Leaders trip to Papanui!

 Hi Bloggers,

Welcome to term 4! For the first two days of this term, the 2020 leaders at our school travelled to Papanui and for two days to do a day camp to learn about the habits of effective people. This sounded boring when we first got told but when we got into it and started to understand it wasn't too bad, Jeremy, this was our instructor. 

The seven habits are:

Be proactive, stay calm and look at the positive side, your the driver not the passenger.

Begin with the end in mind, think about the bigger picture and how little things might affect other things.

Put first things first, do your bigger tasks first not the little ones otherwise you will run out of time.

Think win-win, don't always make things fair, just make sure all people win one way or another.

Seek first to understand then to be understood, try to hear with the intent to listen not to reply.

Synergize, everything is better together, demonstrate good problem-solving skills.

Here are some pictures from some of the activities to demonstrate the habits:

Fantastic Film Noir!

 Kia Ora Bloggers, 

Over this term, we have researched and looked at evidence of different genres and their conventions, some of the genres were: Horror, Sci-Fi, Film Noir, western and musical. Next, we had to choose one of the genres we were interested in and wanted to look into more and create a video essay/presentation.

It took a lot of searching and effort to get a full script with lots of facts but I finished it eventually, but that wasn't the end of it. Next, I had to find different clips from different movies that go with the facts I wrote down and different photos. I used WeVideo to put everything together but the app kept playing up so it took a little while. 

I decided it would be easier to do the voice over first so I could have things popping up while I'm talking and not have to worry about me talking too fast. Here is my finished essay, I think I did pretty well and now I just need to wait for my score!  

How has your last week been?

Become a super sign language ninja!

 Kia Ora Bloggers,

This week is National sign language, 14 years ago sign language became an official language of New Zealand along with Maori and English. Before the 6th of April 2006 sign language was banned from being used, children were forced to use it in secret and if they were found to be using it, children kept sugn language going without adults for over 100 years! 

Sign language is a mix of hand shapes, facial expressions and body movements, it was created by deaf people for deaf people. Italso reflects New Zealand culture by including by including signs for Maori terminology and concepts. 

For our task today we did things based on sign language week. First, we had to go over our alphabet and make sure we could remember it for later, then we had to go on this sign ninja site and complete the different tasks and play the games throughout the different rooms. Here is a link to the site for you to try it yourself: Sign Ninja!

Because we learnt the alphabet we had to sign "Kia ora, my name (your name)" I found this quite easy because I am quite good with the sign language alphabet. Here I am doing it:

Do you know your sign language?

 

Renegade Launch Finals

 Kia ora Bloggers,

If you have seen some of my recent blog posts you would know that we have been working on rockets and on Tuesday we had our final launch to see how our rocket would fly. We weren't very confident in our rocket as we had made a lot of changes since our first flight but hadn't had the chance to test it.

When we did fly it, it was a nice surprise as it actually flew very well, it went 65 metres and had 5.85 seconds in the air. This was the second-best out of everyone's so we are pretty proud. This was a fun experience and I learnt quite a lot about all the things that go into rockets behind the scenes. Here is our slide, the video of our flight is on the last slide, it isn't the best as the sun was in the way. 

Have you ever create a rocket?

Code your own PSA

 Kia Ora bloggers,

On Wednesdays half our class if off at tech in the mornings, and the last half of the day we go to tech. As our task to complete we had to create our own PSA, this stands for Public Service Announcment, I did mine to tell people to pick up litter.

We started off by having to go through this step by step programme so we can learn how to use it, after we had to create your own one. I found this quite easy up until when I had to make it interactive, this was confusing to find all the right buttons. 

I had to take screenshots because we couldn't embed it into our blog posts, but here are the important frames and my coding. 

Renergade rockets reflection

Kia Ora Bloggers,

For our inquiry we are looking into rockets, we have ambassadors coming in every Tuesday to teach us different things that go into making rockets, we are ending up making our own out of plastic bottles.

I am in a group with Bailee, Brooke and Hannah, we are called the renegade rockets. We have had to make a prototype rocket and a test flight. Here is our reflection of our test rocket and flight:

The messy microwave

Hi bloggers,

Over the past few weeks, we have a student teacher in our hub, his name is Mr Loan, he has been working alongside Mr shaw, so for literacy Mr Loan has been teaching us about children's book and some different authors.

It was all leading up to us creating our own children's books for the new entrance kids in kiwi, I found this quite challenging to make it interesting but I think my book turned out quite well. 

