Challenge Day Out - Thursday 28th Nov

A fantastic day out on the Hills beyond Outram. We had fantastic weather and everyone enjoyed a range of activities throughout the day including Archery, Rifle Shooting, High Ropes, Stream and Cave trek, Escape & Evade, Flying Fox and Cart rides.

Assembly Award - Logan

A great improvement in work ethic and application to your learning this term, keep it up!

Planting For Penguins

Room 4 along with Room 11 spent the day out at Tairoa Heads learning about the Challenges faced by penguins and the human impact on their living habitat. Students worked hard in clearng away lots of "Ice Plant" and putting in around 100 new native plants that will improve the habitat for the Little Blue penguins that nest out at the End of the Otago Harbour. Pics here soon!!

Art Gallery Visit - Impact

Our trip to the Art Gallery on Monday 23rd September had us working on "Island Creations" with John Neumegan as well as looking at the influence of Impact on Artists works displayed there.

Palm Oil Impact - Kelland and Nathan

Water Pollution - Milly, Tamara, Shania & Rooma

Rubbish Runs Riot - Ollie, Kassem, Quinn and Daniel

Week 7 Assembly Award - Christoph

A great effort put into writing and presenting your speech on "Bee Keeping"

Assembly Awards - Emma and Eden

A great motivation shown in getting stuck into your Impact Topic Work!! Great stuff.

Eco Video Assembly Intro

The Piece Of Rubbsh....

Impact Facts

Water Pollution Impact

Week 3 Term 3 Assembly Award - Daniel

Great work in being one of our Open Night Ambassadors - you spoke with clarity and confidence to all of the visitors we had through the classroom!

IMPACT!!

Impact

“What impact do we have on the environment

and can I make a difference?”

This term we will be looking at and investigating the above statement through our topic study. Over the coming weeks we will be looking at many different environmental issues, happenings and information relating to the impact we have on the environment we live in, from the very small and personal issues close to us right through to global issues. Get your thinking cap on and be prepared to bring along ideas and anything you come across to share .

Week 9 Assembly Award - Milly

Great stuff Milly - you are constantly displaying high levels of personal responsibility and self-management during class activities!

Assembly Award Week 8 - Shania

A super effort with your maths and giving everything a great go, keep up the good work Shania!

Week 7 Term 2 Assembly Award Quinn Williams

A great effort put into making sensible choices during a week of wet and cold weather during lunchtimes.

Writing by Giovanni Nitis

He had warned her about the book. Now it was to late. Vines started to grow from the spine of the book. The vines wrapped her up like a spider preserving its prey. The vines grew tighter and tighter, as the vines slowly and viciously sucked her into the book. The book slammed shut. And she didn't even notice because she was fast asleep. And all that was left was an old thick brown book in an empty bed in empty room...

Forensic Science

Our science Focus for the next couple of weeks has us looking into the work of forensic scientists. Students are learning about the many different aspects of science and ways it can be used in solving crimes and mysteries. We have been using the CSI website to carry out a web quest in learning all the different aspects of forensic science. You can go directly to this site by clicking the link below.

CSI FORENSICS SITE

Science Fair Boards

Well with Science Fair getting very close, most students are now (or should be) starting to prepare some of their findings and work to present on their Display Board. Here is a power point presentation of some very useful layout tips and ideas.
How to Do the Display of Your Science Fair Board

Science Fair...

SCIENCE FAIR!!!...things should be coming together nicely with Science Fair - those of you who are testing should be well through this now and hopefully starting to think about some of the results you are getting from the tests you have done. If you are "making/inventing" something you should be well through this now and hopefully testing your model or design out. Earlier this week we looked at ways to bring it all together in order to present what you have done in a fantastic way! The science fair work is due by Monday 1st July

at the latest!!!

Week 6 Assembly Award - Jenn

Jenn - Great focus on Science Fair and getting on with testing and work related to you investigation!! Good score on being the lucky winner of the

Filadelfio's Pizza Voucher!!

The MKR Cats are back in a Gym Movie!!! Lilly & Ashleigh

"The Man on Hanover Street" Logan, Kelland, Quinn & Tim

"Step Up" Milly, Rooma & Tamara

The Movie - Man vs Wild

A creation put together by Jamie, Jake, Christoph & Giovanni - Look out Bear Gryls!

Man vs Wild Trailer - Jamie, Jake, Christoph & Giovanni

A few more Sir Edmund Hillary Pieces of Work

Here are a few slide show presentations around the information gathered and shared about Sir Edmund Hillary and his Climb of Mt Everest!

Sir Edmund Hillary Nathan by Andrew

Sir Edmund Hilary Ayla-Cheyne.pdf by Andrew

Sir Edmund Hillary Tim Christoph Gio Tom by Andrew

Assembly Awards - Weeks 4&5 Term 2 - Shania & Nathan

Nathan - a super organised and motivated approach to your science fair work. Shania - great improvements over the month of May with your basic facts! (photos soon)

School's In... Tamara, Shania, Milly and Rooma

Balmac School Hall... James, Tom & Dylan

Room 4 Villains...

