End of 2018 memories with Room 7 2018. What a wonderful class of learners and unique individuals. All the best to our year 8 students moving to college.

Its that time of year where we farewell our year 8 students. It has been a wonderful year with you all. We will miss you but looking forward to hearing about your successes in college.

Most likely awards for 2018. Today the Year 8 students had their graduation. Rather than just walking in, the students voted on most likely awards for themselves. It was a lovely ice breaker to start off our graduation ceremony tonight. Congratulations class of 2018

Its the end of year and this time last year Anita travelled to Samoa to visit her family. She wrote a recount about her first day early this year and she has chosen this piece of writing as her favourite.

I bravely entered the aeroplane. Warming smiles were given by the flight attendants as I went to sit on my seat. “We’ll be taking off now, please put your seatbelts on” was all I heard before the aeroplane began to roughly jolt. I turned to my sister on the right,

“It’s normal” she said. I let out a breath of relief. Just a few seconds later, the aeroplane began to sore in the air. I looked out the window and saw multiples of clouds. The sea was just as expected, astonishingly beautiful. I was admiring the view, when suddenly a tall woman figure stood in front of me. She pointed onto a table filled with delicious types of food.

 I guess, it was time to eat.  

I politely grabbed a plate of eggs and bacon with rice then shot a smile at her. I then began to eat. When I finished eating I then laid my head down on the chair while my eyes travelled outside, just then I drifted off to sleep.      

I flattered my eyes open and then noticed everyone was standing. I looked around for my siblings when my dad interrupted my thoughts.

“It’s time to get up, we’re here” he said while taking the luggage.

As exhausted as I was, I tiredly stood up and walked outside. Just as we went outside, the hot air began to sweep over us. The heat was incredibly unbearable but I continued to walk.

We walked inside a little house, where we got the rest of our luggage. We walked outside and saw my auntie. She screamed immediately when she saw us. Not caring of the rest of the people staring, she gave us big hugs and sloppy kisses on the cheeks. After a few minutes of talking, she led us to the car and we drove off to town.

Our first stop was at the food market. As we entered, the delicious aroma of food suddenly ignited our sense of smell. I immediately followed the scent as it led to a store selling pork sticks. I’d have to admit, I was pretty hungry and so I ordered a few sticks for my siblings and I. We walked around for a bit when then decided to head to our next destination, my grandmother’s house. We parked our car right in the entrance. Just as we hopped out of the car, a few familiar faces approached us. I took them into my embrace as I noticed it was my two little baby cousins, whom I haven’t seen for along time. We were then ushered to my grandmother’s room. When we entered, we all immediately greeted her. We all talked together for a long time, as well as play with each other.

It was already night and we were all feeling exhausted. I got the beds ready for the whole family, just as we laid down we all decided to tell scary stories. My brother volunteered to begin. We were already a few minutes into the story and we were all quite afraid. My brother continued, when suddenly we heard a scream. We all looked at the person who screamed and found our baby cousin curled up in a ball.

“Can we go to sleep now?” he asked as he laid his head down on the pillow.

“Okay” my brother chuckled as he laid his head down on the pillow too. We all nodded and did the same.

“Goodnight” I said as I drifted right off to sleep.

This was my first day at Samoa.

Tamaki Cluster Athletics 2018.

Novel reading in Room 7

We have posted a few posts about our class novel. We ended this year by reading Refugee by Alan Gratz. It was a novel picked by the boys for the class after the girls chose Dawnraid by Pauline Smith. 

Refugee follows the stories of three children who were leaving their countries to find refuge in other countries. All three characters are in different time and location settings. 

We highly recommend this book.

In Room 7 we love to read. We have a shared class novel which we read everyday and we also have our individual books we read for SSR then our reading materials. This slideshow presents book reviews by some members of Room 7. If you read one of the books please leave us a comment with your review of the book.

