Pecha Kucha Speech Finals

“It’s part of our everyday lives. It protects the products we buy, provides information to the consumer and acts as a marketing tool to boost sales.”

“Imagine a world where dreams come true. Where all it takes is a smile and a laugh to make a friend.”

If you were in the Selwyn House School Cybrary on the Thursday the 19th at 8:15am, you would have seen 6 girls madly practising speeches on all different subjects, nearly ready for the 2015 Year 8 Speech Competitions. Every year, Selwyn House holds a speech competition, but this year, there was a twist!

Ever heard the words “Pecha Kucha?” Well, Pecha Kucha is a fast-paced, Japanese style of presentation. You have 20 slides that are up for 15 second each, adding up to a total of 5 minutes, max. This year, we had to choose a topic and thesis statement (it could be anything!), and then write a Pecha Kucha presentation, along with making a slideshow. It was lots of stressful work, and everyone did amazingly well! Here are some of our Pecha Kucha slides:

Congratulations to Danielle McLaughlin from 8CF who came 1st, Hattie Compton-Moen, from 8PR, who came 2nd, and Ella Stephens, also from 8PR, who came 3rd. A huge well done to Georgina Scott from 8PR and Tessa Appo and Aria Carroll, both from 8CF, who also got into the final. Lastly, thanks to everyone in Year 8 who also put a great effort into writing and presenting their own Pecha Kucha speech for the class competition!

By Hattie and Ella

Spelling Quiz 2015

A few weeks ago, children from all over Canterbury assembled at Chisnallwood Intermediate. All throughout the room, there were girls and boys madly scribbling down words like “delicatessen” and “doppelganger”, all ready for the Otago Daily Times Extra! Spelling Quiz.

In the annual quiz, you are in a team of three. There are 10 rounds, each on different things to do with spelling. Some of the categories are: Etymology, Dictionary Skills, Abbreviations and Guessing rounds. It’s always lots of fun to compete in, with spot prizes of pineapple lumps and quizzes for spectator, and it’s a bit of a laugh to see what words we got wrong!

Selwyn House entered several Years 7-8 teams, and they all did really well. It was really cool to see that we were probably one of the top girls only teams in the room!

Can you do better than our teams? Try the quiz below to see if you have what it takes to win the spelling quiz and comment below with your score!

Spelling Quiz - ProProfs » ProProfs Quiz Maker

By Hattie and Lucy

Year 8 Science

Does a carrot have more starch than sugar?

On Friday, we had a science lesson with Mrs O’Meara. This term, we have been focusing on plants. We’ve been learning about things such as Dichotomous Key, germination, pollination, photosynthesis, and a few other interesting topics. This week we were looking at photosynthesis. As part of this we conducted an experiment to find out how much starch there was in various materials. The materials we tested were:

• Potato
• Onion
• Carrot
• Apple
• Flour
• Sugar
• Salt
• Paper

To conduct our experiment, we put one material in a beaker. Then, we would add around 4-5 drops of iodine solution to each material. If the material contained starch, the iodine would turn it a blue/black colour. Here were our results:

Material:	Colour with iodine:	Starch?               Yes/No
Potato	Black/blue	Yes
Onion	Yellow, tiny black dots on parts	A very small amount
Carrot	Dark orange/transparent, with some black	A small amount (approximately 1 gram)
Apple	Green/black/blue/yellow	A small amount
Flour	Black/blue	Yes
Sugar	Brown/yellow	No
Salt	Yellow/brown	No
Paper	Yellow	No

Here is a photopeach of our experiments:



What other materials do you think might contain starch? Conduct your own experiment and let us know in the comments below!

• Hattie and Kathleen

Peter Pan Movie Night

Chorale

Houses

3D Printing Workshop

The Big Pink Tick!

Success at Spelling Quiz!

Outstanding Success 

@ Canterbury Extra! Spelling Quiz!

This week, Selwyn House was ably represented by 12 of our top Year 7 and 8 spellers at this annual spelling quiz. The girls were involved in 10 rounds of questions that tested everything from their knowledge of words and their country of origin, through dictionary skills, root words and endings, proofreading and mystery word rounds, to more traditional spelling testing of words taken from commonly misspelled lists.

It is our very great pleasure to announce that the Selwyn House team of Kathleen King, Harriet Compton-Moen and Lucy Jessep have been crowned champions in the Year 7 and 8 competition with a grand total of 97 out of 100 - beating out 81 other teams. Congratulations girls - this was a hard fought win and we are very proud of you.

Thank you to all the girls who were selected to represent Selwyn House - you performed remarkably, with all teams placed well inside the top half of the teams. 

Winter Sports @ Selwyn House