Home Learning Challenge A12

A11 : Design your own challenge
Create a plan to get pet rats, and convince my parents to let me get them.

Excellence 2017 Can Do #10

Year 8 trip to Wellington 

Final Day

On Thursday, we had a bit longer in the morning, to pack our stuff, and tidy our rooms. We put all our bags in storage, as we had to be out by 10:00. After leaving the YHA, we went to the national library, where we found out about, and looked at, the treaty of Waitangi, the women's  suffragettes pension, and the declaration of independence. We saw the actual things, in darkened rooms, although they turned a special type of light on so we could see it. It was cool to be able to see them. After that we had lunch, then we had the choice to go back to Te Papa, or relax in a park. I took the Te Papa option. We could do a scavenger hunt, or just look around. Tracy, Jacinta and I did the scavenger hunt for a bit, then just looked around. Then we met back up with the rest of the group. We then took a bus back to the Airport, and flew back to Christchurch.

The care value I showed was Respect, by being respectful to the person who was showing us round, and on the plane by being quiet. I showed Trustworthy, a leadership value, at Te Papa, by returning at the right time to check in, and by following the rules there.

Excellence 2017 can do #9

Year 8 trip to Wellington 

Third day

On Wednesday, the two groups swapped over. We went to the press conference room, where some people pretended to be the prime minister answering questions from the press. After that we meet Ruth Dyson, our electorate MP. We asked her some questions, and she showed us round, we even went into the cafe, and under the road to Bowen house.

We had leftover noddle canteen for lunch, then went to Te Papa. At Te Papa we looked around a bit, although we didn't get to see the whole thing, and I would have liked to stay longer. It was interesting.

We had pizza for dinner that night.

The care value I showed was Respect, by respecting the displays at Te Papa. The leadership trait I showed was Trustworthy, by only staying in the areas we were allowed in at Te Papa.

Excellence 2017 can do #8

Year 8 trip to Wellington 

Second Day

 On the second day - Tuesday - we split into two groups, I was in Mr Ladbrook's group, and we went to Parliament first, where we did a mock debate, had a look around some of parliament, had fish and chips for lunch, and watched question time. The second thing we did that day was go to the reserve bank, where we were asked lots of questions about the bank, and money in general. We could earn lollipops, as well and shredded money (they tried to trick us that it would be regular money) and an unreleased 10 cent coin from 2007. I got 3 lollipops and a bag of shredded money. We went back to the YHA, and had Noddle Canteen for tea, it was good.

A care value I showed was Active Thinking, by answering questions as well as I could. I showed Resilience, as it was quite a long day, but I paid attention.

Excellence 2017 can do #7

Year 8 trip to Wellington 

The first day

On the 13th of November, the year 8's took a bus to Christchurch Airport, where we flew to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. We were staying at the YHA, and we dropped our bags off there and got changed, before going to the National war memorial. 

There we learnt about WW1, and followed the story of Will, a man who fought in WW1, and survived, although he lost his arm. There were real things from WW1, that were part of Sir Peter Jackson's collection, so we were quite lucky to seen them. We also watched the daily ceremony.

Afterwards we went back to the YHA and had Subway for dinner.

A care value I showed was respect by not touching anything we weren't allowed to touch, and being respectful during the ceremony. 
A leadership trait I showed was Resilience by paying attention and being respectful even though I was tired.

Excellence 2017 Can Do #6

On Wednesday last week we had our book character day. I came as Kvothe from the Name of the Wind. We had a parade in the morning; the year 7/8s were with the year 1's, 3's, and 5's. There were a lot of good costumes that people had put lots of effort into.

The care value I showed was Respect by respecting peoples costumes, and being quiet while other people were showing off their costumes. I showed Active Thinker, a leadership trait, by creating my costume from things we already owned.

Excellence 2017 Can do #5

On the 24-25 of October, we had our athletics day. The 12 and 13 year olds were together, and the order in which we did things was first shotput, then long jump, then discus, high jump, and on Wednesday we did sprints. I didn't place in anything, but it was a good day out of the classroom. On Wednesday we also had the house relays. As I am a house captain I had to do this, and rimu did ok, coming third. I also did longdidtance another day, and came fourth.

I showed Community by cheering other people on, and Excellence by trying my hardest.
The leadership trait I showed was Resilient, by running the whole long distance, and not giving up.

Excellence 2017 Can do #4

This term we have started doing a different activity on Fridays. I am doing Gamification - we code games using a website called gamefroot. During the first week, we started simple. The first game we made was a simple thing called mihi maker- all we had to do was fill in the blanks on what applied to us. It was somewhat frustrating when the program would forget what we had already typed in, but it was fairly straight forward. The second one I got to start on, was a sort of game a bit like minecraft, but you could only go left and right. This time there was no turitorial, we had to figure it out ourselves. By the time I had just got started on the second one, the bell rang.

The care value I showed was Community by helping other people who were unsure of how to do it.
The leadership value I showed was Resilience by keeping going when the program didn't work, and completing the first task.

Home learning challenge E.11

I have wanted pet rats for a while, so I decided to write a plan on how to get them.

Excellence 2017 House Captain #5

The project we [the student leaders of 2017] decided on, was to paint a chorus box in our neighborhood. The purpose of this is to discourage anyone from doing graffiti on it. We will also be responsible for keeping the completed box free of graffiti. This job will be past down to the next years student leaders when we go to high school.

