Where Am I?

I can see the building waiting in the distance.
The gangs are gathering all over the place.
The dull sound of the police sirens echo throughout the area.
The occasional gunshot comes from this building.
The cries of the inhabitants make my ears ring.
Where am I?

My Holiday

In the holidays we went to Taupo, we stayed at the "Top 10 Holiday Resort." On the night we arrived, we went for a walk around the park. There was a playground, a swimming pool, a spa pool, a games room, a wi-fi hotspot, massive board games and a jumping pillow. On the first day we went to went for a look around the shops in town, we booked a sail boat called the "Fearless." The next day we went on the Fearless, we rode out to the Maori rock carvings. After that we went prawn fishing at the Huka Prawn Park, I caught 1! I named my prawn Frank and my mum ate it... On the way home we played mini golf, I got the best score for a boy from that day.

Homework Challenge A1

Improver your maths ability: Complete a 12 x 12 grid in under 3 minutes

A 12 x 12 gird is a maths grid. You can draw the grid or find a website and print them out online. You simply start off with 1x1 then you can go from there… Maybe 1x2 then 1x3. You stay in one row either vertical or horizontal, and go down or across crossing over the rest of the rows. After that you simply keep repeating the pattern. In the term 1 of 2013 before maths we had to complete a 12x12 grid in under 5 minutes and we had to keep on going and we get a tick by our name if we manage to beat our time or some days even finish before 5 minutes if you usually aren't able to do that. My best time at school was around 3.45m, my worst time was around 4.35m. Now this is one of our homework challenges. So, each night I practiced one or more grids. I knew that this was going to be one of the hardest challenges. I got down to 3.10m and I was not making any progress for a few weeks. I usually say the numbers, my mum suggested that me saying the numbers slowed me down. I tried without saying the numbers and I managed to get my best time yet and a completed homework challenge. My time was 2.57.03!

The note from mum :-)

The grid once finished

The watch we used to time the grid

Homework Challenge P6

Walk, run or cycle around the the Waikareao Estuary four times with a family member.

For this homework challenge I have walked and cycled around the Waikareao Estuary four times. On Monday 1st of July my mum and I walked the estuary to get to know the track that we were going to be doing 3 more times. It took us 2 hours to walk the track. On Saturday 6th of July I cycled the estuary twice with my dad. Each lap took us approximately 30 minutes. On the second lap I recorded a video of the track. The recording was just me holding my iPod out in front of me whilst I was riding. One week after we walked the track, I rode it with my mum. It took us 35 minutes to complete one full lap.

Here are some photos of me completing my homework challenge…

Some of us had to stop along the way

Half way through the first lap

After one lap

Homework Challenge P3

Explore the outdoors: With a family member or family friend complete an 8 hour tramp or an overnight camp out

On the 6th of July I completed the homework challenge "explore the outdoors." In the afternoon my Mum and I walked down to the back of our property where it is a bit swampy. We took a tent and set it up at around 4:00pm. After that we walked back home and got dressed and collected all our gear. We made some dinner to take down and packed a few marshmallows to roast as well. At 5:30 we grabbed our torches and walked down the track to the swamp. Once we arrived we set up our beds and put the food under cover. Then we started the fire, we had to use an old 44 galon drum lid to start the fire on because of safety precautions. We unfolded our armchairs and relaxed. I suggested a marshmallow roasting competition… Of course I won the competition! About 3 hours later we hopped in to the tent and slowly drifted to sleep…I woke up 3 times during the night, 1am, 4am and 5am. Finally I woke up for my day at 7am. At 8am we started the fire and roasted the left over marshmallows, we even tried roasting some bananas, but that didn't really work. We packed up most of our things and started heading back up the hill. That was the end of our awesome overnight camp out…

The tent when we first set it up!

All of the clothing and accessories we took.

The MOST important accessory!

Me putting wood on the fire at night.

The fire in the morning.

Drinking fresh water from the stream nearby

The tent in the morning before we started packing up.

School Production 2013 - A Most Triumphant Tale

A Most Triumphant Tale, this was the name of our school production. Over 100 students from the school acted, danced or sang. A few people in our house had main roles. I went to the production twice, on Wednesday night and Thursday the matinée for our school. The show was filled with lots of music and dancing. The show was about changing music history forever, two bands, one battle. The band One Dimension had lip-synced their way to fame and have no talent what so ever... The other band Labyrinth has the skill but does not get the glory. Star-man has to help Labyrinth reform their band and reform music history... Forever!

Jokes

1) Who stole the soap?
The robber ducky! 

2) An American, an Australian and a New Zealander were sentenced to death. The American was brought out first... The firing squad took aim, the American screamed "Flood!" In the confusion he escaped... The New Zealander was brought out next and he decided to liked the idea that the American had and tried it... The firing squad took aim... He shouted "Tsunami!" In the confusion he too made his escape. The Australian was amazed and he too tried the same technique, when the firing squad took aim he screamed "FIRE!"

3) Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side.

Homework Challenge S3

Become a "tech angel" and provide technical support for other students/teachers in another school

Teaching the kids in Room 8 at Greenpark School.

Nathan and I decided that we would like to complete the homework challenge "tech angel." We though of possible teachers to help out from our old school, Greenpark Primary School. I sent an email to try arrange a time with a previous teacher I had. She replied within a couple of days. We made a time for a Friday afternoon but on the day she ended up being sick. We tried another email and ended up arranging for the following Friday afternoon. On the day we arrived just before lunch finished. We talked to the kids for 5 minutes about our school and what multimedia was like. Then they asked if we wanted to go for a run with them, Nathan and I just smiled and started nodding. After the run the students were tired and eager to learn, at least that was what we thought. They showed us their class blog and asked for any advice we could give them. The blog was amazing! The class contributed to it weekly... Here is the link: http://room8msdawn.blogspot.co.nz/. We showed them our blogs and asked what they thought, we also explained how to change layouts, fonts, colours and more.  The kids asked a few questions about the blogs and then we showed them around Google Drive and our Online Learning Journals. Unfortunately we were unable to view our OLJs as we could not find the link. To wrap it all up we talked to the class about cyber safety and what Tauranga Intermediate School does to prevent problems.  We told them that the "computer man" has a device that takes photos of everyones computer every 5 seconds. Also that our school has a protecter for the internet when connected to the wi-fi, Watchdog, and that it blocks sites like Facebook or Twitter. That sparked a conversation within the kids. It reached 2:45pm and we were ready to leave... But we still had one more thing for the kids... LOLLIES!!!