the foyer and waited for Tim our tour guide to invite us into the Space Room. As we entered the Space Room and sat down, we asked Tim questions about space and astronomy. Tim then talked about the Earth and the Moon, and how far the moon was from Earth. The Moon is 30 times the diameter of the Earth away.

After that, we left the Space Room and wondered about in the foyer, looking at the planets and reading facts about space. As time flowed by Tim called us into the Observatory Room. Inside the room were seats that were lined up. Above us was a dome protruding out of the roof screen. As we settled down in the seats, we watched a movie called Adventures through the Universe. It showed us how the Big Bang created planets and stars. It talked about space and astronomy. It felt weird because to me, it felt like I was in space. When the movie had finished, we learnt about the constellations of stars and planets. We saw all the stars of the planets except for Neptune.

Later on, we left Stardome and travelled back to school. I felt so tired and sleepy after our trip.

 

Duffy Assembly

Duffy Assembly

On Friday 23rd October 2015, Glenbrae School had Duffy Assembly. It started after morning tea. I was so excited for the assembly to start. When everyone was assembled to the hall, the Junior classes and some of the Senior classes sat on the floor, and Rooms 9 and 10 sat on  the seats.

Before  the show started, the entertainers discussed 3 simple rules.
Rule 1: We were allowed to call out the answers
Rule 2: Our bottoms had to touch the floors or the seats during the show at all times
Rule 3: When they did the X sign. that meant that everyone had to quiet down

Soon the show started. It was about a girl who didn't like reading books. She found it boring to go to the library and read books, she would rather watch television or play games. She was failing in her grades  at school. One day, she met a  boy named Duffy, she saw him in the library, she asked him why he liked going to the library. Duffy said that he liked to imagine and dream, but the girl didn't bother to listen, so Duffy took her  to the library and asked her  some questions like 'What she likes', 'What her favourites things are' or 'What she admires'. Sooner or later, she started to read books and fairytale stories, she even started to dream and imagine. She kept visiting the library  from day after day, she asked her mum if she can get a  library card so that she can issue out some books to read. Her mother wasn't really a fan of reading, until Duffy found her a book about fishing. Once she got  her library card she started issuing out books, she kept reading, imagining and dreaming, then her grades were improving in her school work. From that day onwards, she kept dreaming and imagining by reading.

The show was hilarious  One thing I learnt is to never give up, keep imagining and dreaming by reading a lot of books.

Kiwican

Kiwican Reflection

On Friday 23rd October 2015, Rooms 10 and 9 had Kiwican straight after the Duffy Assembly. Our teachers were Miss Tuia and Mr Numia as usual. Our new theme is Respect and our new  topic is Respecting Ourselves.

We  talked  about  our  Personal  Strengths and how  everyone is  different, not everyone is the same. We had a warm up game. We were divided into 2 groups. One person goes inside the circle and says something that they think they  are good at, and the ones  that think that they  are good at it too runs around the circle. Whoever is the last person to reach there spot  has to be inside the circle and then  it is there  turn to say something  that  they think they are  good at.

After that we played a game, when  someone calls out a fruit, we had to jump away  from the taggers, but we were only allowed to jump once. If the person calling out  the fruit names calls out  something that is not a fruit, and we jump then we are out.

We played until it was time for the points. Both  classes got  23 out of 25.

Duffy Assembly

Duffy Assembly

On Thursday 10th September 2015, Glenbrae school had a Duffy assembly in the hall. Our guest was Myron Simpson and he is a cyclist.

Myron Simpson started riding his bike when he was 3 years old. He moved on to racing on the road a few years later. He had been to 25 countries, in 2007 he came second place and won the silver medal in Mexico at the Omnium Events. He has been representing New Zealand since he started biking.

He came to assembly with some of his gears for some students to try on. He came in with his bike, shoes, suit and his helmet. All of these gears were designed to be aerodynamic which means that it is supposed to make him cut through the wind and help him ride faster. His bike was made out of carbon fibre and he got it from France. His helmet was painted by his uncle, on top it had the New Zealand flag and on the sides it had the silver ferns symbol and a kiwi riding a bike with flames following from behind. His current team is Team Budget Forklifts, his discipline is track and road and his role is being a rider.

