Glenbrae's Cultural Festival 2015

After weeks of practising and rehearsals the day finally came for our students to show case their talents. 

Friday 27 November a day we will not forget for some time. The costumes were ready, the items were polished the students and teachers bursting with excitement. 

The event was a fundraiser for the Year 7 and 8 camp which took place at the beginning of Term 4. However, the whole school came together for this very festive occassion. 

The items were:

1. Kapahaka Group
2. Room 4 poi dance
3. Richie & Alex - Karate
4. Samoan girls dance
5. Room 5 item - Save the world
6. Sounds of Glenbrae
7. Tongan boys dance
8. Cook Island group
9. Niuean group
10. Bollywood
11. Tongan girls dance
12. Sasa
13. Tau’olunga
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

Financial Literacy at Glenbrae

We have been fortunate enough to receive financial literacy lesson from Rachel who works for Price Water Cooper. This week, our first lesson on Monday was about identifying our needs and our wants. This was a good eye opener for everyone in Room 10 because spending money is very easy and therefore it is also very easy to spend on things you do not need and do not have any use for.

Today the lesson was about being credit worthy. Credit ratings are very important because it will determine our trustworthiness to pay money back when we borrow. Four Room 10 students took part in skits where they lent something of theirs to a friend. It is good practice now to think about who you lend your things or money to.

Always question?????????????
Are they going to pay me back and on time?
Will they respect my property and give it back?
Did they pay me the last time I lent to them?

This will be questions we will be asked when we borrow from others too.

We enjoyed the lesson today and Miss Rachel is doing a great job being a teacher in Room 10.

Stardome fun

Yesterday was dance fever and all senior’s were dancing. Our first dance was the hip hop and then we did this dance called the Samba and  we had to pick girls and I was a shadow for Brandon it was a lot of fun.

Then we had left school because we had a trip to go on and we all went down to the hall and the teachers talked to us about behaviour on the trip, then we got let out first because we wanted to be seated at the back on the bus.

We left at 9.30 something  and got there at morning tea it was so cool because they even had flying fox and all different kinds of activities. We quickly had our morning tea then we were dismissed to play. We went to the park because Room 9 were playing at the flying fox with some of our class members.

Then we got called in to get our bags and lined up seated so we had to waited until we get a call to go in.When we got in we were greeted by a man called Tim we were shown into the space room where we talked about planets and we asked Tim some questions. He knows a lot about planets and it was cool.

Next  we went into the movie room where we all sat down and relax while the movie was on. Some of us were sleeping so when it was time to go out people were still sleeping and we got in trouble.

After that we all went out to board the bus. We travelled back to school quickly. I had fun at the Stardome and hope to go back someday soon.

Narrative writing by Jayden

Yesterday was so weird that Drake thought that it was a dream. Because first chocolate started falling out of the sky and a marching band came past him and then a float, but really there was parade going on that he did not know about and a chocolate factory had just been blown up by some terrorist. Sending chocolate flying in the sky and falling back down on everyone. Next when he went back home everyone was gone. The entire street wasn’t there even Old Man Stu who hardly ever leaves his house.

In fact everyone had gone to the parade without him because they thought that he had woken up and gone to the parade with his friends without them. He went back down the road to the parade again hoping to find his family there. But no one was there everyone had vanished. It was raining and he thought everybody had gone home but they were not. They decided it throw their own parade and keep the fun going and invited everyone in town. They threw it in a huge stadium. Where the rugby finals were once happened.

When he tried to ring his parents they didn’t pick up their phones because the sound was to load and they moved danced so much that they couldn’t feel there phones. They did not tell him about it because they thought that he was hanging out at his friend's house and would not want to be disturbed. But he was not with his friends in fact his friends were at the parade but never saw the parents so they did not ask where was Drake. His friends did not know who threw the parade and they thought that he was at home with his family. So each of them had no idea that he was alone. But it was getting late so he went back home and went to sleep.

