Top Team

We had a awesome afternoon at Top Team today, Beckenham teams shone. I was so proud of both Room 19 teams; your support of each other, wonderful teamwork and sheer joy at the experience was fabulous.

Click on the photos to enlarge.
Top Team on PhotoPeach

Creativity for the Polar Bear

If polar bears could talk what would they say? We've been considering this as we put together our polar bear collages ...

'Help me, help yourselves; save me, save the world.'
'Reduce your carbon footprint or you will reduce the number of footprints made by us!'

Artwork is under construction...

Reducing our Carbon Footprint

Over the next two weeks we are going to look into the different ways we can reduce our carbon footprint. The students have many great ideas already and we are going to research to find more. Today we discovered there is debate surrounding whether a real Christmas tree or an artificial one is better for our planet. Tomorrow we will select names out of a hat for Sustainable Secret Santa. Students are encouraged to make something or find an environmentally friendly gift, that shows thought has been given to reducing our Christmas carbon footprint.

Let us know who you are.

We love getting your comments:) Please include your name in the message if using anonymous.

Hope you enjoyed the show!

Well it's been a real arts week. The staff were so proud of the Year 7 & 8 team on Thursday night as they shared their creativity on stage. We hope you made it along and enjoyed the night. This would be a great place to leave a comment and give the performers some feedback.

Big day tomorrow!

Tomorrow, Thursday is our Arts Performance day:-) A few key reminders. Come to school in uniform. Bring your costume. Get changed before the bell so we are ready to start the dress rehearsal at 9am. Evening performance starts at 7pm. Students need to come in costume by 6:45pm. No cost or limit to how many people can come and watch, though feel free to donate a gold coin.

See you all there ... it's going to be FABULOUS!!!

A poem to make you think.

Today the class tried to get to the bottom of the message that the author of this cool poem wanted to get across to us.

“If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it.

People would walk around it marvelling at its big pools of water, its little pools and the water flowing between.

People would marvel at the bumps on it and the holes in it.

They would marvel at the very thin layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in the gas.

The people would marvel at all the creatures walking around the surface of
the ball and at the creatures in the water.

The people would declare it as sacred because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it would not be hurt.

The ball would be the greatest wonder known, and people would come to pray to it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and to wonder how it could be.

People would love it, and defend it with their lives because they would somehow know that their lives could be nothing without it.

If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter.”

By Joe Miller

We then had a go at creating a static image that could be used as a cover, if the poem was turned into a picture book.

The Great Stuff Challenge

Awesome Stuff on PhotoPeach



What fabulous creativity has been going on over the past two weeks. We were all impressed with the results of the Great Stuff Challenge; from go-carts to flower vases, you have done yourself proud Room 19ers. Can't wait to see the rest on Monday. What particularly impressed you and why?

Arts Performance promises to impress!

Today the arts academies came together for our first combined rehearsal. While there are a few rusty edges, as we would expect at this stage, it has the feel of a wonderful performance of diverse talent. Our big night is next Thursday, the 24th, starting at 7pm.

Awesome Achievement

First place in all three events at the Zones today... what an athlete! (Photo isn't from Zones, but does show how he flies.)

Fabulous effort from everyone today; it was wonderful to hear of all the successes at the Zones (we will have a huge team going to the Canterbury's) and those at school displayed great thinking skills, teamwork and persistence.

Static Images

This term we are learning about Static Images. Yesterday we had our first go at making one. We took a picture, relating to global warming, and matched it with an appropriate quote, then thought about layout, use of space, lettering, colour e.t.c to create our static images. We needed to justify our choices, why did we do things the way we did?

In the image above, 'we' and 'earth' are in block letters because they are the big players, 'smoking' is written with smoke curls, 'away' is separate from the rest of the quote because that's where it is going. The background is red for danger. The picture is on an angle because it it slipping away due to global warming.

Thinking about our thinking

Today we were using Thinking Maps to sort what we have learned so far about our Climate Change topic. We came up with lots of reasons for global warming. At one stage we were talking about the Greenhouse Effect; Anna J gave a great description of this in her own words, then Rhys came up with a real gem ... he said that when he thinks of the Greenhouse Effect he thinks of an electric blanket around the Earth that is set to 1, gradually heating our planet, more than a blanket would. Fabulous analogy Rhys, this is touching on Extended Abstract thinking!

Arts Academies

Over the past term and a half we have been spending Tuesday afternoons unleashing our creativity in our Arts Academies programmes. In two weeks all our hard work will come to fruition when our performances hit the stage at 7pm on Nov. 24th. Today the wearable arts group used the Hall space to work out their moves on the catwalk, so the dance group practiced their zombie routine on the court.

Information Report Writing

At the moment we are writing information reports about the plight of polar bears. Most of the class have finished their first paragraph, the identifying statement. We were impressed with this one...

Imagine your home your place of birth melting away before your very eyes. It’s a tough thing to face but this is what’s happening to the polar bears habitat in the North Pole. Polar bears are down to about 20-25,000 in numbers now as of 2007 and what happens in 2050? They could be down to about 1500 or wiped out completely. This is the fact we have to face not only as an individual but united together to not only to save the polar bears but our planet earth as well.

Can you spot where the apostrophe and commas are needed?

Enjoyment at Technicraft :)

YUMMY. In technicraft lately our Year 7 group have been doing a project about rice. We are all learning new recipes and skills while having fun, and bringing new ideas to the recipes to show off our skills at home. During our time at Tech we made fried rice the first week, followed the next week by sushi. Then today we did a very yummy rice risotto and rice pudding. It's lots of fun being in the cooking class and making many yummy meals. Can't wait till next week to find out what new yummy experience we will be enjoying.

by Angus

Room 19 Maths Class

Today we tested our containers we had made for maths home learning over the past week. The containers had to be capable of holding 1 litre of liquid. The containers were made out of recycled material mainly old cereal or muesli boxes. Students had to come up with the nets and measurements themselves. Here is an example of a measurement: 20cm x 5cm x 10cm. Only 1 box was unsuccessful because they had read one of their measurements incorrectly :( but besides that one little mishap they were a success.

Forbes

 

i-Pad in the Classroom

Our school has so far purchased four iPads to try out in classrooms; we are lucky to be trialling one in Room 19. Today we used it in several ways...

We used it to create a mindmap to help us establish the main idea in an article about Kiribati...

Beth, Gabe and Grace used it to record their smoking ad for Home Learning at lunchtime...

and Rhys took some great pictures of our longball game this afternoon.

Parents and family members, what games did you love playing in the summer terms when you were at school? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Athletics Sports Day

Fabulous effort today everybody. Lots of stunning performances, including this very hard to call 100m final. All the best for the zones in two weeks.

Being Assertive

In Room 19 we have now finished the DARE programme. In the last session today we have practiced being assertive by standing up for what we believe. For example, if you were walking down the street and a dodgy person walked up to you and tried to sell you drugs, what would you do? Be assertive; look them in the eye and say, 'No, drugs are harmful', and walk away. We practiced looking and being assertive.

by Rhys.

Smoking, drinking or marijuana?



Smoking, drinking or marijuana? Which are you doing? For homework, that is. Sam has been working hard on his homework and his hard work has paid off! He has created an amazing video on smoking, and the legomen really get you thinking. He has his homework in early, but will yours be late?Remember homework is due in this Friday, so get cracking!!

By Anna and Anna