Messy but oh so delicious!!! - By Mason

Here are some more photos from our cooking during MATHS WEEKS! Scones on Wednesday and piklets on Thursday. We made all of it and they were so good! Thanks Mrs Shepard!

Cooking for MATHS WEEK! By Tayla

This week it is MATHS WEEK at Birchwood. All week we will be doing awesome maths activites. Today we started with baking some super delicious chocolate chip cookies. They were delicious! Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
1 ¼ cups plain flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
125g butter (at room temperature)
¾ cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence
1 large free-range egg
1 cup chocolate chips (I like to chop up good quality chocolate and use that)
3/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200°C conventional bake.
2. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl and stir with a whisk to combine.
3. In another bowl (or a food processor) beat together butter, brown sugar and vanilla with a hand mixer until well combined.
4. Add the egg and beat until well mixed.
5. Add flour mixture and mix well to combine.
6. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts if using.
7. Spoon the mixture in 2 tablespoon portions about 5cm apart on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
8. Bake in the oven for about 8-10 minutes. The edges of the biscuits should browned.
9. If using two trays at the same time, switch the trays around half-way through to ensure even cooking.
10. Cool the biscuits on the tray for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. Eat them warm then make some more!

Home Stretch

My adventure has sadly come to an end as we embark on the long journey home. So much to share with you all. Looking forward to seeing you all very soon. X😆

We will be on the Radio next week!!!

Speeches, speeches, speeches!

We have been working so hard on our speeches in Room 10. To create a speech we had a format to follow that covered the content. It looked like this:

- Title

- Opening statement (clearly states our position on the topic).

- Three arguments (including evidence)

- A conclusion

We worked on our delivery too. We focussed on pace of voice, expression, eye contact, gestures and hand signals, volume etc.

Here we are in action!

TUMEFIKA

Hi all

We made it! Mt Kilimanjaro ticked off! Wow, what a climb. Amazing climbing in high altitude, so different to a regular low altitude climb. Incredible feeling reaching the summit!
See you all soon Room 10.

Is it a W or a M ???

Every Wednesday we spend 45minutes with Nelson League co-ordinator Ryan Charles. He is an awesome coach and we are learning heaps! Can you spot yourself in the photos below?

Poetry Art - By Tara and Tayla

In room 10 we have been doing lots of reading, for one of our reading tasks we had to create a piece of art based on the poem 'If I go west from here'. It could be anything from a pop-up poster, to a beach in a box.

By Tara

Our finished products

If I go west from here
surf into the sea's blue mine
each wave a coalface

If I go west from here
crossing the bar and on
to where the waves themselves are mountains

If I go west from here
beyond the lands shadow
beyond the black-backed gull

beyond even
the edge of breath

When I go west from here
travelling with all the travellers

you will see me in the seams of the sea

feel me
in the arms of the sun

know me
in the form
of every unfurling line.

JUMBO JUMBO ROOM 10

Hi all

Tumefika!!!  We made it!
Mt Meru (4665m) accomplished!! One mountain down, one to go. It was amazing!
This climb was the hardest physical challenge I have ever experienced and many other factors pushed me outside my comfort zone. It  is actually a harder mountain to climb than Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya!  It was a real scramble to the top. We left at 1am with headlamps on and arrived in time to see the sun rise behind Kili at 6am. As soon as the sun rises, the temperatures drops rapidly so you don't stay long. We had to retrace our steps back and talk about an eye opener to actually see where you walked in the dark!!!! You'll see my pics when I get back.
We start the Mt Kilimanjaro climb tomorrow. The rest of our group arrive today from NZ and Sweden making a team of 6. We are really hoping Neelusha Memon, our friend who is blind, makes it to the top. This mountain climbing adventure is hard enough as it is, even with eyesight!

Carnivores

We had dinner at a famous restaurant called Carnivores. It had unusual meat like crocodile and ostrich meatballs!  This fire- pit bbq is the largest I have seen.
They carry the meat around on large prongs and carve at the table onto your plate. Have to watch that knife!!!!

My New Friends at Moshi Market

These amazing people work 7 days a week, and in the heat of the scorching sun. Young children sleep anywhere there is a space while their mum's work. The two ladies here were so welcoming and loved having their photo taken, as long as we showed them it after. They would laugh and giggle wanting us to take more. The African ladies spend alot of time doing their hair in braids or other fancy ways.
The last 3 days we have being doing lots of walking. We walk into the township and back to where we are staying, some distance out of town. Basically we are walking the same distance from Mapua to the Richmond mall everyday, and in the heat! We are covered in a layer of dust at the end of the day. It's very dry here and the ground is as hard as the seal on the road. I can't wait to share all my stories with you. :)

Paper / Plastic cups

Kia ora whanau, 

If you have any plastic or paper cups at home to donate to Room 10 could you please bring them to school! We will be using these in maths. 

Many thanks, Mrs Shepard

Fractions are hard - by Nardia

We are learning to do fractions in Room 10. We are learning about fractions because they are really hard for us to do. Mrs Shepard taught us using rods of different colours. We had to build train carriges. We had to change an improper fraction into a mixed numeral or a proper fraction. It was really hard but it got easier after I practiced. 

EG.

7/4 = 1 3/4
8/3 = 2 2/3

Here's some photos of us using the rods to help with our fractions. 

This is me

Marcos Jayden and William working hard

At the end Tia had a play

Africa - Nairobi in Kenya

Have just finished a 4 day safari in the Masai Mari. Many stories to tell. We were lucky enough to catch the wilderbeasts crossing the Mara river, a sight not everyone gets to see as they can prepare to cross for hours or even days. Spectacular but also very sad. Why do you think that might be?  We saw so many animals, it was incredible! Here's just a couple of shots to show you.
My colourful friend is Big Chief's son at a Masai Mari village. I danced with the men and wore son of chief's lion skin hat. I refused to be second wife! Peter tried to sell me for 20 cows! Cows too precious so instead he bought me son of chief's lion tooth necklace.

Guess what?
I now have a wee granddaughter called Stella. She finally arrived on the last day of July! 😊

Hope you are having a great start to the term Room 10. Is Mrs Shepard behaving herself? 😉