Social Dancing today

Today we learnt to do the Maxina - well done Sheppard Year 8's, you were amazing!

 We also revisited two line dances from yesterday!! Coconut Cream and Red Hot!!

Room 11 think about the disadvantages of Jeremy's car ....

Thank you, Mrs Smith!

It is great when a teacher passes on to you a really good idea to share with your class.Mrs Smith has given me a really fun lesson and one which the class has really got stuck into!
We started by watching part of a documentary on Keith Haring to see how his Art transformed the subways of New York!(See earlier post!).
Then the students were handed a sheet with some of his symbols. The next step was to roll a dice and whatever number came up they had to copy that on to their page. Only problem was if they made a mistake they couldn't erase it!

Kultur - Keith Haring Documentary

Ours for the day!

Eli and Alice have the Fullwood Shield "on loan" today... as members of the HNI team who recently won the Year 8 Hawke's Bay Mathletics competition !!

Heard of Tristan da Cunha?

Over the last couple of weeks Room 11 has been investigating the remote island of Tristan da Cunha. We have looked into different aspects of its history, geography and what we think it would be like to live there. Under this term's "change maker" inquiry topic we have thought carefully about how the choice to live there has lead to changes in the lives of Tristinans! It would certainly come under the "GRIT, GUTS and GENIUS" label!

The final task is to think about the changes that might occur there in the future and what or who would cause these. Today saw the students thinking about what it could mean to have more tourists visiting and how tourism to the island could be"encouraged". We decided on a radio advertisement ,backed up by a promotional poster and magazine ad. Several of the boys in the class are heading in a slightly different direction. For the promotional poster of the island they are recreating Tristan da Cunha using minecraft!!

Youth Expo

On Wednesday most of Room 11 attended the Youth Expo at the Napier War Memorial building. It was a really good excursion and the class got a great deal from it (including information and a range of badges and other "freebies")!
There were several speakers and presenters. HNHS students set the scene with a "party" gone wrong. This was followed by presentations from the Red Cross, St John's Ambulance, the Police and the NZ Fire Service.
Students also had the opportunity to look at exhibits from a range of organisations and had to complete a quiz sheet to be eligible for prizes. Eli received a McDonalds' voucher for his memory skills.
Mike King was both the highlight and guest speaker. His humour and honesty struck the right note with all of the students.

Group KK's Wood and Plastic Photos

Mr Sutherland sent through the following photos from Group KK

Writing for different audience

This week, in Writing, we have been thinking about writing for an audience as well as being persuasive. We have completed a range of tasks from paired speeches, through to looking at how to plan a persuasive piece of writing and ended up with today's activity of thinking about your audience.

Writing speeches

The idea today was to take a newspaper article and "Change It" into a different genre - suitable for a different audience.
We began by brainstorming different types of writing - humour, gossip magazine, science fiction, fantasy, romance, tweets and texts as well as scripts.

Original Text: A newspaper report!          

                                                       New writing form: action

                       adventure story

Another Police Chase                                 

involving Teens                               Wild Boys

Two teenage boys were                            Crash! Another table flew

allegedly throwing chairs      across Phillipe’s restaurant

and tables at a local      and crumpled in a heap in the

restaurant in Westlands      corner. Roger and Brett laughed

on Friday night. They then      raucously as they scanned the

bolted from the restaurant      restaurant and admired their

when they heard the      work. Only the three tables with

manager calling the police.       customers remained in place.

A high-speed chase ensued      Tentatively the customers began

around central Westland’s      to scuttle towards the door,

streets.      keeping their eyes firmly fixed

   on the villains.

Suddenly the paniced voice

of the manager could be heard

pleading for help. Roger and

Brett glanced at one another

and bolted from the restaurant,

slamming the door behind them.

A couple of groups really liked the idea of a movie script. So while one group headed off with ipad to make an imovie another group headed up to the field to practise their version of a high speed chase!!

(No one was harmed in the making of this collage!)

Issues we are PASSIONATE about!

Back on line!

It has been a while since Room 11 has put up a post... mainly because I was away in Europe. I could fill the blog with lots of photos but better not!
It has been great to get back into the classroom. This week has seen the class thinking about "change" and what it means in their lives and what it might mean on a bigger scale. We did some group brainstorming to get us off the mark.

We have also been thinking about groups/organisations who are agents of change and who we could support this term. No decision has been made but there have been some wonderful suggestions.

Also today we began a term long reading challenge. Room 11 were sooo quiet in the library today as they got stuck in to their books!

So a little snap shot of our week!

My last day of the term!

I can't believe that the year is half way though! This week six students have been involved in the school's Literacy Extension camp: Alice, Olivia, Sam F, Eli, Bella and Maisie. They have had a great time and I am looking forward to hearing all about it!
The rest of us have had a "wind down" sort of week - finishing off pieces of work, such as our advertising briefs. Here are Junior's and Ellie's "advertisements!

Today we carried on with our Art - looking at our faces and how to portray them.  We started with some eyes closed drawings, and then looked at pencil portraits and collages.

All in all a really busy term. Enjoy the holidays!

Engaged in our Learning!

Today we had quite a few students away on the Masterton Sport exchange. Those of us back in the classroom decided to look at castles and their various features. In Maths, with Ms Vanderpump, Room 11 has been using a castle to work out area, so it "kinda" fitted in !!
Well we had a great day. I was even persuaded that Minecraft was the way to go! We also had quizzes being created on Kahoot and art, with pencil and pastel.

And just so you can  see some of the awesome art work:

Picasso Faces

Room 11 enjoyed sharing some of their creative talents with a double session of art!

A Busy Start to Week 7!

 The week began with the class reflecting back on what they could remember from last year's pubertal health unit. We had a "mix 'n match" Challenge and I'm pleased to say they did really well!!

We also shared out class book - The Teenager's Guide to the Human Machine. There are some great  "pages" and I took photocopies to display on the wall.

Mrs Bassett has also sent  through some images from Food Tech:

So lots going on and more to come!