Mine is called The Messy Microwave, it is about a microwave that isn't being treated very well and has to find something to do about it. The moral of my story is to treat people with kindness.

This is my finished picture book, I made it using google slides. Let me know what you think of my book!

Super Samoan Classroom

 Talofa bloggers,

Since the start of the year we have been learning Samoan.  This is my virtual classroom where I have put all my learning for you to also learn from.  If you hover over items in my classroom, a hyperlink will pop up for you to click on.

In my classroom you will learn about:

• Samoa as a country

• Link to a traditional dance video

• Basic greetings

• The alphabet

• How to count 1-10 

• Information about Siapo - how it is created, some examples

• An animation showing a simple conversation in Samoan

I hope you enjoy my classroom and I would really like to know what you enjoyed the most.

How to play E hia

 Kia ora bloggers,

Over the past 4 weeks we have been learning about some Moari games, the first two were learning the games and the next two we got put into groups and got one of the games we learnt, and had to make a poster with a QR code.

I was with Harvey, Jack C, Jack B and Mckenna. I created the poster while the others planned what we were going to do in our video, this week we filmed our video and finished off our poster. Here it is finished: 

Have you ever learned a Moari game? if so what game?

Samoan Slide Animation

 Hi Bloggers,

This Wednesday we looked at the Samoan greetings and had to make an animation using some of these greetings. We could use either scratch or google slides, I chose google slides because I find it easier to navigate. 

I used a Samoan beach as my background and used two little people as my characters, one is teaching the other the Samoan greetings. Here is my finished animation:

Let me know if you have any feedback! 

Paper Parachute

 Kia Ora Bloggers,

For inquiry, we are looking at rockets and on the last two days last week we looked at the parachutes used, our next task was to create our own parachute using paper, fabric, tape and string. I was in a group with Brooke, Isaac and Oliver.

Do you have any feedback for us?

Here is our slide explaining our designs:

Weekly budget shopping

Kia ora Bloggers,

This was the first week back at school after the holidays and I am happy to be back because I missed seeing everyone. Are you happy to be back at school?

Every Wednesday we have technology, this year because we have so many kids we had to make two groups, an morning and an afternoon but both groups complete the same tasks when not at tech. This weeks task was to make a shopping list of everything we would need to feed a family of four for a week, I found this task quite easy but the next task was a bit harder.

The next task was to go onto a supermarket online shop and make a shopping list for a family of four but we had a budget of 170 dollars, but to make it even harder three of them had allergies. The dad had none, the mum was dairy-free, the daughter was vegan and the son was gluten-free. 

I paired up with Billie-jo for this task and completed it on a slide, and have a slide for each day. It includes breakfast, lunch and tea, sometimes they may have had to have different meals. This is our slide:

Amazing Aurora

Kia Ora Bloggers,

In Maori, we have been looking at Matariki and the southern lights/ aurora's, today we started a piece of art to do with these lights. Here are some facts we have learnt:

The name Aurora comes from the Latin word that means sunrise or the Roman goddess of dawn.

An Aurora is a natural light that appears in the sky, usually, the colour is green but can sometimes be either blue or red.

The natural light usually occurs in the 'aurora zone' near the arctic poles, the north and the south.

Aurora is caused by the collision of energetically charged particles with atoms in the high altitude thermosphere within our atmosphere.

Auroras are associated with the solar winds that flow past Earth. These winds flow out from the Sun and contain plasma particles (ionized gas) which gets pulled into the Earth's magnetic pole fields.

As they accelerate towards the Earth, collisions occur between these ion particles and nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our atmosphere, releasing energy in the form of amazing aurora lights.

For our piece of art, we started off by ripping a piece of paper to make our hills, we taped that on hand flicked white paint onto make the milky way. Next, we used chalk pastels and drew on the white paper in a pattern with our choice of colours. Afterwards, we used different fingers to spread the pastel to create the lights, after everything has set you use light yellow paint to create the Matariki stars and you are done!

Here is how mine turned out:

Marvellous Matariki

Kia Ora Bloggers,

Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at Matariki and had to do a create task about it. I paired up with Jessica and we created our own Matariki story on how they became stars. 

We used book created to make our book, it is made for little children and is filled with pictures and is fun to read. 

Did you do anything for Matariki?

Here is a link to our book: Matariki Book

Expressing patterns

Kia Ora Bloggers,
How has your week gone?

This week during math we have looked out how to find patterns and write an equation on how to find it. Our last task was to find a pattern and work out what the 99th number would be and write an equation.

