Head Students Blog

Head on over to the Hannah and Sophie's Head Students Blog. Click here.

They are running a competition at the moment based on leaders who inspire you. This fits perfectly with what we are looking at in class.  I don't know about you, but I can think of two leaders who inspire me - Hannah and Sophie!

Thanks girls for being the amazing leaders that you are.

Check it out - Stan sings Tauranga Moana!

Tauranga Moana

We are learning some waiata to perform during our Matariki celebrations. Here are some clips to help with the waiata and the actions.

Camp Skits

Time is ticking away and soon we will find ourselves at camp. On the Thursday night we will have our camp 'talent' show were everyone will take part in a skit.

Here are a few links for sites where you can find loads and loads of great ideas for camp skits. Make sure you choose a skit that is suitable for a school camping situation. You will need to print it out and get it approved by Mrs Te Whaiti or Mrs Logan prior to camp. We also have a box of plays in class that you might like to choose from. Once you have your script you can practise it until you know it off-by-heart. You might like to organise your costumes and props over the school holidays.

Have fun!

Link One

Link Two

Link Three

Future Champions

On Friday the 20^th of March I went to future champions at Blake Park. Future Champions is run by Sport Bay of Plenty. It is a fun filled day where you get professional coaching on a specific sport. It is run for year 5-8 students over 3 days. In order to go to this day you have to be accepted by filling out an application form. This year there were 800 applications and only the top sports people in each code were successful. There are lots of different sports including: athletics, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rugby, rugby league, squash, tennis, water polo and volleyball.

To kick the day off we had a guest speaker who talked about true champions and her sporting achievements. Then we got into our sport groups and set off for our first session. I was in Athletics with 18 other year 7 and 8s. Our coach was Barrie Jenkins. He is a coach mentor - someone who coaches other coaches how to coach. He also coaches a wide range of athletes and has travelled all over the world with New Zealand teams. Over the morning we learnt heaps of warm ups and techniques tips as well as throwing shot-puts, javelin and discus. I also had a go at pole vault.

After lunch we had a nutrition session where we learnt about what we should be eating before and after our games. I really enjoyed Future Champions. It was an awesome opportunity to be involved in.

Hannah

Hydroponics

On the 9th, 10th and 12th of March, Adrienne from the Tauranga City Council, came to talk to us about Hydroponics and how to Hydroponically plant some dwarf beans.

She told us to bring in some 1.5L bottles for our project on Thursday.

Next she asked us a few questions about if the world changed how could we solve these problems... Population increase, ground floor pollution, air pollution and weather changes. We also talked about the 7 things that plants need to grow.

1.light

2.heat

3.air

4.water

5.space

6.nutrients

7.stability

After that Adrienne showed us a Hydroponic machine called a Nutrient Film Technique. It is a long piece of house gutter with four holes in the top spaced out around 7cm gap. At the top of the gutter was a long waterproof pipe running to the bottom attached to a waterproof filter inside a container filled with water. How it works is the filter sucks the water in and it travels up the pipe. When it gets to the top it runs down the gutter watering the plants in the holes, when the water gets to the bottom it makes a waterfall into the container, making oxygen for the plants so that they can breathe.

The next day we talked about helping sick plants. There were problems of fruit farmers that we had to solve using the list of illnesses.

On Thursday we all brought in our bottles and the fun was about to begin!

She explained what we needed to do to plant some Dwarf Beans then we got started.

We paired up, I paired up with Tylah. Tylah and I first started by cutting our bottles in half. Then we went outside to get our 1 cup of Vermiculite and ½ a cup of Perlite. (Perlite is white like pearls) We put that into the top half of the bottle. Next Tylah got a 1 cup of water so we could put the nutrients (plant food) in it. With 1 teaspoon of each (A) and (B) we were able to put the seeds in. The class got 3-4 seeds to plant, you stick your small finger in and drop the seed in the holes. Then we were done.

Thankyou very much Adrienne for telling us about Hydroponics and telling us about water.     

by Sophie

Kupu o te Wiki - taihoa

Watch more Kupu o te Wiki videos here

Greeting in French.

Our new class members are learning to greet in French. Our Year 8s from 2014 are revising their greetings.

We will be using these greetings in class when we do the roll at the start of the day and after lunch. We will be farewelling one another in French too. Watch the clip and practise your greetings. Post a comment to share what you know about greeting in French.

Boat Safety

On Tuesday the Tall Poppies went to have their last swimming session at the polytech.  We went underneath a boat. They flipped the blow up boat upside down, so when we went underneath the boat we could come up for some air. When we got out we went to the back of the line. It was a little hard because we were at the deep end it is 2 meters deep. The easy part was we had life  jacket’ on and that was our day.  It was a fun day for all of us . My favourite part was going underneath  the boat.

Georgia-Leigh

  

Polytech Swimming by Tristan

On Wednesday, The Tall Poppies went to their final swim at the Polytechnic. It was the best lesson yet. At first, the Tall Poppies had to line up shortest to tallest so we could all get the right size Life Jacket. After all the life jackets were on, we had to do a step in into the pool, swim to the other side and your buddy would have thrown the floaty thing next to you and would pull you back over. The whole point of it was to put you in a situation and how someone would help you.

Tristan

More Name Poems

Katrina's Name

Swimming Intensive

The Tall Poppies have been having intensive swimming sessions at the polytechnic pools. Everyone is in one of 6 groups with a professional instructor. The Tall Poppies have 5 set dates where they spend an hour swimming laps, working on techniques, diving, starts and finishes. Swimming is really good fitness and it helps us for swimming sports. As well the Tall Poppies love going to the deep pool 4m at one end and 1.4m at the other.

Reported by Hannah Rose

Hannah's Name

We read a book called, 'The Most Important Thing'. We decided this was a great format for our poems about our names. (We gathered research on them in weeks 1-3) After deciding on our criteria we set about writing and publishing. Here is the first of them:

Nice work, Hannah!

Kupu ō te Wiki - pirihimana

Pirihimana - police officer

William Pike Challenge

We are so excited to be taking part in the William Pike Challenge this year. It was fantastic having William come to Tauriko School last week to share the story of his challenge and to inspire us to reach new heights. 2015 is our year!

Watch this video clip from William:

We have so much planned for 2015 with Stand Up Paddle Boarding being our first outdoor adventure. Good luck Tall Poppies - we know you can do it!

Teen Mean Reads

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