Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Lost and Found: What's living in our garden?

 Here's a link to Kereru 1's  video about bullying. It has some powerful messages.


Read the latest school newsletter; you never know when Mrs Fowler will ask us a question about it at assembly.
Our swan plant was looking pretty sick. Over Easter, the three caterpillars disappeared. We thought they weren't old enough to make a chrysalis, and wondered if someone  had taken, or harmed them.
But this week, three caterpillars appeared on another healthier swan plant at the other end of the garden. We wondered if someone had transferred them. There does not appear to be any other monarch caterpillars around our garden this year. 
The aphids - and lady birds are back.



You can almost see the bee's knees . . .


Another caterpillar in our garden. This is not a monarch caterpillar. Is it helpful or  harmful? What kind of butterfly or moth will it change into?


We enjoyed reading about  Mrs Whitehead's pigeon (kerereu) rescue. You can find out more about it here.   We are looking forward to hearing about its progress.

On Sunday, Karmveer and Corbin are representing us at the Sunrise Walk to help raise funds for the local hospice. The class have brought donations to help support our two boys and the cause.

Our Rugby Picks for the Weekend:
(Winning team and winning margins written first)
Brumbies 13+ against Highlanders Picked the winner but not the right margin
Chiefs 1 - 12 against Reds
Blues 1 - 12 against Hurricanes
Rebels 1 12 against Kings
Crusaders 13+ against Force
Sharks 1- 12 against Stormers
Cheetahs 1-12 against Bulls

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Caterpillars Up Close


 At lunchtime we saw three caterpillars on the stalks of the swan plant. We were going to relocate them to a healthier plant, but they were too hard to pick up. We will try it again when they are on a leaf, so we can pick the leaf off and then wait for them to crawl onto a leaf on the new plant.

The caterpillars were moving their heads a bit. (Well, we think they were their heads - it could have been their tails.) We need to work out which end is which.
I wonder if the aphids worry about the caterpillars?

Can you tell the anterior (front) from the posterior (rear)?

The head must be the end that is munching on the leaf. We think there are longer antennae at the head than at the tail.  At the posterior,  the feet are like suckers holding onto the stalk; at the anterior,  they are just like little fingers - not suckers.




By Alisha and Ramandeep


Highlanders win 1 - 12 against Reds
Hurricanes win 13+ against Kings
Chiefs win 1 - 12 against Blues 
Brumbies win 1 - 12 against Bulls 
Cheetahs win 1 - 12 against Rebels
Crusaders win 1 - 12 against Stormers
Waratahs 1 - 12 against Force

Our current results are:
  • Season Score:  132

    Round Score:  31

  • Current Rank:  33,796 Out of 75,605


Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Look Who's Back in our Garden ...




How many caterpillars can you see?
Can you see the tiny aphids?

Photos by Alisha

Friday, March 22, 2013

Our Rugby Picks for this week

 Here is this week's school newsletter.

Here are our choices for the Super Rugby games this weekend:

Chiefs  win by 13+ points against Highlanders
Result: Chiefs 19,  Highlanders 7. Well, we predicted a win, anyway, but we were wrong about the margin. 
 
Crusaders win by 13+ points against Kings
Result: Crusaders, 55 Kings 20. We predicted this one correct correctly. 
 
Bulls win by 1 - 12 points against Reds   
Results: Bulls 18, Reds 23. We got this one wrong.

Cheetahs win by 1 - 12 points against the Force
Results: Cheetahs 19, Force 10. We picked this one, too.  

Sharks win by 1 - 12 points against  Rebels
Results: Sharks 64, Rebels 7. We picked the winners - but not the margin.

Stormers win by 1 -12 points against the Brumbies
Results: Stormers 35, Brumbies 22. Our margin was only one  point out. Not a bad prediction!

Blues win by 13+ points against the Waratahs
Results: Blues 27, Waratahs 30. We were well out on this one. 




oooO0Oooo


And here's a link to the video/advertisement called: Paper is not dead.  It's our favourite video of the week - so far.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Bits and Pieces

This week's school newsletter. 

Our Class Treaty signing:

We have been learning about the Treaty of Waitangi, and based our own classroom treaty on events which happened at Waitangi in 1840.

