Kia ora everyone,
I will be talking about my reflection during 2020 at school.
There were many things/events that happened in our school. This year is my first year in high school,
many experiences I have been through and things I treasure just like memories with me and my
friends/teachers. I’ve learned a lot which I was expecting. The first day of school 2020, that day when I
was extremely nervous, I didn’t know anyone here, except for my brother and my friend, Rheanne.
Luckily, we have the same class. I was struggling on finding where my class is, but to be honest the
school is really big, but I managed to find my class. I get to know more about my fellow classmates.
There are many subjects that I never expected to be that much, in primary school there are only math,
reading and writing. Science is the subject where I was really interested, the subject I really enjoy was
art. I met many friends and they are Cate, Jaren, Shontai and Linny. We met for an unexpected moment,
me and Rheanne on the first day of school was dancing while waiting for the teacher outside the
classroom, then suddenly Cate came up to us and said that she knows the song of the dance, that time
we started talking. I met Shontai from Cate, they met each other from a game on the first day of school,
and Jaren from my other classmate, and met Linny from Jaren. During that time, everything was going
well, I was enjoying my high school life, not until the lockdown. I felt kinda disappointed because it’s my
first high school year but then there’s a covid that’s going on. But even though we are in a lockdown,
we still communicate with our teachers and classmates by zoom call, where we discuss our work, but
I never expected that lockdown can be fun. I get to hang out with my family, wake up late/sleep late,
do my hobbies and finish my homework. That was totally a fun experience which is new for me.
For a month, we’re finally out of lockdown. I felt enthusiastic about it, I got to see my friends at school.
First day of school after lockdown was all fun, I tried to join activities in this school, but I wasn’t really
confident. I made more friends, being in high school is extremely tough, especially homeworks that you
must finish on time, and waking up early in the morning is tiring, but all of them are worth it when you
learn something new at school. During term 2, there was an upcoming sports event. We got to choose
what sports we wanted to do, I had an experience of playing hockey, on primary I really had fun so then
I chose hockey as my sports for the rest of the term.
Hurumanu’s:
Each term, we have different hurumanu. It’s basically a subject in school.
Hurumanu 1 (Reading/Social sciences):
During the term, we watched videos about the history of the Aotearoa New Zealand war. Every
2 days we watch different videos. While the video is playing, we have to write all the things that
happened in the video. We have to explain what the videos are about, what is happening in the
story. In another word, summarising everything about the story, not necessarily everything, but
only those things that we learnt in the video.
In reading, we’re all in a group. We have to read a story either in a book or in the chromebook.
After reading the story, the teacher gave us some questions and tasks about the story. We have
to answer the question and do the tasks that are given to us in order to complete our work.
Hurumanu 2 (Reading/Drama):
Monologues
Novel Study reading - We are split into groups. Each group has to read a book and they must finish it.
Doing different activities on novel study - After reading a book, we should finish those activities that
are related to the book, for example summarising the story in the book.
Debate language (debates) - We should find a topic to have a debate on, there are 2 groups that have
3 or 4 teammates.
Speeches
Reading books - During wananga, we have a silent reading time.
Research history/events.
Acting some roles (Drama, Monologues)
Games
Hurumanu 3 (Writing/Science):
We watched the movie called “Martian”. The story is about a man left behind on mars when a big
tragedy happened, he needs to plan on how to get out of mars. Part of the movie is about how to
survive. In our science, we made biltong, if you don’t know, biltong is dried meat. Before making
biltong, we had to practice telling instructions. What we did is we got into a partner, we made an
instructional dance, and it must be step by step and really detailed so that the readers can understand.
After making biltong. We have to put the instructions on how we made them, and we have to write
the results. We also have to describe what we can see, hear, smell, feel and taste.
Another of our experiments is about the squeaky pop test. We made water out of acid.
Then we did the instructional again about the squeaky pop test.
We’ve been learning about “Life on Mars”. Every week there’s a question that we have to research,
the questions are about Mars. After life on mars, we were also learning about life on earth and did
the same thing.
Egg drop is an experiment we recently did. We have to build a car using a lego and put an egg in the
middle of it, but the challenge is that egg shouldn’t crack. I was in a group with Rheanne, We also
have to make a parachute. After making the car, we have to drop it and see if the egg breaks.
Hurumanu 4 (Writing/Visual arts):
Perspective drawing - We have to make a perspective drawing about what our character looks like
for the Heroes and Villains story. Setting drawing - We had to copy a step by step perspective
drawing.
Making stories (Heroes and Villains) - We had to make a story that includes a Hero and a Villian,
and it has to have a problem in the story. Heroes and Villains slide - We had to write more information
about the story that we are making (Heros and Villians. We must include the characters personality,
appearance and etc. We started writing our draft story.
Blog - We had to share (post on blog) the work that we have been doing during hurumanu 4.
Ancient Greece - We watched a video about Ancient Greece, while watching the video we have
to describe what we can see and write it on a google doc.
Show not tell - We were separated in different groups, each group gets to do show not tell with a
teacher. We sit as a group together and discuss the show, not tell.
Hurumanu 5 (Maths/PE):
Probability - We had to solve a puzzle, and it’s called “Murder Mystery”. There are some questions
that we have to answer, it’s like we are the investigator. We also did team work during probability,
we have to answer the question about probability and whenever it's correct, we get to have another
question. We also did the ice cream probability, and went to the court, we had each turns to shoot a
basketball into the hoop, then add up how many scores we managed to shoot, and then we went to
the field and did the same thing but instead of a basketball, we used soccer ball and add up all of our
scores.
