Wellington Girls College

Hi everyone!
I have only got a few more weeks as a year 8 and being at St Benedict's. I can't believe that I'm going to college next year! 
The college that I have chosen to go to is Wellington Girls College. A few years ago my sister went their and now I will be joining her. 

Some things that I would like to achieve/do next year are:
-trying new activities (e.g. sports)
-improving in my academic work
-get a distinction/prize in at least one of my subjects.

I'm excited to be starting college though. It will be interesting to have a change. For example not having all of my classes in one room. 

The main thing that I think will be challenging is getting from each classes without getting lost and getting to my next class in time. Wellington Girls has 5 times the amount of students that St Benedict's has. Each year group has the amount of pupils in our whole school! Between each class there is 5 minutes to get to your next class and there are 3 different blocks, each with many levels!

Overall I'm excited to be starting college but it's going to be so different from all of my years at St Benedict's.  
Thanks for reading, bye!

Book Character day

Hi everyone!
For today's blog we could choose our own topic to write about and I didn't know what to do so I just decided to do book character day.

Each year for book week on Friday we have a book character day. On book character day you can dress up as any character from a book. Betty, Marguerite and I went as a trio. We were some of the characters from the Wizard of Oz. I dressed up as Dorothy, Betty as the scarecrow and Marguerite was the wicked witch of the west.

We started the day off with a parade. All of the classes walk around the courts and show off their costumes to the rest of the school. Since I'm a House Captain I got to judge with the other House Captains. For each year group we chose 'The Most Eye Catching', 'Most Creative' and the 'Best Group'. It was very hard to decide since some year groups had some really cool costumes but we could only give out 3 prizes

In the afternoon we had the Book Quiz. The House Captains had prepared quizzes for all of the year groups. 
I had a pretty good day and enjoyed my last ever Book Week!
Bye!

Childhood favourite book

Hey guys!
When I was younger my favourite books were Lettice: the dancing rabbit books. These books were obviously about a rabbit called Lettice who loved dancing and dressing up. Each book had a different problem and then Lettice finds a solution. What I liked about these books was that Lettice liked dancing like me and she got to go to fun places where I would have liked to go when I was younger like fairyland! I was about 5 years old when I read these Lettice books. 
Thanks for reading, bye!

Learning

Hi guys, today I'm going to be reflecting on three topics that I have learned this term.

Ancient Egypt Pyramids
I have learned lots about pyramids recently like how they built, why they were built and some different pyramids. What helped make this information stick in my head was the note taking and then turning those notes into paragraphs. To improve my knowledge of pyramids I can find out new facts about them on the internet or in books.

German
Every year we learn two different languages and for the past term and a half we have been learning German. German has been really fun to learn and I think that the main thing that helped it stick in my head was doing duolingo. What helped me learn the words and revise for our test which we had today it really helped to write the words down as well as the translation in English because that helps you know what the word means and how to spell it.

Essays
Last week we wrote an essay about pyramids. Earlier on in the year we also did essay writing and I think that I have improved a lot. I now include more formal and interesting words and I am better at writing introduction sand conclusions which I usually find quite hard. To improve in writing essays it helps to write essays more. 

That's all for this week, bye!

Passion Project

So this year I have decided to do my Passion Project on baking! I really like baking and I find it super fun. I've done baking for quite a few years and I'm not sure why I like it, I just find it very fun! Marguerite and I are doing this project together. So far we have already made a recipe book with all of the recipes we want to do. We have found some recipes which sound delicious! Some of the recipes we have are Ore truffles, chewy chocolate cookies, raspberry white chocolate brownies, marshmallow slice and more! I'm really excited because we start baking this weekend and we are starting with the marshmallow slice.
Marguerite and I are very organised, we have a roster for what recipes we make each week, who's house it's at and we have also made our recipe book. We designed a fabulous cover which has a pig with a donut on it! 
That's it for today's post, thanks for reading. Bye!!

Athletics Day Reflection

Walking down to Nairnville park Room 12 was very talkative. Everyone was excited for our school athletics which rolls around every year in Term 4. In our school athletics we have multiple events such as discus, vortex, long jump, shot put, 100 metre sprints and 200 metre sprints. Last term we also did high jump. 
Unfortunately athletics is really not my thing. I didn't do very well in any of the events but I gave them all a go and had fun. My favourite event was probably discus and my least favourite would have to be sprints. I love cross country but then I really don't like sprints. 

