Year 8 Leavers Movie & Farewell Songs!

Here it is...our Year 8 Leavers Movie - we're going to miss these guys! 

Teary, smiling faces when it all finished...

Bridle Path Hike & Raft Building: Awesome Way to End the Year!

Barn Dance Anyone?

Every year we have a Barn Dance to celebrate our Year 8 Leavers and for the class to have a good time together. Thank you those Year 6,7 & 8s and their parents who supported this year's Barn Dance - we all had a fantastic time!

Rimu's Last NZSL session...

We have a class of signers! In our class is Jorja, our wonderful student who is profoundly Deaf. This means we have Victoria, who is a New Zealand Sign Language Tutor come into our class each week for an hour and teach us sign language, so we can all communicate with Jorja better. This was our last session and Victoria presented us all with certificates for completing this year of NZSL.

If you would like to see Jorja's 'Sign of the Week' she does for our whole school in assemblies, please visit her blog: http://ymsjorjas.blogspot.co.nz/

Here is another great clip if you're interested in learning some basic NZSL for the classroom:

Basic NZSL

"Find Something You Like To Do" and "Choose Your Friends Wisely"...

Rimu Class had a fascinating day learning about Drugs, Alcohol and our Brains in the Life Education truck with Amanda and Harold. First we named all the bad drugs we knew - the goal was 20 - we got to 13! Then we looked at the definition of what a drug is,

 "a chemical substance that changes the way our body works."

We looked at 3 people's stories - Amy, Jason and Rita. They all came from different backgrounds - we could all relate to them at 11 and 12 years old. For different reasons, they started with the 'gateway' drugs; drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana - this soon developed into really serious drugs, like sniffing glue and taking P (or Methamphetamine).

 Their stories were so interesting, quite sad and made us realise some things...

"Choose your friends wisely - don't make silly choices" 

- Cayde

"Look up from your circle - not everyone is doing drugs" - Grace

"Go your own way; don't follow each other" 

- Paige

"Build a strong relationship with your family now just in case anything happens" 

- Nikita

"You don't have to take drugs or alcohol to fit in - just be yourself"

- Jacob

"If you're feeling sad and feel like you don't fit in - talk to your parents"  

- Bree

"If anyone asks me to take drugs I would say NO" 

- Ariana

"In some situations, try not to convince yourself that the people who you hang out with really are your friends - they might be using you" 

- Bella N

"Make the right choices" 

- Bella P

"Choose people that respect and understand you" 

- Emily

"Don't let peer pressure get to you" 

- Jack

"You don't have to be a follower" 

- Shukoor

"Make friends not "friends" "

- Tim

"Find something you enjoy to do and go down the right path" 

- Zach

What great advice from 11, 12 and 13 year olds!

Did you know Brain Development ends at the age of 25? 

We think we should be careful about putting harmful substances into our brains before then, as taking drugs and alcohol in your teenage years before our brains are fully developed makes us more likely to get addicted...and we don't want to get addicted to drugs and alcohol! 

We got a great book each to take home - lots of interesting facts and activities to do in it. 

We look forward to reading it and learning more about this topic, as education and feeling good about ourselves when we go to high school is KEY!

Can the students of Rimu Class build a waterproof and dry shelter? Let's find out...