I worked with Hana to try find the answer and the pattern, it took a while but in the end, we found out how we could find the answer with the even numbers. Here is my slide and the question slide.

Binary Bag Chain

Kia Ora Bloggers,
How has your day been?

This morning we have learned about binary and how to put our names in binary. We had to write it in our books to show that we understood what to do. After we had planned we put our initials in binary and then into ASCII.

We choose three colours each representing something, I chose orange for the on, red for the off and blue for the space. This is how it turned out:

Wizard of OZ website

Kia Ora Bloggers,

How has your week been?

Over the last three weeks for literacy, we have had to create a website about the wizard of oz. During lockdown, we read the book and watched the movie so we were ready to start when we got back. 

For our website we had to choose either to write it on the book or the movie, I chose the book because I understood and got more information from the book.

We had to write 9 TEXAS's an intro and a conclusion. Each TEXAS is about either a theme, a character or a symbol, we had to choose 3 of each. A TEXAS is a structure we use to help write our essays. 

This is my website home page:

Here is a link to my site if you want to see the finished thing: WOZ site

Taking over

Kia Ora Bloggers, 

How has your day been?

As our inquiry this term we are looking at global issues and how they are affecting different countries, on Tuesday we went around the class and looked at pictures that had a meaning behind them, we had to write what they meant to us. 

We then had to choose one of the pictures we saw and write at least a paragraph about it, I choose this one because it jumped out to me and I thought it was quite relevant. Here is my slide and what I wrote about it. 

Clay Koru Pendant

Kia Ora Bloggers,
On Friday mornings we look at Moari, this term we have started to make our own pendants out of clay, it is a long process leading up to using clay but that means we will like them.

To start off we needed to draw three designs and make sure that had a meaning behind them, then we needed to pick one and make it out of playdough. We then drew our final design and make sure that s what we wanted, afterwards we got some clay and a toothpick and moulded our design while using water to keep it damp.

My design is two korus that are in each other, this represents my older family members looking over me and my younger family members. This is how it turned out:
Do you like it?

Custom comic

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Today we looked at what types of irony there is and the differences, there is verbal irony, which is where someone says something but mean the opposite, situation irony, which is where you expect something to happen but the opposite happens, lastly, there is dramatic irony, this is where the audience sees something the characters don't.

Our comic is about me asking Brooke if she could do a certain type of handstand, after she did it she asked if it was good and I told her yes, she had turned away I told the audience that it actually wasn't

We then had to create a comic strip with a partner on one of them, I was buddies with Brooke, we chose to do verbal irony. Here is our comic strip:
What did you like about it?

Rigging take three

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Over the past two days, we have been looking at a game and trying to find a strategy so we can always win. I partnered up with Hana and we used a table to show how we worked it out, the game is called take three.

How to play: We used 21 counters and set them up in a line, we labelled them 1 through 21, and you could take up to 3 at a time. We had to work out how we could play the game and always win.

To show our working out you could use either a diagram, table or we could work out the equation. After we had worked it out we put it on our evidence slide so our teacher can check it off, here is my finished evidence slide.

What have you been working on? let me know.

Tia and Tom

Hi there bloggers,

This week during math we have chosen whether we wanted to do our working out in our books or on our computers, I chose my book. Our first problem was about Tia and Tom. We had to figure out the answer and make a graph showing the answer.
The question was:

Can you work out the answer? let me know what you got in the comments.
To show my answer in a graph we used dot graphs, here is a picture of my graph.

Extension art

Kia ora bloggers,

Since we are back at school, we have started our Friday extension art sessions again, last term we did collage art and turned them into animals, I turned mine into a monkey. This term we are doing perspective art, we are drawing cities and something in the middle crashing down on it.

I am drawing my buildings as shops, and so far I have Nike, Lush and Kmart. What has started back up for you?

Covid capsule

Kia Ora bloggers,
We are back at school this week! Are you excited? I am.
Our teachers have decided that it would be cool to create a time capsule about COVID-19 and what we all have been through, it is being 3d printed and inside it we have all written letters and filled in a sheet our teachers made. It is going to be sealed and kept shut until 2060 when those students can open it up and read all about what we help to stop the spread.

I hope you are all staying safe and are following the rules that have been set in place to keep us all safe. How is school going for you?

