Inquiry: Continents Of The World

Today we have been given an interesting challenge by our teacher. This challenge was to create a DLO in ten minutes about the different continents in the world, and the countries that live among those continents. Once we had created the DLO, we then could find at least 3 interesting facts about the different continents. The reason as to why we did this challenge was to expand our general knowledge about the world and different continents. For this activity I worked with Joseph and we had a lot of fun finding facts, and finding information.

Inquiry: North Island Kokako Infographic

This week, everyone in LS2 has been given a set of different challenges based on our camp. For this activity, what we needed to do was find different bits of information about the North Island Kokako bird. This included it's diet, habitat, appearance, and interesting facts. Once we had all of our information, we needed to find a picture, and put it on. This activity was a lot of fun, and my favourite part was drawing a Kokako.

Writing: Siri Group Challenge

Today, we have been given a challenge for writing by our teacher Mrs Anderson. Our challenge was to write in exactly 50 words, a response that Siri (An automated program on Apple devices) would give us if we asked it "Why Kokako Lodge is the greatest place to take year 7 and 8's on camp?" Although Mrs Anderson wanted to make this more of a challenge. So what we could do is gain points by using different Language features that would give us 5 points each. If every feature was used, then you could gain a total of 40 points. Although for another 5 points, you needed to make sure that everyone in your group was working together, and that a learning conversation was taking place. If you had exactly 50 words, and you used different references, you could even have 100 points total! Once you finished writing, you needed to digitally create a Siri conversation showing Siri's answer. The final step was to create a Screencastify that had us voicing over the whole conversation. For this activity, I worked with Julian, Alex, and Viliami. We had a lot of fun, and enjoyed recording the most.

Maths: Blog Post Data Analysis

This week, everyone has been given a challenge. This challenge was to create a blog post analysis that tells people how many blog posts we have posted each month of each year that we have had a device. Although Mrs Anderson wanted to give Alex, Julian and I more of a challenge. What we now put into our DLO's was the amount of comments and blog posts we posted and received each month. Now this was still really tough, although we had come up with a variation of ways to make the process faster. First, once we had our numbers to work with, we needed to pull up a Spreadsheet, and create different graphs that would each show our yearly and monthly progress. Then we needed to put our graphs onto a presentation, along with an explanation on why we got so many or so little comments and posts. Finally we just needed to create a Screencastify of us reading everything out. This activity was a lot of fun, and we hope for another activity just like it.

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.