The Top Team is the Best Team!

On Friday the 22nd we were lucky enough to participate in 'Top Team' a course full of activities including water. One of my highlights would be all water activities like the one where we had to pass water behind our backs, or the one where some of us had to fill a pipe and the rest had to plug in holes. Another highlight would probably be the one where we got to slingshot bean bags for other teammates to catch, but everybody who fired the bean bags would either fire it too high or completely miss. Probably next time, I would try to be possibly faster and I would also like to have more time to do the activities.

Have you ever participated in an event like top team?

Informal and Formal Letter Writing

Over the past few weeks, we have been learning to both formal and informal letters. Here is an example of a letter I wrote about a political event in New Zealand's past.

Samantha

9 Ozmyer Street

Auckland, NZ

(+64) 255-5526-6

sdolera@stfrancischch.co.nz

6th April 18XX

Richard Seddon

NZ Prime Minister, NZP

Pipitea

Wellington, ST 6160

Dear Mr. Seddon,

We women, are unrepresented parts of New Zealand. We all deserve to shape society and have equal rights. By that, all we ask is that you, and the parliament allow women to vote. If we had the right, the politicians we accept would clean society and make it better for all parts of New Zealand. Even some of the men would agree with our suffrage, because at least they have some perception.

Sincerely, Samantha

PBL Innovation

PBL Innovation

This term for PBL has been Innovation and the question is, how can Innovation improve our lives? My group has been making this thing called 'Movie headphones' and apparently, they block out all other sounds so you can only hear the movie. The problem is though, we only have prototypes and they're not like real headphones which are made out of aluminium and ceramic. We have even come up with a website called Movie Headphones Elite! You can click on this link to see it even if it's not that good, we hope you enjoy it. Here are also some pictures we have!

Logo

The cups are for cancelling the noise, the blue straw is for talking and the red straw is for connecting to other headphones to receive the messages.


If you got the chance to create a product of your choice, what would you make?

Museum Trip

Museum Trip

Yesterday, everyone went to the museum. The whole reason was to learn more about innovation and Maori history and how it changed. We first started by examining some tools that they used such as fish hooks and real life dioramas. Next we headed to the second exhibit which was also linked to the first which was full of clothes and things just like in the first one and when we finished he were taught to do activities. The activities were to draw Maori characters, polish rocks, make a waka, drill, carve and make fire. We all split into groups and my group first drew Maori characters, the second thing we did was carve in a bizarre way by moving the tool and hitting it repeatedly with a mallet to make a shape. The third thing we did was rock polishing which was really muddy since we had to rub rocks on a wet giant rock. The 4th activity was to use a pounamu, green-stone axe to hit the log ten times before passing it on the next person so we could make a waka, boat. The second to last activity was to drill, where we had to tie a string across a sort of spinning toy which was tipped with some pounamu and we had to repeatedly pull it back and forth on some wood which would supposedly make a hole. Then, finally.. I got to try to make FIRE! You were supposed to rub a eye shaped gap on a piece of wood with a little smooth circular stick of wood and hopefully the friction would make fire and it did! I had actually made fire, actually I was just joking. I didn't make fire. After we finished all the activities, we got to explore more of the museum and some highlights for me would be the paua shell house, geodes and maybe throw in climbing the big tree in there, with the fountain too. Ooh! Also the fire! I don't know why I was excited for the fire, but maybe it was just because it was fire?

This is how you supposedly make a waka with Zoe

This is my group carving

This is also my group drawing Maori characters

Gianna be like, what is life RN?

This is my group polishing rocks.

Have you ever been to the Museum?

Explanation Texts

This term in our writing, we have been learning to do explanation texts which is to explain why or how a phenomenon is happening. I chose to do electricity because it fascinates me how it is a main power source of this century and many others. 

Here is a little snippet of my explanation text:

Electricity is a main power source in this century and we sometimes people wonder how it works.

Electricity is caused by electrons and protons, protons are positively charged while electrons are negatively charged. Static electricity is caused by a disparity between these charges and they will build up unless they can be released or discharged, like through a circuit.

Here is the link if you want to read the whole thing:

Link

Did you learn anything about electricity from the blog post?

Winter Sports

For winter sports I played hockey with my team the Cheetahs with Jin hee, Gianna, Oliver, Jack, Lily, Benjamin, Dakota and Charlie . We had diverse outcomes such as defaults, wins and losses but mostly wins*.  My favorite part would be after the game when we got to go back to school, because then I ask my friends how their game went! Something I found challenging was how I was soooo bad at passing, I should really practice if I ever get the chance.

Despite the challenges of injuries, losses and all that other stuff we've pulled through many times. It kind of was tiring running and all that stuff that I won't even bother talking about, I also might consider doing netball next season if hockey can't convince me. I also hope that next season that new challenges will arise and I'll see if I can take them on, also this is a photo of us.

Top row starting from left: Gianna, Me, Charlie, Oliver
Bottom row starting from left: Benjamin, Lily, Dakota and Jin hee

What do you like most about Hockey?




*I don't actually know the score, help me out and give me a break?

Pictures made out of shapes!

Today, for maths we got to create pictures with shapes with this website! There are no circular shapes sadly, but that's okay! Here are some pictures I made with the shapes.

Rainbow Solar Panel?

Gems

Random Shapes

Cute Animal!

Have you ever created a picture with shapes?