When he woke up the next day he thought that it was all a dream. But then when he turned on the TV he saw on the news that a chocolate factory had exploded and that chocolate was falling from the sky onto people. The Next story on the news was that there was a huge parade that people from all over the world flew there to go to. Famous movie stars were there and brought loads of drinks and snacks for everyone there. Then it showed a picture of his family because they threw that party. Then a interview with his friends on how much they liked the party “ It was awesome to bad my friend Drake wasn’t here to enjoy it I don’t know where he was at” said his friends. Then he knew that it was not a dream. He felt angry that his parents never bothered to tell him about the party.

Respect

At Glenbrae school we believe in being respectful to self, others, property,

environment and learning. Our class movie shows how we put these values into

action.

Camp fundraising

Tomorrow we will be having another fundraising activity for our camp. We are calling out to all our parents, friends and whanau to come and support. We will wash your car with great care and we are also providing for the Saturday munchies by selling hot plates of food for $10. Hope to see you all here at Glenbrae School.

Aarmione's argument writing. Have a read and let us know if you agree or disagree.

Persuasive writing - I disagree with the statement ‘1 block of the day for free time in class.’

Having one block of free time a day is a bad idea because the students won’t get to learn much, and the class would be very noisy during that block. The students would be very distracted, and when you tell them to put their netbooks away, they would refuse. It would be just a waste of time.

The next reason why I disagree is because you would be wasting your time coming to school. School is a place where people learn, and having a block of free time would not live up to the purpose of going to school because there is not much learning in one day. Also, the students would be very over excited when playing games, and the excitement and effort of most students would vanish when told to do their work.

Another reason why I disagree with having a block of free time is because if you went home and your parents asked what you learnt at school that day, what would you say? “Nothing much really. We were just playing games.” What would your parents think? What would they do?

Another main reason as to why I disagree with having one block of free time is because if you play games instead of learning, your grades would become even lower, and it would be hard to bring your grades back up with the block of free time.

These are the reasons why I disagree with having a block of free time. So Mrs Tofa, please consider my points of view. Also, please do not allow us to have a block of free time. Hopefully my points would have convinced you. Thank you.

What does it look like?

In Maths we are currently working on finding the area of shapes. We have been talking about metres squared and wanted to find out just how big it is. 

Pictured are the Room 10 students working to measure out 1 squared metre in the classroom. 

Fantastic to see everyone thinking and trying to help out. Excellent use of materials too.

Kiwisport - Athletics

On Tuesday 1 September we had our last Kiwisport session with coach Georgia. She taught us athletics skills in - high jump, shot put, discuss, sprinting and hurdles. It has been fun learning from Georgia and we wish to thank her for her time and effort. 

All the best Georgia.

Recount about our fantastic 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.

Mrs Tofa at PB4L Confernce 2015

This year I had the opportunity to attend the 2015 PB4L conference held at Sky City from Thursday 13 to Saturday 15 of August. It was a great opportunity to learn from other schools and also listen to Professors who started the Positive behaviour for learning move.

In the United States it is called PBIS (Positive behaviour in schools) and we call is PB4L in New Zealand (Positive behaviour for learning).

The conference had over 500 participants from school all around New Zealand. There were primary schools, colleges, RTLB teachers, police who work in the community and also university lecturers present.

One of my great learning moments was from Aotea College in Wellington who had a very effective Home School Partnership with their community and whanau.

Now I am back at school and excited to share my learning with our students and also our teachers so we can all work together to make our school a SAFE AND HAPPY LEARNING COMMUNITY.

Also had the opportunity to hear from Hon Hekia Parata

Aarmione's quiz about our class novel 'A new song in the land'.

Well I read the novel to you guys everyday but I still got one question wrong in Aarmione's quiz about our class novel 'A new song in the land'. Give it a go on this link http://www.quizyourfriends.com/take-quiz.php?id=1508060146502498&eml&. 

Great questions Aarmione really got me thinking.

Siosifa's work on another cause of child injury and fatality

Manuae's report on child safety

As everyone knows a parent’s very important priority is to keep their child or children safe and secure and help them live to their full potential. Knowing how to prevent child injury, like poisoning, is a step towards this goal that every parent has.

