How did Te Reo go during 2015?

Throughout terms 1-4 my class has been doing Te Reo. The main topics that we learnt about were, how ro count in Maori, how to greet people in Maori, how to say objects in a home and in the school environment in Maori, direction in Maori, the names of food items in Maori and the different types of weather in Maori. Along our Maori journey we played multiple games such as the Maori number game and flip the cards (this game was used for the topic of food and weather). As a class we also learnt different Karakia's (Maori Prayers) and Waiata's (Maori songs). My highlight by far for out Te Reo was at the start of the year when we learnt a Maori number song. This song had actions to the different numbers and we all used to have competitions on who could remember the actions the best!

I learnt so many things this term about the Maori culture. Thanks Fire (Teacher) Luana and Fire (Teacher) Stacey for a great 4 terms of Maori.

13/11/2015 - Maths Buddy

Maths Buddy:

The idea of maths buddy is that, you self lead yourself in a way that your learning will befit from. You can do this by choosing maths lessons that you need to learn and other things like that. So far maths buddy has been great for me because I get an idea of what I need to learn and I can learn things myself (independent) without having a teacher to teach me, making me feel like I am in control of my learning. I am working at a year 7-8 level on maths buddy. So for I have earned 100% on patterns and algebra.

6/11/15 - Te Reo Maori Lesson

On Friday our Maori teacher, Luana came in to teach us Te Reo Maori. During this week session room 22 would be learning directional words, these words are:

Neke :  move

Maui : left

Matau : right

Mua : forward

Muri : back

Taihoa : stop/walk

Ngoke : worm/crawl

Hikoi  : walk

E tu  : stand

E noho : sit

E heke : get down

My favourite part of this session was when we put these words into practice and went out to the playground where we had to lead a partner around the playground using these words and then it would be our turn to follow the direction our partner was telling us to go. To make it even more fun the student following the directions would be blind folded. My partner was Megan. It was a weird feeling being blind folded, because when I thought I was in one place I would be in a different place and I didn't know what was in front of me!

Thanks so much Luana for a great Maori session with you, you teach me something new every week!

Thanks
Ella

KOKAKO LODGE POSTER

MY POSTER

As one of my camp follow up activities I had to design a poster about KOKAKO LODGE. 

Here was my success criteria and how I rated my work:

• Bright colours 10/10
• Border 7/10
• Title 10/10
• Bold Headings 10/10
• Illustrations 3/10  -  I ran out of space
• Organisation  9/10
• Eye catching  9/10
• Message 9/10
• Does it excite or enthuse other people to go to KOKAKO LODGE  8/10
• Is their information 8/10
• Is it at a year 6 standed 9.5/10
• More pictures than words  2/10
• Relevant images 10/10

Over all for my poster I am going to give it an 8.5/10. Next time I am going to allow my self some more room for images and am going to add in other images to make it a 10/10 year 6 standed. 

What did I learn about paragraphing?

My Blog Buddy On the 3rd of the 11th month is Chloe:

chloe22fhs.blogspot.co.nz

Today we were learning about paragraphing. All of the things we learnt I already knew. These things were having a topic sentence, then detail sentences and finally a concluding sentence, having relevant details to the topic sentence and having 1 idea per paragraph.   At the moment I am working on a piece of persuasive writing. My topic is that Forrest Hill School Year 6's should not go to camp! I have finished my introduction and am part way through my 1st out of 3 paragraphs. I strongly believe that I have so far completed my writing to a year 6 standered.

My knowledge on bloging

My Blog Buddy On the 2nd of the 11th month is Chloe:

chloe22fhs.blogspot.co.nz

This is what I know about Blogging:

Blogger is a big collaborative website that you can share pretty much anything on. If you where using it from a learning perspective (Like I am), you would often share work on your blog and other people would comment on your work, give you feedback/other ways to improve you work! You could even use the blog as a kind of diary, recording the things you may have learnt on a particular day of any thing special that may have happened at school. On your blog you can embed particular websites or even links to other blogs. You can share your blog links to multiple other people. Another thing that is also great about the blog is that it automatically orders your post in time order, starting with the most resent posts. Also you can share any websites that you may find useful for any work you are doing, if you find a good website you want to use, you can paste the link into the blog and post it to come back to. How USEFUl!

So just BLOG, BLOG, BLOG!

It could help you a heap!

KOKAKO LODGE

Kokako Lodge - Acrostic poem 

(Red is KOKAKO LODGE highlighted)

BEFORE

                                       TaKe a look 

                              at KokakO lodge

              There is sure to be Kayacts, I wonder what colours they will be?

