Protests Against 1080

I disagree with the fact that we should continue using 1080. In spite of it helping to get rid of pests, it also affects the non-targeted animals that may have eaten a pest. Dogs can be at risk of lengthy and painful death. I would hate to see or hear about these animals dying especially since dogs are my favorite animals.

Word Problems

Walt: find an appropriate strategy to solve a word problem



It's week one of term four which means gloss tests are on! Because of this we had to fill out this presentation and find several appropriate strategies to solve word problems. This task was really helped me to think about the strategies I use to solve a word problem. I have learnt a very valuable lesson from this google presentation and I will try to put my new brain skills into action next time I have to answer a word problem.

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.

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.

Race 2 Space

The space race, what is it? Do you know what the space race is. Check this presentation out and you'll learn all about what the space race is all about.

Space Invaders

Intro:
Have you ever created a game using code? Well if you are 13 years of age, your not quite experienced, your partner keeps slacking off and you have made one; then you know exactly what state I am in right now. Stressing at first but relieving when it is finally complete.

Task:
For the past 10 weeks my partner, Cameo and I were assigned to create a game on scratch using our knowledge from last terms experience. The theme was based on space. We needed to include space facts that we read off sites and set challenges for the main sprite in our game.

Starting our Game
Getting started was not a problem but moving on to the next levels was quite tricky. We had to broadcast our sprite on to another backdrop and add a code to the backdrop to receive the broadcast so it would switch backgrounds. If that second step wasn't included than the background would stay the same which was frustrating at times.

Problem Solving
Our second level had the most issues, when trying to get our sprite (spaceship) to shoot at the enemies. Luckily, we had the internet! Tutorials were really useful when we had no help from Zoe. We were eager to learn and extend our knowledge of coding especially if we didn't have an experienced coding adult in the room who worked at O.M.G Tech to help us with it.

Highlight Levels
Level three and four were our easiest levels to work on. The third level had 15 martians attacking and one bullet point where you had to get to; to receive your bit of space information. Our fourth and last level, showed the earth orbiting the sun and had some obstacles around it to block the sprites way from reaching earth.

Conclusion
Unfortunately, my partner and I were terrible at communicating. We also weren't the best group at managing our time wisely. Our game could have been better and more complex if we had done so. So these are one of the main things we need to work on for next time.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Can you imagine starting off the day of the term with an alien invasion? It was pitch black in the hall, a UFO (drone) flew onto the stage and two hideous aliens appeared out of the UFO. Luckily it was just an act for part of our school topic this term which is ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’

Team 1’s focus for this term's topic is on the moon, sun and where they at night and day. For their performance they showed a movie of their teachers flying off to space in their cars. The second team was quite similar to team 1’s focus about the two elements and the earth. Their movie was quite different though, they were dancing in space and it showed that they were in different planets enjoying themselves and life in space.

Team 3’s movies talked about time and what they did during school times. During the film they showed their favourite part of the day at school and their most favourite was 3pm when they went running home happily and screaming. Their main focus is on time and why scientists time.

Our team, team five had the most entertaining performance of all, I reckon. Mrs Judd sang a lovely cover of “How far I’ll I go” written over by Mr Wiseman. The lyrics said what our focus was which was about the moon and the impacts it has on the earth.

But I think that team 4 had the most informative item. They thought about life on the other planets in the galaxy and put that all into one movie. Unfortunately, every time they approached a planet they’re ships exploded. So their main topic was to take care of our own planet and being guardians of our own galaxy.

Remembering Pass Knowledge

This week for numeracy our class is just revising on the things we learnt last term. Our teacher decided to test our memory and see how much we remember from term one. This term I am going to work on getting better at what I wasn't good at last term.

Creating Code

This presenttion is a reflection of a game that a group of people and I have created. It includes the rules of our game, our sprites/avatars and challenges. The two other people I created the game with was Moroni and Danielle. If you would like to have a go at our game here is a link. Have a go and enjoy!

Introducing Our Learning

Immersion Assembly, have you ever heard of that before? Every first day of a new term our school has an assembly where the teachers introduce our learning for each team. They were to perform a skit or make a movie all about our learning this term. The overall topic for this term that the whole school is focusing on is called “Now that’s Thinking”.

First up was team one, their learning is based on matariki and they will be making kites with different designs of their own creation so that they could fly them during the term. Team two and three are also doing the same and team four is looking at how the technology has changed now, since the olden days.   

I’m in team five, our teachers were the only team who did something besides from a movie. They performed a skit. Their skit was about fixing things around the school to make our learning better. It was really entertaining, so was all the other teams movies.

I am very looking forward to learning new things this term. Some of my learning goals for this new term is to improve more in my writing and to be more confident in presenting presentations in front of an audience.

Introducing Algebra!

This week we started off the year with an easy task. We started with a basic step of algebra.

Kaitiakitanga i nga wa katoa

This week one of our tasks in our home class was to work in groups and create poster about short quotes about what we do at Pt England. I hope you enjoy the graphics and detail.

2017 Here I Come

Kia Ora, welcome to my blog!  This year I am in home class 3 and my teacher is Mrs Tele'a.  I have three really encouraging sisters two are younger than me and one is older.  At school I really like playing lots of sports such as netball, tag, and many more.  Some of my hobbies are hanging out with my friends and learning new things in class.  My main goal for this year is to gain more confidence in my learning. The topic for this year is Responsibility.

This year I not only want to express myself in learning but also in fitness and sport. So one of my other goals are to try out other sports because last year I only played netball. Physical education is one of my first priorities for this year because I want to improve my health and fitness skills.

Last year I was part of the year 7 & 8 extension and in prize giving I came 3rd in academic. This year I am aiming for a higher spot in the top 3 for academic and also improve my writing. Feel free at anytime to leave a comment or two on my blog.

Number Knowledge

Walt: Identify the equation within a word problem.



This week is the first week of the term and the new topic is ch, ch, ch, ch changes.

Sentence Types

What kind of sentences do you use for your writing? I use to always use simple sentences before I knew there were two other kind of sentences. Now that I have learnt about the three sentence types I can now mix them up in whatever writing that I do.

Chicken-leg Effect

Have you heard of the chicken-leg effect? The chicken-leg effect is when, if you go to space your legs start turning skinnier because of the zero gravity.

Thinkboard

Here is my first thinkboard for this term! After I solved this problem using the strategy; part unknown I wrote down ten other similar questions. Can you figure them out? Please comment below if you have.

Blog Profile

Walt: choose out of any of your personalities

Kia Ora my name is Seini, I’m 11 years old and a year 7 at Pt England school, and my favorite subject at school is maths. I have only 3 sisters but no brothers, I’m good at climbing and one person that I really admire is my older sister. My learning goals for this year is to complete most of the tasks I have to complete and participate in most of the activities that my class do and many more.