Science Fair Booklet

This term every child will be undertaking a scientific investigation and will be presenting their results at the Senior School Science Fair in Week 10.

Each step of the investigation process will be explained in class and the students will be given some time at school to work on their project. However the bulk of this investigation will be done at home.
Each student will receive a booklet that contains information to help them plan, research, and conduct their investigation. Here is a copy of this booklet for your reference. Your child will require support at home from you to ensure they are successful. There are many elements and a lot of work involved in a science fair project. Time management will be a very important element in a successful project. Each project will be judged at the end of the term. Several projects that are completed to a high standard will be submitted to the Annual NIWA Science Fair in Term 3.

Senior Science Fair Student Booklet

Mask Making

Comedy tragedy theatre masks, like the concepts of comedy and tragedy in theatre were born in ancient Greece.

Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ the Greeks were immersed in a culture that held the theatre as, not only a form of entertainment, but as an integral part of their religious framework.

Whenever a theatre festival came to a Greek town there was always a great number of ceremonies that were always present. In the evenings there would be a group of men who would wander the streets, along with a musician.

This group would be called a "comus" and their fun songs a "comoedia". It doesn't take much to see where our word "comedy" derived.

Conversely, the sad songs of satyrs were called "tragoedia" from where of course we get the word tragedy.

This week Room 23 have been mask making! We started by modeling our mask out of clay. We  needed to focus on exaggerating the facial features to show the emotions we wanted to portray.

After we molded the mask from clay we papier mache over it to create the mask. We needed to ensure there were several layers to make the mask thick and strong.

Once the paper was dried we were ready to paint!

 

Lest we forget.

Today is ANZAC Day. Many students from the senior school represented Muritai with pride at Eastbourne's 97th Commemoration ANZAC Service.

Our Kapa Haka group welcomed the parade at the memorial gates and later sung a prayer of peace - He Honore.

Thank you to everyone for your outstanding contributions.

Learning Logs are go!

The students of Room 23 have been working extremely hard over the first term of 2012. Every student in the class has created their own learning journey on an individual blog. These blogs are replacing our portfolios for the year and are now ready to be viewed! Simply click on the links in the sidebar to take you to the student's blog of your choice. On these blogs you will be able to view artifacts of their learning from Term 1, mostly from our Inquiry, Literacy and Art programmes.

These blogs have been created and administered solely by the students. There was a heap of skills that needed to be learned to make these blogs happen including; posting, embedding, scanning and uploading images, hype-linking and blinging! Everyone has become very blog-savvy over the past term.

 If you like what you see please give us some positive or constructive feedback by commenting on our work. We would LOVE to hear what you think!

PCT Challenge

Two weeks ago eight Year 8 students represented Muritai School at the national PCT Challenge (Physical Competency Test) at Petone Rec. This is an event organised by the New Zealand Police and provides an opportunity for students to take part in a series of physical tasks as a relay team. Xavier Manson, Freijah Hawes, Zara Costello and Cahon Holden took out first place in the competition.

This gained them entry to the National competition which was held at the Royal Police College on Saturday. This was a huge step and involved some grueling tasks - including racing up flights of stairs while carrying anchovies in your mouth!! Overall they placed 10th out of 24 teams! Well done guys - we are very proud of you!