Every day, over 300 children in the United States of America from ages 0-19 are treated in the emergency department, and two children die as a result to poison. It’s not just the cleaning chemicals that is killing infants and older children that is dangerous to children.

Active, curious children will often investigate and sometimes try to eat or drink anything they can get into such as household chemicals and medicines.Thankfully we have the internet which has tips for you if you need a little help poisoning proof the house.

Maths learning with Sue

Some Room 10 students enjoyed a Maths lesson today with Sue who is our school Maths facilitator. Today they learnt about fractions and the problem they solved as a group was:

Six students were in a 100m race. The student who came third got a time of 13.56 seconds. What might be the times for the other students in the race?

They also used deci mats to show representations of different numbers.

Feedback from students:

Bono - I learnt that decimals are special fractions

Keti - I learnt how to show decimals using materials

Siosifa - I learnt that decimals and fractions are similar to each other

Kyana - I learnt that decimals are special fractions with a denominator of 10, 100, 1000...

Lennyx - I learnt that decimals are more complicated fractions

Joseph - I learnt that decimals are special fractions

Tauola - I learnt that the bigger the decimal the smaller the pieces of materials we had to use. For example tenths are bigger than hundredths and hundredths are bigger than thousandths

The scale of our war - ANZAC Exhibition at Te Papa Museum

In the school holidays I travelled to Wellington with my husband to celebrate our wedding anniversary. It was a lot of fun being in the capital of New Zealand. In this blog post I want to focus on one of the most moving experiences went through when I was in Wellington.

On Saturday the 12th of July my I dragged my unwilling husband back to Te Papa Museum because I wanted to see the ANZAC exhibition I had seen on Friday but did not have time to see as we had to rush somewhere else on Friday.

The name of the exhibition is The scale of our war. The queue to go inside was a long one and people lining up to go inside were of all ages and from different cultural backgrounds. One staff member stood at the front allowing people to go inside and I figured the numbered entries was to eliminate over crowding inside so everyone has enough time to view the exhibition, read the captions and also collect their thoughts and reflect on what they see. 

Finally we were through and as we entered we saw a soldier right in front of up standing about 4-5 metres. It was amazing to see such a real life looking soldier in front of our eyes and right then and there I knew this was going to be a very good exhibition. 

As we went through I could not help but wish I was walking through with my class as they have learnt so much about the ANZACS. 

I later learnt the exhibition was created by the Weta Cave company which I believed is owned by the famous Peter Jackson. I commend the staff at Weta Cave for the magnificent work which went into creating this exhibition. I have also described in the best way I can to Room 10 how special this exhibition is and urged them to consider with their parents visiting Wellington and viewing the exhibition for themselves. 

Bill McLaren reps

Congratulations to Taki, Siosifa and Bono who have been chosen for the Bill McLaren rugby team. A fantastic effort boys and we wish you luck for the tournament during the school holidays. 

I was able to watch the game at Sacred Heart College and it was great to see the boys on the field putting in the effort and playing as a team. 

Once again boys all the best and see you at the games. 

Mrs Tofa

A fun trip to Aotea Centre

Fifty lucky students including all of Room 10 were able to travel to the Aotea Centre in the city to watch shows performed by different performing groups. We were also able to take part in workshop about different forms of art. We used Ipads to look into a mail box and watch a moving bird through the Ipad. When Mrs Tofa tried to view through her phone she was not able to see the bird. Another great workshop was the tormento workshop by one of the AUT students. There she used her mobile phone to call a number and the students were able to blow into the phone and the air from their breath affected the faced on the interactive screen. The displays are still displayed in the Aotea Centre and anyone standing in front of the tormento display can call the number and blow into their phone and see their breath blow the faces on the screens.

We travelled to the city by bus and the bus dropped us outside the Town Hall which is an old building with historical value to Auckland and also New Zealand. 

It was a fun day and all the students enjoyed the performances.