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Tuesday 30 June 2015

Challenges We Will Face and Strategies We Will Use

Challenges/Strategies

Challenges:

  • Possums/Rodents
  • Working With Others
  • People Stealing
  • Sting Ray, Jelly Fish
  • Scared Of Heights
  • Being Injured
  • Sharing a Room
  • Invading Privacy
  • No experience
  • Getting Lost
  • Homesick
  • Food
  • Running out of Clothes
  • Clothes
  • Being Sent Home
  • Swimming
  • Sharks, Dolphin, Whales

Strategies:

  • Sleep on the top bunk so you're the last to get annoyed by the Rodents/Possums
  • a
  • Don't Bring anything expensive (phones,tablets,watches etc.)
  • Sting Ray - Stay Still Don’t Panic   Jellyfish - Swim for your life
  • Scared of Heights - Don’t Look Down (Unless you have too)
  • Being Injured - Be Careful, Bring a First Aid Kit,
  • Have a Sleepover Before Camp (with family or friends not Strangers)
  • Invading Privacy -
  • No Experience - Have a good time with your first experience of camp
  • Getting Lost - Don't wonder of
  • Homesick -
  • Food - If you're hungry you're going to eat the food
  • If you run out of clothes then wear the same clothes again (but you shouldn’t run out because you’re only there for three days).
  • Being Sent Home - Listen to instructions and do the right thing
  • Swimming - if you do not know how to swim everyone wears a life jacket.
  • Sharks, Dolphins, Whales - The instructors will tell you if there's a shark - you can watch the dolphins and whales.

If you are afraid of rodents, possums etc then there are two possible ways of avoiding contact with the creatures. You can sleep on the top bunk so you are annoyed by the rodents last or you can tell the people in your dorm not to eat or bring food into the dorm.

If you are afraid of something important/expensive being stolen by other people. Do not bring anything important/expensive with you. If it is stolen the teachers and instructors take no responsibility if it is stolen because you are not supposed to bring things like that.

If you are scared of heights, this might be really hard for some people but don’t look down unless you really have too. If you do get stuck people will encourage you to keep going.

If you are scared of getting injured be very careful walking around the dangerous areas. You can also avoid injury by listening to instructions. However if you do get injured or think your going to get injured bring your own first aid kit.

Monday 29 June 2015

Pick the Place

Today for maths we conducted a statistical investigation to find out which camp site we would be going to. The camps that were suggested are Mount Albury (Blue), Lake Waihonu (Red) and Marama Island (Orange). The choice of the camp was in the hands of one dice and my hand. 1 and 6 was Mt. Albury, 2 and 5 Lake Waihonu and 3 and 4 was Marama Island. Mt. Albury won because 1 and 6 was cast the most times. We then recorded it as a Chart.


Friday 26 June 2015

Can I Trust You ?

In Preparation, for our Camp next week we Room 8 had a class challenge.

This challenge included a trio of identical tasks. For the first of these, the students paired up as ones and twos with another. We had to guide the partner, whose number is two (whose eyes are also closed) on a journey to the School Gate.

After the people arrived at the destination the people swapped roles. The number twos were given new instructions when navigating the ones back to the class. The number twos had to make their own route to the class. While the students made their way to room 8 the class was being moved around to make another obstacle course. When the pairs of students arrived they then had to navigate their way through the obstacles blindfolded from one side of the room to the other.





Friday 12 June 2015

Strike, Spare and Gutter Ball

In the holidays my Mum, Dad, Brother and I drove to the bowling center. It was cold outside but when we went inside it was surprisingly warm. My dad went up to the counter and paid for two games. We gave them our shoe sizes so we can get into the game. As my dad finished changing his last shoe, I told him that he was up first.


He got up and picked up a bowling ball and walked and then when he was close enough a quickened his pace then bowled the ball down the straight line. He hit a lot of bowling pins. He picked up his second bowling ball and knocked a couple more pins. The game had started.


It was my mother’s turn and when she bowled I was amazed because she almost got a strike. There was only one bowling pin left. It was really intense. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. I watched roll, roll and roll right past the pin just missing it. It was my brothers turn. He picked up the the ball and knocked down seven pins. My brother picked up his second ball and bowled it down the alley and hit another two pins.


Dad's Score - 8
Mums Score - 9
Brothers Score - 9


It was my turn I picked up the ball. It was too light and my fingers were too big. I went to go and get another one ....... I came back five minutes later with a new ball. I power walked past my family all the way to the alley swung the ball backwards then released it when it came back. The ball rolled straight to the Gutter. I yelled in my mind Gutter Ball. Noooo! I said to myself again   “Don't worry just get a spare in the next bowl”. I started again, I walked up to the alley and boom. I bowled and it was going straight threw the middle and then that's where it happened. It started wobbling, it kept wobbling and then it curved straight into the gutter. “This is going to be a bad day of bowling” I thought.


Dad’s Score - 008
Mums Score - 009
Brothers Score - 009
My Score - 000

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Manaiakalani Speech

Bula Vinaka/ Hello My name is  Avishek and I am in Year 8.
I attend  Saint Patrick's School which is a Catholic full primary school in Panmure

This year room 8 were assigned a very big task of rejuvenating an area  in our school grounds which linked directly with  designing  a garden area where there would be a garden for each class. Following the immersion step of our inquiry model we conducted research to develop more knowledge about school gardens. This involved using the internet, using magazines and visiting other school sites to checkout their gardens.  Using Padlet we recorded our prior knowledge as a class. We made groups and we chose what group we wanted to be in. Again using padlet each group formed questions to guide their research to find out more about their area. I joined the mathematicians/measurements group, who were in charge of measuring and solving problems of the mathematical kind to help the designs and ideas of others come to life.

As a group we created many questions that we would have to answer but when we found those answers on google we all started questioning our answers. Because we had so many questions we had to put them all somewhere. After discussion/consultation with groups, our teacher and reflecting on what we had already done, we remembered the free and easy to use app Padlet, that we had used to brainstorm your Ideas. We decided to put our questions in a padlet.

We examined the area to work out the possibilities and marked out a 8 by 5 perimeter. We created a digital layout, initially we wanted each garden to be 3.5 meters in length and 1 meter in width but as a Catholic School we had another component, the Sacred space. This Holy place was to include a setting that would allow opportunity for people to visit and reflect. This initial design left no room for the sacred space so it was back to the drawing board.

A second digital plan was constructed based on manipulating the models that the building team had constructed. (Insert Photo). We changed the perimeter of the garden to 10 by 8m,  but when we were measuring out the perimeter the group and I decided that it was too small and extended the garden once again to 10 by 10 m. We tied rope round building pegs to line the 10 by 10 meter perimeter, the gardens and the sacred place.

Although we used many other resources like, google documents, presentations, drawing and garden design sites, Padlet proved valuable in recording ideas and responding as a group and as a class.

While our Garden is an ongoing task, we have all developed our research and questioning skills, together with our ability to work collaboratively in groups and collectively as a class.

I intend to share my learning in my blog and a new site we are making for the Board of Trustees.