Amber (as Captain William Hobson) reads the treaty to those gathered at the meeting. The class discuss it and give their opinions.
Everyone signs it. There is a bit of competition to to be Hone Heke (who signs it first) and Kawiti (who doesn't sign it on the day, but adds his name above Heke's at a later date.)
The completed Treaty:


 We, the students of Huia 1, 
agree to:

be in the right place,
at the right time,
doing the right thing,
which would be making 
cool choices. 
---- o 0 o ---- 
 More Fun with Puns: 
Well done, Ramandeep, for finding this example of a pun.   
Can you work it out?
Origin of photo unknown. 
 

 Spot the mistakes: 
Here are three photos of interesting errors found in Cambridge this past weekend. Can you work out what the interesting error is in each photo? 





 Heteronyms:
We have been learning about heteronyms. These are two or more words which have the same spelling but have different pronunciations and meanings. 

Can you think of different ways to pronounce, and different meanings for these heteronyms:  sow and sow, does and does, record and record, and buffet and buffet? 

Heres is a quite challenging game to place to  find the heteronym  to match each meaning.
Here is another game to find the heteronym - part II.

 Here are some pictorial heteronyms: Can you work out what they are? (Origins of images unknown) 














Monday, March 4, 2013

Pun With Comprehension

 From Grammarly.com 


The Year 7s had fun trying to work out what each animal is saying. We had turns reading it out aloud - as if we were each animal.
We learnt what a pun is . . . 





Unsure of origin of this comic.


Thursday, February 28, 2013

Our soon-to-be-beautiful garden . . .

This is our soon-to-be beautiful garden. It has a lot of beautiful flowers and an apple tree. We've found lots of junk and even a soccer ball in our garden! We plan on cleaning it and making it a wonderful garden again.
 
Garden management is done by Karmveer, Aaron, and Cameron W.
(Photos by Mwaniki)

Last week we made a lot of progress. The year 8s are preparing to get ready for camp. We've had loads of fun playing team sports and going to Spanish, art and maths.

Today, Mrs Fowler announced something amazing. . . There is going to be a water slide at school tomorrow! So don't forget your togs and towels.

Mrs Bull also revealed a linguists club for all the people in our school who speak a different language other than English. Congratulations to everyone who got a badge.

Everyone also seems to be enjoying some of their classroom jobs.

Mr Fowler, with the year 8s, is building a playground for the small kids. 

Sports
Last week The Gardens School participated in water polo. We won by 8 points! In the boys' cricket team, we won by 89 runs. For the girls' cricket they won their first match but unfortunately,  they lost their second.

Weekly Opinions
"It was really cool because we got to do lots of gardening." Karmveer
"It was cool last week because I got a certificate for 3000 Mathletics points." Aaron
"It was pretty good last week because I got selected to represent the school for inter-school cricket against Remuera." Sukhdev

Written and Published by Karmveer and Mwaniki.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Three Weeks of Fun

Year 7s are writing another blog while the Year 8s are in Poutama, making a new junior playground with Mr Fowler. 
~ o O 0 O o  ~

Things we have discovered about being an Intermediate:

- I have to be a role model to the younger children (Sukhdev)
- I am lucky to learn Spanish at this school because some schools don't learn Spanish (Karmveer)
- I have to take responsibility for sports gear, even if the little kids leave it lying around (Tara)
- I still have to respect the Year 8s (Aaron)
- I have to take on more responsibilities (Corbin)
- I have hard work - but fair (Amber)
- I get to use electronic devices more, and with more freedom (Mwaniki)
- I have different classses for maths, technology, Spanish and art (Syvannah)
- I have a "to do" list to help me remember all my homework and other tasks (Lili)

Things we have learnt:

Some Spanish:  
¡Hola!, ¿Cómo estas?  ¡Gracias! ¡Fantastico!

Capital letters are used for people's names and initials,  and for headings and titles in our work,  and  forholidays or festivals - such as Valentine's Day. We also learnt that Valentine's Day ALWAYS has an apostrophe.

In PE we are doing ultra-rip and are learning how to defend our tags and how to attack.

In social studies we have learnt about how to make Cool Choices: we can choose between cool, ugly and weak choices, but making cool choices is obviously the best choice.

