AIMS Games

We’re Coming To

AIMS Games!

In 6 days, 19 Year 7 & 8 girls from Selwyn House are going to Tauranga to compete in the national AIMS Games tournament. We have two teams entered - our Under 13 A Netball team and our A Waterpolo team, as well as two individual swimmers who double up as waterpolo players.

But what is AIMS Games? AIMS Games is the biggest sporting event for kids aged 11-13 in New Zealand, and is held each year in Tauranga. It has 19 sports you can compete in, and on the first day (Sunday 6th September), there is an amazing opening ceremony. To learn more about AIMS Games go here.

We are incredibly excited to be going and are really looking forward to the tournaments. Here are some photos of us in our team hoodies that we got for the tournament!

If you see this post and you’re also coming to AIMS, comment below and we might see you there!

Birthday Board

Itinerant Music Concerts

On Tuesday the 18th and Thursday the 20th Selwyn House hosted Itinerant concerts for all of the students that learn instruments or singing here at Selwyn House from our fantastic Itinerant teachers.

At Selwyn House, there are a huge range of lessons that students can take part in:

• Piano
• Violin, Viola, Cello
• Singing
• Percussion
• Clarinet, Flute, Oboe, Saxophone, Recorder
• Guitar
• Trumpet, Trombone

This year at the concerts, lots of people watched as many girls performed, either singing, or on the piano, violin, cello, clarinet, or guitar. Every girl performed amazingly with a huge range of ages represented across the both concerts. Each semester, the Year 8 girls that participate in the concert get a chance to be the presenters for the night. All of the presenters were very confident and everyone enjoyed the concert.

Thank you to the Itinerant teachers who all put in an amazing amount of effort to prepare and teach all the students their pieces. We hope you enjoy these photos from the evenings.

Chess Competition

Chess Competition

On the 26th of August a Chess Competition for girls was held at Selwyn House School from Years 3 - 13. Selwyn House had 5 teams that entered - three teams in Year 7 and 8, one team in Year 5 and 6, and one team in year 3 and 4.

Each girl played 6 chess games in total. If you won a game, that was worth 2 points and if you lost a game you scored 0 points. If you drew a game you scored 1 point per player. Each person in your team had a number - 1, 2, 3 or 4. Number 1 was your captain. Number 1 played the oppositions’ number 1 and number 2 played the oppositions’ number 2 etc.

One of our own Year 7 and 8 teams (the A team) came first in the Year 7 and 8 category. This earned each girl a medal and a trophy for the school.  

Congratulations girls!
If you would like to play chess like

Geri, please click here

Science Club Teaser

As you may have seen on a previous blog post, all the Year 8s have changed Leadership positions and now Enya, Harriet, Aria and I are the new Science Leaders. Since Science Club was so successful last term, we have decided to continue holding it. Last week we had our Science Club teaser so students could come try some experiments and see what Science Club is like - hopefully they will come next term when we start the actual Science Club. On Thursday lunchtime we opened the club up to the year 1 - 4s, making edible slime, and on Friday we had year 5 - 8s making bouncy balls. We had a lot more people come than we first expected but we kept it as organised as we could and had a lot of fun.

We can’t wait until next term to start the actual Science Club.

Want to find out how to make bouncy balls?

Click Here

ISSA Netball Tournament

Review Writing

After our production ‘Peter Pan’ we got set a task to write a review from the perspective of an audience member. In order to do this we shared our ideas and thinking about what a review is, what needs to be in a review and how to write one. After we did our Peter Pan review we went even further and started writing up reviews for movies, tv shows and concerts.

Click here to see Lucy’s review of Peter Pan.

Want to know what we think it takes to write a review and how YOU can learn how to write one?Check out our slides below to see how to write a review. Thanks!

Cantamaths

On Wednesday some Selwyn House girls went to the Horncastle Arena to participate in the CantaMaths competition. In Cantamaths, you must collaborate in groups of four to complete math questions. Once you have an answer, your “runner” follows a set route to the markers and then runs back with either the same question (wrong answer) or a different question (right answer). Once thing about CantaMaths that can work towards you or against you, is that you must specify what it is- for example, if the answer is 14 apples, you must write exactly that: 14 apples, not just 14.