The EPIC value which I showed was perseverance. Although I'm not good at the sports I did them and I didn't give up. I also showed perseverance in the 1500 metres which I will talk about now.
We had a choice if we wanted to do the 1500 meter race. At first I wasn't to keen and I wasn't going to do it but I made a very last minute choice and ran the race. We had to run 3 laps and 3/4. I showed perseverance in this race as well since that's quite a few laps to run and it gets boring since there are no hills or anything, we just run around the track. Although I found it slightly boring it was still another favourite event of mine. 
There were only 2 year 8 girls participating in this race so I automatically go through to Northern Zones since they took the top 2. 

Overall the athletics day was really fun. I enjoyed my self and had heaps of fun participating in the events and when not competing, hanging with my friends. 

Holidays! - Grade school

Ballet Grade School

On the second Monday of the holidays I walked into the dancing studio feeling pretty excited. I had never done Grade school before so I didn't know what to expect. The other dancers and I stepped into the studio with our character skirts and shoes in our hands. We practiced introducing ourselves then went to the barre. We performed all of our dancers just how we would in our exam. 
The same thing happened everyday until Friday, the last day of grade school. Our class split in half. Half went to a different studio while my half stayed in the same studio. We treated it like a proper exam. We didn't stop between our dances for corrections, we just carried on if we made a mistake. Once we had done all of our dances about 45 minutes later my teacher gave us corrections for us to apply in our exams. We then went over the dances which had the most mistakes. 
Grade school was really fun and I hope that I get to do it again next year!

Thanks for reading, bye! 

Cooking at tech

Hi guys!
For todays post we have to talk about something that we have recently been included in. As you can tell from the title of this post I'm doing tech. In tech I'm doing cooking at the moment. It has been really fun and I've enjoyed it! Anyway, on to the questions!

What skills did I learn/practice? 
I learned lots of things like how to turn on different types of ovens and how to tell when your food is ready. There were other things which I learnt over the weeks which had to do with the different foods we made but I won't list them all. 

What did I enjoy most about it?
I enjoyed practically everything in cooking. I love making food and I just find it fun. So yeah, I just enjoyed everything. 

Thanks for reading this post, bye!

Parliament trip

Hi everyone!
Today I will be telling you about the year 7 and 8's trip to Parliament. Last Wednesday we caught the bus to Parliament, we went because our topic at school is Parliament and Elections. I found the tour very interesting and learnt lots of new things. Some of the places we looked at was the Beehive, the earthquake place and the debating chamber. I had never been in the debating chamber before and I found it really cool and interesting. The debating chamber was my favourite part of the tour!
Three things I learnt on the tour was:

-People can get kicked out of the debating chamber

-The Speaker can yell order in the house to make everyone stop talking

and also about

-Taxes and Laws

Thanks for reading my blog post, bye!

Book groups reflection

Hey guys!
Today I will be reflecting on book groups. This term I have been reading The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier as well as Betty, Emily, Jigs and Liam. It was a really good book and I enjoyed reading it. I think that I completed the goals of book groups. Some of those goals were to read between lines, contribute ideas, hear others points of view and think deeply about the meaning of the book. I think did all of these each session.
The things that I liked about book groups was that I got to hear other peoples thoughts on the book and also if someone didn't understand something the others could explain it and help you out. 
What I didn't like about book groups was that sometimes not much happened in our last few chapters (this happened mainly just on our first session) so there was nothing to talk about.
Overall I think that book groups is a great thing to do and it helps to understand books more so I definitely think that it should be done again next year!
Thanks for reading my blog, bye!

Peter Dunne resigning

Hi everyone!
For today's post I'm going to be writing about a political news event which has recently occurred. As you all probably know Peter Dunne has resigned and is no longer part of the election. Peter was the leader of the United Future party, he resigned just 4 and a half weeks away from the election. He is the third out of three party leaders to resign this month. Andrew Little from Labour resigned as well as Metiria Turei who was a co-leader for the Greens. Peter decided to pull out of the election because it looked as if he was going to loose his seat in Parliament. Peter's opponent was Greg O'Connor from the Labour party. Greg was in front of Peter on a poll with 48% and Peter on 34%. Peter Dunne was the longest running MP of Ohariu in Parliament. He started as an MP in 1984 and ended in 2017.

Three things that I would like to learn about in class to do with our Parliament/election topic are:

-More on how Parliament works

-Different buildings in Parliament

-History of Parliament

See you guys next week for another post!

