Australia!

At the end of last year my brother and I, Jordan flew over to Australia to spend some quality time with our family over there. We arrived at Melbourne's airport on the 21st December approximately 11:00pm. Waiting for us around the corner was our dad who we hadn't seen since January 2013. We ran up to him and gave him a massive hug. We had finally arrived.

So far staying in Aussie has been a blast. I enjoy spending time with my younger siblings, shopping, and just seeing new things around Melbourne. One of my favourite places we have gone to has been Adventure Park. Known as Victoria’s biggest water theme park. We have also gone to Sydney to be apart of my cousin’s daughters 1st birthday.

This week my brother and I are spending time with our grandma who is coming over from Mildura. We can’t wait to see her. Next week we our cousin Meliola is going to take us shopping and hopefully take us to her church. Then the following week we are coming back home to New Zealand.

So we have two weeks full of excitement and joy, then we will be in New Zealand starting school. That means we have to use the time we have now to make memories and have a lot of fun!

Netbook Reflection 2013

This is my third year using a netbook and I reckon my learning has gotten way better. Having it connected to the internet helps me a lot, because I have access to many more websites to help my learning and I can interact with friends during the weekends or holidays.

Having our netbooks connected to the internet have a positive and negative side.

POSITIVE- The positive side is that we can learn faster, better, and effectively with our netbooks. We also have access to share our learning with the world everyday. We can use Google to help us with our research, find interesting and new vocab and etc.

NEGATIVE- The negative side is that the internet can be slow at times and it may not work.

Other than that, having my netbook connected to the internet is an amazing way to learn.  

I have learnt many things from my teacher, friends, people from outside of school, and of course myself. My teacher Ms Lagitupu shows me more learning websites like Studyladder and Sum-dog. These websites are fun and help me learn faster. When I use Google docs it can help me with my spelling and find new words to make my story sound more effective.

Using learn, create and share is really important to us. Its part of what we do on our netbooks. We like to learn more about our subject on Google, Wikipedia, or other websites. We then put all our learning into a Google doc, Google presentation, Picasa, Vimeo, Flickr and many more. Then we share it with our family, friends, classmates, teachers, basically the whole world.

Prize Giving 2013

Prize giving last night was a blast. I personally enjoyed it and im sure everyone else did as well. You could tell by the look on everyone's face. People laughing, smiling and dancing brought a smile to our friends, family, parents and teachers face. It was amazing to see people receive prizes and see their items. The great thing with our items was that all of them were different. There was dancing, a bit of acting, and singing.

In the end of the night I received five awards. One, citizenship for room 21. Two, school service award. Three, podcaster of the year. Four, PENN producer of the year. And my favourite one, Dux. I was really shocked when I found out that I got Dux. There are way other smarter people than me that could have gotten the award. But, Mr Burt informed me that I got it not just because I am in extension, but because I did well in my school work. I’m happy that I got those awards, and I am also happy that I made my mum proud. I'd like to congratulate everyone that got a prize. Especially Shoal who got 3rd place academics and Rita who got 2nd place academics. Girl power!

My favourite item that performed would be the year 6 item. They did a dance to three songs. My favourite song was their skrillex song. It was pretty buzzy. My brother was in that dance and it was funny watching him. The year 6 students are great at dancing and I can’t wait to see what they have to offer next year.

This is my last prize giving here at Pt England. I’ll probably come next year to support my brother. Prize giving this year was awesome and its one I will never forget it.

Year 8 Camp (Ashleigh, Makayla, Shoal and Me)

Shoal(Day 1): We spent 5 hours on the bus. In those 5 hours, we took an unnecessary walk on a dam. The teachers lied to us and said that we were going on a short bush walk when we got to camp Keswick. It ended up being 3.2km long and very tiring.

Makayla(Day 2): On day 2 we went to the Agrodome to see a sheep show and to see some farm animals. We also went to see a geyser called Lady Knox and the thermal pools.

Ashleigh(Day 3):On day 3 we were going to swim in the blue lake. It was cold but after a while I got used to it. After that we went to the hot pools and swam again. At the hot pools they had a trampoline the we could jump on to get higher while jumping in the pool.

Jasmine(Day 4):Day 4 we went to the luge were we went up the gondola. Going up the gondola was a bit boring because of the long ride up but the view was full of nature. Once we arrived up top we waited to go down the luge. The luge ride was fun.

Vivienne(Overall): To be honest our camp was alright. It was basically bootcamp. Everyday we would walk or run through the forest and it was not fun. And to top it all of, it was raining. But hanging out with friends was good. My highlight was definitely the Agrodome and the Luge ride.

My Life Here At Pt England

Vivienne Yr 8 Vid from Team 5 PES on Vimeo.  

This terms task was to create a DLO about our life here at Pt England. Since it was the year 8's last year here we had to put a lot of effort into it. It was fun looking at our past movies we created when we were young. This is my movie. I hope you enjoy!

Our Nations Children Movie Competition

Last Friday some students from our school went into town for a launch of our promotional movie competition. When we arrived we saw red carpet, paparazzi, and even the director of 'Shrek' and 'Narnia', Andrew Adamson. It was awesome. Our movie was shown to people from Wespac and some people from the Waitangi National Trust. It was even shown to the Governor General, Sir Jerry Mateparae. After that we had lunch. During lunch time we had the chance to mix and mingle with people. I even had the chance to be interviewed by one news with Gabriel. I was nervous at first but then I didn't really mind at all.

The launch was awesome! Hopefully schools enter this competition and they get to experience all the cool things we experienced.  

Balloon Investigation

Attempt 1:

Attempt 2:

Attempt 3:

In term 2 the extension group did an investigation on how far a balloon can go on a straw. We were put into groups of 5 and planned out how we were going to do it. Our first attempt was a fail. As well as the second. But our third and final came out strong and ended up at the end. Although the time was slow, we were happy that the balloon finally made it to the end.