There's Something in the Water by Jose

"Are we swimming today Mrs Dines?" This had to be the most frequently asked question at Saint Patrick's School during the third term. Having a portable pool definitely raised the enthusiasm of students and teachers. Not only were we learning to swim, but also water survival techniques. We found out too how important it was for the pool water to be tested to ensure that it was safe to swim in.

We discussed and wrote about the importance of learning to swim and presented these as persuasive writing on our blogs. We created Wordles to emphasise and give more detail to our blog posts and had fun creating animation movies for the first time on our netbooks.

Wordle

Correcting the water and chlorine balance took over a week. "Are we swimming today?" "Are we swimming today?" "Are we swimming today?" These questions haunted our teacher until finally it was all go!

Our movie for the film festival was inspired by our learning about the chemicals and daily testing that was carried out on the pool water. Sometime up to three times a day!

We wondered...could children shrink only to grow back to size all as a result of chemical imbalance in the water? Thanks to the support of Mr Major and Tamaki College, we were also able to include a realistic scene in the science lab to create our entertaining movie. Also a big thanks to Mrs Bullot for her support in production. The movie making team included Clarade, Angela B, Angel, Aaron, Kit, Jose, Ben, Reitz, Maxine, Vitor and Christopher.


Water from St Patrick's School on Vimeo.

Saint Patrick's students have also been reviewing film festival movies on their blogs. Do you agree with their recommendations?

• Room 7 Manaiakalani Film Festival Reviews
• Room 8 Manaiakalani Film Festival Reviews 

Grounded

Can you imagine being stuck at home, grounded by yourself? Well I can. Trying to make up my mind whether to do homework or not I felt like I was in jail! My brain was about to explode!

Minecraft was introduced to me by Clark (my older brother) a month ago, I got addicted like a drug addict but instead of drugs it was a game. ‘Once you have finished your homework, you can play minecraft all you want’ my conscience kept on saying ‘No, no, no!’ My evil conscience demanded. 'Once you’ve started doing your homework, there’s no backing out’. Both of them were right, so I decided to play minecraft for 10 minutes since it was already 10.30, “Creeper!” I shouted, hypnotized by the game. “Mission Accomplished, I have finally found a diamond! I better do homework now” I said to myself. I checked the time, and then my eyes went wide open “It’s 12!” I shouted “Aaaah! I’ve been playing for 1 hour and 30 minutes”.
I felt a cold breeze touch my skin as I shivered; I took one step at a time trying not to faint. “Saint Vincent De Paul, who was he?” I asked myself “I should stick to my evil conscience I'll play all day long” By that, you should know how lazy I am to do things especially doing homework, who knows maybe in the future I would do my homework all day even though it would bore me.