The Great Box Car Race

Because Mr O'C looks after PE at Tawa Intermediate Room 14 always gets to sort and label new PE gear when it arrives. This week Noodle (a.k.a. Nikki) and Hiren took a close interest in the two empty boxes. At lunch they were quickly turned into cars complete with a wing mirror on the girl's vehicle.

Before assembly on Wednesday we decided to have a bit of fun with the cars so headed over to the corridors for some racing.

Team Noodle line up
against Team Hirenator.

The power of Matai pushes Rhys to a win















The Hirenator has a go as engine and pushes Finn so fast the camera can't keep up









Morgan likes the idea of being pushed by Goergina's strength.

Room 14 couch rights

As shown room 14 holds a very special activity, rewarding our behaviour and work. Each week 2-4 students get the rights to sit on the couch during class time.

If someone sits on the couch, without

permission, they will have to do 5 belly-ups!

Room 14's Show Not Tell.

In room 14 we have been learning a writing technique called Show Not tell. It means that when telling a story you not going straight to the point but describing it so you get a picture in your mind. Here are a few of our Show Not Tell samples.


As I limp into the public toilets everyone was in them. As I wait and wait a toilet becomes free. Finally as I put my bum on the smooth lid, a hurricane of poo slid out. Oh that felt good. Oh no! Everyone was watching.

By Zandrea Burdan

As I waddled to the toilet feeling my bladder rumbling, squeezing my massive grey wrinkly cheeks together. I place my bum onto the smooth surface. My bladder starts to empty. Poo oozing out of me, sloppy and runny. I grabbed some white rough patterned toilet paper, I wipe the splattered mess off my cheeks. I proudly look at it and then drop it with a plop! I put pressure on the button and then walk out. “That’s so much better.” But then ... the stench fills the air.

By Bex McAlister

I was on the start line, across from me was Usain bolt from Jamaica. On the other side was Aidan Ritchie from New Zealand. ‘BLAM’ we were off. Soon the only two people in front of me were Usain and Aidan. The finishing line was in touching distance, but then one of my spikes came loose. The ground rushing towards me , ‘Crack’ my wrist , ‘Crack ‘ my spine , ‘Crack ‘ my ankle , ‘Crack ‘ my knee cap . I wasn’t in pain at the moment but I knew the pain would come soon enough.

By Aidan Ritchie


As the strong stench of mud fills my snout, I snort towards it. Caplonk! Sludgy, pongey, gooey mud covers my pink skin. The warm salty taste of mud fills my mouth. I slide across as fast as a bullet. Mud flicks across like a sprinkler. My ears flop up and down as i jump into piles of mud. I love mud.

By Nikki Devine

Room 14's home learning tasks

Room 14 has to do at least 4 home learning unit tasks each term. Quite a lot of people have handed their tasks in already. This is Finn's completed fitness circuit. It looks amazing doesn't it?

Blogged by Nikki, Bex, Rhys and Jess

Adding Detail to our Writing using Show not Tell

In Room 14 we have been working on making our writing more interesting by letting the reader know what is happening by creating a picture with words rather than simply telling them. This is called writing with Show not Tell. We have taken boring sentences and rewritten them in an interesting way. Here is a couple of samples.

Original Boring Sentence: It was cold on the beach.

Nikki’s Show not Tell Sentence:

As the wind furiously blew, I fought against it to finally reach the car park. Sand blew into my face, waves rumbled with terror as they rose and clapped back into the ocean. As I reached the car I opened the door, it flung back like a gun that back fired. I quickly jumped in the car. As I struggled to close the door, the wind changed direction and slammed it for me. “Maybe tomorrow”, I said to myself as I drove away from the beach.

Original Boring Sentence: Dad was angry.

Georgina’s Show not Tell Sentence:

Dad’s face was as red as a traffic light, his jaw clenched as if a lion ready to pounce. Steam was exploding out of his ears like a volcano and his veins were popping. I think dad is mad.

Enlargements

We have been looking at enlargements in maths where we have taken small pictures and enlarged them by a scale factor of three. Here is Josh’s Dog Face and Alex’s Pointing Finger.

Our Reading Table

Room 14 has a big table we use as our reading table. This table has graffiti art on it. Cleveland, who was in Room 14 last year, did the art work and it is his version of the TIS logo.

Cleveland working on the table

The Finished Table

How to Write Instructions

In Room 14 we have been working on writing instructions where there is a split part way through offering at least two options for people to choose from. Our instructions must include a title, equipment list and instructions that are in the right order.

Mr O'C in Malaysia - Melaka and Penang

17th July – Saturday

Travelled back to KL on the commuter train and then had to catch a second train out to Jelatek where Fauziah’s daughter picked us up.

Dinner that night included octopus. When ordering a drink I was asked if I wanted a large drink, as I drink a lot I of course said yes. The lady then brought over what can only be called a bucket. It took some work to get through it.


18th July – Sunday

Today we had a very long trip to Melaka, which is a historical town on the coast south of KL. The trip there, which included three trains and a bus took four long hours.

While there we checked out some of the historical sites, particularly from the periods the area was occupied by the Portuguese and then by the Dutch. All the history was overwhelmed by me having the chance to get my photo taken with a snake. I know it is very touristy but it was still quite buzz having it slither around my neck and to hold it for the photo.