We have been having some fun learning how to use and make video trailers with I movie, check out and enjoy some of our creativity!

Room 4 Parachutes

Emma, Eden and Jenn - Mt Everest

Assembly Award - James

Excellent Skills shown and used in our video productions this week. James was one of our key players in editing and production of the final video clips below. Great skills James

Sir Edmund Hillary - Ashleigh & Lilly

We have been carrying out some research this week and have been looking into the life of Sir Edmund Hillary as the 29th f May marked 60 years form when he reached the summit of Everest and became an iconic NZer!

MKR Balmac Style!

Cyber Safety - Password Protection

Berwick Camp Video Photo Story

Cyber Safety Video 1

4 Sharp News Wrap

Assembly Award - Daniel

Excellent work Daniel - Great ideas contributed to class discussions and a good motivation to learn!

Berwick Ball - Tim Barham

"REOWWWW!!" Went the siren. "Alright boys in the lions den." Said Mr Sloan. It was the night of the Berwick Ball and all the boys were as anxious as can be. He gave us a few tips on what we should do e.g. If the girl is cold put your jumper over her shoulders, open the door for her, pull out her chair etc. He also told us a story of when he was going to ask for his wife's then partners blessing so he can marry her. Then about 10 minutes later Mrs Greer and Vanessa walked in with the bowl of girls names."Right boys you ready." "Yes!" We all shouted. Christoph, Tom etc. And then Kassem and I were the last two boys and we got Emma. So we walked along the deck nervously and said to Emma. "You're very lucky to have both of us accompany you to dinner tonight." So off we went when we got into the dining room we heard a big . "Ohhh!" When we got in Mrs Greer said. "Kassem how about you be my date and Tim can have Emma?" We had some yummy roast chicken for dinner and for dessert we had chocolate cake that was to die for. After that we did some dances had some fizzy it was a wonderful night and I'd do it 100 times again.

Science Fair Tips...

Credit from the slide show below must be made to Mrs Cleland for putting this together.

Guest Speaker - Josh Harris - Konica Minolta Adventure Racing Team

All year 8 classes have had Josh Harris visit them and share stories of his experiences as an adventure racing athlete. Josh has completed in many Multisport and Adventure races, most recently he raced in the  "GodZone" adventure race which was a 500km race from Mt Cook to Queenstown, going day and night his team finished in 126hours and had around 6 hours sleep during the whole race. He talked about the challenges and rewards associated with this type of sport and introduced students to his race series being held here in Dunedin www.adventurechallenge.co.nz he is looking at having Intermediate students involved in his race with the support of a parent or adult to team up and some competition between Balmac students! It was great to have someone so passionate come and share their stories with us.

Week 2 Term 2 Science Fair....

Over this week and last it has been great to see everyone is making efforts to select an idea and working on devising some sort of 'Big' question to carry their inquiry work for the Science Fair. We have been having some great discussions in class and it is pleasing to see so many students motivated to get stuck into their work on this - the ideas gathering and getting started is possibly the trickiest park of the whole process!. Remember that there is plenty of time to complete this as long as people stick to the time line we are working to for the steps here at school. If any one is really stuck and struggling to get things going we can discuss and help them with ideas to ensure the Science Fair doesn't become a real chore for students.

Berwick Camp "Assault Course" Eden

On Tuesday afternoon Evan put his grumpy hat on and screamed at us, run to the tree and back, last 10 back do 20 press-ups. We all ended up doing press-ups, " follow me an keep up". He ran and jumped into muddy smelly water, we we followed repeating the word ew over and over slowly moving through the muddy water, ducking  and climbing over logs.
We scrambled out of the mud jogged on the spot trying to keep warm, we were all shivering. We ran to the next obstacle which was a net, we all had to army crawl underneath, we ran towards water and jumped in, it was freezing water, jumped onto the bank and pulled each other up onto the bank, we to the pond and slowly walked through the boggy water and then jogging towards were we started, he concluded the assault with go and have a shower we sprinted towards the showers and we jumped in them and washed of all the mud and went in sauna to finish our assault course!

