Wednesday 25th March

Today some of the year 7 and 8 students were able to participate in the Southern Zone Swimming Sports. It was a great day with many of the students having successful results. Many of the students had a fantastic time as they were able to socialise with a range of students from other schools and were able to partake in a range of swimming strokes that they may not have previously been confident in.

Monday 16th March

Today is our first day without swimming so we are sadly back to a normal timetable. Many of us are currently editing and publishing our alien reports. Here are a couple of brief examples:

When Aliens Attack

Today on the 9th of September 2598, aliens arrived on planet Earth. Local residents say that they saw a large flying saucer heading straight for Paris.
The saucer landed and within seconds mutant wasps flew out and started feeding on the brains of the living. Despite efforts from local police and army, the people of Paris were forced into the many safe zones around the city...

Troublesome Terror for Town

On Monday 16th of March 2009 aliens landed in the small town of Roswell, a small town millions of miles away from civilization. It is still unknown why aliens only land in America.

The aliens first arrived by a U.F.O that came from Planet X from the Solana galaxy. Planet X is hidden millions of miles away from Earth it has only recently been discovered but astronomers describe it as a useless dusty rock, like Mars, except it’s green with an asteroid belt surrounding it. The planets diameter is 1,602, 083,201 kilometres wide and 1,602, 083, 200 kilometres wide. It is believed that more life forms live on this planet...

Monday 2nd March

Today room 21 edited our wikis. We put in them lots of stuff like our hobbies, stuff we liked, stuff we disliked and any other stuff you can think of. We also put in photos and videos (from youtube). Later on in the year we will use our wiki pages to share and publish our work.

Here are some great wikis so far:

Sam's wiki
Josie's wiki

Friday 27th February

Today some of the students played cricket against St. Bernards (Boys) or Naenae Intermediate (Girls). The girls played their second Milo Cricket game at Naenae Int. and while they didn't win they should all be proud of their efforts. Player of the match was Lucy Stotter scoring an impressive 8 runs with the bat.

The boys played their first Milo Cricket game at Te Whiti Park and had a very successful game winning by 49 runs with 4 wickets in hand. Player of the match was Sam Brandwood scoring a healthy 39 runs.

Congratulations to both teams for participating fully and on being the best that you can be.
~ Mr Chadwick

Tuesday 24th February

Today in room 21 we did artwork in the style of Henri Matisse's painting 'Green Stripe' which he did of his wife.

We first took photos of ourselves then we painted over them. We were not allowed to use the real colour of our hair and we had to use other colours to make the colour of our hair. Then we used pastel on the background.

Friday 20th February

On Friday we saw the Monet Exhibition at Te Papa. It was very interesting. Monet is a fantastic impressionist artist, which means that the painting is like an impression not realistic like a photo. Verity liked the painting he did off his wife.

At Te Papa we also went and saw the Blood, Earth, Fire exhibit and the glass Treaty where we had lots of discussions about the impacts both these exhibits had on New Zealand.

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!