Amazing Race Week 9

This week is the final week of our Amazing Race - students have worked well over the last 9 weeks and this week they are able to choose their destination and road block. You can't go to a country we have already visited.

Good luck, the points are very close amongst our top teams!

French Brunch!! (Notice)

The students have been enthusiastically studying French this term. With the term coming to an end a Quiz/French Brunch is planned for Wednesday 10th December.

The cost of this event is $3 per student. Each student will get a drink and a croissant or pain au chocolat. The money need to be paid to the classroom teacher before the event.

Thank you for your support you have shown the students as they have engaged in the new French Language Programme at our school this year.

Regards - Ella Murdoch, Lead Tutor French Programme

Balmac Year 7 "Top Town" 2008(notice)

As mentioned in last week’s newsletter, the ‘Year 7 Top Team Challenge’ will take place next Friday 12th of December. The students will be divided into school house teams to participate in a range of group challenges as an end to our term four focus on communication and teamwork. This will take place on the school grounds from 9am until lunchtime. The students need to come to school in correct PE gear (navy shorts/trackies and school PE t shirt) and can bring house colours to wear too. If your child does not have correct PE gear, they will need to come to school in their uniform. Students will also need to bring a towel (some activities involve water) as well as a big lunch and drink for the day.

Keep your fingers crossed for nice weather – if the weather forecast looks poor for next Friday, we will make a decision early next week about a postponement day.

Natalie Paterson - stream report

Stream Report
On every Thursday, most of the time this year our class - room 13 has been going down to kaikorai stream to do water testing on Kaikorai stream. At kaikorai stream there were lots of tests you could do; P.H., conductivity, G.P.S. and clarity. I was in a group with Sammy, Jessie, Jacinda and me at the start our group job was G.P.S. where we measured air and water. Then when Sammy moved to Kaikorai Valley College our group became Jessie, me and Jacinda. We stopped doing G.P.S. and started doing conductivity which to me is a lot more fun than G.P.S. Also it’s a lot easier because all you have to do is scoop up a cup of water from the stream and put a little measure thing in the cup of water. It will then come up with a number on its smallish screen which yo write down, then you repeat 3 times and BINGO! You’re done. Stream testing is always fun and I’m glad we had the chance to try it this year.
By Natalie.

Jordie & Arnold - Stream Report

Water testing 2008Room13 have been doing water testing down at the Kaikorai stream. We have been testing clarity, temp, ph, con, do2. We have been going down to the Kaikorai stream since the start of the year, trying to make a difference. We go bug testing a lot and find out the good and the bad. I have learnt a lot in this year about the steam and that you are killing the fish. We have about 5 people that go down to the stream every Thursday. Some of our class went out to blow line to plant trees and we sprayed fish on the ground meaning (if you put rubbish on the ground you are kill most of the fish in the sea which means no sushi).also when the class went to bowl line for the stream (there was rubbish every where)! So this is what I expedients at water testing 2008.By Arnold Te Kawa and Jordie Beres!

Amazing Race Week 8 - PERU

This week the amazing race takes us into the stunning South American Landscape to Peru! Your road block this week is to produce a poster A3 size or larger of information, images and facts about the famous "Inca Trail" You should have information relating to Geography, History and People. Your poster should be a visual masterpiece of Information - Good Luck with this weeks challenges!

Will and Nathan's Stream Work Summary

We have been doing water testing for nearly the whole year weekly. We have been involved in two things like when we went behind bowl line. When we were there we planted plants cleared the field heaps of rubbish we also painted fish beside every drain we could find. The other thing was a massive bug hut at the kaikorai stream which took the whole morning. We found lots of bugs and found out how to identify different bugs. We have found lots of info and we put it in the globe website to show other schools around the world. We have lots of fun doing water testing and we hope we can pass our info to other class’s.

Year 7 Speech Semi Finals...

On Tuesday there was the Year seven speech semi finals, from room 13 we had Paddy, Meg and Marco representing us. Everyone spoke well and from the speakers Ms Summers and Mr Clarke judged their 3 top pics for the Final on Friday in Assembly... Well done Paddy, your speech on Sports Injuries was picked in the top 3, so good luck for Friday's final!

Otago Athletic Sports

Well done to Kay and Meg who were competing at the Otago Athletic Sports last week, super effort to get this far. A big well done to Meg who won the High Jump with a winning jump of 1.34m! Awesome stuff girls

Week 7 Amazing Race - Canada

This week has teams arriving in Canada to carry out their work. This week there is no road block task, instead extra points are to be given to teams who show good TEAM work and put a good effort into producing work of a very high standard of information and visual quality. Remember TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More!!

Class Speeches

Well there has been lots of great work going into the preparation of class speeches. Hopefully by now people are starting to really get into practising these at home. Our class speech presentations will begin on Wednesday 18th November and we will have completed these by Monday 24th November!

From the class 2-3 students will be judged and chosen to compete in the Year 7 competition on Tuesday 25th November and from this finalists will go into the school final on Friday 28th November!!

