The NEXT Foundation- Summer Learning Journey

Today we had a special assembly to launch the Summer Learning Journey programme along side the Next Foundation. The SLJ is to help students with their reading. The Next foundation thought it was a good idea so they gave money to help with programme. As our class got filmed I thought that it was quite weird having a camera around us. Rachel is the person that started the summer/winter learning journey talked to us about how 6 clusters around New Zealand are taking part. We had visitors from the Manaiakalani chairperson Mr Sneddon, Ms Grant, Mrs Lee, Mrs Jenson, Bill Komode the CEO of the Next Foundation Mr Grady the chairperson of the board of trustees, Hazel from Woolf Fisher and our principal Mr Johnston. I think that the summer/winter learning journey is a great programme which really develops our reading and writing skills.

Cleanup Crew

Our maths focus yesterday was geometry. To help us with this we did a coordinates  challenge were you have to follow the directions. If it say 6, 3 you have to go across first then you have to go down to get the correct mark. I think I found this easy because I have worked with coordinates before and it came up with a weird picture. 

Tech Experience

On Friday we had our last Tech lesson for the year. Our first rotation was Food Tech we got to make mince pies, chicken kebabs with potato salad and more. We learnt some good recipes and used different  cooking equipment to help us bake/cook foods. Our next rotation was graphics, we made MDF clocks. My clock was a camera because I enjoy photography. This was a long process because we did a lot of planning and colour choice was quite hard because you had a limited amount of colours. I think my finishing design turned out better than I expected. Now our last rotation was stained glass, my design was a boat. I think this was the most interesting rotation because it was something new and I haven't tried this before. This was quite long to make because I had over 4 pieces of glass to cut. I think the Friday tech experiences were very fascinating because we tried something new this year and we had things to take home. 

Summer Learning Journey

On Friday, Hazel from University of Auckland came to talk to us about the 

Summer Learning Journey. This holiday's theme is Journey Through Time in New Zealand. It sounds very interesting, and adventurous. I would like to know more about New Zealand's history. This could be a great way to learn about our history, because as well as having an adventure, you are increasing your skill with comprehension and writing skills. 

P.E @ Tamaki College

On Friday we had a extra rotation of P.E, Social Science and Robotics. I got put in the P.E group, we got to learn some leadership skills and to work together as a team. Our warm up game was infinity tag we all knew how how to play which made it quite easy. Our first game that we played was Bench Ball, there were two teams then they selected had to pick two catchers. The two catchers had to catch the ball from the person in there team, if they catch it they would be able to go on the other side. As we had another round of this, but if you shoot the yellow ball in the hoop you would win the game. Our next game was Samoan Softball it was the same as Softball but you could either kick it or throw the ball with your hand. After you hit/kick the ball you could either run to the other side but you had to leave your hand on the wall. Our team didn't win but we had fun playing and had a lot of encouragement going on and a lot of leadership that happened. 

Athletics Inter-school

Yesterday we had out inter-school athletics. I participated in four events which was 400m, 100m sprint, high jump and long jump. I place 4th in 400m, 3rd in 100m sprint, 2nd in high jump and we didn't get told what we placed in high jump. I think our school did really well because we are a small school but placed mostly in the top 5. 

Graduation Dance

Since graduation is coming up the year 8's had been having dance lessons. We have learnt the cha cha, rock and roll, circle dance and the barnyard dance. One of the hardest parts was learning the thread the needle which took place in the rock and roll dance.  I think it was the most complicated dance move that we have ever learnt. My favourite dance is the circle dance because it is fast and upbeat. 

Athletics Day

Today was our school Athletics day. We had different activities to take part in such as long jump, rob the nest, ball throw and more. To make it more fun and exciting we got to compete in teams, my team was the yellow team although we didn't win as much games as possible we still got to have lots of fun and learn new things. My favourite activity was the rob the nest game because we got to steal other teams eggs. At the end of the day had our school sprints where all the finalists that placed in their heat raced. I raced in the year 8 girls race as well as the school finals where you race the fastest seniors, it was really hard but I came 3rd out of 8. 

Fire Station Visit

Since our inquiry focus is "people in our community" we got to visit the fire station. They gave us a reminder of a few fire safety tips such as having a smoke alarm in your house and also what they do as a fire fighter. Did you know that fire fighters aren't there just to save people from fire accidents they are also first responders so they are trained to do that. The fire fighters showed us their training course and

Mussel Problems

This week's maths learning was based on fractions and proportions. Zahra and I worked collaboratively to find the solutions to the equations. I think the last problem was very challenging because we had to use our multiplication skills and multiply big numbers which was very hard.  

Fractions Games

This game helped us order our fractions from smallest to biggest. It was also timed and kept record of your score so you can see how your doing. You had to pop the balloons you thought were in order, it will make a noise if you are incorrect. I think I did really well considering I'm not the best at fractions. If you would like to play the game and challenge your self (click here)

Navigating Narritives- Summarising

In one of our novel studies activities our take was to make a summary of the book. To help us with this we choose 20 important words from the text that would be useful for the summary. From there we selected 6 words that were very important and we then used those 6 words to write our summary. I think that Nazella and I made a good summary because we have understood the book. 

