Autumn poem

Autumn comes early to this busy school,
No tidy grounds, no daffodils,

But Crippled leaves thrown around,
Forgotten rubbish tumbling on the ground,
And patchy rain pattering on the roof,
And the leaf-losing leaves drop some scrumptious fruit
Crunchy acorns drop helplessly to the ground,
And the unforgiving chainsaws cut trees with a growling sound.

Autumn comes early to this busy school,
No tidy grounds, no daffodils,
Yet one small ray of sun creeps through the sky,
And the yells of the first football game drift up high.

Stealing Chocolate

 I hopped over the fence and I heard the usual loud woof and footsteps, which told me that the dog was there and waiting for me. It was home time, after school, and way after the school patrol had finished. Sam sprinted past me just in time to hear the doorknob turning and my brother asking Sam, how's my doggy!!?? Inside the kitchen I would usually grab a chocolate and go away to play soccer but this time I waited until both my brother and mum had gone and tiptoed to the treat jar. I thought "what shall I have, there are moro's and crunchies... I'll choose the moro - it lasts." Before I had time to reach into the jar my brother called out. "Are you coming or what?" "In a minute." I replied. As I started to peel off the wrapper I heard a THUMP, THUMP, THUMP of the stairs; I had taken too much time and mum was coming down with speed. Fumbling with the wrapper, I shoved it in my mouth. "Mum asked Does it take that long to eat a chocolate? I nod, trying to make it seem like it did. "Well, I know it doesn't." She said, "next time you're getting only one." And that was that.

Camp at wainui - orienteering.

As the teacher called out “Group one...” I was hoping that group two were doing orienteering. Then she said "Group two you are doing… orienteering!" We all stood up right away and we sat on the splintery seat at orienteering, while our camp parents, Kathryn and Justine, split us into groups. I felt relieved and I thought "Good, I'm in a mostly sensible group."  

After that we got to select two map holders. "Me me me me!!" everyone shouted. Eventually they choose Felix and Alyssa. I felt a bit let down as I thought "Shame it isn't me, I'm pretty good with maps." Finally, Justine determined the boundaries.

"The boundaries are shown on the map and I know that the outside of the map is out of bounds so let's get going," I muttered to myself.

So after that it was finally time to get going! I felt really frustrated when I would find the trail going right but not left. When we had arrived at the final control I was feeling very excited, and even better, we had done it in less than an hour. What an exhausting way to finish!

Lake hawea

Water

Frigid and rippling, it nips at my feet until my toes go numb.

The fire

High flying, crackling and fast sweeping, marshmallows go sticky in seconds

Marshmallows

Taste soft, double layered and gooey after being roasted

Go karts

Bumpy, hard going but fun

Sun

Blinding brightness and UV rays pounding down; sun block is needed

Rocks

Pointy, flat, skinny and rounded, always fun to flick over the lake

Centennial explanation

Have you ever wondered if the current school office building was the first building on our Waimairi School site?

I had access to old photos of the first Waimairi School building, built in 1914. It was an old black and white photo that had been collected in an old school photo album that was put together by Daph, our old school bursar.

Then I decided to make cards of the old school building, good enough to sell. I photocopied and enlarged a photo of the school building, traced the outline using the light from the window, the next step was the hardest - adding the detail and getting the angles right. I water-coloured the final result then I wrote my name onto the sketches of the building.  Next I printed them onto cardboard cards ready to sell.  In the future I wonder what the school will look like when it is rebuilt?

At the start when our teachers mentioned backstories my understanding was at pre structural and I had no idea what they meant. My understanding has changed a lot since the start: now I know exactly what a backstory is but I haven't been able to uncover any. A backstory is an historical event or a personal story. I learnt a heap of knowlege about drawing and sketching . If I didn't learn all of that then my card drawings wouldn't be as good a quality as my cards were. My turning point was when I had a first attempt at the drawing and printed them off on coloured paper but it was suggested that I could improve on the drawing. I was starting again for my second attempt, then I was feeling pretty confident about our project. I feel very proud of my project, it has reached a high standard and I feel there is nothing left to do, but next time I will try to be more organised and uncover a backstory. I also discovered that first attempts are not always the best and it is worth having a go at a second.

This is the whole of waimairi in 1914.

This is my uncover, connect, showcase rubric.

Finally the graph of learning of how I went from start to finish.

Speeches

This week I have been doing speeches with mrs Pageot for the trial of the Waimairi School speech competition.  I have been learning to use the power of three, language features, strong vocabulary and much more.

I am going well because I am at multi-relational, I have got to this stage by using many language features and I have connected some of them. I am finding the ideas easy because I knew what I had to write about but I also made up some things in the speech. I am finding the structuring hard because I have to do certain things in each structure: beginning, middle and end. I have overcome this challenge by getting help from Mrs Pageot and my friends. The fact that I got a good quality speech surprised me because I managed to get lots of short sentences all with the power of three and language features including idioms, metaphors etc.   Next time I would connect all of the language features together to get to relational.

The key competency I have been working on is self managing by avoiding distractions, I have achieved this by sitting in a place where my friends weren't.

By scott.

Speech: bird injurys

Have you ever heard about the umpteen number of bird injuries all over the world?

You know the thing I mean- the seabirds and penguins that get covered with oil on the beaches by ships breaking on rocks and leaking oil out of their tanks. Not to mention the birds that get hurt by storms or winds.

It starts to get tiring after a while, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, birds get injured by some natural cause.

Of course once you get to this stage the occasional bird lands in your area with something like a broken wing or the odd plastic around its neck, but one thing I've learnt, birds can be soooo unpredictable.

Which brings me back into time, a nice sunny day in Atheltown which is in the middle of the country. My grandfather was the teacher and headmaster at the school there. He and my grandma lived in the old school house and their two sons that went to the school.

One day while teaching the students, my father I'll call him Chris spotted a bird that had crash landed on the grounds. Everyone pushed and shoved to get a look at this bird which turned out it was a mutton bird that had been blowen off the coast and it had a broken wing, grandad dave called managed to heal it well enough so it could fly. When it was well enough everyone climbed up a high hill and went to a bluff then shoved the bird off the 100 meter high cliff and watched as it tumbled towards the ground. 

Every one thought the bird would go SPLAT!!!! But instead, two or three meters off the ground, in swift movement ,it swooped up and away from the school.

What happened you ask? Well it flew away towards the sea and it was never seen again, but on the other hand grandad Dave found it quite funny and burst out laughing while the rest of the school looked shocked, but that's another story.

The next day everybody who witnessed this strange sight new one thing for sure, birds are unpredictable.

How am I going?

What am I learning?

What are my next steps?

I am learning to use idioms and more bright sparks and also to use onomatopoeia and personification.

I am going well because I have used many language features which help to build an image or evoke emotion but I didn't know how to use them.

My next steps are to use more language features to evoke emotion in a connected way.

I think my reflection is multistructual.