Art week preparation

Hey guys!
This term in week 7 we have art week! So far I have done about 5 or 6 pieces of art. My favourite was probably my mixed media art. In our mixed media art we had to cut out drawings, patterns and quotes then we layered them onto a piece of paper. I didn't want to do a devil, evil-ish sort of theme so instead I did angels, crowns and the nicer stuff like that. The mixed media was my favourite because we got to do practically anything we wanted but it just had to have layers.
I have done quite a lot of work on Claudia our dragon. We made her body out of chicken wire which was quite painful on our fingers. It took a long time to make her body shape right but then we had to add on the extra parts like horns, spikes and claws. Finally we are starting the papier mache today.
The Jerusalem art was also quite fun. I liked it because I enjoy painting.
For the Jerusalem art a technique that I used was using different colours to make it look more effective. I mixed some yellows and browns and gold and it looks better without just one colour.
I'm really excited for art week!
Bye!

Movie review!

Hi everyone!
Today I will be reviewing the last movie that I saw. That movie was Hunt for the Wilderpeople! I know that practically everyone saw it ages ago when it first came out and I was super late watching it but oh well. 

The main character was Ricky Baker. He was quite a naughty kid who couldn't be controlled. He came from the city but then the police gave him to a couple who lived near the bush. He soon settled in with his new family and grew to like them. Sadly the wife passed away and the husband wasn't allowed to look after Ricky anymore. Ricky didn't want to get given back to the police so he ran away to the bushes. 
It is such a good movie and I love how they made it a bit dramatic! I love how it's a New Zealand movie and how they filmed it in the New Zealand bushes. 
I totally recommend that you watch this movie (if you haven't already).
That's all for today's post, see you next week! 

Book groups

Hi guys!
Today I'm going to be reflecting on how book groups has been going so far. I got put in 'The Silver Sword' and so far it's a really good book.
I think that my group has been working well together. Mainly everyone has been contributing and sharing our thoughts about what has happened so far. We always have something to talk about while staying on topic. I have been contributing to my group by asking questions and sharing my opinion. The Silver Sword is a really good book and I love how at the end of the chapters most of the time there is a cliffhanger which makes you want to keep on reading. The book is based in the war and the Nazis are taking people away from their families and ruining buildings. Basically this family they have all gotten taken away and they are all trying to escape from the Nazis and find the rest of their family. 
I love this book so far and I would definitely recommend it to people who like books based on the war and also adventure.
Bye!

Memory with my Grandparents

Hi everyone!
Today I will be sharing one of my favourite memories that I've had with my grandparents.
My grandparents were taking my sister and my cousin blueberry picking. We were really excited since we all love berries! It was actually me and my sister's second time going blueberry picking with my grandparents. We all got given a big bucket which was tied around our waists then we filled up the buckets right to the top. While we were picking the blueberries we were eating lots as well! After we'd filled our buckets all the way up we went to a really nice beach and went swimming. The water was so nice and warm! That day was super fun!
That's all for today, bye guys!

Class Novel - Juggling with Mandarins

Hey guys!

Recently we just finished our class novel,'Juggling with Mandarins'. It was a really good book! It's about a boy called Phil who plays football. He doesn't really like it,he just plays it because his dad wants him to. Phil's English teacher set up a challenge for them to juggle three balls and if they could do that they one a prize. Phil wanted to do the competition but he didn't have any juggling balls at home so instead he juggles with mandarins.  At that time there was a new sports center being built, everyone calls it the igloo. One day Phil decides to go in there when he isn't meant to. He found the rock climbing walls and he instantly fell in love with rock climbing! He secretly does lessons without his family knowing. One day he enters a rock climbing competition. When the day comes he's very nervous, you'll have to read the book to see how it ends...

The part that I could relate to the most is how Phil's brother Nick would always barge into his room without knocking, my sister always does that! Two characters that stood out the most to me were Beattie, Phil's climbing friend, and Phil himself. I really like Beattie because of her personality and she seems so bright and bubbly. I like Phil and my favourite part about him is when he stands up to his dad and tells him that he doesn't actually like football.
There is a sequel to Juggling with Mandarins called Shooting the Moon. I really want to read that book, it sounds good. Since Juggling with Mandarins is such a good book I'm sure that Shooting the Moon will be good as well.
That's all for today's post, bye!

My Obsessions

Hi guys, welcome back to my blog!
At the moment there are two things that I'm obsessed with...
1. YouTube
2. Dancing/ballet

I've been watching youtube for quite a long time but in the past year I've become really obsessed with it. There are so many different youtubers that I love but sometimes I don't watch a certain youtuber and I just watch Dance Moms clips. I feel like everyone knows what youtube is so I'm not going to explain what it is.
I've been dancing ever since I was about 3 years old. I did ballet for about 4 or 5 years but then I decided to take a break. I started doing Irish dancing and I think that I did that for 3 years. Now I've started doing ballet again at a new dance school and I've also started doing contemporary. I'm not sure why I like ballet, I guess that I just think that it's fun and I enjoy doing it. Once again I'm not going to explain what dancing is because everyone knows what it is.
Thanks for reading my blog post, bye!