We are also learning about what happened in New Zealand leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi:


Once it was discovered the kauri trees made very good spars for ships, a lot of ships came to New Zealand to  cut down kauri trees to sell in England. (Corbin)
Kauri trees were up to 30 metres high before the branches started, so this made kauri very good for round spars.(Amber)
Photo of young kauri
Thomas Fyshe Palmer was a released convict who came to New Zealand to look for kauri spars. He was a convict because it was illegal to publically campaign for the right for everyone to vote (universal suffrage). (Karmveer) 
In England, you could get jailed for trapping someone else's rabbits. (Syvannah)
Some explorers never returned to England. (Tara)
Governor King, from New South Wales, gave Maori from the Bay of Islands some potatoes and pigs when two kidnapped Maori were returned to New Zealand in the 1790s. (Tara)

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, people in England could get a seven-year jail sentence in Australia for something as petty as stealing a loaf of bread. (Mwaniki)

People could be hanged for stealing food; for example, in Sydney, in 1805, 2 men were condemned to be hanged because they stole some pork. (Aaron)
 The Maori rangatira, Te Pahi, was visiting Governor King. He begged for a reprieve for the condemned convicts because, in New Zealand, everyone was entitled to eat, and all food was shared; there was no such thing as stealing food. (Sukhdev)
Te Pahi
Seven years was the shortest sentence convicts had to serve in  Australia. (Lili)

Hone Heke and Kawiti were competitive; Hone Heke signed the treaty first, but Kawiti later wrote his name above Heke's. (Karmveer)

Monday, February 11, 2013

Huia 1 Year 7, 2013

Year 7s have had an awesome start to the year, and we hope that this will carry on.

Already we have learnt that Hone Heke was the first to sign the Treaty of Waitangi,  and the Queen of England at the time was Queen Victoria.

We have learned how to count up to 25 in Spanish because there are 25 students in the class - not counting the one who is still away.

We are all in different art classes and Spanish classes on Fridays.

Huia 1 has  five students  new to our school this year: Mwaniki, Syvannah, Joanna, Tara and Sukhdev.


When we asked them what they liked about The Gardens School, this is what they said:

Mwaniki: "I like the size the school. It's bigger than other schools. It means there will be more places to play and bigger places to explore."

 
Syvannah: "I like having friends. My new friends are LiLi, Brylee and Amber."

Tara: "I like that it's clean and it hasn't got rubbish in it. There are two drop off and pick up zones for parents. It's got lots of sports gear."



Joanna: "I like that it's bigger and there's more electronic devices - computers and iPads."

 Sukhdev: "I like that the school has more technology. It's bigger and there are more people to be friends with."
Today, in technology, we looked at the Huia 1 blog and learnt how to use the chatbox.

The chatbox rules are:
-  Use correct spelling and punctuation, for example, use a comma before someone's name if you are talking to them - such as:  "Nice comment, Aaron. ".
-  Use correct English - no text language  (you not u, for not 4).
-  Be polite.
-  Write about things that are relevant.
-  Double check before you press "Enter" because you cannot delete anything or undo a post. (Mrs Vincent can.)
-  If you find any inappropriate use of the chat box, enter enough happy face symbols to make the ugly comment scroll out of sight.
- We use first names only.
- Our blog is a friendly, happy, interesting place. 

Aaron 
Lili

Amber
Absent: Shehjadpreet and Karmveer.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Huia 1 2013

Add caption
Here's what Huia 1 looks like this year:

Welcome to Huia 1: Corbin, Alex, Mason, DC, Sukhdev, Jason, Cameron W, Kylah, Karmveer, Aiden, Dominic, Cameron M, Mwaniki, Aaron, Jamarl, Alisha, Amber-Lee, LiLi, Vanshika, Ramandeep, Jupman, Tara, Joanna, Syvannah and Brylee.