The trip home to KL took even longer. We only just managed to get on an 8pm bus from Melaka. Stupidly I commented that the bus seemed a bit run down, and sure enough half an hour into the journey we stopped at a roundabout and could not get going. The blokes had to get off the bus and push it backwards away from the roundabout and then we all waited for another bus. This arrived but turned out to be very slow so by the time we got back to KL we were only able to get the first train of two we needed before the trains closed down for the night. We then taxied the last bit to Jelatek.


19th July – Monday

We travelled to Penang today. It is a large Island just off the coast of Malaysia. It is connected to the main lain by a quite impressive bridge. We stayed at the D’Ferringhi Hotel in Batu Ferringhi. Batu Ferringhi translated means Foreigner’s Rock and this certainly was a touristy place.

The beach was beautiful and the empty sidewalks convert into a massive night market at 6pm. Once again the ringgit disappeared.

We had dinner at Sails Restaurant. It can best be described as Fishermans Table on steroids. The restaurant itself resembles Fishermans Table but there was definitely an effort to make the service seem like it was very up market.

20th July – Tuesday

We had arranged for a local tour guide to drive us around some of the main spots on the island. This cost $100 ringgit, or $50 nz dollars, for four hours. So Ayob picked us up at 9am.

The highlight was the Key Lok Si temple. The original part of this temple started being built in 1890 and took twenty years to finish. The temple is now spread over seven levels including the top level where the huge statue of Guan-Yin is. The original version of this statue was done in 1967 but it deteriorated quickly. The new 120 feet tall bronze statue was put in place in 1999.

Mr O'C in Malaysia - Klang

12th July – Monday

New host family seem just as nice as my first. Veejay and Sheila have a beautiful house that actually has a small grass area that the boys, Kaveesh and Jayshven, can play football on.

My new school, SK (1 DAN 2) Tengku Bendahara Azman, is a lot smaller with only 250 students in the morning session. It has students from standard 1 to 6. It is also different to Pei Chai in that the afternoon session is a completely different school, with even a new principal.

My host teacher, Anira, had arranged for me to visit a number of classes including a music class where I was introduced to two traditional instruments. The first was a bamboo one you shake to make work, called Angklung. The second was a hand drum called a Kompang.

I also had the pleasure of meeting a blind teacher called Lim Mei Huey. She works one on one with blind students and showed me how to use a brail machine.

That evening I was taken to an area of Klang called Little India. This area is full of Indian shops and boutiques. Once again I found some of my ringgit disappearing.


13th July – Tuesday

I was feeling really tired and unwell. I managed to get through the school day where I visited an English class, the special needs area and a science class. This school is a National school with mainly Malay students. The atmosphere is much more like a New Zealand school with students being a lot more free and noisy than they were at the Chinese school in Kuantan.

The hectic pace and heat of the last ten days caught up with me and I died and slept most of the afternoon. I did recover enough to attend a dinner at Chandika’s house where I finally got to taste the supposed king of all fruits, the Durian. This is one of the most popular fruits in Malaysia. Of all the food I have tasted in Malaysia this was the first that I actually did not like. My screwed up face made it clear to my hosts that the Durian was not the king of fruits for me.


14th July – Wednesday

I felt terrible when I got up so did not go to school. Instead I slept until 12ish with just a small break to get some food in me. I also increased the amount of water I was drinking to even more than I was drinking previously. Even after the sleep I felt terrible so I was taken to the doctors. It turned out I had a chest and throat infection so I was put on a course of antibiotics and predisone. I was expecting a huge bill and to need to make a claim on my health insurance policy, therefore I was amazed when the cost of everything was only 50 ringgit, or 25 nz dollars.

In the early evening I was taken to see the night markets. This was an interesting experience as I looked around the vast range of food, clothes and pirated DVDs / CDs. The health department in NZ would go crazy if they saw the raw chicken hanging around in the heat.

Later that evening VJ and Sheila took me to a Seik prayer service. Seikism is a religion that is only around 400 years old. It is a combination of Hindu and Islam. Its first prophet was born to a Hindu family in a Muslim villiage and he obviously combined the two to form Seikism. The service involved a lot of chanting, none of which I understood, but it was quite captivating and I found myself rocking slightly in rhythm with the chanting. The service was of course followed by food, any opportunity to eat is taken in Malaysia.


15th July – Thursday

Last day at Tengku Bendahara. The day is dominated by a hour and a half farewell to me which included me being allocated thirty minutes to talk. Fortunately I was able to get a data projector set up so I took them through my presentation on NZ. The school put on a wonderful show of traditional culture including Kompang, a Sumazam dance, a Joget dance and Choral speaking. Choral speaking is best described as polite rapping.

16th July - Friday

Went to a religious school called SAMT Sultan Hisamuddin. This is a secondary school covering the full range of secondary forms 1 to 6. The school is very similar to other schools in Malaysia but places more emphasis on religious studies than other schools do.

In the evening we drove to Bukit Belimbing, about an hour out of Klang. There we went on a tourist trip at the Firefly Park Resort. This involved going out onto a river in a small boat at night to see fireflys. Initially this was rather unspectacular as the lights were just sitting still in the trees and I thought someone had just put a few thousand LEDs up. But when we got closer you could see the lights moving and it started to look more like a fairy scene out of a movie as lots of the glowing lights began to fly around. A highlight was when Sheila tried to point out one flying above our boat which, much to her embarrassment, we all immediately worked out was a plane flying overhead.

Tomorrow we leave for KL. Another great week in Malaysia despite being sick. My host family have been very kind and I am sad to be leaving them.