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.