Luisa decided to research Queen Victoria. She found some key information about her majesty and she also wrote a speech as Queen Victoria for our school assembly.

Queen Victoria was Queen of the United kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Queen Victoria was married to Prince Albert Consort(Fact: Apparently Prince Albert is her cousin!), who died on  the 14th of December, 1841( by a fever and died at 42 years old). As for Queen Victoria, she died from Intracerebral hemorrhage, (A type of stroke). She died. on the 22nd of January 1901. Victoria had 9 children, she had 5 daughters and 4 sons.

Victoria sent James Busby as a representative on her behalf to create the treaty and to convince the Maori to sign. She also sent a few other europeans too. Some Maori chiefs had to protect the Queen back then which was part of an agreement in the treaty.

“Victoria is my name, Queen Victoria to be exact.  I am the Empress of India, Queen of England and the Queen of Ireland also. As the  queen of England I am  prepared to take on any country I come face to face with, allies or non allies. As one of the most longest reigning monarchs who has ever ruled England, I need to make the days of being a Queen count. Speaking of rules, New Zealand(Odd name, soon to be New England) needs a couple of them. What a great opportunity to rule another country, and help of course, they seem reasonable. Creating a treaty is a great way to settle things between our countries, though we need the Maoris, is that correct term, Maoris?, to sign the treaty before the French get to them first. I put my trust in William to accomplish this for me, as well as James too. From what i've heard, Maori warriors are very fierce men and women. I could use some more protection up in the Palace, perhaps I could add that to the treaty, but that is to be determined later.”      

Sustainability - Water pollution and sustaining water

Today in Room 7 we learnt about water pollution. We started with what we already know and then learnt about how water systems are polluted by simple items such as our food packets, animal waste, household items being dumped in streams and then big companies polluting water systems with their product wastes. 

We also took a walk around our school to identify if we are doing our part to maintain our

water drains clean. Unfortunately we found a lot of rubbish in the drains and also around the drains. Again they were mostly food packages and food scraps. 

We decided to work in groups of three to create presentations and learning experiences which will educate our students and staff members about what we can do to clean our drains and keep them clean. 

One of the activities today was watching a video where it shows people in Africa walking for three hours to collect water which is often contaminated. We are lucky to have clean water to drink in New Zealand and we must do our part to keep our water, streams, rivers and sea clean. 

A successful assembly

On Friday 24 February, Room 7 had the privilege of hosting Glenbrae School's fortnightly assembly. Our class item was about the Treaty of Waitangi and what we have learnt. Each student researched a person who was part of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. 

Our assembly was a very educational assembly with each student presenting their speech from the perspective of the person they researched. We heard speeches from Hone Heke, William Hobson, James Busby, William Colenso, Tamati Wakanene, William Henry and many others.

Speeches presented on Friday will be posted to our class blog soon. WATCH THIS SPACE.

Water fun day 2017

One of the best ways to start our year at Glenbrae school is our annual Water Fun Day. It is a day of team work, problem solving, water fun and laughter. 

Our activities this year included - waterslide, holey cup race, three legged race, obstacle race, walking the plank and squeezing the sponge. 

The objective of the day is for the houses to fill up their buckets. The house with the most water in their bucket wins. Everyone joins in the fun and filling the buckets takes a lot of work especially if the water is going out of the holes or dripping on our way to the buckets.

This year our highlight was the awesome water slide. It was longer, stronger and more slippery. Every student had so much fun on the water slide as well as the other activities. 

We also had a water bomb game at the end and it was so much fun. Each student was given at least two water bombs and they had to try and throw it at someone else while hiding from others throwing water bombs at them too. The teachers got into the fun too.

A big thank you to the Glenbrae School staff for this great event.

Cooling off in the swimming pool

One of our favourite activities in Term 1 is our swimming programme. Our swimming time is at 12.15 pm and by that time we are hot and in great need of some cooling off.

It is not just splashing and fun in the pool, we also do some serious swimming. We have been focussing on our Freestyle, Backstroke and Breaststroke techniques. Mrs Tofa always gives us little tips about our techniques. For example when learning to maintain our breathing we have a saying "Deep breath, bubble, bubble, bubble". This means we take a deep breath then blow out the air in bubbles and come up for some more air.

Being a confident swimmer is very important. There are so many deaths in New Zealand from drownings. It is not just about being a good swimmer but also a wise swimmer and recognising dangers in the water.

Congratulations to our holiday blogging stars

Congratulations to our students who were recognised for their excellent work in the Holiday Blogging programme. Well done everyone and keep up the great work. Also a big thank you to Rachel for the awesome prizes.

Week of Inspirational Maths

We have been working through a Week of Inspirational Maths. We enjoyed the activities and we also learnt a lot from the videos. One of our favourite videos is the attached video. Have a watch and comment with your thoughts and we will comment with our thoughts about Maths and speed.

Whitney has been exploring why the Maori wanted a treaty and why the British wanted the The Treaty of Waitangi. Here is her research about the two perspectives.

Maori perspective 

Maori chiefs were fighting among themselves. Queen Victoria offered the treaty so there will be law and order in the land. Maori also wanted the new technology brought in by the settles such as farming tools, weapons, tobacco and alcohol.

Some Maori were worried about the behaviour of some settlers especially in Russell. The Maori wanted law for the settlers so they could behave.

British perspective

For years the missionaries tried to encourage the Maori to form their own government and state. The chiefs could not come to an agreement themselves and so the treaty brought them together.

The British wanted to protect their place in New Zealand because they had more than 2000 settlers already living in New Zealand. They also did not want the French to take over. That is why the treaty needed to be written and signed urgently.

Our class have been learning about the Treaty of Waitangi. We have had a lot of rich discussions about the treaty and different perspectives about the treaty. Here is Alfred's slideshow about his understanding so far.

Being Cool in Room 7

Talofa, Kia ora, Malo e lelei and welcome to all our viewers. This year we have a great group of excited and energetic learners in Room 7. So far we have a total of 26 students on our roll. How awesome to have a big class. We have started this year with a cool start. Our focus for this year is to be cool. Quite fitting because its summer so we are also working on being Sunsmart and going into the shade to be cool. We also want to be cool with our attitudes towards each other and how we approach situations.

There are so many up coming events happening and we are excited about them. Next week we will have our Water fun day. Our annual event of having fun and competing in our house groups. We have also been playing some volleyball and we are getting very confident with our skills. We also like the team work that has been happening during our games. 

We have been learning about the Treaty of Waitangi and have found so many interesting facts about the treaty. Did you know one of William Hobson's signatures is believed to be forged? This is because he had a stroke which made travelling a challenge for him and in one of the copies of the treaty his signature is William Hobson all other documents has his signature as W Hobson. Interesting isn't it? 

We look forward to the weekend to view the celebrations of Waitangi at the Treaty Grounds and Te Tii Marae where we are going for our camp, another exciting event we are looking forward to. 

Watch this space for more exciting happenings in Cool Room 7.

Ka kite ano