tom dennis

The Final Wrap....

Well the end of the year has come around pretty quickly after a busy term 4. It has been another great year for Balmacewen and the students of room 13. It has been great seeing students develop in confidence and skill as the year has progressed. I will enjoy seeing this years students as role models around the school next year as year 8's leading the way for our new year 7's.

I would also like to make a big general 'thanks' to everyone who ha had an input into our year - helping out with class trips, camp, rockclimbing, early settlers, Chinese Gardens, Swimming... and any other activities I have missed that we have had. Without the great support from parents it makes it difficult to run the programmes we do - so thanks heaps for making our year operate as smooth as it has.

I would like to wish you all a safe and enjoyable time over the next month and festive season and look forward to seeing everyone around the school again next year at some stage.

Final Awards Assembly

At our Final assembly students are awarded for their consistent efforts and achievements over the year. There are 6 student awards for each class given out. These are for achievement and display of ideals in SPORTING, CULTURAL, ACADEMIC, and CITIZENSHIP around the school.

The room 13 recipients of the awards this year are:
Hanna Ott - Academic & Citizenship
Grace Perry - Sporting & Citizenship
Malcolm McIver - Academic
Zoe Noble - Sporting, Cultural & Citizenship
Nic Anderson - Citizenship
Bella Molloy van de Klundert- Citizenship

Additional Awards from Technology Teachers
Bella Molloy van de Klundert, Dione Barratt & Liam Trotter

Well done to all the above students for you hard work and wfforts in achieving these awards, and a big well done and thank you to all others who make up the room 13 team of 2009

Amazing Race Winners Award

1st Place - Red Team - Dione Tayler Deanna Thomas
2nd Place - Purple Team - Zoe, Daymon, Malcolm

Well after 8 weeks of racing around the world learning about different countries we had a very close 1st-2nd place finish slpit by only half a point!!
The 1st and 2nd placed teams went down to Bowl Line today as their prize and had a bit of a bowling challenge. It was evident from the start that the girls had the technique while the boys had the speed but lack of technique.
The overall results were as follows
1st Dione (90)
2nd Deanna (55)
3rd= Daymon & Tayler (52)
4th Zoe (50)
5th Malcolm (35)
6th Thomas (29)

Well done to all who put such great efforts into the owrk they presented over the course of the term for this challenge.

Week 8 - South America - Amazing Race Roadblock

Most of South America is fanatical about Football than us Kiwi's are about Rugby! So this week you'll need to practise those football skills. The Road Block will take place during the 2nd Block on Friday. Make sure you bring your team colours and mascots along on Friday and really get behind your team!
On the field you will be required to only speak in Spanish! Get learning!
Hola! Areeba areeba!

Hanna's Last Email from her travels

Dear room 13,
Lights twinkled at us as we blundered around the stalls. The smell of honey roasted almonds reached my nose, mixed with the scent of toffee apples. We bought 7 packets of Christmas biscuits from a stall selling the most delicious kinds: chocolate coated spice cakes, sugar glazed biscuits, and almond decorated ones. We came to a huge Christmas tree with a train going round it for little kids to ride on, and soon we reached a stall selling fairy lights and remembered that mum had asked us to buy one with fake candles. After a short discussion on the cellphone about how many candles should be on it we bought one. Grandpa then invited grandma and me to a ride on the Ferris wheel, but grandma didn’t want to. I did, though. Up we went, farther and farther. It got colder and windier the higher we went, but suddenly we went down again. The night air whipped my face and I saw the lights of the German Christmas market down below. I’m looking forward to being home in NZ again!
Yours truly,
Hanna Ott(er).

Chinese Gardens Visit

Below are a few pics Mrs Q snapped at the Chinese Gardens 2 weeks ago when we were visiting/studying China on our 'Amazing Race'

Our Class Story Time Performance

Well we are well under way planning our class 'Arts Performance' we are basing our theme around the story of "The Lion and the Mouse" below is a video of the story we are busy creating our drama/dance/music performance around! 2 weeks until show time!

Art Gallery Visit Friday 20th November

On Friday Room 13 spent the morning at the the Art Gallery, we looked at all sorts of differnt art work and learnt a bit about what the artist was thinking and trying to achieve. After looking around we spent time in the classroom there and did some fun team challenges using art, below are some of our group work creations.

