Beat the Goalie

Last term as part of our focus on coding we had to choose from three tasks to work on in term 3. All of these tasks included the makey-makey kit and scratch. We had the option of making a game show with buzzers, a band or a game and controllers for a disability. My partners Talita, Moroni and myself chose to make a game & controllers for disabled people.

For the scratch part we took a game that we had already created awhile ago but we twisted it up a bit just so it would be sort of different. We did this so that we could focus more on the hard part; which is finding a disability & creating controllers for the people who have that disability. In creating our game we found it really easy because all we had to do was make different backgrounds and change the characters.

Next we had to research a disability and pick one of them to make suitable game controls for that disability. The disability that we chose to do this for was for people with amputated arms. Because they have no arms; we thought that their controls would have to be on the ground. They would have to step on the keys to control character.

So then we went on to making the controllers. To make them we used cardboard, aluminium tape and wires. The wires were just extensions for the makey-makey chords. The only problem that we had with creating the controls was figuring out how to make the keys work without the players having to hold a certain chord throughout the whole game; which was the earth chord. To solve this problem we had to connect the earth to one end of the wire & the left/right/space chord to the other end of the wire.

Last terms task was actually kind of fun for me. The easiest part overall was connecting the controls with the makey-makey kit. My partners and I had heaps of fun playing against each other at the end of all our hard work. We thought that we did a great job on our game because one of our changes was adding a second player. Here is a link to our game,find someone to play with and enjoy. You can even create your own controls for this if you want to.

Fare welling Ms Vani

During assembly this morning there was a lot of things going on but one of the most important things was giving a fare well to our social worker Ms Vani. Although she has only been here for a short while she has really helped to make a difference in our school.

Ms Vani was a really important person in our school and we are supporting her in her journey to a new job. She has helped a lot of students during her short time in our school and we all appreciate her and her caring nature. I'm sure that everyone who worked with her will treasure their memories that they had with Ms Vani.

Mr Jacobsen's Amazing Talents

As part of this terms topic "Musical Madness" Mr Jacobsen our assistant principal showed us one of his amazing talents in assembly this morning. He taught us about the different wind instruments from the different areas of the world and when they were invented.

First was the Conch shell from the tropical part of the world such as the islands. When these shells were found, people drilled a hole in it to blow through it light a trumpet. Next was the Shofar which is made from a ram's horn. Then it came to the two most recent wind instruments which was the Bugle & the Trumpet.

Celebrating Niue Language

“Koe Vagahau Niue koe atefua he tagata Niue”. This was the message for Niue Language Week for 2017. The purpose of celebrating all these different languages is to acknowledge all the different cultures who live in New Zealand.

As part of this special week, a group of Niue children from our school performed an item for the school in assembly. There were a few people who had said a short speech and represented their culture really well. I was really amazed at how similar the Niue language is to the Tongan language. I thought that the performance we had from the group this morning showed how awesome it is to be able to speak more than one language.

Vagahau Niue

As you may have already known; this week is Niue language week. This week we are learning about the perspective of an author writing about the language week this week. While reading through some of the articles, I even got to learn a quote in Niue. 'Ko koe, ko au, ko tautolu, ko e tau Niue'. I was really amazed at how much the Niue language is very similar to the Tongan language.

A Start to a New Term

                                                                                       

As is the case every term, the whole school gathers in the hall for an amazing start to a brand new term. To introduce our focus for the term we had a lovely performance from the Senior Management Team (Mr Burt, Mr Jacobson, Mrs Nua, & the musical expert Mr Wiseman). They performed a song called ‘Musical Madness Saves the Day’ which gave away the topic of the term (Musical Madness.)

                                                                                  

Next it was time for the teams to introduce their learning intentions for the term. First up was team 1( our year one’s) their team of teachers performed a play showing them playing card games and listening to music. There were many different types of music played and it made them feel different emotions for each song. Their performance notified that they were going to be learning about how music can impact on emotions.

Team 2’s (our year two’s) learning intention is similar to team 1’s but they sang a capturing song with them playing instruments with the amazing singer Mrs Gaston. They sang to us ‘In the Jungle the Mighty Jungle’.

Then it came to my favourite performance; team 3 (year 3&4). I reckon that this team was the most entertaining because they made a film about songs in real life. Instead of them talking to one another they took bits of lyrics from songs and put it into their video. Their learning focus this term is based on how music impacts on our daily lives.  

After that team 4 (our year 5 & 6’s) presented a movie that they had created throughout the holidays. It was about how music can make things fun such as car rides and so on. Their focus was basically the same as team 3 which is learning about how music impact in our daily lives.

Last but not least was team 5 (Intermediate). Our team of teachers performed an informative play, they pretended to be a family who were watching a film. They watched this film repetitively but every time they watched it there was different music playing in the background. The different music that was played made them feel different emotions. So our focus this term in team 5 is learning about music and how it can change a film.