                       See the HunuA falls flowing,

                probably into a laKe!

                    Feeling a bit wOrried about how 

                                   my aLergies will be handled

                           There is bOund to be climbing gear, instructors as well,

                            although Despite my worries and other things like that, I am sure

         my time their will be Great,

     having fun during activitiEs. 

Kokako lodge - Acrostic poem

(Blue is KOKAKO LODGE highlighted)

AFTER

                                   TaKe a look at Kokako lodge.

                                  SurOunded by thick bushery.

                                See Kayakts, cooking materials, archery equipment, high ropes harnesses, 

                low ropes and Abseiling equipment,

                             all at Kokako Lodge.

                       See the glOw worms glistening under the moon.

Cabins of all shapes and sizes, the place to 

                                      Lay our heads. 

         Meet Chewey, JR, JOnny, Matt and Luca, our wonderful instructors for the week as well as

       our wonderful cook, Dennis making amazing meals.

                             Have Great times with friends, giggling and smiling,

                                     Excitment wherever you go at Kokako lodge!

By ELLA

We should incorporate the idea from the student government, and put in a rock garden with painted stones!

On the behalf of the student government I strongly advise that we include the student government's idea and put in a rock garden with painted stones. Reasons being that the Year 6’s will get to leave something behind, like a legacy, it will add colour to the outside learning area and it would be a great decoration.

Having a rock garden in our outside learning area would be a great legacy for the Year 6’s to leave. As a Year 6 I know that I and many others want something to come back to that will remind us of our incredible time at Forrest Hill School, this means that we would be leaving a legacy for ourselves to come back to, so having stones with our names painted on them would fit that criteria perfectly and also be something for other students at Forrest Hill School to enjoy. I have interviewed 20 people in my Year 6 class, 19 of the students agreed with the statement above and 1 did not, therefore reinforcing the sentence above, that they felt the same way towards this. Adding to the fact that having painted stones with our names on them would be a legacy for the Year 6’s to leave behind, is the fact that it was one of the Student Government's projects to complete for 2015, so for the Student Government it would be an accomplished task that others would be able to enjoy. Put yourself in a Year 6’s position, wouldn't you want to have something that will remind you of your primary school years at Forrest Hill School? Seeing there would be an individual name on each of the stones/pebbles, each stone would be unique so the Year 6’s would have there own kind of memory stone to represent them. Another thing to consider is it would be a fun activity for the Year 6’s to complete in the last week of school, sending the Year 6’s to intermediate with a smile. The last thing you want is unhappy Year 6’s going off to intermediate, dreading their last day because all they did was MATHS! Painted stones for the reasons above would be a great legacy for the Year 6’s to leave behind.

We need bright colours in our outside learning area! What is a learning area without bright colours? Colour is a necessary factor in a garden, making painted stones a perfect idea. In areas of our learning area where rot and decay takes over everything in that space will seem dull, however this can be changed by putting in colourful stones with names written on them. Bright colours like yellow, green, orange and so on make people feel happy and cheerful from the colours brightness. These bright colours will remind students of their happy memories at Forrest Hill School, relating back to the fact that the stones would be a great reminder for Year 6’s who have left Forrest Hill, as strongly stated in the paragraph above, consequently these colours make for happy times! If however the learning area has dull colours such as midnight blues, black, brown e.t.c it will only remind people of sad, gloomy times not joyful and fun times. You can’t deny it, colour is needed in our learning area and the painted stones would suit that purpose perfectly!

Painted stones would be a great decoration and would be a great representation of our school. You may be wondering, what do I mean by a “great representation of our school,” well what I am meaning is that the rocks/pebbles could be placed in a specific way to create a pattern or image on the ground. These symbols could be symbols that represent our school or symbols that represent Aotearoa. For e.g to represent our school, the stones could make the symbol of our Forrest Hill School tree logo or to represent Aotearoa, the stones could be in the shape of a koru. As a result of the symbols representing our school, people would be reminded of Forrest Hill going back to the first paragraph. Also as a result of the symbols representing Aotearoa, the symbols would give meaning to our garden. On the decoration side of things the stones combined to make a symbol would make the learning space more of an interesting place to work in. The stones/pebbles would be a great representation of our school and a great decorations, both those things are needed.

In conclusion, I would love to work in the learning area if there was a rock garden with painted stones because it would be a great legacy for the Year 6’s to leave behind, it would make the learning space pop with colour and finally the stones would be a great decoration and representation of our school.

Moment in time: 18/8/2015

Cross Country

Gooey, brown mud bombards the crevasses of my toes as the cross country course whizzes past me. The chorus of familiar voices from my Mum, Dad, Nana and Poppa dominate my thoughts with a million messages like; persevere to the end, I can't let them down, I have got to do my best.

