Dear Mrs. Pascoe

I'm sure we were all very sad to hear, that after 12 years of working at our school Jaque Pascoe is stepping down from the position of principle at our school. 

I wrote a short letter to Mrs. P herself :)

Rising Rockets

 For inquiry this term we did the "Wonder Project" which is essentially were we had to design and fly rockets out of plastic bottles. 

Before actually creating anything we had to study physics and Newtons 3 laws, then we had to design a rocket that'd be aerodynamic and fly through the air at a high speed.

I was in a large group with Zoe Cowles, Olivia Ionita, Sophia Turnbull, Pandora, And Zara. 

We had our last flights a few days ago, and ended up coming 3rd. It didn't do very well because we had forgot to even out the weights in our nose cone.

Now we must create a video/skit explaining what we did through our experience and how, and once it's done I'll add it to my blog.

Have you ever designed a rocket with a plastic bottle?

Flying turtles

 Kia ora everyone, 

This year we've been learning coding. We have progressed from Scratch to Python and were challenged to create a psa showing a global  issue.

This was a simple- yet decent- animation, however the app doesn't give you the option to save your project due to some complications in their country, so I tried to create a basic storyboard featuring photos from it. As you can see these were the only proper photos I could get from it.

My psa is about trash and pollution. It isn't amazing because I made it 5 minutes

Here is my code script- it's incredibly basic compared to everyone- but who cares.

Kupu Playing Cards

 Kia ora everyone,

This term we have been learning a range of different maori games and sayings, one of witch is a playing and matching game. We learnt to ask "where are you?" which is "kei hea koe?" in maori. We then learnt a few different things we could answer with and then created a game which we could then play.

In this slide you will find out how to play, and the cards to play with (They must be printed out)

How is Nasa in our homes?

Kia ora everyone!
For inquiry this term we are looking at building rockets, but beforehand, we've had to learn a bit about space.

One thing we've had to investigate is how Nasa is in our homes and cities. I was expecting satellites- or something cool, but I suppose what I discovered will have to do.

Aurora / Polar Lights

Kia ora everyone,

For our matariki studies we decided this week to also looked at the Aurora lights (also known as the northern, or southern lights) and created art on the two mixed. 

For many years, the aurora lights had been confusing scientists, some people thought it must've been because of a certain type of fox, running at the speed of light, and leaving a trail from its tail as it did so. Chinese historians believed that they were dragons, battling in the heavens. In reality though, they are pieces and particles from the sun, that break through the earths atmosphere, and glow in the cold night sky.

Sometimes they are very dim, and sometimes they are crazy bright, and light up the land for miles.

So- how did we incorporate matariki with the subject, and turn it into art-?

Matariki Explanation Animation

Presented By Choi-Boi Stations

Kia ora everyone, I'm back with another blog post!

Animators: Isabella S, Pandora H

Script Writer: Felix C

Voice actors: Felix C as the farmer and Tāwhirimātea, Pandora H as the narrator and side characters, and Isabella S as essentially anything else.

Since Matariki is coming up soon, we were tasked to create a short film or book to explain to the younger students in our school a little bit about what has been said to have happened, and why we celebrate it today. It had to be intriguing for the younger kids, and since heaps of people were doing puppet shows, we decided to animate sock puppets. It's not done yet, but we will update or make a new post when its done.

*I will edit the post soon and add the movie*

Blurb: Tucked away in a small village, a farmer tending to his crops gets a glimse of an extraordinary sight- no one believes him of course, but little did anyone know, there was something a lot more sinister going on behind the scenes- and it was real, very real.

The Urban Legend

Kia ora everyone!

This term for literacy, we have been looking at movie genres, and this week we've been studying horror. We created Horror movie posters, stories, and urban legends.

The other day we were challenged to write our own urban legend, and as urban legends are meant to be based on "true" occurrences, I had to dig deep, and then accept the nightmares for the next two days..

Binary to bracelet (Or Keychain !)

