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?