Hauora and the Olympics

 

This week our focus was to write down the different feelings that come with losing and winning an Olympic medal. For winning we noted down mostly positives things such as pride, happy, victory. As for losing we noted the opposite. We learnt that to embrace both of these is having all walls standing up, as we lose we learn from our mistakes making us wiser, as we acheive our goals we can set higher goals that challenge us. This task helped us understand how atheletes work under stress.

Virtual Adventure | Distance Learning

 LI: To plan a virtual trip around the world

  

Our challenge was to create a map using google/mymaps and drop pins on the locations visited. The next part of this challenge was to find the capital city of each place and include it in the information in the pin. I found it quite hard to find countries I want to go to because I don't have many places I would want to go. I enjoyed finding out the capitals of the different countries I picked.

Cultural Art | Distance Learning

 LI: To create a piece of cultural art.

Inspired by art creations by Raku Inoue we went outside and collected leaves, twigs, and other plant debris to create our own cultural pattern or symbol. I found it hard to find a variety of leaves i could pick from because all of the plant life at my house looks the same. I enjoyed how I got to show my creativity through leaves and twigs. An interesting fact I found out about Raku Inoue is that he used to have a profession in polymer clay sculpting. The name of my cultural art is Family Flower, the meaning behind the art is that each pedal is a member of my family and the stem is foundation of my family.

Decorating the Tree

 LI: to decorate the office Christmas tree.

For our final task for inquiry this term we went in groups and put our decoration designs onto the PBS Christmas tree. Each decoration was labeled with the name of the creator so we could see who made the design. The purpose of our Design Technology challenge was to create a set of Christmas/Holiday decorations that respresented our school and the people in it. We were given a design brief from Mr Johnston and a delivery date. To celebrate the end of this challenge LS2 delivered their completed decorations to Mr Johnston, then hung them on the tree in our school office.

Design Technology Challenge

LI: To design and make a holiday decoration that fits the client brief

This week for inquiry we created an evaluation about the design process we did through sewing. On the DLO we answered questions about what we would do differently, what are the positives, did it suit to our criteria, etc. Doing this allowed us to give us the understanding on what we could improve on next time and what we're good at. In my evaluation my designs suited my criteria and looked good, but I could improve my stitching and the designs I chose. This challenge was fun as it gave me an understanding of what my experience was with sewing.

Design Tech Flowchart

 LI: To create a flowchart of our design process.

For our inquiry topic this term is technology design, while learning this we are using our learning on technology design on making decorations for our Christmas tree coming up. Before we could start making the decorations, we noted what we needed to do, that was the design process. We then created a flowchart in pairs showing the different steps we need to do. 

Political Party Vote

 LI: To decide which political party will get your vote by making an informed choice 

To decide which political party I would vote for I read a summary of the policies each party wants to introduce should they win the election and the right to form a government to run NZ. Doing this allowed me to make an informed decision. If I was 18 I would vote for Labour because when we had the christchurch attacks they put the country at ease by demanding justice. This means if Labour Won the election in my electorate Shirin Brown would be our member of parliament and Jacinda Ardern would remain the Prime Minister. The Labour party is the left leaning of NZ and National is the right leaning of NZ.

Biology

  LI: To understand the meaning behind the acronym MRSCGREN.

MRS C GREN is an acronym for the life processes. MRS C GREN stands for: Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Cells, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition. These are all the things in something living. For example, plant and humans. To create this DLO we used collaboration, skimming and scanning for key words to help us select and reject information needed to create our DLO. 

Natural Disasters | Earthquake

 LI: to learn about natural disasters.

This week we learnt about a natural disaster of our choice, we chose to do research on earthquakes. Our task was to make a DLO explaining what a earthquake is, how it is caused and what you need to do when there is a earthquake. We also added information to know how to prepare for an earthquake.

Natural Disasters | Tsunami

 LI: to learn about the different natural disasters.

This week we learnt about a natural disaster of our choice, we chose do the the tsunami. Our task was to make a DLO explaining what a tsunami is, how it is formed and what you need to do when there is a tsunami look for higher ground or go inland. 

Science: Summarizing the Text

LI: to summarize the information.