The finish line approaches, the part to sprint finish is coming up. With the smell and squelch of mud rising from beneath, my heart beating out of my chest, the wind rifling through my hair I enter the last 100 meters, tights sticking to me all the way. 

It's intermediate time!

Wairau Intermediate

On a bright but damp Monday the 10th of August a brave Forrest Hill School year 6 committee took the charge of Wairau Intermediate, striding along from the bus not knowing what to expect. Finally a chance for me to compare between school after an intense visit to Murry's Bay Intermediate last week. 

After 2 of the technical activity's, Music Tech and Food Tech and what seemed like a family reunion with my fellow friends who graduated last year from Forrest Hill and went to Wairau, group number 3 was ready for the final rotation to Hard Tech. I had a feeling this would be my favorite activity! Entering the Hard Tech room was like walking into an old style garage, 4 brown, paint splattered tables crowded the room each housing a strange blue mechanism, I was yet to find out what these strange things where. Despite that, the thing that intrigued me most was the wall of tools, every shape, size and colour imaginable. It seemed to never end! Getting to work we started creating Dog Tags using the strange mechanism, hence the name of a "Vice Grip." By using a Hammer and a Brad with a raised letter on the end I indented my tag, resulting in a message saying "Soccer is everything." 

Wow! What an amazing time I had, THANKS Mr Murry (the principal) and Wairau Intermediate. Looks like you will be seeing me next year. 

Westlake Boys Symphonic Band

Wednesday the 5th of August

Westlake Boys Symphonic Band

All of their songs Temple, Fire, Space Walkers and September sounded professional with my favorite song they preformed being Fire because it really painted a real picture in my mind. They painted a picture in my mind by making their instruments seem to re in-act what a fire would seem like by bringing in a bass drum (a big, massive drum played on it's side) which to me made a big difference because it kind of brought in a secret sound and fire is known to be secret as it is not deliberately put there. Also helping to paint a picture in my mind, in this song someone played the crash symbols making it sound lie someone was screeching, making sense because quite often when there is a fire it is scary and when things are scary people tend to scream. The final song they preformed was called September a high tempo song that after the really painting a picture in your mind kind of songs brought us back to our senses with a groovy beat. This song I happened to know so I was kind of going with the beat which helped me to enjoy it a whole lot more.

Over all their performance was amazing and I am pretty sure the whole school loved it.

From me I say 

"Well done to them!"

Conductors:

Miss Barker

Mr Robinson 

Band:

Westlake Boys Symbolic Band

THANK YOU!!

Welcome

Welcome To My Blog:

Can you answer a quick servery?..

1. What would you like to see more of on this blog?

• Puzzles
• Stories
• Work

2. How would you rate my blog from 1-10 (1 being horrible and 10 being amazing)

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

Character Description

A white shape watched secretly from a perch on a snow covered tree. It was the snowy owl, Olivia, her bright beady eyes watching like a hawk not missing the slightest of movement. Stretching effortlessly her broad wings preparing to wait another hour throughout the driving snow for her meal to be spotted. Carefully preening her glossy brown and white feathers like a kitten, she made it look so easy. Through her curved beak she lapped up the smell of a lone field mouse, Andrew, and set flight to cautiously hover overhead, talons all ready and waiting to attack. Gliding over the fields her lunch a was spotted... Andrew had been found.


Rolling gleefully in his snow bath, Andrew the fully grown field mouse enjoyed the the winters cool breeze letting it overcome him with laughter, what a child! As he rolled back and fourth restlessly, his creamy white belly would reveal itself to the world but on one occasion when his small, fluffy head popped up for a swift unnoticeable squizz at his surroundings, his beady eyes as small as raisins being bombarded with snow continuously like a gun firing bullets at the enemy, Andrews long delicate whiskers sensed movement, spotting danger. Olivia had targeted him and was entering a full speed dive straight towards his pink button nose. He squeaked disbelievingly at his luck before he froze with intense fear, his ginger fur standing on end. Wiped back to his senses he scampered as fast as his three toed feet would carry him and clung desperately to a small shrub with his deathly claws, instantly wrapping his long spindly tail around the leaves. His tiny ears quivered as he listened for his approaching attacker.

"I am going to die," wailed Andrew as Olivia descended towards him.

"Too right you are," cackled Olivia landing gracefully beside Andrew. "Looking pretty good for my full coarse meal."

"Please don't, I will do anything," Andrew whimpered, his bottom lip quivering uncontrollably!