Myron Simpson said that vehicles are only supposed to go 40 kilometres per hour when they are around schools. The fastest that he could go was 110 kilometres per hour, faster than a car could go in the motorway. He talked to us about how reading is important and his experiences on being a cyclist. After a few minutes, he asked us some questions, he picked 4 students to try on his gears. Danny wore his medal, Honey wore his helmet, Mateaki wore his shoes and Sioeli wore his suit and got to hop onto his bike. When he finished, I got up and said thank you to him for sharing his experiences on being a cyclist and how important reading was.

I learnt to never give up, try my best and keep on reading to achieve my goals.

Poem about Nature

This is a poem that I made up myself.

I see fluffy marshmallows hanging from above
With the doors of heaven opening from the hands of God's son
Feeling the cold air shooting through my skin
Like bullets racing past a tree that is thin
Sitting on seats that are as blue as the sea
Watching the grass roaming lightly with freedom
Thousands of trees standing in a line
From where they can see the bright sun shine

Persuasive Writing: Should We Have 1 Block of Free Time

Persuasive/Argumentative Writing.

The situation that I am addressing is that students should have 1 block

of free time during school everyday. I strongly disagree with this situation because school

is a learning community for students. Having 1 block of free time on our netbooks should not happen. Students have to reach their national standards before the end of the year.

National Standards

The first reason on why I disagree is, it is just a waste of time because there are students that have not reached their national standards. Some students may be near, but most are not even half way. Students need to study to achieve their goals, playing games isn't going to get them anywhere.

Future and Learning

The second reason on why I disagree is that, if we have 1 block of free time then students will lose their focus on learning, this means that if they lose focus, it will not help them in the future. Students have dreams about who they want to be in the future or what kind of careers they want to be in. If they want to have a good future, then they have work for it to earn it, they can't get it just like that.

Foundations

Starting at Primary is the beginning of your foundation, then you move on to your 2nd foundation which is Intermediate, on your 3rd foundation comes College, your foundation continues onto University and goes on. Your future depends on your foundation, especially Primary. Having 1 block of free time a day will affect your foundation, because if you play games on your netbook for most of the day and you’ve hardly learnt anything, your brain will lose knowledge and you won’t be able to achieve your goals.

If you start your foundation off solidly then your future will be solid, which means that you will find everything okay in the future. If you start your foundation off loosely, then you will find things difficult in the future.

Time for Learning and Playing

If we start school at 8:55am and finish at 2:45pm, this means that we only have 5 hours and 50 minutes of school every Monday to Friday and we have 1 hour and 5 minutes to play during school. I think that this is enough time for us to play, if we play for another hour, then we won't have enough time to learn.

We have 5 blocks of school altogether including playtime. We only have 3 blocks of learning time and 2 blocks of playtime. The more we learn, the more our brain will function, but the less time we learn, the less our brain will function.

Saturday's Car Wash

Saturday's Car Wash

Saturday’s Car Wash.

On Saturday 22nd August 2015, some year 7 and 8 students and other students came to Glenbrae to help wash cars and fundraise money for our school camp. I woke up at 6:44am and had a shower, when I was dressed I told my parents and brothers to hurry because the car wash started at 8:00am and it was past 7:30am. I was watching Hotel Transylvania and it was 8:05am then my dad drove the van to the front. It took us 30 minutes to drive to school, but we stopped at the shops to buy a tray of drinks.

When we got to school and entered the school parking, Mr Nath was told us to park near the school pool. The kids waited for us to hop out of the van, before they started washing, I joined in with them and got wet. Only 4 students were allowed at one vehicle but 7 students were washing our van, I joined in with them. Then Mrs Tofa called all the students including me and told us that only 4 students were allowed a 1 vehicle.

We had a lot of vans and cars to wash and we only had 3 construction vehicles. Some of the students had to leave because they were busy. Other students came and helped us out when they finished their rugby games. Miss Tuia, our Kiwican teacher and Mr Nath, one of our staff offered the us a sausage sizzle each.

