A day in room 7

In a day of room seven we do work for example maths read=ing novel study sports etc. we do what a mormal calss would do joke around all day getting scloded at once or two times but i n the end we are always good to each other someway. when it was the asthma day we had tatics. We were straigising it was such a fun day but afetr all that is a daily life of rm 7 the end.

Romeo lim

Blue day mufti

on friday 17 was asthma day and at howick intemediate we used balloons we got from the asthma foundation and we use students from howick intemediate to create an giant asthma and we also used balloons and also on the day we had an amazing race when each class in howick got 15 balloons and ad to keep them from poping through out the day cause other classes if they where invited to our class could try and pop them they had to be care for throught out the day

but the day was a big big big sucess

by David
room 7 

The Holiday Experience

The Holidays was a 2 week long holiday that started at the 31st of September but unfortunatly it ended at the 12th of October and it seems so quick. Now is the beggining of a new term, Term 4. The Holidays were fun if you didn't have to catch up on work but if you did tough luck, but all I really did was sit at home and only doing a few things Breathing, Eating, Sleeping, Drinking(water) and sitting at my computer, other people may have had more interesting holidays but this is how I like mine. We were all very happy that it was the end of term 3 and there was a 2 week holiday but we were all so sad to come back and have another few weeks of school and more boring work. I had alot of "fun" in the holidays (just sitting at my computer) but unfortunatly it had to come to a end at the 12 of October, Why couldn't it be longer I wished! But oh well I have to come to school.


Stephen

New Principal

Our new Principal, Mrs Franke was welcomed back to Howick with A Pohiri by our School Kapa Haka she moved from Howick 17 Years ago to be placed as Principal Of Somerville Intermediate to Come Back Here To Howick As Our New Principal. She Expects Courage, Kindness and Respect. As Far As My Expectations She Will Be A Good Principal For This School.

At the Assembly just a few hours after the Pohiri we did a Normal school assembly.  We got time to get to know her better, she talked about her expectations and her personality, she expects people to do the best of their ability, to stop bullying, to stand up to the bully who is bullying a student. She is known to be a good principal and I believe she will.

By: Ethan :3

maggi kitchen showdown

 On wednesday the 3rd September, me (Jasmine) Izzy rm6, Neil rm19 and  Jimmy rm19 travelled to the  Auckland Seafood School in the city along with Mrs Watson, Mrs Narna and Mrs nobel. once we arrived we were very nervous yet excited we had a small lunch break in the van before we went in.
when we got inside we had to wait for a couple of minutes because the judges were filming their parts, once the judges were finished we had to go collect our aprons,hats and name tags from judith (one of the organizers)  We were the first school there. We had to wait till the schools in the first heat were finishing up, while they were doing that we got to go outside on the deck and look around.
At 1:30 we got taken to the area where we were going to be cooking our meals, we got 20 minutes to prepare. after the short countodwn we got right into it. the feedback that the judges gave us was really helpful. Now we know what to work on for next time.

 http://www.maggi.co.nz/kitchen-showdown/home/

Arts Extravaganza

On the 24th of September 2014 Howick Intermediate School is having a Arts Extravaganza Night. On the night diffrent peformences like Choir, Dance groups, Whanau peformances and lots more. If you would like to watch all those amazing peformences the tickets are only $5 each.


By: Tiffany

Kapa Haka

This year Howick Intermediate Kapa Haka group is going to take part in the Spring festival on 20th September at Sommerville intermediate. There are 20 schools performing at the festival. We have been practicing all term from Monday to Friday for 2 hours. We practice singing, the poi and our actions. There is 20 students from Howick Intermediate School who is going to perform at the festival. Our tutors are Jimmy's parents and Grandma.


On the 5th and 12th of September there will be a late night practice and on the 19th of September there will be a sleep over for the night before our performance. The late night practice will be from 6pm-10pm at night. There will be a dress rehearsal before we perform. We need all the practice that we can get before the performance. We all have been practicing our best for the performance.

Published by Krystal.

SEZ Cross Country

On Tuesday the 19th August, 24 students from our school went down to Lloyd Elsmore Park to compete in the SEZ Cross Country event. The track was 3.5km's(3500 metres) long, and we competed against 7 intermediate schools. The Year 7 girls ran first, followed by Year 7 boys, then it was Year 8 girls followed by Year 8 boys.

