The Final Week of 2010!

This is our last blog entry for this year. It has been a great year with a great class. As with the beginning of any new year, I am as nervous as the new year 7 students who follow me from the hall on their first day. Why am I nervous? Well, I never know these 30 new students and I am always nervous about meeting my class and hoping that I will be able to teach them to the best of my ability and that they will reach their full potential.
This year I have been so lucky with my class - what a great bunch of students. I really hope they have enjoyed their year as much as I have and that they will go on to have a successful year next year in Year 8.
Finally I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe New Year.
Good bye from Room 3

Week 9

The production was awesome. There was films, and performances on the stage. It was awesome. My favourite was Room 13 because they found someone in the rubbish bin then at the end there was a surprise. The teachers dancing to Dyanmite. It was awesome!
By Tim

Week 8

This week we have been finishing off our last amazing race tri. This week we visited the U.K. It has been more of a challenge than other weeks because we are not studying one country but 4 (England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales). For the roadblock teams have to perform; an Irish jig, speak in cockney slang, sing the Welsh national anthem and recite poetry. We have also been finishing our class movie (Clay's big adventure) with everyone pulling together to make the movie, which will either be shown on Monday 6th or Friday 10th of December in front of the school.
By Christian

Week 8

Over the past week in Room 3, we have been working on our movie that will be shown at this week's assembly. It is written by kids, performed by kids and filmed by kids. We have worked really hard on it and have done well. We even choreographed a dance! But it's all pretty hush right now so I cna't say much more about it. The only thing I will say is that you will be upset if you miss it. Apart from that, last week was quite average, but as we near the end of the year I'm sure that something exciting is just around the bend.
By Alyssa

Week 8

On Friday the Year 7's performed their productions to the Year 8's. Some classes did these on film, on stage and even on film and stage. When we finished there was a twist at the end. The Year 7 teachers thought they cold have a little fun and did a remix thing to Dynamite. It was hilarious! Everyone thought it was AWESOME!
By Jazz

Week 7

Elvis is about to tell us where he is, and the Bermuda Triange council is about to tell us why it isn't a square, the phantom is taking off his mask, the full captain's log of the Marie Celeste has been found, Stonehenge blue prints are being revealed, Jack the Ripper is telling us who he is, the chicken is telling us if the egg bet him or not, a five year old is saying why he doesn't eat vegetables, the pope is confirming whether there is a god or isn't a god and the aliens are about to tell the meaning of life. Suddenly the video stops and a voice says, "Dr Kaligula and Clay are needed. Now!" As I walk down the corridor I can hear gasps of amazement, shock and horror, it was going to be a long day of filming.

By Grant

Week 6

This last week we have been working on Room 3's production, including writing, designing costumes, choreographing and auditioning for the characters. The characters and actors are: Clay (Christian), Dr K (Grant), Gent (Ariana), Suzie (Anna) and Clay's father and brother (Josh and George). I'm pretty sure I can't say anything else but it will be awesome! We have only just started to film but hopefully it will be finished by Friday.
By Catherine

Week 6

It's been a cool week because the hot air balloon and the road show and the really cool assembly. I've got to admit, it was pretty cool.
By Chance

Hot air balloon!

Very exciting today at school. A hot air balloon arrived at school and was set up on our field. It was fun to watch it being set up and then it floated up - only about a couple of metres off the ground. It was far more fun that doing school work!

Week 5

We have done a lot of things this week, making clay terracotta warriors, doing chopstick challenge and doing 2 maths sessions on Tuesday!
This Friday we had a lot of fun making clay terracotta warriors and the chopstick challange. Especially the clay terracotta warriors, it was a lot of fun. We only had 25 minutes to make 5 clay warriors or 4 warriors and 1 horse. Mrs G gave points to the group with the best crafting and best details. CHALLENGING ISN'T IT? Well, everyone had tried their best and everyone did a good job.
We also had a chopstick challenge after that. Each person in your group had to pick up the chopstick, pick up 5 jellybeans (not in 1 go) and drop them into the other bowl. If you drop the bean you have to go back and try again. Again, everyone tired very hard. It's easy to tell that basically everyone practised very hard. There's only a few seconds of difference between first place to third place! The best thing is: everyone gets to eat a jellybean after that!
These are some if the things we've hardly done before. We wiosh we could have another fun day like this.

By Kevin

Week 5

Kiaora. In tech at the moment I am in Hard Materials where we are making candle holders. I'm making a New Zealand icon and it's made out of number 8 wire which is obviously wire, that you can bend into shapes, which is perfect for me and my koru. Also in Room 3 at the moment we are slowly putting together a production. It is about a boy called Clay eho gets captured by Dr Kaligula. You will have to see it to know more.