Monday, December 17, 2012

End of Year Alphabet

Here is an alphabet of words which have significant memories for Year 8 students in Huia 1 this year: 

A - anthology, ANZAC Day, acrostic poems, assembly, assonance, Awhitu, apostrophes,
B - box, beach, ball, butterflies, biology, basic facts, badminton, bowling
C - cooking, choir, camp, Castaways, current events, Capulets, caterpillars, capital letters,
D - daffodils, dental nurse, dancing, drama, drop-cover-hold, doona,
E - eggs. egg nog, education, energy, eels, Espanol, empanadas,
F - fish pie, friendship, Ferdinand the Bull,
G - guitar, garden, Gangnam Style, Grand March, Gay Gordons, Miss Griffin
H - hospice, Huia 1, hobo stoves
I - invertebrates, Intermediates, interesting, invierno, Mrs Irwin
J - Juliet, jump jam, James Bond,
K - keyboard, Kidz Cafe, knowledge,
L - languages, learning, La Boca, Mrs Lee, lighthouse
M - Mount Tongariro, monarch butterfly, mufti, Matakawau, mud slide, Maxina
N - numbers, narratives, nonsense
O - Olympics, options
P - Poutama, PE, poetry, portfolio
Q - Queen Victoria, quizzes
R - R.S.A., rockets, Romeo
S - Shakespeare, Spanish, sewing, sausage sizzle, speeches, singing, Speed your Journey
T - tests, Treaty of Waitang, Totara Park 
U - ukulele, Uno, Dos, Tres, uniform,
V - vocabulary, visitors from Australia, video competition, Mrs Vincent
W - White Island, winter wonderland, Wodonga, Mrs Whitehead, waltz, Wai Care
X - Xmas,  exchange students,  expression in drama
Y - year, Mr Yates
Z - zeal 

Friday, November 9, 2012

Cinquains by Huia 1


 A cinquain is a poem of  five lines and 22 syllables.   

This first line has 2 syllables
The second line has 4
The third line has 6
The fourth line has 8 
and the fifth line has 2 syllables

or
Line 1:  one word (usually noun)
Line 2: description of noun
Line 3: action 
Line 4: feeling or effect
Line 5: synonym of initial noun 

Here are some of our cinquains. Can you find the poetic devices and figure of speech we used?



Rainbows
vibrant colours
arcs lurking in the sky
a vivid sight of happiness
bright streaks

Caitlin - I used assonance, rhyme, personification, metaphor


Mornings
sleeping, sleeping
sunshine's seeking my eyes
my hand lands hard on my face. Smack!
Awake. 

Tonu - I used assonance, alliteration and repetition

Earthquake
is newsworthy
rumbling belly
anxious for  deadly destruction
Beware!
Karnjeet - I used a metaphor, personification  and alliteration

Water
dazzling di'monds
evaporates skywards
a satisfying crystal drink
sky-blue

Karnjeet - I used a metaphor, alliteration, imagery


Night
silver plate
lurking behind clouds
stars dancing like fairies
Blanket

Lauren - I used metaphors and a simile

The Ball
winter wardrobe
spinning, twirling, whirling,
sweets, treats and pastries to savour
Narnia

Shayla - I used alliteration, rhyme and repetition,


Apple
crunchy, crispy
red like a fighter's blood,
exploding juices into my mouth
spit pips

Flynn  -  I used alliteration, simile, assonance  and  imagery


Moonshine
blooms light through night
gleaming reflecting
silver steps ripple the harbour
glist'ning

Hoani - I used a metaphor, alliteration, imagery, assonance and rhyme

The Moon
icy cold ball
glist'ning on calm water
arriving slowly and slowly
solid

Jupman  - I used repetition, metaphor and  alliteration


Soccer
need energy
need to pass
running, jumping and shooting
football

Akjot - I used repetition and assonance


Fireworks
blare vividly
ignite the inky sky
like gaudy clouds raining
vibrant

Alisha: I used - a simile, assonance and alliteration


Autumn
swimming in leaves
leaves falling like soft snow
leaves golden like the sandy beach
Dive in!

Jackie - I used an extended metaphor, repetition and  a simile

Summer
multi-coloured
well-illuminated
exuberant joy ev'rywhere
blazing

Renae - I used assonance and consonance


Cyclone
the end is near
time has come for mercy
serial killer on the loose
Prepare!

Rudadiso - I used imagery and personification 


Red Rose
petals bursting 
raindrops splash and settle
fresh, fragrant, soon fading away
ruby
Ramandeep - I used assonance, metaphor and alliteration


Ice-Cream
wrinkly snow hill 
slip sliding down my chin  
avalanche of cookies and cream
lick it

Cameron White - I used metaphors,  alliteration, assonance and imagery