Evolution of Adaptation

Hey guys!
Today I'm going to be reflecting on our topic 'Evolution of Adaptation'. In this topic I've learned so many new things like how adaptation works, the different animals living on the Galapagos Islands and so much more. One of my favourite bits of this topic was watching the David Attenborough videos about the Galapagos Islands. I found the videos really interesting and I liked learning about the animals that I hadn't heard about before. There isn't really anything else I want to learn about Evolution and Adaptation, I think that the teachers have covered all I want to know. In my essay I learned a lot about the evolution of horses and I found it really interesting. Evolution of Adaptation has been a really fun and interesting topic and I really enjoyed learning about it. That's all for now, byeeeee!

School Responsibilities

Hey guys, welcome back to my blog!
Today I will be talking about my responsibilities at school. I am a First Aid monitor, a Road Patroller and a House Captain for Bridgidine! 
I have helped other students by giving them plasters and ice packs when they are hurt, helping them get across the road safely and explaining to the younger kids whats going on and helping them when they don't understand. 
All three of my roles have been fun so far! I really like helping younger kids and I enjoy practically everything about all of my responsibilities.
I have also learned lots from these jobs like how to use the first aid equipment and stuff like that but the main thing I've learned is how to be responsible and a leader.
In the first aid room it's sometimes hard to get the little kids to go even if they aren't hurt at all! I just have to give them a wet cloth and then they think that they are healed! What I find hard about being a House Captain is that the kids sometimes don't listen to you or if you tell them to be quiet in assembly they just talk anyway.
I don't think that I have any suggestions or changes that I would make so see you next week for a new post! Bye!

Cross Country!

Hellooo
So last week on Tuesday we had cross country! (I really like cross country!) I came 2nd out of the year 8 girls and I'm happy about that. I think that I did quite well. I definitely think that my fitness has improved this year. I've been doing more running out of school then I did last year. I think that I showed perseverance because at the end of the race I was getting really tired since I was trying so hard but I kept on going because I was determined to come in the top 3. To improve my fitness I can go for runs more often and go at a good pace. To improve my perseverance I just need to try really hard to keep on going and not giving up.
That's all for today so bye!

Book review on...

Girl Online: Going Solo

Recently I read Girl Online: Going solo which is Zoe Sugg, the famous youtubers, latest book in her series Girl Online. I love this series and I was so happy when a third book came out! Anyway, on to the questions!

What is the title and author?
Girl Online: Going Solo by Zoe Sugg.

What genre is it?
This book is probably drama.

Describe the plot and setting.
Penny is starting back at school but she doesn't know where Noah has gone after suddenly ending his tour and neither does anyone else. Soon Penny's ex best friend, Megan, asks Penny to come and join her at her new acting and performance school for the day. Penny makes a new friend there called Posey and is determined to help her through her stage fright. 

What character did you relate to the most?
I didn't really relate to any of the characters so I'll change that question to...

Who was your favourite character?
Penny is definitely my favourite character in the Girl online series!

Why? 
Because I love her personality!

This book was so good and I definitely recommend this series! I give this book a 5/5! 

Term 2 goals!

Hey guys
Last term we set some goals for this term. The two that I will be talking about are my reading and maths goals.
Reading goal:
For my reading goal I wanted to read a different variety of books. I think that this goal will be quite easy. Last term our teacher reading book was 'The war that saved my life'. I'd never read any books about the war. I actually really liked that book so it's good that I set my goal as 'read a different variety of books' because I now know that I will probably enjoy reading the book.
Maths Goal:
My maths goal is to get 100% in my basic facts test because I usually get between 90 to 99%. Last term after I'd set my maths goal I got 100%  on my test so I was happy but then the next week I got 97%! I think that this goal will be quite easy since I've gotten 100% before but I will also have to practice at home.
Hopefully I achieve these goals this term, bye!

Holidays-Rollerskating

One of my favourite activities that I did in the holidays was rollerskating! I went with my sister and my cousin. Once we'd arrived and put on our skates we went into rink. A first I was really slow and I was doing a strange shuffling thing since I hadn't been skating in ages but I soon got into it and at the end I was doing races against my sister. We started playing our own version of hockey with 3 people and my sister won. 
Once we'd been skating for nearly 2 hours our feet started getting sore so we decided to stop. We went to get some lunch and then we went back to my cousins house. Overall I'd had a really fun day! 