On Wednesday we had a meeting discussing these things, and also looking at the ideas for a sketch to put on it we had all submitted. These ideas were mainly about including nature, things to do with the community, Oakland's logo and values, quotes, and and making it colorful. We will submit sketches, and chorus (the company) will decide on the one they want, and an artist will do the final sketch

The care values I showed were:
-Respect by listening respectfully to people.
-Active thinking by adding my ideas to everyone else's.

The leadership values I showed were:
-Trustworthy by completing the work I needed to do in the time I had to do it.

Excellence 2017 House Captain #4

We had our final bake sale on Tuesday, and as usual, the student leaders were helping. This time there was less food than usual as only about 21/22 people brought baking, instead of the usual 29/30. Because of this, we had to limit it to one piece of food each, and the younger kids get to go first (because they seem to think they need the food more). This time I was helping on the junior bake sale (it is near the little kids and usually has the colorful food).

The care value I showed were Respect by being respectful and patient to the little kids.
The leadership trait I showed was Trustworthy by being carful with the food.

Excellence 2017 House Captain #3

9/8/17

Bake Sale

Today we had our third bake sale. I made chocolate cake, cut into squares. As a house captain, I also helped to sell the baking. There wasn't to much this time, so some things had to be cut in half, which we did. Because of this, most things were only a dollar, but kids could only buy one thing(at least at the start). To make such this happened, we had to put dots on their hands after they bought something. This was harder than it sounds, and I don't think it was entirely successful, but overall the sale went well.

The care values I showed was Respect, by being respectful to people buying food, and Community by working with the other house captains to sell the food. The leadership value I showed was integrity by giving people correct change, and also when someone started to walk away without getting the food they paid for, I shouted after them.

Home learning Challenge C4

I did the 40 hour Famine. I slept on the floor, and went without technology for 40 hours. I raised $60.20

Excellence 2017 Te Hapua #3

On Friday we went to Te Hapua as usual. It was our final session of robotics. We were doing a maze. Jacinta, Warisha and I were working together. The point of the maze was to knock over all the skittles and get out of the maze again. We were supposed to use the robots senses as well. None of the groups finished the maze, although quite a few were close, including us.

I showed Community by working with my team and taking turns to test our robots in the maze. The leadership trait I showed was Active Thinker, while programming the robot.

Home Learning Challenge R3

I created this on scratch. It shows how students could show the care values in the playground/outside.

Excellence 2017 Te Hapua #2

On Friday my class went to Te Hapua. We learnt how to program the lego mindstorms to use their senses, such as colour and touch senses. Their is also an ultrasonic sensor, and a light sensor. I got my robot to say the colour and do an action when I show it a different colour. I also got it to 'bounce' of the wall, using the touch sensor. Next time we will be navigating our robots around a maze, with a prize to the group who finishes first.

I used the care value of Active Thinking, by trying new things when one thing wouldn't work.
I used the leadership trait of Goal Focused, by persevering and eventually being one of the first groups to succeed.

Excellence 2017 House captain #3

On Tuesday we had a bake sale. The house captains were responsible for setting up stands, and selling the food. We set up trestle tables around the school, and placed the baking the year 8's brought on these tables. Groups of students came out to buy food, and at times we had quite a long line infront of the table. Overall it was a success, although there was less food than last time, as less people brought food, so we made less money. However, for the people who brought food they probably made more money towards their Wellington camp, as there were less people to split the money between. We made around $700.

The care values I showed were Community and Respect by being patient as people made up their minds. The leadership skill I showed was Trustworthy, during the whole bake sale by managing our stall successfully and being careful with the food.

Home Learning Challenge A3

Motion Blur

Motion Blur

Black and White

Black and White

Motion Blur

Long Expousure Light Trails

Motion Blur

Long Expousure Light Trails 

Depth of Field

Black and White

Depth of Field

Black and White

Long Expousure Traffic Light Trails

Long Expousure Traffic Light Trails

Long Expousure Traffic Light Trails

Motion Blur/ Vintage

Long Expousure Water Blur

Long Expousure Water Blur

Long Expousure Water Blur

Kineitic

Excellence 2017 Te Hapua #1

On Friday my group changed over to robotics. During previous weeks we had been doing coding, which has been fun. Firstly we tried programming these bug shaped robots to go around a square. Then we tried out the lego mindstorms, programming them on ipads. We did some sounds, then we tried making them move. There were three people in my group so we were allowed two robots. They were all named. Ours were called Annie and Louis. We got them to go around a square, circle a moon, and also tried to get them to do a figure of 8 around 2 moons. Another thing we tried was racing the robots through obstacle courses. Mine usually crashed into stuff, although occasionally I was successful.

The care value I showed was Community by working with my group.   I showed Active Thinker while I was programming.

Excellence 2017 House Captain #2

Yesterday all the student leaders went to the council. While we were there we visited the council chambers, and talked with a person working for CCC. First we walked down to the bus stop, and took the bus into the CBD. Once we were there we walked to the CCC building.  We meet a person called Celia. We all watched a presentation about what the CCC does. We talked about this. We then split into groups of 3. My group was with a lady working as a park ranger. Her name was Kelly. She talked with us about how they choose what parks to extend and which ones to let sports teams play on. After that we went back to the previous room to have morning tea.

We then did a fun activity about budgeting for an event, park or graffiti management. After that we shared or budgeting with everyone, the we went up to the council chambers. We learnt about decision making. After that we had lunch at Hachi Hachi, and bused back to school.

A project we might take up is painting the green boxes in our school.

The care values I showed were Respect by listening to the guide and Community by working with my group in the budgeting activity. I showed the leadership value Active Thinker during the budgeting activity.