"Well come to think of it there is one thing that would stop you getting eaten," thought Olivia. "It is, can you be my friend as I get pretty lonely from time to time up in that tree of mine, no one to play with, no one at all and I guess I can always find an Antarctic hare to eat instead."

Hearing the sorrow in her voice Andrew answered "Of course but, but you could have picked anyone but me."

"Well I could, but you where the only one to cross paths with me so you are now the lucky one," a now cherry Olivia exclaimed. "Hop on my back and we can go for a quick tour of our wilderness!"

So off they went, two friends beaming with joy off on a big adventure.

Tuesday the 26th May

The Westlake Boys Choir known as the voicemale choir came to FHS today. This choir is conducted by Mr David squire. They preformed 3 pieces. The first piece they played was a Hungarian Solider song. This song was all about a young solider writing to his beloved wife. This solider was described to be angry. In this piece the trumpet was played and also the drum was played. I gave this song a 9/10. The next song they preformed was about Christmas but not a song like Rudolf the red nose reindeer that we knew it was a new song to me about the angles when they where looking at Jesus and their golden light shining down on him. This song to me sounded like a lullaby, it was beautiful. So I have given it also a 9/10. The final song they sung was a song that had been written by a previous member of the voicemale choir. This students name was Robbie Ellis. The song was about a Howler Monkey. This was a very full on song that gave me lots of information about those particular monkeys. I learnt that they live in Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Mexico. I gave this song a 10/10.

Later this year the voicemale choir are going to be preforming at the town hall, competing in a concert called The Big Sing. In this choir the song I enjoyed the most was the Howler Monkey song as it was about an animals and I love animals. Also it taught me many facts as stated above and finally it was very full on and it kept me interested. The thing about this choir that I loved was how they had different melodies. Some where high and some where low.

Overall this was a spectacular performance that I found super entertaining and interesting.

Des Hunt Visit

Tuesday 19th of May 2015  11:50

Well so far today has been incredible. We first talked to the amazing Des Hunt himself who told us about himself and his book "Cry of the taniwha." Then we did question and answer where we asked him questions about things and then he gives us an answer. Next we traveled to the hall where Des talked about how he writes his books by using chemistry, involving experiments and tests. Later today I am going to go with him and have one on one time with him. How about that!!!

Today I learnt that in writing to hook the reader so they actually finish the story was that you first have to have a hook (the bit at the start) then next comes the development (the part in the middle) and last but not least the climax (near the end). I also learnt that writing a book is not always easy as you have to figure out characters, where it is going tot be set and even after that you have to plan which usually take 1-2 weeks, then you have to write the introduction making sure you are hooking the reader in. This part according to Des is the hardest. Next you do the developing part of the story and at the same time you have to be adding in all of the details for e.g characters, the scene e.t.c. Finally you have the climax, the bit at the end which ends the story well by rounding it off. This writing process takes 7-8 weeks so you have to persevere to finish the book. Once you have done all of the above you have to reread it and rewrite the bits you do not like. Once all of this has been done you send it to the publishers who either sent you back a letter saying yes they will happily publish it or you get a letter that says in a nice way your book was horrible so no we are not going to publish it for you as we will not make much money from it. Overall this process takes 2-3 months. 

I have learnt so much so fast today. Big thanks to Des for his wisdom and fun times so far.

Monday the 18th - How was this day for me?..

Monday the 18th was a great day for me because I got to be independent. I got to have quite a range of different things to do at different times which for me was good and I found it a good change for once in a while was that we did not really have set times we had to do things for e.g block 1 reading e.t.c. I got lots of work done because it was a good learning environment. It was quiet when it needed to be and even when the volume went up it never got to the stage where I could not focus. I got these things done...

1. I finished my publishing of my explanation.
2. I finished my publishing of my story "Soccer star."
3. Did my one journal activity.
4. Continued for a bit with my free choice writing.
5. Finished as much as I could find of good maths games and put them on my doc which was then shared with the class and Mrs Robson.
6. Wrote an email about questions and things me and Elise disagreed on that was sent to Mr Marwick.

Overall I believe the sort of learning environment that we had today was amazing and the independence of today was awesome.

Endevour writers

My Poppa

When I was a little girl and even now my poppa tells me stories at night for my bedtime story but not just any stories, storie full of mystery, surprise and joy. These stories are all about a marshmallow that live in the moon. his name is Marshy. Here is one of them…

There once lived a marshmallow who’s name was Marshy. Marshy had 5 friends a fairy named Starlight, Blazer, Moon beam,  all lived together on the moon where every evening they would have dinner at the amazing retaront Mc Moons (in NZ we call it Mc Donalds) where they would have Moon Burgers and many more things like that. The special thing about the moon where they lived was that it was made of cheese. One day marshy and his moon friends decided that they would come down to earth to visit a little girl called Ella who lived in forest hill. They traveled in there moon buggey car. On there way they stopped by at Poppa Russels house as they had been told there was important news. Then they found out the news, it was Ella’s birthday so they rushed off to her house…

My poppa told many stories about Marshy and his moon friends for e.g one time they crashed on my road because on the moon they drove on the other side of the road...         