Camp recount and Sporcle quiz

Hey guys
Last week I was very busy since I had to finish my camp recount. As well as the recount I was practicing a quiz, countries of Oceania, on sporcle. I think that my recount ended up being pretty good and in the sporcle race on Friday I came 3rd.
The recount took me a while to finish because I was putting lots of detail. I was really happy when I finished but then I realized that I still had to put in all of the photos and proof read it. When I was actually done I could start on the sporcle quiz. I think that I was pretty successful since I finished all of my tasks on time. To achieve these 2 tasks I had to concentrate and for the sporcle quiz I found that it was easier to go a bit slower when typing so that I spelt the words correct. Next time I would start writing my recount earlier so that I wouldn't be rushing on Thursday night.
Byeee!

Tech

Hey guys,
So far I've been enjoying tech. I'm in woodwork's and I just finished my stool on Monday. Woodwork's was quite fun but the last week was very challenging. I struggled to finish since my stool didn't actually fit together so I sort of missed out a few non important things and just used tonnes of glue! Next week I'm going to be in sewing. I'm excited since last year sewing was one of my favourite activities. I'm also really looking forward to cooking since that was my other favourite activity last year. To get the most out of my lessons I need to concentrate and work hard and quickly.
I'm really looking forward to all the other activities I'll be doing this year!
Byeee!

Camp 2017!

Camp was so fun last week! We did heaps of fun activities and I really enjoyed it.

The most challenging activity:
The most challenging activity was probably the giants ladder in high ropes. In the end Joel, group 2's instructor, had to give Betty and I boosts by pulling on the rope so we were practically flying! A close second was putting up the tents. The soil was really crumbly and dry so the pegs kept popping out.
The easiest activity:
The easiest activity was bridge jumping. I wasn't nervous or worried and it was really easy and really fun, probably one of my favourite activities we did! The flying fox was also easy since you don't have to do much.
Proudest moment:
My proudest moment was actually when I stuffed my sleeping bag in its cover by myself! At home before we went on camp I had to try so many times and I still couldn't do it.
Favourite moment:
There were so many great/fun moments on camp that I can't really pick one. I enjoyed all of the activities that we did, even the 12 km walk!
Was it what you expected:
Camp wasn't really what I had expected but it was even better!

I'm so glad that I gave everything a go on camp because all of the activities were super fun! I was really sad when it was over! Also, as you can tell from the photo my cabin had one of  the messiest rooms!
Byeee!

Light and Colour

This term our topic has been Light and Colour. We've been doing quite a few experiments which have been fun and interesting. I've learnt lots of new things in this topic but I will only say a few of them.

1. Concave lenses make things smaller and convex lenses make things look bigger.

2. Light can bend and go around corners.

Some of the experiments we did were...

1. Put different objects in water and it magnified them.

2. Stuck a comb on cardboard and then we shone the torch/light on it and it spread out in a cool pattern.

I liked this topic, my favourite thing was probably the experiment when we had to shine a light on an object and see if it was transparent, opaque or translucent.
I think that the experiments were a fun way of learning and they definitely taught me new things.

School Swimming

This term we have started doing swimming lessons at Keith Spry pool in Johnsonville. So far it's been really fun! For the first two weeks I did kayaking then I did diving for another two weeks and today was my first lesson of water safety. I haven't really learned that much so far. I sort of already knew the kayaking stuff since we did it last year but I had forgotten. In diving we learned some arm movements to do before we jumped into the pool and since I've only done one lesson of water safety I haven't really learned anything except for a certain stroke to do when your in the sea.
I'm not sure if I've improved in anything yet but I would like to improve in diving.
I don't usually do much swimming in my own time but since we have to do fitness every day for camp I've been doing some swimming in the weekends and after school.
What I like about swimming is that it's fun! The only thing that I don't like about swimming was in diving when I jumped in and I went down quite deep the water goes in my ears and makes them sore. I think that it's a good idea to do swimming at school because at normal swimming lessons after school you don't learn how to kayak, snorkel and you don't learn much water safety stuff either.
School swimming in super fun, especially in year 7 and 8, and all of the activities are fun so I'm glad that we do swimming!

2017

The start of 2017 has been really good and I'm enjoying my new class. I've made a few new friends who have just started this school and I've gotten to become friends with others already at St Benedict's. We've done heaps of fun things already this year. I really enjoyed the school picnic, school swimming and some of the tasks we've done like the collage art. Nothing has been too hard since it's only the beginning of the year but some of the questions in the PAT tests were a bit challenging. I think that my time management skills are quite good this year. At the start of the year in 2016 I wasn't that good but I have improved in the last year. So far 2017 has been great!