Billy The Ironic

Kia ora everyone,

  This week for inquiry we have been doing a little something do to with irony.

We had to create an ironic comic. Irony is basically when, something happens that you wouldn't expect to happen. 

I did one with Olivia, and no, it's not very Ironic.. lets ignore that..

Informative Inquiry

Hey Bloggers!

This term for inquiry we are researching about global issues.

First we had to create a word art about them, as presented here, and now we must watch videos about the subject we choose and take notes about them.

I'd write more but I started a bit late so there isn't much to say but that I choose to look up more about Poverty, and that you should sTaY cHuNnEd !!

What would you do yours on?

Koru Art :))

Kia ora bloggers, 

Today we were creating Koru art with Pastels, we shaded the Korus and died the background, I did the colours of my Korus blue and green, and died the background yellow to really make it "pop".

I did mine surprisingly quickly, but it was heaps of fun, now we are going to continue by creating Korus to hang around our neck with air dry clay, so stay tuned!

90 second art - 1 hour art

Kia Ora everyone!

For one of this weeks Friday tasks I was challenged to make a few of these 90 second colour push artworks ad combine them together and present them in a unique way.

Well, I created a few, but had a different idea in mind. I made about 6 and then chose my favorite one.

I then proceeded to draw a "digital sticker" of a character, and "stick" it on.

It took about 1 and a half hours, because I was kind of stuck for idea, and the sketch took ages.

I also drew the sticker on Firealpaca and made the color push on here.

Have you ever made a color push? Tell me in the comments!

Original Animals

So for one of our Friday tasks we had the option of creating our own animal.

I made a two-tailed fox, it's not the most original idea, but I didn't feel very creative today.

This species also has horns, apparently the bigger and longer the horns, the older the fox is said to be.

One particular blood-line of these animals have wings (cliche, I know..) and they are normally a lighter color of the animals original fur.

Mine's mainly purple, I drew her digitally on the app "Firealpaca" with a wacom intuos tablet.

Another activity I did today was a stained-glass window drawing/art piece, I was going to make a separate post for it but sadly my Chromebook camera isn't working, and I can't find my phone, so I might update this later.

Hey I have a question, do you like to make art? (I love to draw !)

Timeline art- Come on, it's not that sentimental, right?

Kia ora everyone,

Last week for one of our Friday activities we had to make a piece of art that was almost like a timeline. I can't find the example but it had to do with ANZAC day and first had 3 little boys playing, then in the next scene running into war, and in the final scene their parents graving their death.

I wanted to do something like this but a little less deep, maybe with a bit of humor.

The characters and drawings are bad and disproportionate, gross, but anyway this was meant to show that money and riches don't lead to happiness, or at least, not for ever.

Originally I wanted this to be funny but it ended out just sad.

I'm not happy with this oop.

What do you think?

@Home School Timetable

Kia ora everyone,

We were tasked last week to make a school week timetable for ourselves while were all at home, since we are all having to do our work from home, I thought it'd be a good idea to post the timetable, so if you haven't made one already, you could make one and base it off mine perhaps.

2 Meter Mathematics

For maths this week we have been looking at measurement. For our first activity we needed to get a household item and see how many you could fit into 2 meters. (Remember to social distance !)

Here are my findings..

Have you ever done something like this?

What could be similar to the Wizard Of Oz?!

Kia ora everyone, I hope you're all doing well!

For yesterdays literacy activity we had to think of, and describe movies similar to the "Wizard Of Oz" as that is the movie/book we are focusing on this term. I immediately thought of Alice and Wonderland, and then after a bit thought of Caroline. I mainly got the first idea for Caroline because in both stories, the natural land is grey until they go to this new place.

Can you think of any other stories similar to the Wizard of oz?

Wild Book Covers & Blurbs

Kia ora everyone,

One of my reading tasks was to create a book cover and blurb for a book on Canva. I did mine on a book called "Wild Animus" by Rich Shapero. The blurb doesn't exactly give too much info on the book and is meant to make you have a lot of questions after reading it, sort of like the book itself. You don't exactly know what's going on until you read more.