When it was nearly time for us to end our car wash, we waited for Mrs Tofa our coordinator to calculate the amount of money we raised while we started packing up the equipments. We raised $910.00 altogether. Most of the money was from the car wash. Parents came to pick their kids up when the other kids walked home, my dad picked me, my mum and my brothers. We were all exhausted and glad that it was over.

ANZAC Rememberance Ceremony.

ANZAC Remembrance Memorial

On Thursday 23rd April 2015, Glenbrae School had a remembrance ceremony. We made crosses of 30 soldiers that died during World War 1. Four students from each class got the chance to make the crosses and Room 10 made 6 crosses.

We started the ceremony, with Lieutenant Geoffrey. He said a few words about World War 1, and how many soldiers died in the War and soldiers that were wounded.

Next we all said one verse from a famous poem that a soldier named Laurence Binyon’s wrote.

It is called ‘For the Fallen’ and it said “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.”

This poems means that the soldiers who died shall not grow old because they died in a young age.

After that, students from each class walked up and placed their crosses in a line, some of the bigger kids helped them. When that finished, we played ‘The Last Post’. We stood up and stayed quiet for a while until the song had finished and everyone walked back to class.

Later on, Rooms 7, 9 and 10 walked to the hall and sat down. Lieutenant Geoffrey sat down on a chair and talked to us about how his parents were involved in World War 2. He also talked to us about what they do in the Army, because he joined the army and then he retired. His eldest son is still in the army and his younger one will be joining the army. We asked Lieutenant Geoffrey questions and it took a while because lots of students had lots of questions to ask.

When we finished, Voni stood up and said ‘Thank You’ to Lieutenant Geoffrey, before he left.

MADD Diary

Today on Wednesday 29th April 2015, Room 9 and Room 10 had Petia and Caroline in Room 11, because the hall was used by the Juniors for athletics.

First, Petia drew 5 shapes and they were, squares, rectangles, circles, triangles and squiggles. Petia told us to choose only one shape and get into a group.

Next, Petia asked for a leader from each group. Siosifa was the leader for the Circles, Mafoa was the leader for Triangles, Joseph was the leader for Rectangles, Fusi was the leader for Squiggles and Lennyx was the leader for Squares.Petia gave them a piece of paper, he said that we have to talk about the meaning of the shape we chose.

Siosifa came to our group, and Brandon read the paper. Then, each group got up one by one and read out to the other groups about what our groups name mean. Each group had different meanings.

Before we finished, Petia drew Batman while listening to a song. Everyone sat down and watched him, when he finished, he said that Batman describes all the shapes.

Holiday Recount

Holiday Recount

During the Easter Holidays, I went to watch a movie at Sylvia Park with my brothers and my mum. My dad didn’t come because he was in Australia. We left the house at about 7:30pm on Monday night. My older brother wanted us to go early so that there could be lots of movies available to choose before it started.

When we got to Sylvia Park, we found a parking spot that was only for people that was going to the movies. We found our parking spot, hopped out of the car and headed straight to Pak’n Save.

As we walked into Pak’n Save we got a trolley and looked for things we wanted to eat at the movies. We all chose to get lollies, chips, muesli bars, noodles and drinks. We finally finished buying our food, we walked straight back to Hoyts.

The movie we chose was Fast and Furious 7. Why we chose that movie because it was going to start at 8:30pm and that was the nearest time. We didn’t want the other movies to start later, as it got cold at night. It was very exciting for me because I haven’t watched the movie. The movie took ages to start because there were too many ads. Meanwhile, more people were coming in to find their seats before the movie started. Finally the movie started. Yayee, I couldn’t wait.  

All four of us opened our chips and started eating while watching the movie.

The movie was about a  guy named Ian Shaw giving revenge to the Toretto gang because they killed his younger brother. I felt normal when I was watching the movie, but when it came to parts that involved fighting, I cover my eyes.

