Olympic Badminton

Today we met Daniel Shirley. He is an olympian badminton player and played in the Athens Olympic Games. He started playing lots of other sports from when he was 8, but badminton was his favourite.

You play badminton with a racquet and shuttle and you hit it to each other over a net. To win a game you score the most points, it also has a time limit.

Daniel said to become an Olympic champion you need to train a lot. Daniel trained very hard, 6 hours a day, every morning before and after school. He also said that you should show the Olympic values of respect, excellence and friendship.

We loved talking to Daniel and he inspired us to try badminton and be our best.

Inspired by Our Olympians

As a class we were interested in the Olympic Creed. So we explored the part ‘Not to have conquered but to have fought well’.

Together we came up with some of the qualities the Olympians would need to fight well:

• Sportsmanship,
• Determination,
• Ability to  push past pain,
• Self motivation,
• Honesty (Integrity),
• Confidence,
• Willingness to push to your limits,
• To be tough,
• To be enthusiastic and have that desire to win.

Our Olympians strive to win and to do very well, this is what matters. They are there to participate and they want to conquer. We don't believe our Olympians go just to participate, they all have their eyes on the medals. And so they should! 

We are proud of our Equestrians and Rowers. We sympathise with those who struggle and faced challenges like when a paddle broke for our rowers, bad weather disrupting preparation for a horse, tired horses, competing against better teams and having to live with the  mistakes the umpire makes. However our Olympians have participated fully, given their all and it is natural to feel disappointed when things don’t go to plan.

Our Olympians inspire us to:

-follow our dreams although it will take effort and might be painful,

-live to our fill potential,

-focus and put in the hard work daily,

-never let age be a barrier to reaching our dreams.

What goals are you striving for this year? Are you prepared to make it happen?

 Breellen

Miss T’s Classroom

Attribution –

Image: 'Day 2 Fence 2' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20878641@N00/3735158583   

Maths Olympics Day 2 & 3

If you want to be inspired...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/winter-olympics/3455572/Kiwi-Paralympian-wordless-after-crashing-to-gold-medal-win

Olympic Maths!

Our class are investigating length and weight this week so we are exploring this through the Maths Olympics! We have 10 events and we have made a short video of some of our investigations. 

We hope you enjoy it!

What other events do you think we could have added?

Haka at the Olympic Village

Marvin's Mindful Monkeys of Maraekakaho School are very lucky to have their own Olympic correspondent bring then the latest news from the Olympics. Nikki's Aunty Helen is a physiotherapist for the New Zealand Olympic team. She is living in the Olympic Village at the moment. 

The Olympic village is where the athletes and some of the people that help them live while the Olympic Games are on. She has sent the Mindful Monkeys some clips for us to watch. We are really excited to share a couple of these with you on the Pass it On blog. 

The first is one of a haka being performed as the Women's Football team enters the village. Everyone is greeted with a haka when they come to the village. On this clip is a reply to the welcome haka by the Football Ferns.

The second video shows the Canoe Slalom course and show our paddler going down part of the Olympic course.

What is the sport that you are looking forward to watching at the Olympics?

And the Olympics begin!