Navigating Narratives - Feedback

In reading, we have been giving feedback to our partner. After reading the text for 20 minutes, Mia and I gave our opinion of how we were while reading. Nazella said that I could talk about the book and how I made an understanding. I was also able to describe the pages with my own words.

Police Visit

Since our inquiry focus is about people in our community we got a police visit from Constable Cyrus and a few others. They were to show us the Eagle Helicopter it was great because it flew into our school and we had never had this happen before. Did you know that the Eagle Helicopter finds everyone that they are looking for on the police lookout. We then got to see the police dogs and how they train, these dogs also displayed some of their tricks which was very interesting because we hardly see dogs do this.  

Badminton

Today we had Badmington. We learnt our forehand and backhand skill. To help us with this technique we worked in partners, we both had turns hitting with our forehand and backhand then rotated while doing this we kept a rally. A rally is keeping the shuttle from going on the ground and involves two people. I found today's lesson hard because I'm not the best at badminton  and the technique is challenging. 

Manaiakalani Film Festival

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary for the Manaiakalani film festival. We went to watch a few of the movies from our Manaiakalani cluster. There were different little movies about dancing, skits and experiments. After we watched a few movies we got to watch them online and leave positive comments about this. One of my favourite movies was a film by Ruapotaka school it was about Rugby values, i found this interesting because the different types of transitions in the video and the helpful advice that was given. 

Thank you Letter

My gold care award activities was to write a thank you letter to a teacher or other staff member. I choose to write my thank you letter to Mrs Anderson because she has helped me though my learning and as well as being the best leader that I can be. She has made creative learning activities such as making movies and interesting topics for reading. 

Poster showcasing life at PBS

One of my Gold Care Award activities was to "create a poster showcasing life at PBS". I added in pictures of the different activities that we do in our school like our Dance Production that happened in Term 3 which was great. We also have had camp at the start of the year which really helps with our survival skills and we got to try new challenges like the high ropes, chariot racing and more. 

Guy Fawkes Safety Rules

Since this weekend is going to be Guy Fawkes we had to give others a reminder on the safety rules of this. One of the reasons why was to keep everyone safe over the weekend. A rule that wee came up with was to keep children out of reach of Fireworks. This was an important rule because children will think it's fine because it won't harm you but it is very harmful and can cause serious issues. 

Screencastify - Finding fractions of an amount

This is my screencastify I made in class. I displayed a strategy in maths that I have been working on, which is fractions of an amount. I showcased how to work this equation out using the strategy and also what I did to make it work. To help us overcome speaking we wrote a script to help us explain our learning. I think this new learning is really a great experience because it is a different way of displaying your work and showcasing our thinking. 

Rippa Rugby Inter-school

Today was the Rippa-Rugby inter-school and our school took part in this. We had four games in total, our girls team had played against Point England the score was 1-9. We then challenged Glen Innes school which was very hard because it was windy and our tags were flying off but our team worked together to keep going. Now we were up against Tamaki Primary using our passing skills we made a lot of yardage but had a close loss. Our last game finished off with a loss against Glenbrae School I think this was our best game because we kept communicating with our team mates, scoring tries and ripping the tags. 

Holiday Blogging Challenge

In this holiday blogging activity I found out about Rainbow's End which is a very big New Zealand landmark. The questions that were asked were, where is it located, how much does it cost for a family pass and how much would it cost for your family using the ticket prices to help you. 

Democracy Flowchart

For the past two weeks we have been learning about elections. One of our activities was to make a democracy flowchart.  This flowchart showcases how our country is ran from the Queen of England to the House of representatives. This task was really interesting because I found more information about our government. 

Cross Country Inter-school

Yesterday was cross country inter-school. We had a very big course to run but luckily with all the practise that we had we were able to manage ourselves and  keep going. I think it was really hard because everyone was going to same place and there were a lot of students tripping because it was very slippery. Overall it was a good result and came 7th out of 48. 

Kiwi Can Challenges

Our Kiwican topic this term was facing challenges and how we can overcome them. Today we played a few games that were either easy or challenging. One of them was to bring an object to real life using your team mates. You had to have 2 people in the ring and use a idea that hasn't been used before. I think that challenge was the hardest because you only had a short amount of time to find a new idea and it was a lot of pressure. 

Scale Drawing

In Ls2 we made a scale drawing enlargement. I made my scale drawing on Mrs Potts and Chip from the movie Beauty and the beast. I choose this because it was simple but had a lot of detail on Mrs Potts with lots of patterns.  The challenging part about this task was to rule up the grid and rule the exact measurements. 

What is a coalition?

Today we were learning about what a coalition and we have been following the election results and how it can change/affect the government. In our government we have a situation of a coalition because the party Mew Zealand First have to pick what side they believe they want to go to. This DLO contains who our local MVP is and how will the coalition with NZ first affect the results. 