All of the girls who tried out were amazing mathematicians but we could only pick one team of Year 8s and one team of Year 7s. Both teams did really well, with our Year 7 team getting 50 out of 100, and our Year 8 team scored 60 out of 100.

Could you do better? Try our quiz below and comment with your score!

Cantamaths Quiz - ProProfs

Skunk - a great Maths game!

Selwyn House School Idol 2015

Selwyn House School Idol 2015!!

A couple of weeks ago at Selwyn House School, we hosted an idol performance evening just for the SHS girls. This gave the girls the chance show all their hidden talents and was a great experience! There were 3 rounds in total (Auditions, Semifinals & Finals) In the end there were 5 categories, which were Solo Singing, Group Singing, Solo Dancing, Group Dancing & last but not least Skits. Certificates were handed out to all girls who made the Finals, as well as either the first place ribbon, second place ribbon and third place ribbon depending on what the Judges scored them. 

Here is a video of one of the first place winners in the Group Dancing Category.

Sir Peter Blake Young Leader Award

Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre

On the 31st of July all of the Selwyn House girls got to see a special Maori dance from the Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre. We saw a range of dances from different cultures. It was a very well prepared dance and everyone enjoyed it. The Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre is based in Hastings. They perform regularly in the USA, Canada, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Watch the video down below and try and guess which dance belongs to which country.

Here are the options :

• New Zealand
• Hawaii
• Cook Islands
• Samoa
• Tahiti

Comment below with what you think!

Hope you enjoy!

Welcome to Selwyn House!

This week, it is our turn for our blog to be visited by our Quadblogging buddies Irongate School, Balmacewen Intermediate and Rotorua Intermediate. We have had so much fun looking around their websites, and we are looking forward to getting lots of visitors this week.

As a way of introducing our school, here is a lip dub that one of our Year 8s made last year for her Passion Project. We hope you enjoy it, and that it gives you a bit of an insight into what makes Selwyn House School a great place to be.

Bienvenidos! We hope you enjoy our blog!
8PR

Peter Pan, It's Show Time!

Peter Pan, It's Show Time - Kizoa Video Maker

This time next week we will be on stage!!

If you are going to be in Christchurch on August 14/15, please follow this link to book your tickets to see us in Disney's Peter Pan Jr.

It's going to be awesome!!

http://www.eventopia.co/wafform.aspx?_act=fullsearchv3&v3=yes&s=Peter%20Pan

Semester 2 Houses

Peter Pan T-Shirts

Recording at Orange Studios

Check out this short vid of us, just before we started recording!

Science experiments for our Unit of Inquiry

Last term our UOI (Unit Of Inquiry) was called “Light It Up” and our central idea was:
“Scientists use their knowledge of how to transform and manipulate basic elements in creating new products or substances.”

We focused on using our ‘scientific brains’ for our experiments, linking the experiments to a story book, whether it be Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh or Rapunzel in our own science videos, like the one shown above.

We looked at videos of Heston Blumenthal and Nanogirl to give us some inspiration and also to give us an idea of how to do a science experiment in front of a camera, explaining everything clearly and using iMovie to edit, creating transitions and adding sound effects

Here is an example of a video that we watched:

What story would you do a science experiment about? Have you ever done a science experiment that you could link to a story? We would love to hear from you in the comments!

~ Ella, Isabel and Lucy

Peter Pan Dress Up Day!

MakerEd Night

Christchurch Connected Educators’

MakerEd Event

Have you ever used Scratch before? Programmed a robot? Tinkered with circuits? Play with a beebot?  Well, if you have, you’re secretly a Maker. Being a Maker means that you tinker - you play with technology, crafts, anything really. If you can hack it, repurpose or create it, you’re a Maker.

On Wednesday, a group called the Christchurch Connected Educators ran a MakerEd Event for teachers. The MakerEd Event was brought into fruition to teach the teachers how to make regular kids into Maker kids. The 3 eLearning and MakerSpace Leaders at Selwyn House helped out Miss Fairhall - one of the teachers in 8CF and our Director of e-Learning and MakerSpace - with a BeeBots workshop. We helped show the teachers how to work the BeeBots, and also helped out with another teacher’s EV3 workshop.

One of the many parts of MakerEd is Scratch, an open-source block coding resource. Sign up and have a go here, or try one of the games we’ve made!