It was very competitive and it was an amazing experience despite the difficulty of having asthma. Our school unfortunately didnt get to go through to interzone Cross Country but I think that it was worth all our days of practicing and we all put 100% into Cross Country. Im sure our school will take it out next year!

By Caureen.

Battle Media Website goes live!

Battle Media Website is Live!!!

After weeks of work, Battle Media's Website has gone live for the whole world to see. We have tonnes of pages and info as well as animations and art work galore! Check out our website at http://www.tinyurl.com/battlemedia

Here's a sneak peak at our website

Take a look at our survey at http://www.tinyurl.com/battlemediasurvey

Kidsline Visit

Kidsline visit

On Friday 8th August Kidsline met one room 7 group ,Battle media and another room 9 group.The Kidsline visitors were 3 ladies, Marian,Brittany and Sirat.

First everyone introduced themselves and some of their intersets through a game. Then Kidsline requested for questions and to circle any we had any information about. So for the next hour or so we were busy talking about information in that time all the students ate loads of Fruit Bursts. we also recived bands with a slogan and Kidslines's number along with their name.After we filled an evaluation sheet. Afterwards Marian and Brittany showed a play about how most of the kidsline calls look like then Marian asked some last minute question. Everyone who answered got a Fruit Burst .I got one too. Meeting Kidsline was an informative and exciting experience. Fingers cross we get that chance again.

\By Dilshad Singh



Addiction to Technology

Addiction to Technology:

You're in the middle of reading a long, important document, but suddenly find you can't concentrate. It's not because the topic is snore-inducing or because it's chocolate o'clock, but due to a tiny, red light, flashing insistently in the corner of your eye. A BlackBerry silently screaming for attention forces you to stop reading to see what the messagesays. Two minutes later, you do the same again.
Whether it's an iPhone or a trilling landline or a pinging email, the latest technology interrupts us all the time. But if you've ever wondered exactly what effect the interruptions have when your doing any important work, research by academics at the University of Kent is a worthy interruption.

By: Kaur

Class Debates

In room 7 we have been doing debates for oral language to improve speaking to an audience. Our debates have diffrent topics ex. schools should ban youtube or all people should be vegeterians ect. Each topic has a 'for' group and an 'against' group, each group has three members we each have to write a paragraph with 2 or 3 reasons about the topic.

By: Tiffany

Media Design School Visit - By Martin

On Wednesday the 6th of August the Fazeclan group had visited the Media Design School on 92 Albert Street, Auckland Central City. 

Once we arrived at the front reception we met Ms Analiese Jackson, the chief executive in Marketing and Design, and Mr Mike Porter, professional gamer and programmer.
We spent some time observing the ornaments such as:

1) A limited collector's edition of The Last of Us, exclusive to PS3 and remastered for the PS4
2) The world's first-ever virtual-reality gaming experience, the legendary Oculus Rift
3) The classic chrome gun from critically- acclaimed game of the year, Portal 2

They guided to Room 18, the Boarding Room, and taught us lots about gaming and it's educational benefits. With games like:

1) Assassin's Creed - Teaches about history, since the game is based on true historic events, and that's how Mr Porter's son was interested in the Crusades (1191 - 1257)

2) Call of Duty/ Battlefield - Teaches Real-time team tactics and strategy, teamwork is the vital key to victory in the game

Mr Porter had told us about the Minecraft Creativity Awards, hosted by Media Design School, the aim was to find aspiring kids who had a passion for Minecraft, and they would had to build a structure/ building from New Zealand, for instance, a student had built Auckland Museum, and won an award for creativity.

Mr Porter had  also taught us how an aspiring Minecrafter had built a 3D- imported, plugin legitimate computer, built with it's own GPU, enabling it to calculate real-time numbers, in game!

After Mr Porter's period, Ms Jackson had showed us around the building, including students programming games, and the PC Gaming room, built for programming and gaming.

We were sad to leave but overall we had a great time with the team.

