Thursday, 7 November 2013

Get excited and get writing

Entries are now open for the prestigious Balmacewen Writing Competition. The criteria is very open this year so you can let your imagination (and your pen) run wild. Check out the details and get writing :-)

Balmacewen Intermediate Writing Competition 2013.pdf

Special guests

Balmac students were treated to some special visitors on Wednesday with the Championship winning Otago Volts coming to speak to the school in our new and improved hall. Volts players answered questions put to them by Room 7 students, sharing some of their experiences and offering words of wisdom to their audience.
cooro365's Otago Volts visit album on Photobucket

Nigel Brown inspired art

Throughout the start of this term Room 13 have been working on creating their own work of art based around the art of New Zealand artist Nigel Brown. This Wednesday the class voted on their favourite pieces and the top 5 were selected to go on display at the Summerset Retirement Village.

It was a very close race for the top 5 spots with some real skill on display. The lucky 5 to make it through, as voted by their peers, were Alannah, Taylah, Solomon, Niwa and Abe.



cooro365's Nigel Brown Art album on Photobucket

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Maths link - nets

Follow the link to the geometry info page and game for nets:

Friday, 1 November 2013

Celebrate the good, shame the bad

As many of the speeches from term 3 mentioned, packaging of products can have harmful consequences if not properly disposed of. Even if the packaging is put in the rubbish it still takes up valuable space in the landfill and uses precious resources (often oil) to be made just to be dumped.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is a familiar catch phrase. Reduce is best, if you can reduce then make sure to reuse, and failing that recycle. 

Below is a link to Unpackit Packaging Awards. Follow the link and vote for the best and worst packaging from the 16 finalists. 

http://www.unpackit.org.nz/

This link was forwarded to me by the Dunedin Curtain Bank - a non-profit community organisation (see article for more on them -  ODT Article).

Make sure you select Dunedin Curtain Bank from the drop down list when you vote as they could win $1,500 to help more Dunedin residents.

Voting is open until 8th November so get your friends and family to vote.


Friday, 11 October 2013

First week back (while Mr Cooke is away)

Hi Room 13

I trust you have all had a great break and are ready to get stuck into a busy Term 4 programme. I will be away for the first week as I am going to stay home and help my wife Katherine out and look after our new daughter Olive who was born on the middle Saturday of the holidays.

The only homework I require you to do for week 1 is to practise your spelling words (no sentences needed) and to organise your Term 3 ASPIRE project so that by the start of week 2 (i.e. by Monday morning) you are able report to the class on your progress towards achieving your SMART goal and you are able to talk about the steps you have taken to try and reach this goal.

I look forward to hearing from Mrs Palmer about students who impressed her :-)

Here is Olive: