Monday 16th February

Today after our library time we met our buddy class! It was really good. They were all really cute. We went through thier spelling test with them. This morning we went swimming and we all had to swim 30 lengths of our choice. Then we had free time.

Thursday 12th February

Today in the morning we walked down to the Eastbourne swimming pool and got put into our ability groups. They are the most confident swimmers, the confident swimmers that just need to work on specific swimming styles and the not so confident swimmers that need to work on swimming styles such as freestyle, breathstroke and backstroke. At this time of the year we go to the swimming pool to train for the swimming sports.

Monday 9th February

Today in our ICT lesson we created our class wiki pages. Most of us created vokis and we all had to choose our passwords. It was funny to see what every one thought of. We also watched a short film about the Treaty of Waitangi and we took notes in our inquiry books. One of the main things we talked about were the whalers. The whalers were people who traveled to places where no one had been before, they came to New Zealand and they went fishing for whales so that they could use their blubber to burn things but they often took more than they needed.

We also went down to the pool and had to do some lengths to find out what swimming group we are in and then some of us played in the small pool and played a bad version of water polo. It was fun while we played water polo but it got a bit rough. It's going to be good when we finding out what group we are in.

Phoebe and Grace

Wednesday 4th February

It's the first day back!

Room 21 is up and going with the new students and the new year. We started today by going through the rules on the senior side of muritai school and playing a couple of cooperation games. Then we discussed the new school curriculum. We talked about the key competencies; thinking, managing self, relating to others, participating and contributing and using language, symbols and text. We then did an exercise and afterward discussed what the exercise might have to do with these competencies and how they ft in the classroom. After morning tea we had a syndicate meeting. Mr Eames, Mrs Berry and Mr Chadwick talked to us about the opportunities that will show up in the term and most of the year. Some of the opportunities that we brainstormed are as follows:

Tuesday 11th November

On Tuesday the 11th of November the Kapa Haka group performed to the war veterans by the war memorial to remember all the soldiers who fought and died in World War One. We remember the soldiers on this day because it was on this day the treaty to end the war was signed. It is called Armistice day. Our Kapa Haka group performed the haka and a prayer song, here they are:

Monday 20th October

Today Mr Chadwick is back! After a week of relievers teaching, Mr Chadwick is back from his trip. First, in the morning Mr Chadwick told us about his trip around Asia. Then we did the roll and then it was time for maths. After morning tea we did acrostic poems about Term 3. Then we went to the ICT lab and printed our acrostic poems off. After lunch we created Rube Goldberg machines. The idea of a Rube Goldberg machine is that you use a certain amount of items to create or make something happen. We had to make a piece of rubbish go into the rubbish bin. After that it was home time.

By Jazz and James

Some of the Rube Goldberg machines in action:

Trial and Error


Trial and Error 2


Success!!!

Tuesday 22 September

Today, in Room 21, after calling the roll we worked on our portfolios until 9:30, then we went for Maths. After morning tea, Ms Berry was taking us for Literacy to help us with our Shaun Tan statements. For a better understanding about our task, we were required to act a short scene based on a single picture from Shaun Tan's book The Arrival. Everyone had a fantastic act to preform after the 10 minutes we were given. Room 21 then re-worked and edited our statements, making them better every way possible. At 12:00 Mr Chadwick took us over to the library to issue some new books before luch at 12:30. Silent reading was after lunch before continuing with our Inquiry project: Innovation. Today we thought up some inquiry questions to investigate, such as "Why do people invent?" and "What would the world be like with no inventing?" And luckily, by the end of the lesson, it was time to go home!

Monday 22 September

For 3 action-packed nights the Muritai School stage was alive presenting our school production, The Lorax. Endless varities of costumes were sewn together and lines were repeated over and over for practice. The Year 7 & 8's played the Oncelers, the Thneed Machine dancers and some were our main characters. The Thneed machine dancers were great, and the drummers drummed away fantastically! Our Oncelers danced awesomely to the Industry dance, but the Grand Finale of Where's Your Head At blew the crowd away! Numerous comments from the parents and teachers said "That was amazing!" or "Incredible work guys!" We were absolutely exhausted by the end of the week, but we knew that the Year 7 & 8's dominated the stage!

Monday 1st September

This morning we paired up with a friend and practised our speeches. After that some of us went to the hall to practise production and some of us stayed over the road and played games and did stacking cups. Then we went to morning tea after that some of the class presented their speeches . Then we went to the I.C.T. lab and published our short stories. We had lunch then came into the class and silent read for 15 minutes. Then the rest of the class presented their speeches. At the end of the day Mr. C read us bootleg.

By Liam

Friday 29th August

Today we did diary writing, it was fun. Then we started cup stacking it was awesome. Then we had morning tea. After that we did literacy and some more cup stacking and then we had lunch. After lunch we silent read then some of us did the garden and after that we played a game. We played build up ball tag. Then we put the chairs away. While we did all that others were practicing the production.

Wednesday 27th August

Today Room 21 split into groups; The groups were kapa haka and the rest went to another class to muck around.