Check out the awesome lecturers and programmers at: http://www.mediadesignschool.com/courses/game-art-programming/tutors/

Class Councellors

Class counselors are all around the school they help people with problems suchs as fights arguments disagreements and many other things

As a class councellor its is hard to jungle school work and class councellor work like preparing events like spotty day,mid winter dance and the polar bear dare and many other things that are coming up in the year

This is my blog on class councellor work

by David

Young Children's Health (YCH)

This term we are studying the impact of technology on young children's health as linked to our group name. Our main topic is the impact of technology on society. We are looking at different ways to prevent illnesses like obesity, poor eyesight, sleeping and mood disorders and many more from the over use of technology. Many children have been effected by these terrible illnesses.

Our hot question is to identify the impact technology has had on children's health over the past few years, examine how much H.I.S students rely on technology daily, and what they rely on it for, and propose a plan to encourage students to stay active, maintain their health and to unplug theselves from technology.
We've researched alot and are working really well through our hot question. For the last part of our hot question, it links to our social action - #Off The Grid H.I.S.

We are working really well throughout our inquiry topic, as a group. We are currently focusing most on our Social Action which will take part in Week 5 of this term. Feel free to check out our #Off The Grid H.I.S blog post for more information.

By Caureen.

Holiday competition

During the holidays our class had a photo competition and we all had to take photos of what we did during the school holidays. Last week Martin put all our photos into a slide show and we presented our photos last friday. The winner of our photo competition was Samantha and she won a Dominos voucher for a free pizza. Here are some of the photos:

#Off The Grid H.I.S - Social Action

YCH (young childrens health) group in our class are working on their social action which is #Off The Grid H.I.S. We are planning to do a technology free week to help raise awareness of young childrens health that is affected by the over use of technology. As a reward for the students that participate in it we are going to buy new sports equipment with the money we raise and have a soprts day so that we can use the new equipment. To help with this we made a slideshow and Caureen and Charlie spoke in the assembly telling the school what we are going to. We are sending newsletters out this week so that they can get people to sponser. We are looking forward to doing the technology week.

Can Minecraft be the Ultimate Educational Tool?

We've been working closely with PBS's Mike Rugnetta, check out his videos and subscribe! His channel, known as "PBS Idea Channel" is a YouTube channel with over 500,000 subscribers, their aim is to find cool ideas that our society could use, and this time we've worked with PBS, Gamepedia, Edutopia, and MinecraftEDU's Joel Levin, to prove that Minecraft can actually be, society's next generation of learning in schools. Here is the link to Pbs Mike Rugnetta. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0BN5AWOe8

So, could Minecraft actually be the ultimate learning tool for our next-generation of students and teachers? Well, here's the answer: Yes! Since 2012, there have already been over 500 positive reviews from parents that have described how Minecraft has actually changed the way their kids work and study, like, when Joel Levin said that his daughter wasn't even 5 yet, but she had actually spelt her very first word using Minecraft! Since Minecraft's reputation in education is increasing so quickly, creator Markus "Notch" Persson and Joel Levin have teamed-up and created an official, third-party mod called "MinecraftEDU"
This "MinecraftEDU" is actually an officially licensed mod specially optimized and built for teachers and students to use in the classroom. It is estimated that MinecraftEDU is used in over 20,000 schools across 6 continents in the globe.

Thanks to long research studies students and scientists have proven scientifically that Minecraft can be used as a powerful learning tool, faster than traditional methods of learning, such as using textbooks and reading typical schoolbooks. So children who are using Minecraft feel like what they are learning is useful, which MEANS that children, would be more encouraged to learn, they feel like they WANT to learn, thanks to Minecraft.

So, what are the benefits? Source: Gamepedia

1) Say for reading, players can write and read their own books and publish them in the Minecraft universe, which is a major step and a turning point in both gaming and education in gaming.

2) Spelling, teach a new language by using signs, even Latvian! Or create riddles for your friends. Minecraft has proven that it can increase your spelling skills by 30% than traditional methods of spelling education.

3) Mathematics, measure the time of how long it takes for a block to hit the ground, say I need 2+2 wood for a crafting recipe, solve mathematical problems in game! Geometry for 3D modelling, Measurement for arcitechture, the possibilities are endless!

There are endless educational benefits by using Minecraft.

By Martin

Ultimate Frisbee

Do you love throwing a Frisbee around, but wondering how to turn it into a team sport? Ultimate Frisbee is the solution to this desire. This Blog provides an overview of how to play.
View How to Play Ultimate frisbee on Howcast

How Minecraft can have Educational Benefits

Minecraft can have huge educational benefits for children; it can help teach numerous subjects both with and without adult involvement. Learning in Minecraft can be faster than traditional methods of education, as children are often far more motivated, get more practice, and feel that what they are learning is useful.

