Thursday 15 December 2016

Holidays!

It's the holidays.....have a most fabulous break, enjoy the weather, have fun and if you have spare time revise your times tables!!
See you in 2017.

Tuesday 13 December 2016

End of the year

Another year is nearly done!   Exciting times ahead for the year 8s heading off to high school in 2017, have fun, work hard and make the most of all the new and exciting opportunities that will come your way.  I am sure you will all be just fabulous!


Wishing all in room 8 a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Thursday 1 December 2016

Beach Education

A great theory based and then pool-based session today with the lifeguards.  We learnt about keeping safe at the beach, how to identify rips and then had a practical session at the pool.
The lifeguards who patrol our beaches in the summer do a splendid job.......often saving many 100s of people from the surf.  The important thing to remember is to swim between the flags!



Monday 21 November 2016

Year 7 and 8 Hard Materials Technology

After careful planning, designing and adjusting we spent our first session at OBHS today.  The year 7s are making pencil boxes and the year 8s picture frames.
They are going to look sensational!

Pencil box with a sliding lid


 Some great designs for photoframes: eg jigsaw pieces, stars.

Thursday 17 November 2016

Science and Technology

Over the past week we have been busy working on Science and technology challenges.
1.  Making a stretcher to carry 8kg over obstacles.  The materials available were newspaper, string, sellotape.  Some very creative designs!


 2.  Seed flyer - design a seed dispersal system using a piece of A4 paper, ice cream sticks and straws.

                                                       More stretchers being made

 3.  Create a way for a cellphone to be recovered that has fallen 4m from where you are.  Newspapers, string, a chopstick and a plastic bag are the materials available.

Saturday 5 November 2016

The FAIR

What a great day!  Fantastic to see everyone having a super time at the school fair.  The weather was brilliant, there were plenty of things to do/see/buy.
Thanks to everyone who made sweets to sell (they sold like crazy!) and purchased the year 6 'Harbour Cone' original artwork.
A BIG thanks to the PTA for their efforts, it takes a huge amount of time and legwork to put a fair together and their efforts are very much appreciated.

Thursday 3 November 2016

2 Sleeps!

Not too long to go until the fun of the fair!!!

STILL REQUIRED for a 30 minute session on a stall.  Please sign up in the office.

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Fair!!



There's not too long to go!  But we need your help to:




  • help on a stall on the day - just 30 mins of your time, sign up in the office 
  • spread the word about our fabulous fair!  Get your friends, whanau, ex-pupils, ex-parents and neighbours to come along
  • keep your fingers crossed for great weather!





Thursday 27 October 2016

School Fair

Only 8 days to go until our SCHOOL FAIR!!  Saturday 5th November 11 - 2pm.  Fingers crossed or great weather!
Books, toys, clothing, white elephant, chocolate wheel, food, class stalls (plants, tie-dyed t-shirts, artwork), raffles, 'silent auction', paper plane throwing competition, bouncy castles, SMASH a car!
It'll be great, come and join in the fun!

Tuesday 25 October 2016

Art Gallery Visit


A great class visit to the Art Gallery this morning.  We were looking at innovation/inventions and John, the gallery educator, took us around an excellent selection of artworks.  We are so lucky to have this fabulous resource just down the hill from school.....a mere 10 min walk!
In the gallery classroom we made our own inventions using cut outs......a machine that fluffs up a wolf's fur, headlamp for a horse, a model T Ford spray painter machine, a machine that lets a panda play a musical instrument amongst others!  Great fun!

Thursday 20 October 2016

Wait!!

Success with the science today.........after pondering about what went wrong with the rubber balls we were experimenting with making a change in the pva was a suggestion.....and yes!  We managed to get most groups with a pretty great replica of a bouncy ball (would by no means stand up to the rigours of centre court but impressive none-the-less!

Monday 17 October 2016

Try and try again!

Sometimes even following the best set of instructions means an experiment may not work out.  In our Science workshop today our bouncing ball using borax and pva didn't end up at all like a ball!  More along the lines of Silly Putty (adults - do you remember getting Silly Putty as a present?!).
Did you know how Silly Putty came about?  Check this out
http://blog.retroplanet.com/silly-putty/


Sunday 16 October 2016

S.T.A.R

This is a great way to tackle a problem, it could be specifically used for a maths problem.
The important thing is you have a bit of a ponder yourself to try to work it out then work through the steps below.

Thursday 13 October 2016

Swimming!

Swimming tomorrow, don't forget your togs!
perhaps leave the breathing apparatus at home though!


Sunday 9 October 2016

Term 4 is nearly here!!!

I hope you all had a most fabulous holiday....pity the weather wasn't so flash!
Make sure you have all that you need for the term, it's going to be a busy one so make sure you know when things are due, what you need to be handing in and make sure all notices get home!
Remember it's a sunhat term.



Friday 23 September 2016

Monday 19 September 2016

Writing Task

Remember the writing task due this week.
If you want to check the task out again go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU4oA3kkAW

A really inspirational clip showing a great deal of resourcefulness!


Thursday 15 September 2016

Angle questions

Be the first to tell me the answers!!

1.  What is x?



2.  



Angle update


We have been looking at angles this week.....fascinating things that they are!



Polyfest

What a fantastic effort at the 'Polyfest' this afternoon, it was great to see you all giving it 100%!
Ka pai!
The stage!

Tuesday 13 September 2016

Brain Visit

Today we had a visit from a large inflatable brain from the Brain Health Research Centre, University of Otago.  Irene talked us through the importance of keeping our brains healthy, how information is transmitted, the role of neurones and the different parts of our brain.
Also the meaning of sphenopalatineganglion (ice cream headache/brainfreeze!)







Monday 12 September 2016

Rio Paralympics

Over the past week there have been some incredible athletes competing at the Rio Paralympics.  They are inspirational and show amazing skill.  We can all learn something from them about perseverance over adversity and never giving up.

Monday 5 September 2016

Writers' Workshops

It's great to see the enthusiasm and development of writing in the senior school.  We continue into week 7 offering 4 workshops each week over a variety of text types and topics.



Monday 15 August 2016

Week 4

Rio put on a most fabulous opening ceremony!!  Ours was pretty good too!
Some ups and downs for the New Zealand team......a gold rush on the water perhaps?!



Sunday 31 July 2016

Term 3

Term 3 is underway!!  Cross country on Wednesday and the Arthur Street School Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday....hopefully the weather will be kind!
Not long until the Rio Olympics....exciting stuff!
Check out the Olympic question below, answer via the comments section.

Olympic Measures

1.  Below are some interesting measurements and records from events at the 2012 Olympic Games. Unfortunately they have been muddled up.
Can you regroup them correctly? 

Usain Bolt's 100 metres
World Record
40km
Mass of Women's Discus02:15:25mph
Women's Discus World Record1500km
Average speed of World Record
Men's 50 km Walking race
1metres
Men's Shot put World Record76.8hr:min:sec
Paula Radcliffe's
Women's Marathon World Record
6.16metres
Triathlon Swim (distance)8.77kg
Triathlon Bicycle ride (distance)10metres
Triathlon Run (distance)9.58seconds
Men's Pole Vault World Record23.12metres
Women's Long Jump
World Record
18cm
Men's High Jump World Record21.34hr:min:sec
Basketball hoop diameter10metres
Basketball hoop height01:49:55seconds
Diameter of Archery target 7.52metres
Archers’ distance from the target01:46:25metres
Height of Diving platform2.45hr:min:sec
Men's 10km Swimming
2012 Olympics winner's time
70inches
Men's 50m Freestyle Swimming
2012 Olympics winner's time
122metres
Men's Triathlon
2012 Olympics winner's time
10feet



Monday 27 June 2016

Newton's First Law

The video shows 'Newton's First Law' in action.
The 100s blocks were stationary and needed the ruler to get them moving. They eventually stopped moving because of the friction caused by the movement over the carpet.

Sunday 26 June 2016

Week Nine - Thinking Outside the Box' questions

  1. KenkenFor this puzzle place the numbers 1 - 4 counting numbers in the bold sections just like in Sudoku.  You are given boxes with clues with math operations. The numbers you place in each box have to make the "clue" number using the given operation.









    2.  
    Hard mental jogging online
    Enter each of the numbers from 1 to 9 in the squares, each one only once. The order of operations doesn't apply! 

Week 8 Answers to 'Thinking Outside the Box'

1. You are travelling down a road to a village. You reach a fork in the road and find a pair of identical twin brothers standing there. One of the brothers always tells the truth and the other always lies.  If you are allowed to ask only one question to one of the brothers to find which is the correct road to the village, what is your question ?

Answer:  If the brother you are speaking to is the one who always lies, then he will say "no" as he knows that his brother who speaks the truth would anwser "yes". If the brother you are speaking to is the one who speaks the truth, he will say "no" as he knows that his brother will lie about it being the correct road. Either way an answer "no" tells you it is actually the right road. Similarly if you are pointing to the wrong road you will get the answer "yes".
2.  A boat has a ladder that has six rungs, each rung is 30cm apart. The bottom rung is 30cm from the water. The tide rises at 20cm every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour.
When the tide is at its highest, how many rungs are under water?
Answer:  None, the boat rises with the tide.

Week 9


Monday 20 June 2016

Quote of the Week


Week 8s Thinking outside the Box....go on, give them a go!!

1.  You are travelling down a road to a village. You reach a fork in the road and find a pair of identical twin brothers standing there. One of the brothers always tells the truth and the other always lies.  If you are allowed to ask only one question to one of the brothers to find which is the correct road to the village, what is your question ?

2.  A boat has a ladder that has six rungs, each rung is 30cm apart. The bottom rung is 30cm from the water. The tide rises at 20cm every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour.
When the tide is at its highest, how many rungs are under water?


Week 7 answers

1.  The last person took the carton with the last egg in it.
2.  You would light the match first.
3.  The window cleaner was on the first floor of the building.
4.

Monday 13 June 2016


Thinking Outside the Box Week 7




    1.  There are a dozen eggs in a carton. Twelve people each take a single egg, but there is one egg left in the carton. How?
    2.  If you were alone in a dark room, with only one match and a lamp, a fireplace, and a candle to choose from, which would you light first?
    3.  A window cleaner  falls out of a thirty story building, but thankfully lives. With luck and their landing pad not being factors, how could they have survived the fall?

    4.  Box Puzzle

    Can you connect these nine dots with just 4 straight lines?

    The answers for week 6s homework

    1. The book is never finished!
    2.  105 + 245 = 350
    3.  TON
    4.  The man picks up a piece of wood and lights it from the fire on the west end of the island. 
    He then quickly carries it near the east end of he island and starts a new fire. The wind will cause that fire to burn out the eastern end and he can then shelter in the burnt area.