Snow Mail

Dear room 13,
A large snowflake landed on my nose as we returned from the mares' paddock. The bulk of the Lipizzaner stable loomed ahead of us, and we heard the whinnying of the white horses. The old king's stud bred these elegant horses for the royal riding school in Vienna. We had just had a guided tour together with 2 other people. The black foals had kept trying to bite one girl's jersey and nuzzle her hand.
The snow began to fall more thickly, coating everything in a blanket as white as, well, snow. Snow isn't rare in Austria around this time of year. However, it was the first time for me here that it fell in big, feathery flakes, because we came from 30 degrees C in Spain down to around 2 degrees here! My mum had snow in her hair and as I shook my head large clumps of it fell to the ground. In the end, we decided to warm up in a restaurant.
Yours sincerely,
Hanna.

Class Speeches

Well it is great to get back to school and see everyone working on putting their speech together. Some people are still struggling with the concept of time management and seem to be a little behind on the speech writing....... By now all students should have completed a planning page brainstorming what they could inform, persuade or entertain their audience with and be well underway with the writing of their speech body. We have had a few good sessions in class on this, but the key to students coming up with some good speeches and deliveries of these does involve practise at home, so if you haven't seen or heard your child talking about their speech with you yet, ask them for a preview on what they are writing and planning to deliver their speech to the class on!! We will be presenting speeches to the class starting next Wednesday 18th November and will have chosen our class reps to go to the year 7 semi finals on Monday 23rd November.

Oscar James Sloan

Hi there, well things are pretty busy and amazing here this week at home with our new baby boy - Oscar James Sloan, he arrived on Saturday afternoon at 3:14pm and I was able to bring him and Cherie home on Tuesday afternoon. A couple of photos above.... more pictures when i'm back at school - he is a pretty cool we guy and such an amazing time for Cherie & I as first time parents

English Writing Tests

Well done to the room 13 students who sat the Australian writing competition recently, we have this week received the certificates and results. Some sound results for room 13

Hanna Ott - High Distinction (top 1% of entries)Her certificate and award announced at assembly in her absense

Malcolm McIver - Distinction

Zoe Noble - Credit

Amazing Race Japan

Well this week everyone has been working hard on all team tasks and it has been great to see everyone helping eachother out with the road block of Oragami Crame making, well done. Bella went the extra distance for her food task this week impressing all with her home made sushi - a super effort here, and great tasting!!
Next week we are heading to China and I will be looking for peoples ability to use google earth to locate and present their information - good luck!

Otago Rugby Visitors

Today we had Hoani Matenga and John Legg from the Otago Rugby team come and visit us, and room 24 joind us also. It was pretty cool to have them along and it was good to see Hoani again from when he worked in our class. We were able to ask them lots of questions about life as a professional rugby player. We were lucky enough to get a team poster each and their autographs. Jordan had a deal with Hoani from earlier in the season he could get a pair of Hoani's old boots and he did, lucky Jordan. It was interesting to hear about what they did in a week.
By Clayton & Liam

Visiting Speakers

Last thursday a group of year 8-11 students came to our class to talk about our water ways, native animals in danger and how to pretect them. Soon they are going to Australia to teach some students about New Zealand and the native animals here and all about the water ways like what they told us.
The students whent to Quarantine Island for a conference and were replanting some trees and plants and trying to mantian them. They also talked about stream polluting and how TO stop it. Very interesting and similar to some of the stuff we are doing.
Liam & Clayton

Destination..Australia Week 2 Amazing Race

Well a great effort put into teams tasks for the NZ work. Some groups have worked fantastically together speading out the workload and all doing their part as a good team should, some groups have learnt that some of their team members need to lift their game a little in order to not let the team down when it comes to marking and sharing time of the weeks work, DOn't let your self be the weakest link! So another week ahead of team work and research to complete tasks for THURSDAY marking as we have a short week coming up. Remember a champion team will always beat a team of champions. Good luck with the challenge this week.

Espana!! Hanna Ott

Buenos dias, room 13!
Spain-a bubbly, golden pancake, surrounded by a blueberry sea. That was my first impression as we flew over the warm country that was our next stop. We caught a train from Valencia to Castellon de la Plana. It took us an hour to get there, and it would take us another 20 minutes to get to our house in Grao… and that when it was 28 degrees Celsius! The taxi dropped us off at a small cottage with 3 noisy dogs next door. A curtain of rubber strings hung in front of the wooden door, and all the windows had mozzy nets. It’s a three-bedroom house, and in contrast to Helsinki I can have my own room (yay!). Spain is very different to Finland anyway, because there everything is cool and green and forest-coated, and here everything is dry and red and bare. The people here talk loudly and all the time! There are over 20 dogs in our street, (including a pug who can’t bark properly,) and a beach 10 minutes away. The weather here is great and the water is warm, but the season‘s already over and there’s almost no one at the beach.
Hasta luego from Hanna.