Subject	Benefit
Reading	The names of items in the inventory are a great place to start teaching children to read, since each item has a tooltip and image which go together. For older children, reading the wiki and online guides can extend their skills.
Writing	Players can use the Book and Quill within the game to keep a log, or to communicate information to other players. By contributing to the Minecraft Wiki, older children learn to write informational texts in a collaborative, multimedia environment!.
Math 17 + 44	The crafting system can help in teaching basic math (e.g. "I need 3 Sugar Cane for Paper), which transitions to multiplication (I need 3 Paper and 1 Leather for a Book, and 3 Books for a Bookshelf, so I need 9 Paper and 3 Leather altogether") and division ("When I create Paper I get 3 at once, so 9/3 = 3 times per Bookshelf I'll have to create Paper"). If players want to create fully power Beacon, they will need to mathematically calculate amounts of materials(Iron,Diamond,Emerald,Gold) they need to create one, which is 9 times {∑i=1~i=4 (2i+1)2}. This means(9+25+49+81)×9 = 1476 = 23×64+4= 23 stacks and 4 pieces of materials. This shows not only you need math very much in Minecraft, but you also practice and possibly learn some mathematic skills.
Geometry	While the Minecraft world is only made up of cubes, the creations a child makes may resemble other shapes. Parental involvement can help teach children to recognize these shapes (cube, cuboid, square based pyramid, tesseract, et cetera). Also, counting the number of blocks that were dug out when making a 6x6x3 cave can help multiplication skills and understanding the concepts of volume and area. Also, Minecraft is all about three-dimensional graphing. A Minecraft world is based on x, y, and z coordinates. This very useful method of gaming can be used to learn high-leveled math such as the Pythagorean theorem (e.g.: x2+y2=c2) therefore not only is Minecraft used to learn "child-level geometry", it can also be used to learn fairly difficult geometric concepts very easily.
Music	With the preparation of some Redstone circuitry, experimenting with Note Blocks can teach children about notes, octaves and chords.
Social skills	By setting up a private server, parents can provide a safe environment for children to interact with friends and make playing Minecraft a cooperative event. Using a Local Area Network (LAN, or "home network") will allow children to play in the same room or same WI-FI network with their friends. By using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP, or "voice chat"), a phone call, or the in-game text chat, they can play together wherever they are. It is also possible to set up a Minecraft Realm. A minecraft realm is a server run by Mojang. Minecraft Realms cost $13/Month. You can easily setup a server and invite your child's minecraft friends. You can also set up various minigames for your child to play on or just a default minecraft world. For more info on Minecraft Realms go to https://minecraft.net/realms These methods allows children to work together to build, explore, and learn as they develop their social skills, especially teamwork. For older children, contributing to the Minecraft Wiki can be a chance to learn about Internet etiquette and collaboration.
Basic Technological Science	Redstone circuitry provides an interactive environment to build basic logic circuits and combine them for more sophisticated purposes. Feedback is immediate, and the mistakes don't destroy expensive electrical components.

The Gaming Group! FTW

This term we have decided to focus our topic on Gaming and Esport, since it is such a huge issue and it is very popular in pop culture, we decided to prove schools that gaming may not only train your brain, but can change your life as well, you might become famous one day from winning a gaming tournament, who knows?

We focused mainly on Minecraft, yup, the popular sandbox indie game developed and published by Mojang AB and Notch, since many NZ schools use it as a learning tool for their students, we decided that Howick Intermediate should have their own Minecraft club open for students who are wanting to join, and we can host our own free2play legitimate Minecraft PvP tournamnet, like the 1st prize is a juicie (legit right?)

Nutrition Group

This Cycle the Nutrition group in Room 7 have been focusing on our school canteen menu and were trying to improve the menu by adding more healthy choices that do not contain dirty palm oil. We have made pizza and chicken burgers in Food Technology with Mrs Watson to look at selling them in the tuck shop. We have been looking at ways to change the school menu to one with more healthy options on it. This Thursday we are making muffins to sell in our school tuck shop. We have been working with the Deforestation group in our class by making foods that that do not contain dirty palm oil. We attempted to contact Heart Foundation, Fuelled4Life, and 5+ a Day however none of them were able to help us with our inquiry.