After the movie, we walked out of the cinema, there were hardly any people hanging around because it was about to close. As we walked outside the door, it was raining and cold. We ran to the van and mum drove us back home. We went to our rooms and fell asleep because it was past 11:00 o’clock.

MADD Diary

MADD Diary

Today on Wednesday 1st April 2015, Room 10 and Room 9 was in the hall with Petia. We were learning about the differences between famous and skills.

Famous is a special gift that you were born with or that you have got talent. Skills is something where you practise a lot and you get better at it.

Petia told us that we could perform a short play or script about our talent. There were four groups, but only 3 groups performed their items.

The first group did a play about Touch. There was a new player in the team, but whenever someone threw the ball to him, he always dropped it.

The second group was a girl playing the Ukulele to the judges in New Zealand’s Got Talent. Her first audition was bad, but when she came back to audition after two years, the judges were amazed by her skill.

The third group was my group, we did a play about wrestling. A boy invited his friends over to go to his house and try out his new wrestling game. Most parts of the play was just playing around.

The last group didn’t want to perform because most of the students were shy.

I learnt that we can learn from our mistakes and that we can have fun while we are learning something new.

MADD Workshop.

Today on Wednesday 1st April 2015, Room 10 and Room 9 was in the hall with Petia. We were learning about the differences between famous and skills.

Famous is a special gift that you were born with or that you have got talent. Skills is something where you practise a lot and you get better at it.

Petia told us that we could perform a short play or script about our talent. There were four groups, but only 3 groups performed their items.

The first group did a play about Touch. There was a new player in the team, but whenever someone threw the ball to him, he always dropped it.

The second group was a girl playing the Ukulele to the judges in New Zealand’s Got Talent. Her first audition was bad, but when she came back to audition after two years, the judges were amazed by her skill.

The third group was my group, we did a play about wrestling. A boy invited his friends over to go to his house and try out his new wrestling game. Most parts of the play was just playing around.

The last group didn’t want to perform because most of the students were shy.

I learnt that we can learn from our mistakes and that we can have fun while we are learning something new.

Nelson Mandela:Prisoner to President.

Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years in Robben Island. Then he became the first black president in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, and he made a peaceful end to the racist apartheid regime with the leaders of South Africa’s white minority government. After 3 years Nelson Mandela shared a Nobel Peace Prize with F.W de Klerk, the last president of South Africa elected in a whites only election. Nelson Mandela was put in Pretoria Hospital on June 8th for a treatment of a recurring lung infection, the fourth time he was hospitalized since December.

My Holiday Recount.

On the holidays I went to the pools with my brothers to swim while my dad went to the gym for exercise. While I was in the pool, I saw my sister coming with her son and our cousin, my brothers were very excited to see their nephew because they liked playing with him whenever we see them. We were playing a shark game when we were tired we wanted to go to the bigger pool, my nephew had to stay on the shallow bit because he might drown. A few minutes later, my sister and cousin came from the spa and the sauna, we started talking about what we were doing on the days before until I accidentally splashed the water at my mum’s face, we all started laughing and started splashing water at each other. When we saw my dad come from the gym we hopped out of the pool and got changed into our clothes, when we were finished we walked outside and said goodbye to my sister nephew and cousin before we left.

Next we went to the bakery to buy some donuts to eat, then we went to an outlet shop to buy some food.

After that we went to visit my grandma, while we were there we were in the lounge watching Spongebob Squarepants and Good Luck Charlie, when Good Luck Charlie started we only watched a little bit of the programme because we had to go home for dinner.

On the second week of the holidays I went with my mum and my brother Salelei to pick up the bread from the bread bakery in St Heliers called Bakers Delight, while we were there Salelei and I saw my friend Te Puawai, she came with her grandma to help us deliver the bread. Me and my brother were busy playing with Puawai while my mum and Puawai’s grandma were collecting the bread into the boxes, when they were done they started talking while we were still playing, when they stopped talking they said goodbye to each other so did my brother and I, we all started packing the bread’s in the van and drove off.

Then we went home to look after my dad because he was sick, so we decided to bring our grandma my cousin and her baby over to look after my dad too.