Remember 3minutes is the desired time for your speech, so keep working hard and it will be great to hear all these next week!

Amazing Race - Week 5 - INDIA

This week (10th-14th November) on our Amazing Race journey we are heading to India. The "Road Block" for India is that your group will have to put together and perform an Indian dance for the rest of the class. We were luck enough to see some Indian dance a couple of weeks ago here at school, think back to this as well as doing some research and you should be able to put together something to WOW the rest of the class! You will be given the piece of Music to use. Good luck!!

North Zone Athletic Sports

Well done to the Room 13 Students who competed in the North Zone Athletic Sports on Tuesday 4th November. Representing the school from Room 13 we had... Jamie Scott, Ashley Ryder, Kay Rickerby, Meg McKay, Sarah Whitmore and Joel Smith.

Places were gained in the finals by;

Meg McKay - 1st Discus, 1st High Jump, 1st 75m Sprint

Kay Rickerby - 2nd Shot Put

Kay and Meg were both members of the Girls U12 relay team who were placed 3rd!

Well done to all our competitiors, the next event for the place getters will be the Otago Champs in a few weeks!!

Singapore - Road Block - Week 4 - 3rd-7th November -

Research a traditional craft from Singapore and make a sample of it (everyone in group). Then on Friday share with the class how it was made and if it is possible everyone make one

The Amazing Race

Here are the details of the AMazing Race work that the students have been given to work on as their weekly homework group challenge!! All work is due for presentation and marking on a Friday morning unless told otherwise - Good Luck and remember to work effectively as a TEAM - Together Everyone Achieves More.

Over the next ten weeks you will be working together, completing an amazing race around the world. Each week you will be given a new country with tasks that need to be completed, in order for you to gain points for your team.
Great prizes are up for grabs for the winning team.

The aim of this is teamwork. The better your team works together the more points you are likely to be awarded. The more points awarded to more rewards your team will win.
Each week there will be 30 points awarded to questions and tasks. An extra 5 bonus points will also be given for presentation, extra information and effort. Be as creative as you want remember teamwork is the key.

You will need to collect information and pictures for each week’s questions and tasks. You could use reference texts, travel brochures, adults, the internet, and other information sources to help you on your journey. Who knows you may have even been to the country before.

It is up to your team how you work out who is doing what questions. Everyone needs to do their part. Good luck.

Your team has been given a clearfile which can be used to present your weekly information in. However you can present the information however you want.

Each week, a team’s work will be selected as the work of the week. This will be displayed on the wall around our world map to show where we are traveling. Every week counts!

It is important to use your own words and not copy chunks of information from the internet or reference texts.

You will also be given the new country on the Friday so you
can start gathering information over the weekend.

Good Luck team. Let’s go travelling!!

WEEKLY TASKS TO COMPLETE

Locate on world map where the country is and draw connecting line from the previous week’s country. (1)

Draw the Flag (2)

What is a symbol that represents this country? (1)

Choose 1 thing you would take with you when traveling to this week’s country and explain why.
(Try to be creative. Bonus points for clever thinkers) (2)

Choose three souvenirs you would buy to remind you of your time in this country. (3)

Find out about a famous person from this country and write about what they were famous for. (4)

What money will you be using in this country? (1)

What is the capital city of this country? (1)

What languages did the people of this country speak? (1)

What is a food that you might eat in this country? (2)

Write down the names of some landmarks you saw?
They can be natural or man made. (4)

Name 2 native animals you saw while in this country (2)

Road Block – A road block is a question or task given to you each week. (6)

Presentation, extra information and effort (5)
Total = 35 points

School Athletic Sports

Well done to everyone who took part in the School Athletic Sports on Friday - a fantastic day! It was good to see everyone putting in great efforts and having fun. Well done ot the following Room 13 students who were placed in events:

Kay Rickerby - 1st Shot Put

Meg McKay - Placed in all events!! 1st High Jump, 1st Discus, 1st Long Jump, 2nd Sprints, 2nd Shot Put, 2nd Hurdles

Arnold Te-Kawa - 3rd Hurdles U12

Alex Philips - 3rd Hurdles U13

NIck Curran - 3rd= High Jump

Term 4 - Communication

Well we are all set for another busy and exciting term. Week One is the School Athletic Sports - Friday 17th @ Caledonian Sports Ground - this is always an enjoyable day. Our Amazing Race work begins on Monday when students will find out their teams!! More info soon....

Spinning with Marco

Well the Challenge was to spin the basketball for 1 minute on his finger for the prize of a Moro Gold! Not only did Marco spin the ball for one minute but 3 minutes and 9 seconds!! winning him 2 Moro Golds! The challenge is there for anyone else to try if they think they can, nice skills Marco!

Oh Deer - 11th September

Today a surprise visit came from a deer in a chill box the organs where a liver the kidneys, one testicle (gross) the lungs and the heart. We where allowed to touch the organs and the lady who brought them in told us about the organs and how they are not so different from a humans. She demonstrated by getting mister sloan to cut open with a craft knife the inside was porous and like a tree because the middle had thick branches of air sacks which then thinned out to become thin slivers of air everyone (nearly) touched the lung and a lot of people picked up the smaller organs like the kidneys and even the testicle. Everything was covered in blood after looking at that I don’t think anyone was up for venison tonight!

