Flick it on Movie Challenge

We have been involved in a Flick it on Movie Challenge this term.  Three schools collaborate together to create one movie. The two other schools were Nayland Primary School (Nelson) and the Community School of Davidson (North Carolina).
Each school had to create a 1min silent movie based on a theme. Our theme is that we need to treat people equally, with respect. The movie also had to include 3 things:  magic, a Rubiks cube and the time 3:15.
The movie was flicked on to Nayland School to add the voice overs and foley effects, and then that was flicked on to North Carolina for the background music.
It was fun including all 3 schools and being able to add voiceovers and music to their movies.

Zoetropes

As we are studying Optics at the moment we created Zoetropes. This is a simple animation device that takes advantage of how inefficient our eyes can be at focusing.

Teddy Bear Project

Here are some great pieces of writing from Chupei Senior School in Taiwan. Our teddy bear, Ritchie has had some fun experiences.

Science - Optics

To help our understanding of how eyes function we dissected a pig's eye. You could easily see the iris, pupil, retina and lens.

Year 8 Dance

The Year 8 Independent Schools' Dance includes Selwyn House School, St Andrews College, Medbury, Rangiruru, St Margarets', St Michaels and Waihi. It was a great night organised by Medbury at the Showgate Lounge.

Children for Sale

Using a real photograph from 1948, we wrote stories about what it must have been like to be bought by a stranger.

Once upon a time, on the steps of a rundown house in Chicago, sat four children, four small children, who mother was selling them to pay the family bills. A white sign lay posted into the ground, with words neatly written in black ink. The words read, CHILDREN FOR SALE. INQUIRE WITHIN. Four children sat silently on the step of the house, their eyes lowered to the ground in solemn sadness. Their mother, hands raised to her face in despair, looked down at the children who looked up at her with false hope.

When the children looked away, the mother leant onto the wall, a crumbling concrete mess. The mother looked into the distance. Over there, she thought, is a place where lives are happier. A place where no one sells their children. That is the place where I should be.

She couldn’t bear to let her children go but she had to let them go, needed the money for the rest of the family to survive. She promised herself she wouldn’t miss them and maybe, with time she would forget about them. But she knew she wouldn’t. She would remember these children always. How she loved them. How she took care of them. How she gave them away to be slaves.

A man approached the house. They children looked up at him in silent despair, knowing their time was soon going to be up.  For once in their life, they wished to be thought of as horrible little children, which no one would want to buy. Their pleading eye did nothing to help them. The man took no notice of them as he walked up the steps and approached their mother. He needed people to work for free. Their mother reluctantly took one last looked at her children and then looked away as the man lead them down the street to their new life. 

by Abby

There they were, 4 little children, sitting there on the dusty steps, not knowing what was happening to them.  A sign had been placed in front of them, but they couldn’t tell what it said. People that passed by, looked at them, but kept on walking. Two boys and two girls, crying while their mother is wailing hysterically behind them. They sat there for hours and hours, wondering why they were sitting on the steps with a sign sitting in front of them. They didn’t even know that the sign said “4 children 4 sale, inquire within.”

The next day a strange man walked up to them and started talking to their mother who was busy tidying around. They talked for a while then soon shook hands. The man then left. The mother came and sat down by the kids, hugged them, kissed them, then left crying. After an hour had been the same man came back in a carriage, he nodded at the kids mother, then put the four scared kids into the carriage. As soon as the mother and the man had exchanged the money, they were off. The kids sat huddled in a corner, crying and drooling all over each other. 

by Samantha

Self Defence

Today we had Lynda Maindonald teach us self defence. We learnt some physical moves, but the best thing to do is be confident, and act on our gut feelings not our conditioned responses.

Aimee and Samantha role playing 'uncomfortable' conversations

Selwyn House Sports Day

We had a great Sports Day yesterday with a number of records broken.  Check out our House mascot race and Rachel Candy leading in the Staff vs Students relay.

Light Spectrum

In Science we have been looking at colour. 'White' light is made up from all of the colours in the rainbow spectrum. We proved this by making a colour spinner with red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet and spinning it really fast at the end of a drill.  Can you see it change to white?

Teddy Exchange

We are part of iEarn's Teddy Bear Exchange project. We sent our All Black teddy, Ritchie, over to Chupei Senior High School in Taiwan and have received Formosa from them. We will be sharing day to day adventures with them. Formosa has spent a night at prep.

Teddy Bear Project

We have been partnered with a school in Taiwan for iEarn's Teddy Bear project. Here is Ritchie, the All Black teddy bear before we sent him off to Taiwan. Last week the teddy bear arrived in Taiwan and their class are looking forward to starting the teddy bear diary. Hopefully we receive our bear soon.

Wedderburn

The iconic shed at Wedderburn. Last day on the trail.

Auripo - in the middle of nowhere

On the way to the General Store. Rail Trail Day 2. 

First morning

Probably the last morning that the girls look energetic. First day biking today from Alexandra to Lauder.

