Tech Reflection | Science

LI: to create a blogpost explaining our tech session. 

This morning we had our tech session, this was the last session this year with Mrs Sharma. For this session we talked about plants and foodmakers. First in our project books we explained how plants grow, how it feeds itself, what it needs in order to live, different types of plants, and why plants are important to animals. After we explained what a plant is we watched a video of the system of a plant. We next went around Tamaki College and found 10 different leaves, after we found the leaves we made a table chart describing each leave, on the chart we numbered the leaves from 1-10. There were 5 different coloumns; 

Size - *cm

Texture - *rough, soft, waxy

Color - *green, purple

Thickness - *the thickness of the leaf

Pattern - *veins through the leaves 

Art Colouring Book

LI: To experiment with colors. 

This morning we tried one of this year’s Kick Start Summer Learning Journey activities. The purpose of this task was to experiment with colours by mixing colours from the original palette with pop colours. This allowed us to recolours famous painting or images of landmarks around the world. The artwork that I have re made was called, under the wave of kanagawa created by Hokusai. In the art I have experimented with shades of blue, different shades of white and brown and also some green. 

Bookclub | Bok Choy

 LI: to unpack the text together

Sulia, Afatia, Azatulah, Vayan, Chris, Luka, and I were introduced to the activity, Book Club by Mrs Anderson.  Each member of the book club has a role to take each week. The 7 roles are, The Discussion Director, Connector, Summariser, Passage Picker, Word Master, Illustrator and Meeting Report.

 The book that we read this week was called “Bok Choy” by Paul Mason. The moral of the story was describing the differences between the chinese people compared to the englishman. This story unpacked the racism faced by chinese minors who came to NZ in the 1800s to seek their fortune in the gold fields and how it affected others. From this story we learnt it is important to accept one another despite who we are and how we look. 

Once we had completed the tasks for our roles, we reported back to the group and shared our thoughts and ideas. The Discussion Director’s asked questions and guided everybody to be on the right track. The Summariser, picked 20 most important words from the story, to 6, and used it to summarise the text. The Passage Picker would pick a part of the story and write why it’s important to you. The Connector had to make connections to themself, to text, and to the world from the book.

I enjoyed sharing our opinions with one another with group, we were all confident to share our thoughts creating a rich learning conversation about the story. 

Te Whanau Raukura Performance

This week Panmure Bridge School had Te Whanau Raukura perform at our school. They're a maori entertainment group that origanally performs at the Auckland Museuem. During their performance they told us about the history and culture of Te Reo Maori. Taiaha, poi and te rakau were former weapons for battle in the maori history. Since there wasn't much objects back then, the Maori people carved wood into weapons and that was called a Taiaha and a Te Rakau. A poi was like an excersiser for the Men before they went into battle to improve there agility and fitness which later became used by women. As the last entertainment the group performed a Haka for us, this was one of my favorite parts. 

After the performance one of the performers came to LS2 to teach us a traditional Maori Game. Her name was Bekah. The game she taught us was called Pukana. In a circle on person would do the starting chant which was "Ringa Pakea, Pukana He, Pukana Ha, Pukana, Pukana Pukana" after the last pukana that person would turn and pukana towards someone and the would do it back or pukana to another person. 

Exploring our national current events

 LI: To identify author’s purpose.

During reading we also talked about Current News in New Zealand. In groups of 4-5 we explored the different types of current events that are happening in New Zealand, thought about why the story made the news and plotted the location on a google map. Here are the different catergories of each news we found using different News Websites like - RNZ (Radio NZ), Newshub, NZ Herald, Kiwi Kids News and more. Each day, newspaper editors around the world must make desicions about which stories they will run. 

• Timeliness
• Magnitude
• Relevance
• Unexpectedness
• Impact
• Positive Reference
• Negative Referance
• Oddity
• Conflict
• Continuity
• Emotions
• Progress

Provocation: Should masks be compulsory on NZ public transport?

LI: To identify and consider the two perspectives of this provocation to help me form an opinion.

This week for reading we have been exploring news around NZ and a recent provocation. The provocation that we talked about was "Should masks be compulsory on NZ public transport?". Using this provocation we formed an opinion on whether or not we agree. We used our smart researching skills to find facts and information to support our opinion. We created a DLO in groups to explain the 2 different perspectives of using masks on public transport. For my opinion I think that masks should be compulsary while using public transport because it would help us win against this Covid-19 pandemic and reduce to possibilities of going into L4 lockdown once again also make the people around you feel safe and comfortable. 

The Charge of the Light Brigade | Poem

LI: To identify the meaning of the poem.

This week for reading we read a poem called 'The charge of the light brigade'. This story was based off true events, the crimea war. The crimea war started in 1854 to 1855. The light brigade was a failed military action that occured due to wrong given orders. There were approximately 600 soldiers in the light brigade and less than 1/3 of the soldiers survived. The soldiers that were in the light brigade were soldiers from the British and Ottoman Empire fighting against the Russian Empire. The poem we read was written by Alfred Lord Tennyson and is a Ballad poem. A ballad poem is a poem that tells a story. Due to wrong given orders the British and Ottoman Empire lost the war. While unpacking the meaning of the poem I found out that back in the day soldiers used Sabres, and Cannons for war. 

Weighty Challenge 1 | The Adding Addicts

 LI: To create a DLO to explain how we solved the problem. 

This week for maths we were learning measurments. In this subject we were talking about weight. The unit for measurement for weight are - grams, kilograms, tonnes etc. In groups we solved 3 problem challenges. For these challenges we wrote down answers in on pieces of paper. After we solved these challenges we created a DLO explaining our strategy and how we got our answer. For our strategy we used Place Value and a calculator because the numbers were too big for us to solve. In my group was Liletina, Hosea, Jayden, Leroy and Diana. 

Tech Relfection | Rocket Science

 LI: To find out how many fins you would need on a rocket to help it fly effeciently. 

This week we had Tech at Tamaki College. We were learning about Rocket Science with Ms Sharma and Mr Dunn. We started off by identifying the main features and attributes of how a rocket can fly. With Mr Dunn we learnt that weight and mass are two different things, if we were to go to mars our mass would stay the same but the weight would change. This is due to the amount of force in space and the planets. 

The reason we use rockets are to send cargo through space and stop bombs from other countries attacking a certain area. Due to gravity when the rocket flies off into space, it slightly turns horizontally to reduce fuel used. On a rocket their is a 'nose' to help the rocket cut through the pressure of the air when flying. 

We made straw rockets. We made our rockets out of plastic straw and paper as fins then used another straw to make the rocket fly. To help our rocket fly we had to make a lot of changes and variations to find our best flying rocket. The variable we changed was the fins. The winners were; Lukah - 6m and 40cm; Heavenly - 5m 90cm; Fau - 5m 80cm.