Opening Sequence- The Princess Bride

Our whole class did a film study on the movie "The Princess Bride". We did the following activities of Opening Sequence, Character introduction, Fantasy Conventions, Shot types and Narrative propt. I decided have more understanding on the opening sequence which features the prologue of the story.  We had to add what was a prologue, who the main characters were, what was is the setting of the main story, who are the main characters introduced and How is the humor used to stop the scene from being to over the top. 

Cross Country

Today we had cross country fun run. We ran 4 laps around our course. This helped us with our endurance because we had practises to help us with our pace and how to run. I think this run was really  hard and challenging because you had to run up a hill quite a few times and it was muddy through the fields.   

Helen Clark

Helen Clark was the 37th prime minister of New Zealand. She was a great leader as she opened Kiwibank and made great differences in New Zealand. She is the administrator of United nations Development. In this presentation we have added in the changes she has made and also who she is known for. 

Elections Jigsaw Puzzle

Since this week is election week, we are learning about elections. In our learning we have completed an activity called 'Government Party Jigsaw'. In this jigsaw Zahra, Mishaan, Ofa, Javeylor, and I have added the leaders of the main party and what electorate they are in. 

Read and ebook day

Today is read an ebook day (September 18th), to celebrate this our classroom read an ebook from the Tamaki College Overdrive where it has a whole variety of ebooks with different genres. It's good to have an ebook day because it brings back reading and it gives us a reminder that we can read online which makes it great. The purpose of this day was to celebrate modern story telling, if you want more information about read an ebook day click here  #ebooklove

Say it Tika

Since this week is Maori language week, we tried to keep the Maori language alive by improving google maps pronunciation of the Maori streets and places in our local area. I pinned three of the streets and places that could be improved on such as Ti Rakau Drive. People get confused how to pronounce it. I hope to learn more Maori words so I can use it at school and home. 

Stained Glass

Since we have the new rotation for tech we have stained glass as our rotation. This week we were planning our designs and being cautious of what would work and what wouldn't.  We also coloured in the parts we wanted to. I had the idea of a boat and my initial "M". We also got to experience cutting glass with special boards. We used different tools to help us succeed in this. 

Tamaki Overdrive

Using the Tamaki overdrive we selected a book to read from a wide variety of non-fiction, fiction, mystery and suspense and more.  I picked a book that was in the fiction section it is called "undiscovered country" and is written by Jennifer Gold. I think Tamaki overdrive is really good because it has some books that have audio and is completely the same as the library but online. 

Two Word Sentences

In writing we had a look at two word sentences, two word sentences are simple sentences. Using the simple sentence we added in FANBOYS which makes it a complex sentence which joins two simple sentences or ideas together with a connective. Using the complex sentence we used AAWWUIBBIS to make it a compound sentence. 

Read Theory

Read theory is a reading activity that can help your reading by growing your knowledge of vocabulary and how to comprehend text. It asks you questions with a multi-choice answer you then select one.  There are also challenge questions if you get this specific question correct you get bonus points, each answer you get correct will give you points on your account. This has improved my comprehension skills as well as expanding my vocabulary from different texts.  

Clock Design

At Tech we finally finished our clocks that we have been working on for the past few weeks. My design was inspired by a camera and made it my own. This was a very long process because we had to plan, cut out our designs, paint it, put it together then there we would have our final design. I think this was really hard because it was hard to get the exact shade that you wanted because we had to mix colours together to get our desired colour. 

Standing up to bullies- Care award

One of my Care award tasks was to "Create a DLO on how to stand up to bullies, or how to be cyber smart". So I made a DLO about standing up to bullies. I had to give advice or ways to stand up to bullies. One of my ways was to talk to a trusted adult that can help you with the problem they can confront the bully. 

Careers - Marine Biologist

In careers we took a test which asked what we were interested in. It gave us the option of not interested, neutral, fairly interested and very interested. Depending on what you answered they will analyse how many jobs that you could do or could be interested in. I got in 16 jobs in total which wasn't that much but I think it was based on what I answered. I picked one job that I think I would like which was a Marine Biologist.  I looked into this and had the skills I need such as the knowledge and what industry it was in. 

Flextangle

Since this week is maths week, we made a geometrical flextangle. I made a smaller version on A4 paper and coloured this in then made my own design on A3 paper with different shapes. I think this was really fun because it challenged me a lot in different ways and I got to make my own design.

Cyber Smart - What does matter?

Our cyber smart messages was "what does matter". I had to find out the correct way of searching and how this could improve your smart searching skills. I think this task was quite hard and easy because I didn't really know about the smart searching. We also had to answer questions using the information that was provided. 

Tech Clocks

Tech @ Tamaki College was a bit different today. Instead of painting our clock designs we got set a task to draw circles using compasses and to spot the shape. I think this was really hard because you couldn't really see the inner shape and that it could make something else. In my drawing I saw a flower shape and a star which was really interesting. I could maybe add this in my clock design.