By Rory Harvey

Longbeach Photos

More Longbeach Photos

Longbeach Trip Tomorrow...Wednesday 27th August

A couple of things to remember for tomorrow - TORCH - you will need to bring a torch with you for one of our activites. Remember lotsa of warm clothing and a warm hat!

If we have to postphone due to weather there will be a cancellation on More FM in the morning. Hopelully we will strike it lucky with the weather this time!!

Longbeach Trip - Wednesday 27th August

Well we are hoping for some good weather next week for out trip to Longbeach on Wednesday 27th August. As planned earlier we will be leaving school at 8.50am in order to get out to Longbeach and into activities by 10am.

Students will need to bring a good lunch, warm clothing(hat & jacket), and suitable footwear. Students should not wear jeans! Track pants or shorts are more suited to the activities we will be doing.

It is great to have some parent helpers coming with us to make all of our activities possible.

If you would like to come along with us and haven’t already let me know please let me know asap, it would be great to have some more people along with us.

We will be returning to school between 3.00pm -3.30pm

Any questions about this trip send me an email asloan@balmacewen.school.nz or call and leave a message at the office.

Otago Science Fair - Prize Winners

Well we have had some great successes at the Otago Science Fair which has been held down at the Otago Museum this week. Balmacewen has scoped up a large number of the awards at this. From Room 13 we had 4 pieces of work go to this and everone has won a prize or mrizes in some cases!!! A super effort. the awards are listed below. The prizegiving ceremony wil be held this Sunday at the Museum. Awesome effort and results!!!!!

Prizewinners
Meg McKay – Does breakfast make a difference?

• 2 X Children and Young Persons Research
• Cluster Group Award
• Aurora Award

Joel Smith – Sea or Sewage

• 2 X Department of Marine Science University of Otago
• NIWA Award

William Pelet – Skateboard stand

• Aurora Award

Will Davidson – No pain no gain

• Asthma Award

Check out this cool site...Brain Pop

This cool site has some great info relating to some of the learning we are doing about the human body at the moment. It has interactive quizes as well which are great o test your knowledge.
The address and login/password are below. (the log in is for a one week trial) Once this trial expires i will load a new one to use.
www.brainpop.com
user name: room13balmac
password: attack

They are fast!!!

Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco) 3:26.00 Rome 14 July 1998 The world record for the 150m run is 3min 26sec. We went out as a class today and ran 100m each in relay style until we had ran 1500m, our time with 15 students running 100m each was 4min23sec, not even close to the fastest individual for this event!!

Beijing 2008 - Homework 1 Athlete/Team Study

Homework – Olympic Games Athlete/Team

You are to carry out and complete a project on one of our athletes at the Beijing Olympic Games and produce a wonderful piece of work to show your findings and followings of the athlete/team.

Include
1. Name(s) and Profile – beginnings/history, past successes, photo/drawing an info on the athlete.
2. What sport/events entered for Beijing 2008.
3. Info-graphic (full page)
4. Results – follow through all the events of this athlete/team recording their results and reports on events (this may also include information and reports from papers, websites etc). You need to write your own summary of the athletes performances (at least half page).
5. Add and include any other interesting information and findings relating to this athlete and there sport at the Beijing Games.
Timeline/Guide of Sequence
1. Decide on Athlete/Team.
2. Read/listen note take in exercise book.
3. Write up information to present – NO power points.
4. Presentation to class 2 days after games conclude.
You must
1. Show evidence of research and following of the athlete/team – in your exercise book you should have paper clippings and info found.
2. Notes recorded in book.
3. Work written in your own words
4. Neatly and clearly presented in an organised way.

Our Bones

We were lucky enough to have a look at and name some real human bones today, these bones are about 120 years old and have been passed through several doctors while learning human anatomy, ver interesting seeing all the detail of real bones!

New Date for Longbeach Rockclimbing Trip

Well hopefully the rain will ease soon! We have booked a new date for climbing and hope that this date will be sunny and fine! We are now going to be going to Longbeach on WDENESDAY 27th AUGUST. We are still looking for some more helpers, so if you are available and would like to join us for the day it would be greratto have you accompany us!

The Human Body - Homework Task Due 6th August

Your task is to choose a body part, organ or system.
Gather all the information you can on this body part, organ or system.
You are going to have to present your findings about this on an A4 sized page.
You will need to include on your page:
· DEFINITION of the body part, system or organ.
· DIAGRAM/DRAWING of the part, organ or system.
· EXPLANATION of what this part, system or organ does for us and its importance and relationship to other parts of the body.
· DID YOU KNOW BOX with some interesting/possible uncommon knowledge facts.
You need to be prepared to share your sheet of facts and information with the class on Wednesday 6th August.
A high standard of presentation is expected along with a detailed knowledge of all of your information.