Stream test for Week 1 Term 4

Today we did our weekly stream testing at the kaikorai stream for the first time this term. We saw some ducks and ducklings and also a few chickens. The water temperature was around 10.9 degrees celcius?? we all had a great time and are learning a lotTthe dissolved oxygen was 2ppm witch is fatal to most living things.
by Clayton and Liam

Week 1 Term 4!! Amazing Race Start....

Well term 4 is all set to go and this week sees the start of the "Amazing Race" homeworka nd teamwork tasks for this term. The country we are starting in is NEW ZEALAND as we all live here and will be departing from here at the end of the week to the next destination. This week your challenges and tasks in your team will have you learn a little more about soem of the country we live in, so get set to impress with your tasks this week.
Remember good places for information finding and resources could include - talking with parents and relatives, books, atlases, internet, travel agents....
Teams will be announced Monday afternoon and the race will begin. Please find below a list of the tasks for the week, the "road block" challenge will be announced when teams are announced Monday afternoon! Work is all due for presentation and marking on Friday morning.
Remember - a champion team will always beat a team of champions - so use the strengths of all those in your team.

The Amazing Race - Task Sheet Outline

The Amazing Race

Sneak into Schleich

Hi room 13,

It was the most amazing day of the journey for me, because we were going to visit the factory of the toy animals that I collect since I was four: Schleich. The manager of the factory showed us around and chatted away while we tried to stop our brains from exploding with all the new info. At the end of the day we had learned the following about the Schleich toy animals.
First a wax model is made from an older wax model by changing the features and expressions or by starting from scratch. Then it is send away to be checked by experts like zoologists and breeders. (Because they once made an elephant with too many toes ;-)) If the experts say “No, the head is too big” or “The legs are too long” it gets changed.
Once it is finished to perfection a steel mold is made in different steps. This is used to make a first plastic model to be painted and send to an expert again. If it is okayed many more models are made and send to Tunisia to be hand painted.
You can buy them all over the world, also in Dunedin in “Toyworld” and “K-Mart.”

Yours truly,
Hanna.

The Amazing Race . . . .

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and making the most of the nice weather when we have it and getting out and about. Things are getting organised for this terms teamwork/homework challeges of the "Amazing Race". If you would like to be a team leader for this "race" please state why you should be considered for one of these roles and email it to me andrewjsloan@yahoo.com or post it as a comment on the bottom of this posting. Remember all the s,kills and qualities we talked about that make a good team leader??
Enjoy the rest of the holiday and I am looking forward to seeing you all back for term 4 next week.

Mr Sloan

Hannah Ott - The Surface Mining Machine

Greetings room 13,

With a lurch the cart swung into action. The horses plodded forward and onto the road. A cool breeze whispered through the grasses as the cart hit the black tar, then onto gravel. The earth was dry near the old coal mine and the brown horses churned up dust from the road. The surface mining machine was about 500 meters long, a tangle of grey steel and ropes. A clear blue lake glittered ahead of us, with the future swimming beach and campsite, but the landscape was still ugly and brown. Barely anything grew here since the mine was in use for only 13 months 20 years ago until political changes caused an early closure of the mine.
The mass of steel, the surface mining machine, ruins the view even more. Its 80 meter high bulk is now of no more use. The imposing sculpture makes you feel small and vulnerable, I thought as the bays trotted up the hill back to the road.
For more information please look up: www.f60.de/index_e.htm.

Yours truly,
Hanna.

Beeswax......

Guten Tag room 13,

This week we went to my birth town Weimar, where we visited a bee museum. There was a little shop selling honey in big bottles and beeswax candles, HONEY waffles and lollies, great slabs of HONEY soap and bottles of creamy HONEY liqueur... you name it! Inside the museum they had huge wooden sculptures of people that bees could build their hives in from a long time ago, and a hive behind some glass with a pipe leading out so that you could see how it works. There were lots of books with facts about bees and a disgusting model of half a bee. Walking around a museum on a hot, summery day makes you hungry, so we went outside for a drink and some 'Bienenstich', a sweet, almondy cake made with honey, of course! 'Bienenstich' means beesting. We didn't get stung by a bee when we walked through the flower garden where bees from about 7 hives buzzed lazily in the warm air.

