Japan Exchange

On the 17th of September 18 students, 1 principle, 2 staff members and 3 parents were off to Japan for the trip of a life time. We had an 11 hour flight but luckily for us we were scheduled to leave round 11pm but that changed when the weather had a bad turn for the worse, and a piece of roofing metal blew off the airport roof and landed on our plane which meant we were going to be delayed until all of the necessary paperwork has been done. That took about an hours time which meant we ended up leaving at about midnight. We had a very late dinner then either went to sleep or watched a movie or two. Then round 2 o'clock just about everyone was asleep. We woke up after having only 2 or 3 hours of sleep and really sore backs but we knew we were close to Japan.

Once arriving it was like a heat wave hitting us as it was 33 degrees! (a bit of a change for us) We had a big week ahead of us doing the most walking out of any of the groups that have been in the past.

Everyone was exhausted by the end of just the first day and we weren't looking forward to the walking the day after! But we had a nice relaxing dinner of Okinomayaki (a traditional Japanese dish) which everyone thought was really nice and most of us didn't even eat it all because there was so muchg in front of us.

After we'd finished our two days in Hiroshima, we moved to the city of Kyoto where we stayed in the youth hostel which was a bit of a change but we all adapted really well.

Once our time in Kyoto was done, we left for Hara Mura where our host familie awaited us. On that day it was also my birthday which was really nice. We had an amazing welcoming ceremony where there was about 60 people waiting to greet us they performed items and made fantastic speechs to us in english. We then went home with our families and spent the night in a traditional Japanese home, we would be staying here for the next 8 days. Whilst here we did loads of different activities with our hosts and we even went to school which was a big high light of my trip for me!

We then left Hara Mura for a very emotional good bye, but we were off to Tokyo. Everyone was soo excited because in Tokyo we had loads of shopping streets to go to and we were also going to Disneyland. Tokyo was such an amazing city, but then we had to leave. No on really wanted to go home but we were all almost ready for our own beds and to see our families. We had a long flight ahead destined for New Zealand.

Descriptive Writing

At the moment in class we have been working on descriptive writing, what our learning intention was, was to find a book that has a descriptive sentence or paragraph and to add onto it and create an image for the reader. This is my story.

She had large, wide set green eyes, and long brown hair that curled slightly and turned to gold at the tips.

She wore a dark blue dress that flowed neatly onto the floor the delicate lace that coated the outside of it was still in tact piece by piece.

Her walk was peaceful slow and unique, her gestures were small, her voice was soft and calm. She was angelic.

She was there just there, no one realised. They were to tied up in their on un-imaginable lives.

Maori Language Week

This week Pukekohe Intermediate have participated in a Nation wide celebration
MAORI LANGUAGE WEEK
The chosen theme this year was “Te Mahi Kai” which is translated to The Language of Food, the Maori hospitality has always been a big part of the culture and this year having this as the theme has made it a bit more special, to celebrate Maori Language Week our school put on a number of activities for the students of the school and they had competitions where you could battle it out with other classes using Te Reo words and phrases. For instance every class would receive the classroom challenge in the morning and you had to either translate English words to Maori or vice versa. There was also a fishing competition where 3 people from each class competed against each other to catch ika (which is also known as fish) they had to make there fishing rod then find a way to catch the most amount of fish possible in the time frame, the winning class was room 43 catch 11 ika.
As PINTV has been starting up there was a special feature called “Te Reo Tuesday” which will carry on through out this year. This week it included greetings and farewells so we could use them in the playground.
There was a competition set out through out the whole school which was released a week before the start of Maori Language Week and that was the poster competition where you had to make an eye catching poster that showed it was Maori Language Week and Te Mahi Kai, and also the dates. Ana and Jade from room 12 took out the competition. Congratulations.
Thank you very much to Mrs Pearson and Mrs Poutai for their VERY hard work over these past few weeks.

Descriptive Writing

Recently in class we have been doing descriptive writing, as they wanted to make sure we wouild all be ready for "High School". Wr have so far written a piece on "The Library" where we had to describe either being a book on the shelf, a teacher, a student or the author of the book, then we had to write another piece about "A bedroom" wether it be your bedroom, a dream bedroom or a room in your house. Then the last one we wrote was also about "The Library" but we wrote about the setting and the piece below is the one I wrote.

The Library

The dirty windows blocking out the bright vibrant sun, the books disordely chucked onto the shelves, the librarian ready to pull out each individual strand of hair on her head, students rowdier than ever, footsteps surround me, the teachers efforts to make the class quiet devastatingly fails, the brand new shelves are already covered in a layer of dirt and dust, books sprawled across the floor, the displays that were once stunning in colour now dull and in complete disarray, it's dark the lights were sick of being the days entertainment, they've left but their shrieks and cries still linger within the walls.

Miss Morris

This past four weeks we have had a student teacher in our class, she has been a really great help and will definitely be a great teacher in the future.

Miss Morris was in her 3rd year at teachers college, which was her last. She was in our class for what sounded like a long time but really she made everything so fun and the time just flew by.

She was really great at helping us with our science fair projects and did heaps and heaps of experiments with us in the afternoon.

We wish you good luck Miss Morris for the future and we hope you have a great time teaching!

Current Events

This afternoon we went on a website called NIE online and completed a current affairs quiz which had all the recent news that had been on the news lately, every Friday we will be completing this quiz. I got 100% and I was really pleased with that. To get these questions right every week we have been asked to watch Prime at 5.30, TV 1 at 6.00 or TV 3 also at 6.00. The URL for this website is, http://www.nieonline.co.nz. Check it out.

AIMS Games

On the 5th of September to the 10th September, there is a big sporting tournament in Tauranga called the AIMS Games it has many different sporting disciplines such as netball, football, hockey, gym sports, swimming, cross - country, badminton, golf, tennis, rugby, basketball, multi sport, squash and water polo, for both girls and boys but our school Pukekohe Intermediate doesn't include all the sports offered but most of the sports included are and trialled so all students get a fair chance of going to aims, yet most of the time to trial you have to play that sport outside of school and be in quite a high grade. Like netball for instance they wanted all the girls trialling to be at least higher than D grade for the Pukekohe Netball Courts.

AIMS is a really big event for our school and there are round 95 students going to Tauranga and there's a teacher that's in charge of each sporting group that will also go to aims with the team as either there coach or manager.

I am part of the AIMS netball team and am really looking forward to it, the competition will be pretty stiff and but I think we have a strong team and have a good opportunity for placing.

Good luck to all the students and teams competing and hopefully we will come away with a few places!