An act of kindness from Glen Taylor School

This week Room 7 have been fortunate to receive an act of kindness from Mrs Fa'alili and some of her students at Glen Taylor. Moni a student at Glen Taylor e-mailed Mrs Tofa about their project where they are doing an act of kindness for people in the community and they chose Room 7. The Glen Taylor students gave wrapped treats they had made themselves which were brownies, cookies and a chocolate. They also attached kind and motivational messages for each student in Room 7. We are very grateful to Mrs Fa'alili and her students. We wish you all a great end to this year and very Merry Christmas.

Telesia our Manaiakalani ambassador had her last presentation on Wednesday 28 of November. She has done a great job of being an ambassador for our school. This is her presentation about responding to current events.

Party planning for a kid's birthday can be quite stressful for some people. However, Room 7 have been working on planning a 5th birthday party with Rainbow's end as a venue. The students had to research costs of tickets, food, cake, decorations...All groups presented their plans to the class. This is Anita and Telesia's plan. Authentic purpose for mathematical work.

Our trip to the Botanical Gardens. Our unit this term is about plants. We travelled to the Botanical Gardens to learn more about plants and how to grow them. We finished off our day with a scavenger hunt and a class photoshoot. It was a fun day filled with learning and laughter. A typical Room 7 day.

Argument writing by Davarni about the teacher strike which is causing a lot of debate in the media and communities.

Do Teachers Really Need to Strike?

The last recent teachers strike was held on the 12th of November. Teachers argued about the workload, salary, and unnecessary tasks they’ve been given. Addition to that, teachers don’t get paid to do extra work. But do they really need to go on strike?         

As a student, I thought that teachers only needed to teach students about maths, reading and writing. But, I was wrong, teachers have additional jobs like: caring for the students' feelings, making sure everything is alright at home, and maintaining their behaviour.

Teachers are what structure our future for the next generation, by that I mean, they educate the youth for the sake of their lives and future. Without teachers, us children wouldn’t be getting the learning needs they demand. So, in order to keep our teachers ‘safe’, they need some consideration from the government, education minister, and prime minister.

It’s not just money teachers need, they also need resources such as, books and sports gear; Of course this is for the students, to help them learn. These resources are very useful to those who need them.

To finish off, I personally think teachers have every right to protest. Keep in mind that they’re doing this for themselves, their students, and their families.

Inquiries into types of plants.

Telesia and Newsam have been learning about what Vascular plants are. They have read a lot of information about what they are and created this slide show to share their new learning.  Their next activity is to use this information to create a quiz for their peers to answer after reading their presentation.

Royals up in here

This year the media have been reporting about teachers and their campaign for better work conditions and better pay. We have seen many news reports about their on going campaign. We have also experienced one strike. Our movie is about showing our support not only for our school teachers, but all the teachers in Aotearoa who work hard to help us achieve our goals. Thank you teachers for all you do. Kua tae te wa!

A motivational experience being on board the HMNZS Canterbury.

The year eight students were fortunate to have the opportunity to visit the HMNZS Canterbury. A wonderful opportunity provided by Tamaki College. Mr Dunn and Staff Clarins kindly came to take the students to go on board the biggest Navy vessel New Zealand has. It was a fun and exciting experience for us all. We would like to thank Mr Dunn and Staff Clarins for the wonderful opportunity.

Flower power and plants.

This term our unit is called Flower power. We are focussing on the importance of plants in the environment and our communities. Room 7 have started off with learning about the different types of plants we have. Loto's research is about moss. Here is a slideshow he created to share his findings.

Kickstarting Term 4 with learning about being Sunsmart.

Telesia's exciting recount about her holiday.

Introduction

School finished not too long ago and it was time for our two week holiday. I had already known that it would be the same routine. Eat, sleep, work and more sleep. As boring as it seems, the two weeks holiday were hectic. This is how my holiday went.

Working

During the two week holiday, my sister and I joined my parents in a cleaning job. This meant waking up every morning at around 3:00 am and coming back around 4:30 am. It was very hard to prioritize our sleeping hours as we came back from day activities at around 10 or 9. The cleaning job was a restaurant named Mission Bay Pavillion. We mopped the floor, cleaned the windows, cleaned the toilets and mopped some more. Talk about Cinderella alright!