Berwick Camp Kayaking - Lilly

On Tuesday the 16^th of April at room 4s class camp. Room 4 did heaps of activities on that particular day. One of the activities that we did was the kayaking in the Berwick pond with Stewart Hall (Jenn’s dad), April Nijland (my Mum) and Chris Trotter (my Dad). First we got used to being in the kayaks by paddling round the dirty weedy slightly mossy pond. I was in the bright blue kayak. After we had got used to paddling round the weedy pond, we paddled downstream to the end. It was quite hard to not get stuck in the weed. When we got to the end I decided to get out of the kayak to see if I could touch the bottom but I couldn’t because it was so deep. I got back into the kayak and stood up paddling on the way back I fell into the pond and got caught up with weed gross! I stood up again and paddled the whole way back without falling off again. Once we had got back we paddled to the deepest part of the pond and we all jumped out and put our heads under “I did it multiple times”. After we had done that we all lined up and we tried to walk along the kayaks when it was my turn I got stuck between two kayaks and I slipped into middle splits screamed then fell into the murky weedy water in the process swallowing water. We had to stop then because the next group is here when we are walking back we hitch a ride with Mr Sloan and Ms Greer (the strangers).                                                    

Week 1 Term 2 Assembly Award - Ayla-Cheyne

Well done Ayla-Cheyne - a fantastic work ethic and all of your work produced to a high standard, keep up the great efforts

Some Past Science and Technology Inquiry Work

Below are some previous science fair projects that have caught my eye, take a look at the topics and presentation of these, it may help spark some inspiration for your work this term!!...Remember it isn't all about testing things, you can create or invent things to make life easier in some way or another..

Term 2 - Science and Technology...

Term 2 will be another busy one with the Science and Technology Fair testing out the time management and inquiry skills of all students.

Science Fair.....for many these two words will bring on some stress from the memory of the year 7 Science Fair!! Last year there were some great pieces of work for Year 7 Science Fair. This year students will be building on skills they have developed and learnt from last year's work. The hardest part of the Science fair is finding an idea to investigate and use for their work. I will be giving guidance and support especially in terms of organisation and time management throughout the term to ensure everyone is on track and doesn't end up running out of time/doing an all weekend effort the week before things are due! - More info on Science Fair will be with students very soon.

Camp Photos Week 12 Term 1

What a great week we had at camp - there are heaps of photos of all the different activities below and in the link here

Week 11 term 1 Assembly Award - Tamara

A super effort and attitude towards all aspects of classroom learning - great stuff Tamara

Ashleigh Richards - Video Review of Books

Balmacewen Swimming Sports 22nd March

A great morning at Moana Pool for our school swimming sports, It was great to see all those swimming enjoying themselves and giving their best in the events they swum in. Below are a few shots I snapped of the morning, there are a few smiling room 4 faces amongst the mix. A student report on this event will be posted here very soon, so be sure to check back for a read!

Week 6 Assembly Award - Lilly

Great stuff Lilly - always asking good questions and contributing positively to class discussions!

Portobello Marine Centre Trip

We had a great morning out at the Aquarium with their staff Steve and Jan. Everyone learnt lots of new things about life in the ocean and a bit more about 'who eats who!' One of the highlights was the dissecting of some Spiney Dog Fish. Check out a few pics form this below!

Beep Test - Nathan Hill

On the 20th of February 2013 it was extremely hot and rooms 4, 11, 14 set out to run the beep test on the hall courts. We were split into 3 groups aiming to get different scores I went into the group which was aiming to get a high score.

I could see the tired red faces of the groups before us and I as dreading our turn. When it finally came like all the other groups it started off really slow and got faster and faster.

I was extremely tired when we got to 100 beeps and people started dropping out. I was exhausted when we got to 120 beeps. It got harder and harder until I couldn’t keep going.

I felt extremely tired and thirsty after the beep test and just wanted to lie down and relax.I was really pleased with my score of 130, but I am determined to do even better next time!

Week 5 Assembly Award - Ollie

Top stuff Ollie - some great focus and sound efforts with all of your maths work, keep it up!

Record Makers??...

A small fitness challenge turned into quite a battle of determination for Eden and Tom. Our class "wall sit" - an isometric contraction of the leg muscles in a seated position against a wall. While most students were well and truly done in under 10min these 2 students carried on through their lunch and into some of the afternoon before being stopped at 2 hours!!! A solid effort from them as well as the judges who made sure things were done properly as well as supplying them wiht lunch, drink and sunblock during their ordeal!

Year 8 Triathlon 2013

Week 3 Assembly Award - James

A super contribution to class discussion relating to our Survivor topic, some great knowledge shared.

Summer Daze... Lilly Trotter

Remember when the salt stung in your eyes at the beach, the waves crashing onto the sand loudly, the breaking while surfing along them. That was summer.

Remember when you sat in the sun scorching your skin baby pink, burning and sizzling like pork on the barbeque. That was summer.

Remember when you sat inside relaxing or trying to escape the heat, slapping at your skin to get rid of the flies circling your body, wiping the sticky sweaty hair off your skin. That was summer.

Remember when you play sport on the sticky melting tarmac or grass, sweating like crazy. 

That was summer.

Nathan Hill - Sketches - Bird Life

Here are some of Nathan's sketches he is "Exhibiting" as part of his Home Learning. Great stuff Nathan!