I also apologize for the blurriness, I didn't really know how to avoid that when saving the image.

Have you ever read the book?

Aurora Rising: Reading for 30 minutes

Hey bloggers,
For my reading for the next few days I'm going to read a sci-fi fiction book called Aurora Rising. I started reading it yesterday, and it's a book about a terrible team of space aliens that find a girl (called Aurora) frozen in a capsule. The get her out of that goop for her only to realize she is now 200 years in the future (300 years from the present though). They end up trying to take Aurora to her "Home planet" only to find the the "Space government" has said that it has never been inhabited in the first place. Is this girl just going insane after being trapped in space ice or are the government hiding something? I honestly don't know.

So far I'm around a quarter way there (out of 480 pages). And I will post about it once I've finished reading it!

Retro Puzzle Peices

Kia ora everyone,
Today I went onto a site called Jigsawplanet.com and did a 32 piece puzzle called "Retro Dreams". It took me around 5 minutes. It was surprisingly quite relaxing compared to other tasks I've been set.

Have you done anything like this online before?

7 worlds, 1 Planet - David Attenborough

While I was watching Sir David Attenboroughs documentary "7 worlds, 1 planet" one scene really hit me.

It showed the Albatross, a bird I had heard of, but never really looked into. They are great, beautiful birds that live on the tall ledges of rocky mountains that sit over the sea. The episode was mainly about how they are affected by climate change, especially their chicks. 

You see, Albatross can't detect which chick is theirs by smell, sight, or calls. The only way they can tell which chick is theirs is if it's in their nest. If it's to the side of it, and not on the nest, then the parents don't realize it's theirs.

Climate change is rising the sea levels, and wind levels, this means while both of the chicks parents are gone to fetch food for a good few days, the weak chick has to stay in it's nest while the wind rages. Obviously almost all chicks blow out and don't survive, and even if they do, they have to climb back up onto the nest or they while starve or freeze.

Remember The Titans - Movie Review

Kia ora everyone,

For one of our reading activities we were tasked to do a movie or book review, since I have only just started writing my film Essay on the movie Remember the titans, I think it'd be fitting and good practice for me to do my movie review on it.

Have you watched Remember the titans? (It's an amazing movie !)

Lest we forget- Let's not forget

Although there are a few rough things going around, around all of us, and the world is full of uncertainties, ANZAC day is still coming up soon and it seems as if due to the corona virus, almost everyone HAS forgotten. 

I drew this piece and added green dots around it, showing that even though Covid 19 is the news headline, we still have time to remember and think about the other things happening around us.

In Isolation Week #1

Kia ora everyone,

Because of the new virus going around almost everyone is at home, and it can get boring, so I've put together a small list of a few things I've done and will be doing to keep myself busy (as it's only the first day) as well as some ideas of what you could do:

• School work. This comes number one on the list, do your work! Although these weeks in isolation might feel like a holiday, they're not.
• Art! I love to draw and paint and even if you don't feel like you're good at it, it's always still fun to have a go at!
• Sports. Even if you aren't a sport person, you could still have fun playing a catch game against your family members, the more competitive the more fun!!
• What do you normally do in the weekends? Who's to say that you can't see your friends? Face time them! If you play sports in the weekends then you could easily just play a game in the backyard with your family?
• Something I've played today was called math play ground (mathplayground.com). It only goes up to 6th grade but it's still heaps of fun. My favorite game on it was a game called Otter rush. You can verse all your friends in a race, and even better, the characters are adorable otters!

Perfectly terrible Pepeha

Kia ora everyone,

This term we have been doing our Pepehas. Mines a bit plain, but, you know.

My Iwi is from the tribe up in Taupo, where are your family from?

Learning To Count To 10 In Samoan: Scratch Edition

For our Samoan language studies we had to create a simple scratch program in under 10 minutes teaching you how to count from 1-10 in Samoan. Just write in the English numeral and it'll come up with the answer!