By Georgie

Week 5 and our Amazing Race!

This week we have visited China. The Blue team were feeling quite pleased about this country as Kevin is a bit of an expert on China!
Our Roadblock this week consisted of 2 parts.
The first part was making terracotta warriors from clay. It was lovely working on our clay figures today - sitting outside in the sunshine. Have a look at the photos to pick which team had the best warrior army!
The second part of the Roadblock was the chopstick relay. This involved each team working as a team to transport jellybeans by chopstick from one bowl to another. Very funny to watch!
Next week we visit Germany and we will be using some of our German language skills in the Roadblock.

Congratulations!

A huge congratulations to Grant - the winner of the Year 7 Speech competition.
It was a fiercely fought battle! The standard of all the contestents was extremely high.
We are all very proud of Grant and his achievement.

Week 4 and our Malaysian Visitors

This week for our Amazing Race Homework we were all set to go to South Africa (in research not in person) when we were told we were doing Malaysia instead. I was quite disappointed as I have heritage there and so our group would have cleaned up the points that week but, on the plus side, the reason we did Malaysia was because of the year 7 classes had Malaysian trainee teachers for a week. Our class (Room 3) had two guys, Dean and Daus. Not only were they great sources of information for the Amazing Race but they were very nice and also they taught us to dance Malaysian style. I don't think we did a very good job of it but you can look up the professionals on you-tube. The week went by quickly, them sitting at the back of the class or wandering around getting ideas for their classes at home during maths, reading and writing, and joining in during P.E. sessions. They were a big help and we wouldn't have had such a good project without them. We said good bye on Friday and took some photos and they gave us a very interesting book on the world. Then they hopped on their bus and they were gone and left us with lots of knowledge of Malaysia and knowledge of how to dance Malaysian style ( not necessarily well however!)

By Jess

Week 4 and the Amazing Race

Our Amazing Race has taken us to New Zealand, U.S.A. and Italy so far. On Monday we completed the Roadblock for Italy - the pizza challenge!
Each group had to design a pizza and consider which ingredients reflected the flavours of Italy. We then put our masterpieces together. Yum (although I'm not convinced about the octopus pizza!)
This Friday I am looking forward to the groups performing their Malaysian cultural dance and/or song.

Week 3 and our Ross Creek experience.

We had a great time at Ross Creek on Wednesday. It was heaps of fun and there were a few tired looking children on the way home.
Thanks Room 3 for a great day out.
Here are some photos from our day and next week Zade is helping me to upload a movie segment from the day.

Week 3 - Ross Creek

One beautiful, sunny morning Room 3 went on a morning walk down to the wilderness, also known as Ross Creek. A kind, old man named Pete from Adventure Masters, took us on a journey through Ross Creek with the help of some parents. We were split into 3 groups: the Tool Guys, the Cheetahs and the A Team. Our 3 challenges were Orienteering, Rap Jumping and the extreme pain of the Team Challenge dah, dah dah...

The Team Challange - Pete takes us around the whole of Ross Creek carrying a kayak for 1 whole hour. We had to face EXTREME PAIN going over and under things, through creeks, through trees. It was fun but really tiring. Our other challenges were not so hard. The Rap Jumping was funny because the guy was talking then all of a sudden he fell over. Mikayla and I were laughing so hard we nearly cried. It was so hilarious.

We all had a great time, we pretty much came out of our comfort zone with the team challenge.

Well done to Mrs G for coming even though she was sick.

By Ariana

Week 2 - Athletics

On Wednesday was Athletics. I was in the U12 girls. We did high jump with Mrs Garthwaite, Mr Martin and his high jumping hat and Miss McGregor. My favourite was the shotput.

By Kara

Week 2 - Athletics

I'm in the Under 13 boys athletics team. For athletics we did hurdles, shot put, sprints, high jump, long jump and hurdles. It was really fun and it wasn't a bad day. I was very good in sprints and came 1st, 2nd, and 2nd. People who are very good in something and come in 1st or 2nd will compete in the North Zone Sports. Everyone I know had a great time and had their fun workout for the day. Hopefully it encourages more people into sports and get really fit!

By Fabian

Week 2

This week has been so busy with Athletics and Teachers' Only Day. The Teachers' Only Day gave the staff a chance to discuss and reflect on the things that we do here at Balmacewen. With life so busy at times it is great to have time to stop and reflect. I came away feeling more motivated and aware of what I need to be doing to provide the best possible learning experiences for Room 3.
Next week also promises to be busy with our class trip to Ross Creek!