Start of Rail Trail

On the way to Alexandra. Lunch at Lake Tekapo. 

Letters to the Editor

We have been studying persuasive writing this term. After looking at how to write Letters to the Editor, we used a similar approach to comment on newspaper articles online, using our own website here: 8B Letters 2013

The bee swarm

Excitement today as a huge swarm of bees entered the playground. They started to nest in our hedge, so the exterminators had to come in.

Our Websites

We have been creating websites. Yesterday we learnt about boxes, and how to put boxes in our websites. Here are our websites!

Claire's Website

Abby's Website

Kate's Website

Aisha'a Website

Aimee's Website

Ms Barran's Website

Ella's Website

Emma's Website

Gracie's Website

Holly's Website

Izzy's Website

Mya's Website

Samantha Ensor's Website

Samantha Harcourt's Website

Suzanna's Website

Taylor's Website

Trinity's Website

Jimmy's Website

The best kitchen appliance

We have been studying persuasive writing. One class assignment was to write a speech to promote the best kitchen appliance, with maximum use of persuasive features.

This is Holly's:

Have you ever picked up your cup of tea, brought it up to your lips, taken in a whiff of the magnificent sweet stench, only to be highly disappointed, as it appears to be as cold as stone? Well, I have a solution. A winning solution in fact. And, it's called a kettle. Yes you heard correctly, a kettle. Or as some people call it, a jug. This spectacular kitchen appliance that will solve all of your problems. I believe that kitchen kettles are the answer to your hot beverage related problems.

Firstly, let me start by saying that I am no fan of cold tea, and I’m sure you aren’t either. Think about all of the times you have had cold tea, because of the so called, good old tap. Not only are kettles great for making a hot beverage, they can be used on your car windows. How many times have you tried to open your car door on a frosty morning, only to find the door frozen shut?

My parents and I were getting ready for school and work. We were running late, so it was pretty hectic. As we finally reached the car, we only found the doors to be stuck to their hinges. Well, this is where the kitchen kettle can come in very handy.

Using a kettle to defrost the doors from sticking to their hinges is an easy way out of causing a whole lotta hassle in the morning. I believe that this small but mighty kitchen appliance is the winning item here people. Don’t you agree with me?

Now. Just take a moment to reflect on a time when you have run your hand under the cold tap, waiting for it to warm up, so that you can have a nice hot beverage of some sort. Just think of all that water you are wasting! Somewhere in the world, there are children dying because they don’t have any water, while you happily wait at your kitchen sink, while the precious water gets wasted down the drain. Taps are so last year. Just with the flick of a switch, you waste no water, and it only takes approximately 41 seconds to boil, whereas it sometimes takes 3 whole minutes for a tap to only reach luke-warm.

Some people may say, why use a kettle when you have a hot tap? Well, I'll tell you why. Repeating what I said earlier, taps take 2 minutes longer to boil compared to jugs. When you use a tap, water is being wasted, therefore, more money is added onto your water bill. Sure, if people want to pay more for wasted water, that’s fine by me.

Next time you are roaming through the shops, why not stop off in the kitchen jugs area? It would save you not only a whole lot of hassle, but money as well. By buying a jug, you are saving the children in need. So. What would you choose? Loss of money, wasted time, hassle and children dying, or you could JUST USE A JUG! Kitchen kettles deserve to win. Because although dishwashers and microvaves occasionally come in handy, I don’t know about you, but I would much rather prefer hot, boiled water. Hot chocolates. Coffee. Tea. Go on. Go out, and buy a jug. It will change your life.

HTML coding

We are all learning how to code with HTML to make our own websites. Today we learnt some basics about layout and colours. We hope to be able to use this for our presentations, rather than having to rely on GoogleSites or Wix. Jimmy Ryan, our ICT Administrator has been a patient instructor.

Our Class (as Avatars)

In our Bitstrips online environment we had to create Avatars before we started making our comics.

Here is our class:

Medieval Minecraft

Abby used Minecraft to communicate her understanding of the systems in place in a Medieval village. She used command blocks to display text about the similarities and differences to the cities of today.

Stormwater solutions

We have been looking at the environmental conflicts with our stormwater. Pollution can be improved with solutions such as spill kits, rain gardens, vegetative swales, garden roofs and permeable pavers. We used criteria to find our best solution and presented this using Bitstrips.

by Abby

by Kate

Puns

Light

Hello my name is Aimee. We are learning about reflection. I am trying to aim the light on the line and reflect it on the mirror to create a glowing light. The purpose of this was to figure out how light reflects in a mirror and measure angles of the light rays.

Puppet Making

Abby, Suzanna and I made a puppet movie during Art. Our aim in Art was to learn how to sew and make puppets out of plaster. I enjoyed doing this as I could sew. 

Los Tres Cerditos

In Spanish today, the Year 8 girls shared their play Los Tres Cerditos (the Three Little Pigs) with our Year One students.

Stormwater

We looked at Stormwater as an example of an environmental issue. These posters highlight the causes, and the impacts, of stormwater pollution.