Multisports - Whenever we finish our work during hurumanu 5, we get to have multisports. What we
usually do during multisport is we play different games. Such
Measuring: Area, Volume, Diameter, circumference, radius - During hurumanu 5, we have done a lot
of measuring. We measure to find the area, volume, diameter, circumference and radius. We also
measured a random object to find the area and record them in our math book.
Math games: Mangahigh, Mathletics - Mathletics is a math game where you have to answer math
questions. Mangahigh is also a math game, It’s like Matheltics but Mangahigh is a competitive math
game, it shows your record and then there’s a leaderboard where you can see who is in the top.
We learnt about geometry.
Hurumanu 6 (Maths/Health):
In the past few weeks, we have been in different groups in maths. Every day, we have a new task
that is written in a book in our chromebook. There are some different and interesting questions about
math. The math groups depend on what level we can do. The teachers call 1 or 2 groups during math.
They will have a discussion with the teachers about math stuff, and learn new things and some tricks.
In a healthy lifestyle, what we have to do is to write and describe what we do everyday. In the morning,
before school, after school and what we do in our free time.
We learned about roman numerals. We learnt which signs belong to what number.
We also learned about health. We talked about all of the diseases that happened to some people,
and picked at least 3 diseases and wrote information about it. There should be about 7-8 paragraphs
included. (I chose depression, Anxiety and Suicide).
HR (Homeroom):
Every week, we research different countries in the world and write some facts about that country.
We learned about daylight saving in New Zealand.
Cooking class:
We cooked many different foods, one of my favourite was the Cookie.
Wood tech:
We made a Whistle and propeller using wood but we haven’t finished it yet.
Japanese:
We were learning Hiragana, and made some Origami. We also learn basic common words that
are used in Japanese like greetings, and the numbers as well.
Maori:
We learnt about Matariki, and some Maori language.
ESOL:
We did read theory and learned about prepositions, spelling, part of speech, and many other things.
Market day:
There were many events during this year, on term 3, we had a market day. A market day is when we have
to be creative and make something that we can sell. We were meant to be in a group of 4, I remember
I was in a group with Lhysette, Cate and Jaren. It was definitely hard to think what to make, we have to
think of something unique to make. But most of our ideas have been taken by the others, so we came
up with homemade scrunchies, homemade bracelets and a homemade slime. We had about 3-4 weeks
to make our products and organise everything. The day came up when we had to sell, most people
bought the slime, then the scrunchies.
Dance after school:
There were also athletics events but unfortunately I wasn’t part of it. Term 4 was the term when I had
the guts to join one activity, I picked dancing, I love dancing even in my free time. Every Tuesday after
school, I went to dance class with my friend, which is Rheanne. We made a geography, we mixed the
songs together and practiced dancing it. There were videos taken by our dance teacher of us dancing.
We practiced the dance for 6 week every Tuesday.
Fun run:
Currently, there was a fun run that happened 2 weeks ago. I think it was the most enjoyable moment
during term 4. We have to run around the field, and have to wear a white t-shirt if we wanna get thrown
paint all over our body while running. Running around the field for 2 times and doing some sort of
obstacle course at the end.
Last week, we had EOTC week. EOTC stands for “Education Outside The Classroom. It was on
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday, we went to Jellie park, on Thursday we went to
Adrenalin forest and on Friday we went to the City.
Jellie Park:
We had to be at school early because the bus leaves at 8:25 am. I was early, I waited in the playground
for my friends for about 10 minutes. I saw my friends as I walked towards them. Minutes later it rang.
We went to our classes then in our Kahui (Riroriro). We talked about some of the rules in Jelly Park,
then we went to the bus that is waiting for us outside the school. I was sitting with Jaren on the bus.
About 15 minutes later we arrived in Jellie park. The first thing we did is that we talked about the rules
again, and then headed towards the changing room. After changing, we jumped into the pool. The water
is pretty warm to be honest. I also went to the hydroslide, I was definitely nervous because I have never
been in the hydroslide but I overcame my fear, I went to the hydroslide with Shontai. We spent about 4
hours on Jelly Park. After spending many hours under the water, I then changed and had a bit of rest
(Eating and sitting). An hour later, we went back to our school.
Adrenalin forest:
We were meant to be at school early, but even more earlier. By 8:00am the bus leaves. It’s the usual
routine in the morning. We were in the bus for a minute. We left early from school because Adrenaline
forest is a bit far from our school. When we arrived, we were split into 2 groups, the first group had to
know and learn what to do. While the second group had free time, I was in the second group, me and
my friends were just playing and eating our food. One staff member came to us and said that the second
group has to go and do what the first group did. While we were being taught, group one has already
started and they are up above the trees. Then we started the first level which is level 1. I then managed
to finish level 1 and moved into level 2. But unfortunately level 2 seems hard for me, so then I quit. I
watched those other students who climb up extremely high. Heights are one of my fears and I am proud
that I have overcome 1 level at least. We finished for an hour, and we walked to a playground near the
adrenalin forest. There were little kids playing in there. Minutes later the bus arrived and we had to go
back to school.
City:
As usual, we were riding in a bus. We stopped at Margaret Mahy playground. We had some time to play
around. Then we walked towards the library. We were able to look at their amazing books. Then we
walked towards the Museum. I had fun there even though I’ve been there many times. But it feels good
being in there remembering your memories when you were there the last time. We definitely spent many
hours in the museum. And then we wander around, looking for new things. Then we went back to school.
My high school life is a great experience :’>
Thank you for reading my blog, bye.