Cleaning was alright, but the best part was getting to walk along the beach and watching the sunrise after everything was all done. Sometimes we even got to dip our feet in the cold sea. It was so beautiful, the sunrise I mean, not our feet. Unfortunately we didn’t receive any money ourselves, but we were happy that the money that we earned was used to provide food that was very much needed for our family.

Church

After working in the early morning, the majority of the day was spent at church. Our family rode back and forth from St Bernadette Mt Wellington Catholic Church which was crazy due to the amount of family members we have, and the addition of our cousins who tagged along. At church, with our Tongan community, we practised a maulululu for a special performance coming up. Our practises were super fun and exhilarating. Other than that, we had a normal mass on Sundays and Saturdays.

Family Time

During our break we took the opportunity to spend time with family. We played outside in the cool breeze, played card games and watched movies at night. My little siblings always roamed around our backyard singing songs which always entertained us.  Usually after spending time outside we played card games such as 500 and drum. At our house, card games were intense and competitive, so winning was such a big deal. It felt as though my sister was always a hostile competitor which was so intimidating. But at the end of the day, my sister and I walked out of the lounge being the kings of 500 and drum.

Conclusion

I had a thrilling two week holiday and am looking forward for the next one.

Narrative writing by Salote about the interesting blessings sharks have.

Interesting blessings of sharks

Meet the voyagers, Takeshi and Nobyukki from Japan. They travel the world discovering new things in the animal life and take full responsibility for themselves when they get hurt or are in danger by a threatening animal. Throughout their journey, they come across an amazing discovery and assimilate more about the animal’s life.

It all started off with a pleasing sunny morning. Takeshi and her husband Nobyukki rented a house near the shallow waters to discover living species that are most likely to live there, and are on a journey to hunt for sharks.

“Nobyukki, get the engine running so that when we leave we don’t to struggle on starting the hidoi” Takeshi asked while putting on her protective gear.

“Ughh, stop worrying. I’ll do it in five minutes, right after I watch my programme” replied Nobyukki with a grin on his face

“Fine! I’ll start it myself, I can go hunting on my own” Takeshi replied angrily

“OK, OK. I’m coming, don’t startle yourself” replied Nobyukki in serious mode.

Nobyukki starts the engine then puts on his protective gear while Takeshi kisses their cats goodbye. When he finally starts the engine, they were off on their undersea adventure.

Although they’re voyagers, Takeshi still had a problem with undersea creatures and a huge fear of sharks. But, she still explored with her husband because she doesn’t want to break Nobyukki’s heart by saying she hates going far out in the ocean and attending new adventures. It’s been 20 minutes far out in the shallow waters, they came across a group of dolphins that were frighteningly swimming away from another group of sharks. They saw the shark’s fins and got their net ready, as they tried to capture the shark in their sights more come and they got nervous.

“Nobyukki, what do we do?” asked Takeshi in panic

“Just, calm down. Breathe, everything will be alright” replied her husband calmly

Takeshi tried turning the boat around while her husband catches the shark, as Takeshi grabbed the wheel she noticed something was wrong because it was very unstable. It’s turned off and she told her husband the fan was caught up in something.

As time went by, they are surrounded by sharks. They put their life jackets on and prayed they don’t get eaten by the sharks. It took them a while to figure a plan to distract the sharks so that they could get out of the situation. They placed a fish in the fishing rod and threw it into the ocean. That way Nobyukki could go and get the fan running. Takeshi tosses the fish as far as she could and Nobyukki jumped into the water lightly, he saw a plastic bag caught up in the fan so he pulled it out in a hurry. He got the plastic bag out and the fan started running. He got back into the boat with relief on his face and tears in his wife’s eyes.

As soon as they arrived back at the shore they carefully took the bucket out and placed their boat on the sand. Nobyukki put the shark immediately in sleep mode so they can investigate the right amount of teeth a shark has. He took the shark out of the bucket and forced it’s mouth open. He tried to count but there were numerous amount of teeth it was incredible.

“Wow. I’ve always imagined what it’s like to have a huge amount of teeth” says Nobyukki in relief

“No wonder why sharks never run out of teeth” replied Takeshi with a huge smile on her face.