My poppas famous ability was talking like donald duck he used to crack me up. He even from the time he went to Disneyland he got a my sized donald duck. The thing that is the most funny about how he could talk like donald duck was when he would say this “ OW BOY, OW BOY, OW BOY” Another funny thing he would do was call himself a baboon and then he would say he had a red bum...

My poppa was also a great athlete when he was a boy he was one of the fastest in his school and ran many marathons.

A way he used to play around with me was whenever I said something to him which he did not agree with he would mock me but not in a way that was affencive. As I have very crocard teeth he would say well you have got as many rows of teth as a shark, I wold reply i have feelings you know, then he would say I know, I know.

That is all the funny and interesting things about my poppa.

Waterwise

Waterwise

Down the ramp we go,

push, push, push.

In a double kayak,

 Ella D and B are on a role,

paddling with the strength of an elephant,

left, right, left, right.

Storming in and through the weeds,

they go flying, splashing on the water as we go,

Splish, splosh, splash.

Cutting across the lake,

lkm whee have been paddling,

huff puff, huff puff.

Wind picking up and brushing on my face,

paddling against the wind,

heave ho, heave ho.

To my partner, Ella B I say,

"Perseverance is the key, perseverance is the key,

we can't give up now the fight is almost over!"

Finally we have won the battle against the wind and the currents,

Horray, horray, horray.

Arriving back at the docks, water stilled, wind down as pumped up as can be,

we have completed our task.

By Ella

Writing

What do I enjoy about writing?

For writing I enjoy writing fiction texts where you can just use your imagination to create a great story. I like it because I can just let my ideas pop out of my head and onto the paper. In other words I can be creative. Also in my stories I like to have a few slightly wacky things happen. For e.g. People being hit over the head with a frying pan(it tends to be used in my funny stories) As well as all of that I find that in most of my stories I have to have an animal somewhere in it. If you know me well you will know that I love animals, nature too. If I ever became a famous NZ or world wide author my style of writing would be like Des Hunt. His books are mostly based around a real place and about history too. But despite that his characters and other bits to it are pretty unique. I think that style of writing I would enjoy because like I said I like being creative and I something to know is that I find history very interesting. That is what I like about writing.

My Writing

How The NZ Kingfisher Got Its Colour

As we all should know the NZ Kingfisher has the colour of our water for feathers and eats bugs and fish in the water. Many years before humans were around, the kingfisher was a plain white bird. This story is to tell you what happened to its feathers along time ago……….

Kōtare was a lonely white kingfisher who nested in the branches of one of the millions of NZ native trees that every summer blossomed beautiful red flowers that lined the shore.

One sweltering day as Kōtare sat in her nest trying desperately to cool down a fat, juicy insect flew by. “ I must stay here and cool down” she muttered, but as the insect came nearer she dove out of her nest and flew after it. Seconds later, when the insect realised was about to become lunch; it navigated down to the water where is lay, hoping for freedom. But the insect was no match for Kōtare along with her amazing eyesight. Kōtare dived down. As her beak clamped down on the insect and the lush taste filled her mouth she forgot to pull up and dove straight into the water.

With the insect still in her mouth she found that she could swim really fast so she did. As she broke the surface she immediately took off and flew straight back to her nest. Back at the nest she swallowed the insect and shook herself clear of water. As Kōtare looked down at herself she realised that her feathers had changed. Instead of being plain white they were sea blues and greens. ‘Oh my” she gasped “I look wonderful.” For the next few days Kōtare would go diving in the ocean to cool down as the hot summer rolled by. 

From this day on all Kingfishers’ feathers are coloured sea greens and blues.

What Does Cyber Citizenship Mean To Me

My first school blog post...

Being a cyber citizen to me it means knowing how to be safe on the internet.

E.G of showing this is...

• You do not share your password with anyone.
• Never arrange to meet someone you have met online.
• Never post anything that may offend someone.
• Always tell an adult if you see anything on the internet that is not appropriate.
• Know the rules of how to be cyber safe.

Here are some websites that you can test your brain on how much you know about cyber safety.

Websites

http://fhscybersafety.weebly.com/

http://pbskids.org/webonauts/