After morning tea we went to technicraft, in technicraft there are five groups sewing, cooking, art, ICT, and woodwork. We then came back to the senior side of school for lunch because it was wet and some of us went to the table tennis tournament in the hall.

After lunch we did some more work on the production and then went home for a fun filled afternoon.

Monday 25th August

Firstly Mr. Chadwick called the roll. After we then had a garden discussion about how we are going to make our path, then we walked over the road to the school hall where we did production practice on our school production ‘The Lorax’. Then it was interval.

After interval we did speech prep for our three week inquiry: ‘The Power Of One’. Soon after we went to the ICT lab. Then it was lunch and our first day with the new P.E. equipment. Straight after lunch we did silent reading and I wrote this. After we did inquiry for the last activity of the day. Finally it was home time.

By Tim McCafferty

Monday 18th August

Today in Room 21...
We started off by doing our class garden project. Next we went to maths, in Room 23s maths class we learnt about adding fractions and we all learnt a lot. Next we went off to a sunny but cold morning tea.

After morning tea we had spelling testing. Next we had literacy which was interesting. We were looking at how to setting the scene for our writing. Next we had ICT and we published our 50 word story peer comments there. Then we had a fun filled lunch.

After that we worked and shared our peer pressure stories. Our story was about friendship groups and being peer pressured into certain ones. Finally we tidied up the class and left for home.

By Austin S

Thursday 14th August

Today our Kapa Haka group welcomed the teachers of Cowley Street school with a powhiri.
Lulu and Olivia who performed the karanga (call) sounded great! They had lots of fun and were very glad they did it. We then sang "He Honore". After that Mr Bird gave a welcoming speech. We supported Mr Birds speech with the Kapa Haka group singing "Kua Rongo Mai Koe" and "Toia Mai" with their awesome voices and actions. Cowley Street school were so impressed with us for the amazing performance! Finally a man from Cowley Street School spoke back to us. The girls in the front row were lucky enough to hongi with the Cowley Street school team!

Tuesday 12th August

Today we had the roll then we went straight on to our narratives. When we had written 50 words we wrote down our spelling words for this week, then we had maths. After morning tea we wrote comments about each others 50 word stories and discussed the writers next steps. We then went to our school library. After lunch we did silent reading and then Inquiry, where we worked on our support kits.

By James

Monday 11th August

Today Room 21 worked on the garden. We shifted rocks and raked weeds and the class discussed what will be happening next. Lulu's dad has kindly donated a boat, which will be a seating area, for the garden.
After morning tea we did Literacy. We wrote another, 50 word story. It had to be about the Olympics. Our aim is to get rid of all the waffle we write in our writing. We then went to the I.C.T Lab. We had to do Seb's survey for his Inquiry. Then we published our best 50 word story. If we had enough time, we could do some of our inquiry. After Lunch we discussed the video we had watched on Friday and then made a play about peer pressure.

By Kirsten

Thursday 7th August

Today room 21 started the day off with naratives. Next the syndicate swapped around for maths, our topics for maths is fractions, decimals and percentages.

After morning tea we had literacy, we are doing short stories and we had to write a fifty word shortv story. Soon after, our class went outside to play dodgeball with some room 22 members.

Right after lunch we had production. All the dancers went into the hall with Ms Berry and Mr Chadwick to work on the industry dance. Then we came back and showed the dance to the entire syndicate.

Tuesday 5th August

We started off the day with the roll. Then we did our inquiry surveys. Some people went to other classes to ask people from different classes. Then we did maths. In room 23's maths class we played loopy. After morning tea in literacy we discussed the success criteria for the conflict and resolution in short stories. After, we went to the Eastbourne library and got out some new books. After lunch we did silent reading then we agreed or dis-agreed with some things about bullying where we arranged ourselves along a continuum. Then we played build up ball tag with room 24. Then we left for home.

Monday 4th August

Today in room 21 we started the day off with accuracy. We each got a sheet, we had to underline the waffle in the sentences. Next we all went to maths, at the moment we're doing fractions, decimals and percentages. After that all the year 8s had a meeting in Room 23 about Abel Tasman.

After the bell rang we went inside, soon after it began to pitter patter with a light drizzle. We did literacy writing it was quite fun because they gave us the start of a story and we had to finish it. Then we checked out some blogs and a few quick games.

After lunch people carried on with their surveys and asking people questions with a variety of different topics such as bullying, drugs and peer pressure. We did the surveys for our help/support kit for the three week inquiry homework. Then we left for home.

Wednesday 11th June

Today in wonderful Room 21, we had the roll call then we did a bit of silent reading before the kapa-haka people left and the science-fair people went to Room 23. The remaining people were split into either Room 24 or Room 22 to do a quiet activity such as drawing. They, and the returned Kapa-Haka / Science fair children then went to morning tea.

After morning tea we all left for our techni-craft in Wainuiamata. The Arts group bus smelled horrible! This was our first session with our new craft classes and we all got introduced to the workshops. In art we did self portraits and quick drawing. Once we got back to Muritai we all enjoyed our lunch on the junior side of school. After lunch we went to our usual syndicate sports with Volleyball, Soccer, Rippa-rugby and Netball.

Lastly we did our class duties and left to go home!

By Austin Sutherland.