Ms DR and Constable Brunton come to visit

Viki, Sapphire and Jenny invited Ms DR to talk to us about Positive Relationships. They had many questions to ask her. She helped us with strategies in how to get along with others and how to deal with problems we may not agree with, for example, how bullying occurs and what stratergies we should choose to help ourselves and others.

Ben, Kevin, Sam and Noel invited Richard Brunton to Room 13 to tell us about the work he does in the community and what we can do to help the Police and our community. He told us that we are the eyes of the community. He was keen to tell us of ways the Police build positive relationships with our community.

Richard also told us of his experiences working in the police force.

NZ 2014 election by Ethan Ng

Ethan Ng

21 September 2014

Election

Our election that happens every 3 years is one of the most important things in New Zealand. You get a say in who will represent you in Parliament. And, you get a say in what policies you want.

The requirements for voting are that you:

1) Are 18 or older,

2) Have been living in NZ for 1 year or more at one point of your life

3) Are a NZ citizen, OR Are a NZ permanent resident.

In the election, you get 2 votes. The first vote is the party vote. It largely decides how many seats the party gets in the Parliament. Whoever, in your region (electorate) wins the second vote becomes the local MP. 

Here are some of the parties:

National

Labour

Greens

New Zealand First

Conservative

Maori

Act

Internet

Here are some of the winners in Christchurch(Candidate vote) for this election which was held on 20 September 2014. 

Christchurch Central-National

Christchurch East-Labour

Epsom-ACT

Ilam-National

Wigram-Labour

In my electorate, Ilam, the incumbent MP from National won the seat. The below is the chart of electorate votes for Ilam. 

Overall, National won with 48.1% of the party votes. Here is one of the policies that National made.

Education- Higher wages for teachers and use $350million to build 9 new schools in Auckland and 130 new classrooms in existing schools.

Some facts

The non-voting percentage this election was 23%.

700,000 people voted in advance.

Merrin school was a voting station!

Cycle Safety for Year 6

Constable Richard from the NZ Police, Mike, Jan, Bek and Monique from the Christchurch City Council are with us this week to help us learn more about Road Safety and Cycle Safety.

Our helmets and bikes have been checked. We are now practising our skills before we cycle on the road.

Check out our skills on the Merrin School Courts.

Daniella cycling well

Isabel practising her skills.

Connor learning his skills.

Mohammad having fun learning the cycle skills.

"Poppy"

Freddy paid us a visit bringing Poppy. Poppy is a German Pointer. She is six weeks old.
Many of us were keen to pat Poppy and ask questions about how to look after her.
Some of the Room 13 mothers came to see Poppy. How cute!

Inquiry - Building Positive Relationships

We are flat out with a variety of activities regarding this area of our learning.

Some groups have designed games to show how we can work out ideas and issues co-operatively.

Taylor, Senaya and Emma have rung the Salvation Army. They are keen fof the girl's idea of donating, clothes, books and toys.

Oakley and Noah are going to coach the Juniors in Rugby skills.

Various groups are using the I-pads to present their findings about positive relationships.

Other groups are making surveys about people's opinions on aspects of positive realtionships.

Yazeed and Tom are reading a copy of an email that they received from Ben Sigmund.
They asked him several questions on how to be a positive team member in soccer.

Charlotte and Meshwa are busy on their ideas for their presentation.

Rockets

This week we have been working on making rockets from film canisters and the antacid tablets. Some canisters shot up to over 7 metres!

We decided then to make rockets using vinegar and baking soda. We saw a cool youtube clip on how to make these.

Unfortunately they did not work! We could'nt get the lids on quickly enough. Instead, there was plenty of fizz going on with the vinegar just pouring onto the ground!!

However, we did have fun making the rockets. We learnt a lot about why this experiment did not work for us!