Counting To 10 In Samoan

For our Samoan Language studies today we have been learning to count to 10 in Samoan.

The Samoan language is very similar to Moari so this wasn't too hard.

Here is my animation explaining how to count in Samoan:

Pictures To Binary

Kia Ora everyone,

For coding this term we have been learning binary, We were challenged to make a picture in a 14 X 10 Grid, then translate it into binary, here's mine:

0000000000

0001110000

0010001000

0100000100

1000000010                           

1001001010

1001001010                            

1000000010

1000000010                          

1000000010

1000000010                         

1000000010

0101010100                             

0010101000

Can you figure out what it is?

My Sestina | Nz Writing

This is my Sestina for writing. We will be sending these to a school in Hamilton. We are looking forward to seeing theirs.

A sestina is a 6 words 6 sentence poem. Mine is a bit odd and doesn't make sense, but anyway:

-Crazy pack of puppies sprint past.

-Buying hundreds worth in expensive shoes.

-With my annoying sister and cousin.

-Someone hands us a million dollars.

-My parents gave me 1000 dollars.

 -Bananas are actually disgusting without quarantine.

My Family Tree

For our inquiry this term we are focusing on connecting the community. We are also going to create our pepehas this term so we needed to create our family trees. My mums side is quite big, but dads, not so much.

10 Ways to have a great conversation :)

Kia ora everyone!

Along with our inquiry this term (making connections) we also watched a ted talk about the 10 best ways to have a conversation (please note all the typos in this are on purposeee). Addison C and I made one together, I did the designs, and she did the writing and animation, enjoy! (Beware it really sucks)

Making connections - VOH Poster

For this terms inquiry we have been focusing on making connections in the community. We then learnt about a whole lot of different numbers and companies that you can contact if you want to talk about something: e.g. voices of hope, kidsline, heathline. We then needed to make a poster of our chosen company and explain  what it's for. It shouldn't include too much writing so someone walking by could quickly take a glance and know what and why to call it. I chose the voices of hope, they focus on mental illness.

Samoan Language Studies

Kia ora everyone!

This term we are learning Samoan. We first learnt  a bit about Samoa, like how they love their dances, where they are located, and more.

Then we learnt the basic Samoan Greetings:

1.  Fā = Bye
2. Tōfā soifua = Goodbye 
3. Talofa lava = Hello (Formal)
4. Talofa = Hi (Casual

We are now learning the alphabet, and we were meant to make a DLO about the alphabet and how to pronounce each letter, but I was away when we were tasked to do so, so here is a small chart of the alphabet itself.

And here is the slide I made at the beginning of them term with a bit of info about Samoa in it:

My Painfully Terrible Portrait

Kia Ora Bloggers,

At the start of this term we did abstract Portraits inspired by Romero Britto. Romero likes to draw people and then add lots of colors and patterns to the illustrations depending on how he's feeling. We did the same put instead put things about us on it, e.g.: Our family culture, things we like, etc.
In mine you will see animals, art pallets, the BTS icon (oh course!!) and a few other things.

I'm really not happy with how mine turned out, I'm happy with the background & patterns, just not with the demented face. Here's mine D: :

Bad Bar Graphs

Kia ora everyone,

For maths this term in the Toroa hub we are focusing on graphs and data collection. We started with something easy: A bar graph. For our first attempts we had to draw one by ourselves, our graph had to be on eye colors. Then we had a checklist we had to base it off of. On my first graph I scored 5/6, the only thing I missed was using a ruler (AND THAT WAS BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE ONE)

Attempt 1:

Attempt 2:

The second go I got 6/6, I used a ruler, I had a detailed title, gaps between the bars, the frequency was on the lines and not it the bars, I had labeled axis, and the scale started at 0 and went up in equal amounts.

The next time you make a bar graph would you get 6/6? Or would you need to try again? :))