2008 BEGINS

2008 is off to a great start! I am in Year 8 now. My room is Room 9. I really like my teacher as well. This term we are studying citizenship. We have also covered water safety. Once again, please keep the comments coming!

MY HOLIDAY

2007 soon came to an end. Today is Tuesday, and we will be going back to school on Thursday. I thought that I would share what I did in the holidays with the world. I was planning to go for lots of swims in our pool, go to a camp and go on holiday with my family. Unfortunately, I got sick. After a week I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance with a ruptured appendix. I was in hospital for 13 days. I had two operations, a pick line, a luer, a drain, a nasal gastric tube, an ultrasound scan and a CT scan. I'm feeling lots, lots better now, and I can't wait for school to begin!

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Luckily, I got one sunny day at Muriwai Beach where I took some photos. It was a lovely day.

BALL SKILLS

In the winter months, we focussed on large ball skills. Afterwards, we reflected on what we had learnt. My self-evaluation:

VOLLEYBALL
Volley the ball - 2/6
Digging the ball - 3/6
Spiking the ball - 1/6
Working in a team - 3/6



BASKETBALL
Passing the ball - 4/6
Dribbling the ball - 3/6
Shooting style - 3/6
Working in a team - 5/6



SOCCER
Dribbling the ball - 2/6
Kicking the ball accurately - 3/6
Passing the ball - 3/6
Working in a team - 5/6



NETBALL
Passing using a chest pass - 5/6
Passing without stepping - 6/6
Defence and attack strategy - 4/6
Working in a team - 5/6

CROSS COUNTRY / ATHLETICS DAY

Cross Country was in Term 3. Most days, my class would go out and run 2 laps of the school. When we came back, we would reflect in a reflection log and mark our progress by filling in two gaps of many that went around a drawing of the North Island of New Zealand. After all our training, I had travelled from Auckland, up to Cape Reinga, and down to one gap short of Tauranga.

My Goal: My goal is to improve my time by at least 30 seconds each time I run.

Here is my log:

DATE: 19/ 07/ 07
TIME: 9:55
LAPS: 2
COMMENTS: I am tired but satisfied for my first session.

DATE: 20/ 07/ 07
TIME: 9:52
LAPS: 2
COMMENTS: I'm proud of myself - I didn't stop or walk!

DATE: 24/ 07/ 07
TIME: 9:20
LAPS: 2
COMMENTS: I'm happy because I beat my time by 32 seconds!

DATE: 26/ 07/ 07
TIME: 9:45
LAPS: 2
COMMENTS: I'm disappointed with today's time. Better luck next time!

DATE: 27/ 07/ 07
TIME: 8:45
LAPS: 2
COMMENTS: I'm happy I improved by a minute!

DATE: 31/ 07/ 07
TIME: 15:09
LAPS: 3
COMMENTS: I had to walk a little bit, but that's OK!

DATE: 8/ 8/ 07
TIME: 16:04
LAPS: 3
COMMENTS: That was our last one. I'm so tired!

Write a brief statement about how you felt you trained for Cross Country:
I trained well at school for Cross Country. Mostly I improved my time, but not for 30 seconds! I realise now that 30 seconds was quite a lot to improve by! I enjoyed the Cross Country training.

How well did you do on the day?
On the day, I think I went a bit slower than I could have because I hadn't run the route before and didn't know if I would get too tired.

Effort Score: 4+ / 6

Place: 115th
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Athletics day came too, in Term 4. " The key to our Athletics programme is to have fun and to focus on developing agility, balance, coordination and speed through..."

Shotput throwing technique
Self - 3
Peer - 3

Discus throwing technique
Self - 3
Peer - 4

Running / sprinting technique
Self - 4
Peer - 5

Relays / Baton change
Self - 4
Peer - 5

Long Jump
Self - 4
Peer - 4

High Jump
Self - 2
Peer - n/a

If you were to outline the Athletics programme, how would you explain it?
While we were training, we trained for discus, shotput, baton changing, long jump, and I did high jump at my afterschool class. I enjoyed long jump the most because I loved to see how far I could jump, and I liked the feeling of just running and jumping.
On Athletics Day I completed in the tableau, discus, shotput and sprints. Overall, I think that I fitted into everything quite nicely, but some I put more effort into than others. I think that I most need to improve on shotput. The shotput is quite heavy, and I wasn't used to its weight. I didn't throw it very far.

Effort Meter

During this unit I...

Busted my guts! I really did!
Sweated and puffed endlessly.
Puffed at certain stages.
Fitted in quite nicely to everything that took place.
Went through the motions.
Sat on the grass. Exhausting!

BEEP TEST

Before and after Cross Country, my class did the beep test. My teacher put on a tape, starting with Round 1 #1 - #2, right up to somewhere around Round 15. The tape beeped every so often, and we had to run to the end of the court before it beeped again. We ran and ran, back and forth, back and forth, until the beep got there first. The first time we did it, before Cross Country, on the second of July, which was a cool day with slightly wet, therefore slippery, concrete, I got up to Level 5.
The second time we did the beep test, after Cross Country, on the thirteenth of August, which was a very hot day with a slight breeze, I got up to Level 11, #2! I improved by approximately 6 levels!

LIFE ED. CARAVAN

In the time if a couple of weeks, my class went to the Life Education Caravan three times.
The life education teacher taught us about...

The three A words ~
Appetite / Attitude / and Activity.

Well Being ~
Physical well being, / Mental and emotional well being, / Social well being, / and Spiritual well being.

The WOF - Warrant of Fitness for us is ~
Water / Oxygen / Food

The food pyramid ~
At the end we got to pat Harold on the nose. We had all learnt a lot.

WIDGETS

Here are some cool things that you can get on the internet from various sites that I have visited! So go on! Get some for your site! Here are the sites I got them from:

* fancygens.com (which seems to have closed down)
* glittertools.com
* glittermaker.com
* clocklink.com
* weatherpixie.com
* freeweblogger.com
* widgetbox.com

You could get dancing text, and bubble text, and glitter text etc from FancyGens, which are no longer available (and therefore no longer show up here) but bear in mind there are so many other websites that offer similar widgets.

These two are from cooltext.com






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WEB 2.0 LINKS

Here are some links to some handy Web 2.0 tools that you can use for free!

www.voki.com
Lets you create a cartoon character that can say things for you.

www.slide.com
Lets you create slideshows and Funpix.

www.bubbleshare.com
Lets you share you photos uniquely.

www.blogger.com
Lets you create a blog.

www.wikispaces.com
Lets you create a wiki.

www.podomatic.com
Lets you share your podcasts with the world.

www.polldaddy.com
Lets you create a poll or survey.

www.ourstory.com
Lets you create a timeline.

www.sr.se/p1/src/sing
Let Them Sing It For You. (Lets you type in words to be sung.)

www.weebly.com
Lets you create a blank web page for anything you want to put on.

www.toondoo.com
Lets you create comic strips and books!

MESSAGE FOR YOU

Just a quick message to the world, all my viewers! Looking at my clustrmap, I see that a lot of people have been watching my blog's progress (and mine!). However, I don't get very many comments or people signing my guestbook. If you could, could you please, please, please leave a comment! I would love to hear from you, hear what you think of my e-portfolio, and receive feedback and feed-forward. Thanks! : )