Tschuess,
From Hanna.

Zoe, Bailee & Dione's Pics from the Garden Visit

Shetland St Community Gardens - Bailee Porter

Today Bailee,Dione and Zoe went to the Shetland Street Organic Gardens
and we spent about a hour there with Hendrik, Zoe's Dad came along also. Hendrik told us about composting. We got to eat some kind of plant it was hot. He showed us some Tiger Worms in his compost it was fun to learn about what he does with his garden and we will be able to use some of the information in our ASPIRE inquiry work about composting waste.
Written by Bailee

Otago Cross Country Champs

Well Done to everone who ran in the Otago Cross Country Champs on Friday - A special well done to Bailee From Room13 who was placed 12th in the Year 7 Girls race, check out the results below!
OTAGO Y7 BOYS CROSS COUNTRY 2009OTAGO Y7 GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY 2009

Hanna's Travel Stories...

Dear r 13,
Karelia, here we come! The hut at the lake was small and wooden, a wood burner and a sauna inside. Two beds and a sofa as furniture. No taps, just the lake. A painting of some pines and a hut by a river, an old-fashioned radio, a microwave, a stove… basically all this hut is. Oh, I forgot the boat. A small rowing boat to explore the large, black lake. An island, miniature and coated in a forest and blueberry weeds, mushrooms, too. A stiff breeze ruffled the lake as the boat drifted toward the island, making it look like a weird hairdo. A few lily pads and stems that looked like horsetail poked out of the lake like stubble from a man’s beard. What might we see? A moose? A bear? Perhaps a wolf? We let our imagination run wild.

From Hanna.

P.S: We went canoeing on the squirrel route (it was BYO squirrel!). check out this link for more information by a travel magazine: www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/start-to-finnish-a-strenuous-canoe-trip-in-finlands-lake-district-is-the-perfect-family-escape-1772180.html



Hi room 13,

I breathed deep. The musty smell of old books reached my nose, making me want to sneeze. A steep stairway led up to the 1st floor. We raced up the stairs, our feet slapping on the stone. The scent grew stronger and within moments we were faced with shelves upon shelves of books. Old, new, bright, dull, fiction or not…. Who cares! My mum tramped up a few floors while I explored the kid’s section. Too bad that most of the books were in Finnish! However, they did have a generous selection of English literature. I chose a book and settled down to read. After a while my mum came back and said she wanted to show me something. I followed her up to the 6th floor and we gazed down the stairwell. A spiral staircase wound into a coil like a snake. It was very cool! We found these links on the internet and thought they might be interesting.
locatinghelsinki.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/rikhardinkadun-kirjasto
www.flickr.com/photos/60027857@N00/2559923383

We also went to a smoke sauna, a zoo, and for a swim near our apartment block that week.

Yours,

Hanna Ott(er)

Room 13 Questions from the Wall of Wonder…

We have had many interesting discussions recently and below are a list of some of the questions you have ‘wondered’ about, It is time to try and find some of the answers and explanations behind the questions you have asked. The challenge over the course of this week will be to find information on the questions below and be able to explain these to your peers.

• What fuels the Heart? Does it fuel itself?
• What controls the heart?
• When girls get their periods why do they get sore tummies?
• Are Toe Nails Bones?
• If your dinner tastes nice and then you spew it up, Why does it taste YUK!?
• How do tampons get disposed of? Are they environmentally friendly or are they carbon loaders?
• Why do your hands go purple when you are really cold?
• If or when you take steroids what do they do to make your muscles bigger?
• What are steroids made from?
• When big body builders take steroids too much are they still able to produce live sperm?
• Why is hearing the last thing to go when you die? Is this true?
• Why do people lose their sight as they get older?
• Why do some people need glasses?
• How heavy is bone?
• Can puberty make boys depressed?
• Why don’t all bones bend?
• What are bones made out of?
• Why do we have so many bones?
• Why do we go through puberty at this age and not earlier?
• Why do children’s hearts work faster than adults?
• Why does our hair go grey?
• What happens when you get a muscle strain?
• How is a liver able to re-grow when some of it is removed or damaged?