Tech: Metal Work | Week 7

Today we had our week 7 session of tech. Our focus this term is metal work. What we are creating in tech is either a pizza cutter (Which is what I'm creating) or a cake server. So far, I am up to finishing the blade to my pizza cutter, and I have completed my handle. What it is I am doing to my blade is filing it with the file, and sanding it with rough grit sandpaper. I am having a lot of fun in tech, and I am excited to finally finish what I have been working on. It is going to be of great use at home whenever we order or make pizza for lunch and dinner. I want to thank our tech teacher Mr Naicker for all he has done for us.

Inquiry: DARE | Impact Message

This term, our focus for inquiry is DARE. It is a program that allows children to learn the dangers, and consequences of drug and alcohol use. Yesterday, Constable Cyrus came into our class to give us extra information about the use of them. We want to give a big thanks to Constable Cyrus for going out of his way to help us. This week, our challenge to alert others about these dangers was to create a DLO that showed what could potentially happen as a result of using drugs or alcohol. For this task, I worked with Alex and Julian, and we created a poster warning people about the dangers of drunk driving. On our DLO's we needed a strong message that would persuade people to think twice about driving drunk or using drugs. Our message was "Don't be like this guy, make a choice... Make the right choice..." We thought this was a strong message, and would work well.

Writing: Stretching Sentences

This week, we have been learning how to stretch simple sentences in order to add detail, or to enlarge a sentence. Our challenge was to multiple times, write different simple sentences, and stretch out each one. With practice, we would then need to create a DLO to show how to stretch a sentence, what stretching a sentence does, and why it can help.

Reading: Oakley Creek

Today, we had our next session of reading. For this session we read a story called Oakley Creek. This story was about a girl who wanted to go with her friends to Oakley Creek. Although our main characters (Faith) mum didn't know. It turned out because of her mothers suspicion, she followed Faith all the way to the creek. She ended up being caught. Our task after reading was to play a little game. In this game, we all drew picture on a white board defining different words based on the story. Our two words were Guilt, and Dilemma. This game was a lot of fun, and it ended up allowing us to understand the words from a whole different perspective.

Writing: Term 1 Explanation Writing Assessment

Last week, we along with a partner have been looking over our writing samples for term 1, and
we created a self and buddy evaluation to mark our work ourselves. To do this, we needed to rate
each important trait of writing from R1 - R6 (And sometimes R7). Each rating meaning you are capable of
more. My partner for this task was Alex. It was interesting to see each others work, as we both gave each
other coincidentally the same marks. To figure out what marks to give, we were given a Writing Rubric.
On this rubric, we could see a new slide for every different feature of writing. On each slide, you would be
shown different ratings, and under each rating, a short sentence would be there telling us what we needed to
know in order to be given that certain rating. I really enjoyed this exercise, as I learnt what I need to
implement into my writing in order to get a better score.

Self and Buddy Evaluation:

	Punctuation	Vocab	Organisation	Sentence Structure	Structure and Language	Ideas
Self	R5 - R6	R5	R6	R5	R5	R5
Buddy	R5 - R6	R5	R6	R5	R5	R6

Jack

The Rubbish Rampage!

Rubbish! It has been a problem for many years now, and although solutions have been
put into place it is not enough for the all seeing plastic to be stopped! Plastic is a cheap
material that many products are made up of. You may think, “Well then, what’s so bad
if it is cheap?” Well may I inform you that there is a lot to go over.

While on the topic of plastic being cheap, it is easy to create, and it can be found
anywhere you look. Plastic bottles, plastic action figures, plastic computer mouses!
Plastic is in everything, and because it is so common, where would it all go once not
needed? Landfills! What is a landfill? A landfill is a pile of thrown out rubbish that
trucks deliver the trash to. They are very common, and even end up making it to the
ocean.

Speaking of which, sea life is affected by this, resulting in animals mistaking something
as innocent as a plastic bag for a jellyfish! Sea turtles are well known for their deep
diving, common appearances, and being one of the victims of the Rubbish Rampage.
Many sea creatures have been found stuck in the situation where plastic was the cause.
And it is shocking how often this issue takes place, and that even your rubbish may be
a turtles afternoon tea!

Some plastics even release toxins into our food and drinks, making a pretty bad tuna
sandwich. So how can this be stopped? There are a few solutions that may end up being
the hero of our planet that we never knew about. To reduce the amount of plastic bags
being used: Try bringing a reusable bag to your next shopping spree. Or try using your
plastic bags again. It doesn’t need to be single use. In fact, plastic bags last around 400
years until they break down as they are still biodegradable. Plastic bottles: Either save
them for another time, or spend a few extra dollars and get a metal cooling bottle. It ends
up saving the planet, and your cool drink.

Although all this won’t stop the rampage completely, anything you can do to save the
planet makes you too, a superhero. We can all be apart of saving the environment! So
get out there, and make a change.

Reading: Fair Trade DLO

Last week's task for reading for my group (Rakino) was to first read a story called Fair Chocolate. In this story, we learnt about what a fair trade company is, how the fair trade chocolate company gets their cacao beans, and how the chocolate companies can help the cacao farmers live better. After we'd read the story we then needed to have a learning conversation with each other on different questions regarding the story and things in it. The next thing we needed to do was create a DLO about what fair trade companies are.

Current Events

Today, we were given a challenge by our teacher to find 2 different articles to put onto a template. On this template, there are 6 boxes for the 5 W's and the H, along with 2 other boxes for the two sides of the topic, and another for you to say what you think the author wanted us to learn from the article. One of the articles needed to be local or national, while the other article needs to be international. For this task I worked with Angela, Jayden, Nidhi, and Holy, and we all had fun.

Tech: Metal Work

Today, we had our fourth session of tech. This week, I have been sanding my handle. I have used both rough, and smooth sandpaper to polish my handle to the best of my ability. Next week, once I have finished sanding and polishing, I may move on to putting my pizza cutter disc blade onto my handle to make my pizza cutter complete.

KiwiSport: Week 5

Today, we had our week 5 session of KiwiSport. Our KiwiSport this term is Ki o Rahi. There are two teams in the game, the Taniwha, and the Ki o Ma team. One teams role is to defend the rock, while their team mates run around the island hitting each pou pole with a ball. The other teams job is to hit the rock with another ball to stop the person running. Although today, we learnt a new part of Ki o Rahi. The kicker. The kicker will start the game off by kicking the ball to the Kai Tiaki, and then running back to the line where they will wait for their turn to run. If the Kai Tiaki catch the ball, then the ball is given to Ki o Ma. Then it came to playing a game. Like the first week, we played Golden Child. We had a lot of fun this week, and I hope that next week, we can play again.

Read Theory

This morning, we started any normal day by reading stories on Read Theory. Our challenge was to finish the tests in just 15 minutes, and create a blog post to show our progress. The story that I read today was called A Cold From The Cold. This story was a grade 9 story proving otherwise against the commonly believed myth that cold temperatures cause you to become sick. In the end I managed to miss just one question, so I stay on grade 9. The highest grade I've managed to reach is grade 11, so I hope that I can make it to that grade once again.