Nutrition makes Pizza!

On Friday 21st march the Nutrition Group went to Food Technology with Mrs Watson.
We made a pizza each and filled it with delicious toppings. We had to bring our own toppings and sauces while Mrs Watson provided the ingredients for the Pizza base. Our guidelines for bringing toppings is that they couldn't contain dirty palm oil and had to be healthy.

Our Pizza dough ingredients:

• 3 Cups of Self Raising Flour
• 2 tsp of sugar
• 1 Cup of Warm Water
• 1 desert spoon of yeast
• 1 tsp Garlic & Herb salt
• 350g of Butter

Our Pizza Toppings:

• Chicken
• Sausages
• Bacon
• Ham
• Salami
• Cheese
• Tomato Paste/Puree
• Pineapple
• BBQ Sauce

The pizza was yummy & fun to make, We all loved cooking.

Visit from the Melanoma Foundation

On Thursday 6 March Linda and Lyn came to meet Skin Cancer group in Room 7.

Linda and Lyn talked about different type of skin cancer and Spotty Day at the end. There 5 different type of cancer so if you find any spots on you that don't look like freckles or you which is not usually on your body then GET IT CHECKED UP!

The 5 different types of skin cancers are:

A- Asymmetry-One half is different from the other half.
B-Border irregularity- The edges are notched, uneven or blurred.
C-Colour is uneven- Shades of brown, tan and black are present.
D-Diameter- Is greater than 6 millimetres.
E-Evolution- Any change in growth; new or elevated

Thanks Lyn and Linda for coming to talk to us about Melanoma skin cancer.

School Swimming Sports

Last Friday was a big day in the pool for Howick Intermediate. It was whanau verses whanau in a race to the finish line for school swimming sports.

As the sun beat down everyone was getting behind their whanau both with chants and with the colours adorning the seating areas.

Results are still pending but it did seem one particular whanau seemed to claw their way into victory through the massive number of competitors. Participation wins the day.

Water Pollution

Hi,

We are the water pollution group. Our hot question is to  examine the extent of water pollution in Howick Beach in the past 10 years , analyse the impact of water pollution on marine life  and suggest  solutions  in order  to prevent  further  damage to marine life . Some  parts ofthe inquiry are challenging and fun. The  best  part  is we have been selected by Miss Haag  for Art.

We found this video this helped us understand a little more about the problem

Nutrition

The nutrition group is aiming to change the items on our school tuck shop menu by creating a healthy and nutritious menu. We are also working with another group in our class to review and eliminate/replace foods on the school menu containing palm oil.

 

 

 

 

We are doing this to help students eat healthier food while watching their daily intake. We are also helping the deforestation group as to not go against their hot question, not using foods containing palm oil.

 

 

We are trying to go to Mrs Watson, our Food tech teacher as our specialist to create healthy recipes that Howick Intermediate Students will enjoy. 

Palm Oil and Deforestation

Our group topic is looking into deforestation and the impact that it has on the planet. Whilst researching this topic we found a video that made us focus in our inquiry on the palm oil industry.





We will be trying to create a menu of palm oil free products to sell at the tuckshop while working with the nutrition group in our classroom to promote awearness on how this affects the species.

We want to go to Food Tech for our specialist for our (Deforestation) topic. We want to learn more about the Maori culture and language. We will have to do research about palm oil, alternative recipies at the library or internet.

These are the questions/statements we will be answering for our specialist.

• Countries that export palm oil.
• Conditions that people live in.
• Why people export palm oil if it is so bad?
• Is it really bad or are people concentrating on what is fashionable thing (topic) to get angry about.
• Food Chain:  How important are animals, insects etc who live in the original jungle that is cut down and replaced by palm trees?

       


      BY: Kaur.D

Year 7 Tasters

Tasters

New Year 7 (and even some new Year 8) students at  Howick Intermediate have recently had a chance to get stuck into some of the specialist subject.

Each student has spent some time with their creative side with experiences in Music, Art, Sewing, Cooking, and making a personalised ruler in Hard Materials

Mr O even managed to turn up to Food Tech in time to munch on some hot food.