Covid Mashup

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Back to school this week! It is a bit different to before but happy to be back. How has it been for you? Are you happy to be back?
During literacy, we have been looking into the wizard of oz and being back at school we have started on our task, our task for the next three weeks is to create a website about the wizard of oz and three of the themes, characters, and symbols. We are using google sites to create it and we are using the structure of TEXAS to write our passages. TEXAS stands for, topic sentence, evidence, example, analysis, summary. This is the home page of my website. How has the work in literacy been for you?

During numeracy, we have been doing algebra, and this week Mr G has been teaching us about python and how to use it. We are using a website called kaggle, we have learnt how to do bedmas symbols on our computers because we don't have some of them. B-brackets() E-exponents** D-division/ M-Multiplication* A-addition+ S-subtraction-. Here are some of the questions. What has your math been?

Design your dream

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Wohooo, back to school on Monday! This is my tech task for this week, I created what my second floor would look like if my parents added one! I put a trampoline that leads onto an air track to do my tricks, a hangout spot in the middle and there is room on the floor to do my tricks. There is also a speaker in every corner! What would you put in your room if you had another floor?

Artistic Animal Enclosure

Kia Ora Bloggers,
It's Friday!! Woohhooooo! And going back to school on Monday, who's excited? I am. Today we have Friday tasks and I chose to create my own Animal enclosure, I made it for a crocodile. We also had to watch a video and answer some questions.

• What is similar about them and what is different?  
• Similar: They are equipt with the needs for that animal, each is to help save an animal.
• Difference: They are all different sizes and have different things.
• 
  
• Why would there need to be differences about for each enclosure?
• Each animal needs different things to be happy. 
• 
  
• What do animals need? To survive they need food, water, exercise and some compony.
•  Is it the same for humans?
• For humans to survive I think it is the same for humans to survive,
• and our home is kind of like our Enclosure because it keeps us safe.

Creature of Evil

Kia Ora Bloggers,
During our literacy we have been focusing on the Wizard of Oz, today we had to create our own evil creature to do our bidding if we were a wicked witch. We took inspiration from what part the Winged monkeys take in the book and film.

I made a creature that starts off little and looks cute, and when it has been sent somewhere they remain in that form until they have created a false sense of security for the victims, then they transform into a big creature with spikes all over. Here is what it looks like.
What work have you done? What's been your favourite?

Fantastic Fabrics!

Kia Ora Bloggers,
For our friday tasks we have to do a task that our tech teachers gave set, this week I choose to do the fabric one, we had to find material around the house and turn it into something new. I used some of my mus old fabric to create a scrunchie, I used a sewing machine to make it. Here is how it turned out. What has your favourite thing you have done?

Creative Cakes!

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Another week down!! hope you are all doing well and staying safe. For one of our Friday tasks, we had to design a cake and I chose the theme of Riverdale, Riverdale is my favourite tv show so it was easy to create a cake off it. Some of the must haves were, they had to have 5 layers, and can be made out of cake and icing, we also had to label everything, here is how I made my cake. What is your favourite tv show?

Boredom buster

Kia Ora Bloggers,
For our Friday task today I chose to make a board game, I themed mine around tik tok. Mine game is pretty much the same rules as monopoly but much cheaper, and you meet famous tik tokers instead of buying places. This took me a long time to make everything but I am happy with how it turned out and should be fun to play! What is your favourite game? let me know.

Home @ Home

Kia Ora Bloggers,

Today we looked at the theme of home within the wizard of oz, and what home meant to us. I think home is a place where you can feel safe and loved, what is home to you? let me know. Here is my slide with the questions we had to answer, I defiantly think you should read wizard of oz if you haven't, here is the link to the pdf: WOZ

Guess the saying

Kia Ora everyone,
Another Friday task I chose to do was to use emojis to create sayings, here is a link to the website with all the sayings: sayings. Here is my slide, comment if you can guess what sayings I did! How's your Friday going?

Pretty Poppy

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Our Friday tasks are a bit different from the rest, today we had to choose from three Anzac activities and I chose to make a poppy, to make this poppy you need a red reusable bag, a piece of black card or felt, wood, and a nail or pin. This is the link to the video I watched: Poppy
This is my finished poppy:

Tinker a tinman!

Kia Ora,
This week we had a task that we could work on all week, the task was to create our own tinman any way we like, some people will draw it, some dressed their pets up, I decided I wanted to actually make a tin man using things we had at home. I used u funnel, dog bowl, tins, torches, and a pair of shoes. This took me a long time to find everything and put it all together, I kept getting a bit flustered but I didn't let that stop me, and here's how it turned out. Have you made anything? Let me know!

