Shakespeare Revealed

Recently on Brydseed I read the statement "structure leads to creativity" and raised this discussion with the Year 7/8 Inquiry group. While we certainly don't all agree the students did agree to think about this idea.

We all know William Shakespeare wrote a multitude of plays but how familiar are we with his poetry? 404 years ago Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 18, one of the most famous love poems of all time. After some research into "What makes a sonnet a sonnet?" we discovered there are very strict rules and lots of them. We also discovered that Shakespeare not only followed these rules but created them!

Follow our work as we attempt to write our own sonnets. Wish us luck!

10 000 Hits!

Wow! We have had 10 000 hits on the investiGATE@Kimihia site. What a feat! It's great to know people are watching the site and following our progress. What's next? 100 000 seems like a reasonable goal.
These are pretty special numbers to us at GATE Kimihia. If you are keen to find out more inteersting  information about the numbers 0 to 9999 click here

Another Look at Last Year's Science Fair Success

This information has been moved from the Science Fair page to make way for the 2013 Science Fair.

Below are the 2012 entries and winners. Joe, Cameron and Liam went on to win 2nd Place in the Physical World category at the Waikato Science Fair and Sonya and Kirsten went on to win a Highly Commended award at the Waikato Science Fair.

Following a great deal of hard work students finally submitted their project boards for judging at our school science fair. The investigations were varied and included finding which fruits grow the most mould, which soft drinks create the best Mentos volcanoes and which firewood burns best. Thanks to Pamela Dunn and Jasmine Ahmu for judging the competition.

And the winners were:

1st place: Kirsten Maclaurin and Sonya Fenton with Menacing Mould

2nd place: Joe Harris, Cameron Mailer and Liam Loveridge with Fire Fury

3rd place: Joel Geissmann with Tough Stuff



Highly Commended: New Helper by Jennifer Qiu





Fishy Business by Katie Simpson

Liquid Electricity by Katelynn Pini and Jemma Goodall





Bombs Away by Brendan Hunt and Brandyn Smith

Recommended Reading

The holidays have been a great opportunity to get lost in a good book. Check out the new titles on the blog bookshelf. Don't forget that if you have read a great book you'd like to recommend to others, write a short book review and we'll add it to the book review page.

We're back

It's been very quiet for the last couple of months while we have all been enjoying the summer sunshine... but we're back and looking forward to another busy year of learning. And just to get you started here are 50 collective nouns to bolster your vocabulary

A superfluity of nuns



A murder of crows

Inquiry Learning Going Platinum

Throughout Term 4 the Year 7/8 Inquiry group have been investigating their own inquiry questions. Today they shared their learning with the group. All the students have worked hard researching, analysing and evaluating the information they acquired. Many picked the brains of experts in their field and conducted surveys to gain information from a variety of sources.
Kaleesha wanted to investigate the role of the harp in an orchestra and find the instruments perceived to be most important. She presented her findings by writing alternative lyrics to Taylor Swifts "We Are Never, Ever, Getting Back Together", and did a fantastic job. Well done Kaleesha!
Look out for more posts sharing the work of these hard working students.

Teddy Town

Welcome to Teddy Town. In Teddy Town there are four houses of each colour and four teddies of each colour. The streets are very special. If you walk along a street from east to west all the houses are a different colour and the teddies living in the houses are a different colour too. The same is true if you walk in a north south direction. In other words, looking at a map grid, each row and column must have different coloured houses and different coloured teddies.

The JEM's (Junior Extension Maths) have been puzzling over Teddy Town for a while and today Camryn found a solution. What great perseverance she showed to solve this problem. Great work Camryn. Here is her solution.

What will Teddy Town look like if there are five teddies and houses of each colour and five purple teddies move into town and build five purple houses?

Thanks nrich for the great ideas and resources.

If Persistence was a Person

Recently on TV One's Close Up there was a story about Hana Old. Hana is 12 years old and has just published her first book, "If Persistence was a Person: The Story of Professor Swee Tan". Hana was just 11 when she watched a TV documentary on the life and work of Professor Swee Tan and was so moved that she decided to write a book to help fundraise the $4 million dollars that Swee Tan needs for his research with the Gillies McIndoe Research Institute. "If Persistence was a Person" is the result.All the profits from the sale of the book go to support Swee Tan’s research. Hana is an amazing example of just what can be achieved when we believe we can make a difference. Watch the Close Up excerpt to hear Hana's story. Copies of the book can be purchased from Paper Plus Online

New Inquiry

This term we will be working on a personal inquiry. Inquiry involves asking questions, gathering and analysing information, generating solutions, making decisions, justifying conclusions and taking action. It may be inspired by the book Taketakerau The Millenium Tree by Marnie Anstis, or there may be something else you feel particularly passionate or curious about. You will need to complete the Inquiry Contract before you begin.

Too Much Toothpaste

Do you ever get told you use too much toothpaste? Last week we worked out how much toothpaste we use in a day, in a week, in a month and in a year! Tama and Connor use 7.3 metres and Camryn, Erica and Ray use 14.6 metres each year!
This week we wanted to find out how much toothpaste there is in a tube so we could work out how many tubes of toothpaste we must use in a year and how much it all costs.

Camryn, Ray and Erica use a whole tube of toothpaste every 11 weeks but Tama and Connor make one tube last for 23 weeks.

How much do you use?