This week for reading our focus is science. For this second activity my group and I skimmed and scanned our notes and shared ideas to create a collaborative summary explaining ‘what is science?’. We divided our lengthy summary into 3 following paragraphs: an introduction on science, the 4 main categories of science and the two types of science. We used a question dice that helped us with our learning and made us ask questions to help us think about our subject and provide ideas for our summary.

Science: Identifying the main Ideas

LI: to find our 3 most vital ideas from the information answering the question of 'What is Science'

This week for reading our focus is science. In groups we watched a YouTube video explaining physics, chemistry, and biology (the things that are connected to it) and why science is important to us. After watching it twice, my group and I wrote down notes about some of the information that we took and remember from the video. We negotiated on the most important 7 of the notes to separate from the rest. We left 4 of those notes as ‘very important ideas’ and picked out our 3 vital ideas.  In our opinion we thought that the 3 most vital ideas were:

1. Science is divided into 3 branches, Physics, Biology, and Chemistry. 

2. Basic science is knowing something and applied science is using what we know. 

3. Science is the knowledge behind every question. 

Making Connections to Problem Solving

LI: to use Tangram to make connections to problem solving.

For one of our inquiry/math's tasks this week we made Tangrams. Tangrams are supposed to be originally created in the ancient times in China. Normally in the 18th century people delivered things on ships and a way for the sailors to pass the time they used Tangrams. Tangrams are a dissect puzzle, dissect puzzles are puzzles that are cut out and put back together to make something.

First we followed the instructions to cut out an A4 piece of paper into certain shapes (Shapes of the Tangram). After we cut them into the shapes we were set a challenge to use the cut out shapes we had to create a square. After that we challenged ourselves by trying to make other things out of the shapes we had. 

Experimenting with Ultraviolet light

LI: to find the most effective UV filter.

LS2 has been trialing the electronic sensor for the kiwrious project. We are working with Suranga, Sonia, Evan, Dawn and Yvonne from the AHL at the Auckland University. I found that the red paper was the most efficient filter to keep Zally safe from the UV light. My DLO will show you how I did this. 

What is an Optical Illusion

LI: to explain what an optical illusion is.

For one of our lessons we had on light was about and an optical illusion. An optical illusion is something you get tricked into seeing. The eye works by projecting an image of whats being seen by the person to the back of the eye, witch then leads to your brain to process the image. But in this case with an optical illusion the images are coming in to fast so then they overlap each other, when our brains process it the brain gets tricked and makes the eye see something that is not. We then worked in groups to create the DLO you see above.

Optical Illusion

LI: to learn about optical illusions.

For one of our lessons we had on light was about and an optical illusion. An optical illusion is something you get tricked into seeing. The eye works by projecting an image of whats being seen by the person to the back of the eye, witch then leads to your brain to process the image. But in this case with an optical illusion the images are coming in to fast so then they overlap each other, when our brains process it the brain gets tricked and makes the eye see something that is not. When we figure that out we experimented with some objects, we then created a DLO about it.

How a Periscope Works

LI: To explain how a Periscope works.


Mr Johnston came and taught us about what Persicopes are, how they are used and who uses them. We found out that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. That means if the light hits the mirror at a 45 degree it reflect the light back at 45 degree. It was fun doing this activity

Light - Light & Sound

LI: To show my understanding of light.

For one of our inquiry tasks we were tasked to work in partners that we have never worked with to make a DLO about 5 facts about light. The five facts were about how light goes in a straight line, how fast light is, the light we see, how light can be reflected and how light be refracted.

Places Named by Early Explorers

LI: to find out where our early explorers went around NZ.
For inquiry we worked in pairs to find out what places where named by Kupe, Captain Cook and Abel Tasman, first we researched what places that were named by the explorers, we then put a dots of where they are on a picture of NZ, we then created a map that showed exactly where they were instead of just putting dots on a photo. The markers that are green are places that are named by Captain Cook, the blue markers are places that are named by Abel Tasman and the yellow markers are the places that are named after Kupe. Some of the reasons why places are named are: they might name it after an important person/friend, it could also be named of what events happened their, and it might be the physical appearance (what it looks like), it could also be named themselves.

Just Frame It

LI: to make a frame
For our business topic for inquiry we started our own business called "Just Frame It", on Friday we are going to set up a stand and sell our frames from one to two dollars. Our has been working on a big frame and a little frame.