Brilliant Brain

Kia Ora Bloggers,
We did another character task today, except today's was on the scarecrow. We had to explain what it means to have a brain. I decided to think outside the box a little for this task and use some ideas I'm not sure many would use. How has this week gone for you?

Kept Courage

Hi Bloggers,
Today's the sixth day of online school! How have your classes been going? Today we are looking into the lion, we had to explain what courage is to us and find a quote to go with it, here is my finished slide. Have you seen The Wizard Of Oz? if so what's your favourite character?

Hidden Heart?

Kia Ora Bloggers,
We have been looking into the wizard of oz and today we looked into the tinman. We have created a slide and have had to explain what it means to us to have a heart or to have heart. I did what it means to have a heart. This is what I did:   How your online school been going?

Fri Yay Activities!

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Our task over the weekend was to create a piece of art that was inspired by the wizard of oz. I made a painting using cotton tips, my design was Dorothy going down the yellow brick road with a lot of colour coming off her, the different colours represented different emotions. Have you done any art? if so What type of art have you done?

Design yo' witch

Kia Ora,
Our online classes have had us doing a lot of new work, this is one of our tasks.
We had to make up and describe a witch, put it on a slide and create it using anything we like. I did mine on a piece of paper. My witch was inspired by my younger sister Aliah. Here is my finished product. How have you been coping?

Similar Stories

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Today is day number 2 and we are looking into the Wizard of Oz for literacy. We have had to write on a slide about what other movies we thought were similar to the Wizard of Oz. How have you been doing?

This is the link to the trailers: Lion King
                                                Peter Pan
                                                 Wizard of Oz

Terrific Timetable

Kia Ora Bloggers,
Today is our first day of online schooling, one of our tasks was to create a timetable for ourselves. I decided to do mine on a piece of paper. This is how mine turned out. Are you doing online classes? How is it going?

San Diego Zoo

Kia Ora Bloggers,
My third task today was to choose an animal from the San Diego zoo online. I chose the flamingo, the article was very interesting and contained a lot of interesting facts. My favourite one was telling us how tall the can be and they compared them to the size of a average sized fridge.

What is your favourite animal? Mine is a cow or a flamingo. How have you been keeping yourself busy while at home?

Saying hi without touching!

Kia Ora,
For one of my three tasks for today, I read an article of kids from Onehunga Primary School that came up for a way to say hi to their friends without touching them so they stay safe from the Coronavirus. They created a new way and named it 'The East Coast Wave' If you would like to read this article this is a link Saying hi without touching. Hope you are all staying safe and clean!

How I have kept myself busy

Kia Ora,
In this post, I am going to tell you how I have been keeping myself busing while off school. This may give you a few ideas of what you could do.
I have been doing a bit of soccer and basketball practice on my driveway and in my backyard, this gets me outside and active.
I have also been doing a lot of arts and crafts to keep myself off my phone so I don't turn into a zombie.
Our teachers have set us work to do while it's not school holidays, so I have been making sure I am staying on top of that so I don't get behind.
I have also been having quite a few dance parties in my bedroom jamming out to some of my music!
What have you been doing to keep yourself busy?

Rotational Art

Kia Ora,
Another task I did today was creating a piece of art that showed Rotation. How I made it was I made a square bit of paper and folded that in half then in half again so it was a miniature square, next I folded it into a triangle and wrote my nickname of each triangle facing a different way, I then coloured it in and this is how it turned out. What have you been doing while off school? hope you are staying safe!

Delicious Dinner!

Kia Ora,
Last night I helped to prepare/cook dinner for my family, I cooked spaghetti bolognese. My mum helped me with the mince so I cooked it well. We cooked the mince in a pan and when it was three-quarters of the way done we added flavouring and tomato sauce to make it less bland, we steamed the vegetables on top of the pasta in a different pot. It took ten-fifteen minutes to cook and then we served it up. Spaghetti bolognese is one of my favourite meals so I liked cooking it.

Silly Safari Bingo!

Kia Ora Bloggers,
For another one of my tasks, I played Silly Safari Bingo with my little sister. Silly Safari Bingo is not the same as normal bingo because you have to fill your whole board, to do so you have to spin a wheel and land on that animal and in that colour. We played with two boards each and took turns spinning, by the end I have one left while she had three, I ended up winning.

Terrific Tessellation

Kia Ora,
My next task was to create a tesselation using and shape. What is a tessellation? A tessellation is a shape that is repeated to make a pattern. For mine I decided to use triangles, I coloured some white and some black. When you stare at it, it seems to become more and more confusing, what do you think?