Christmas is on the Way

We drew a picture without knowing the topic, I drew a scribble and we came up with a variety of things it could be relating to christmas. But our picture had to be done before the topic was revealed.

Pai te Mahi o te Roopu

 Well done Team, you have all been a huge blessing to me and Ms Siaoloa. Keep working hard we appreciate it.

Michael Mulipola

Have you ever dreamt of something and thought or been told you can't do that. Remember if you can Dream It you can do it. 

Michael Mulipola loves comic books and he used to draw his favourite marvel characters such as Green Lantern. Now he draws for other people not just himself. 

I really like how he mixes two of his favourite hobbies for a paying job, wrestling and comic drawing.

Number Patterns

I enjoy following numbers patterns it really is quite easy once you can see how the numbers in the sequence change.  

How do you find algebra? Can you figure out the patterns?

Give it Uuuup for...

 Your are awesome. Thank your for all your hard work this week.

Splish Splash I was not taking a bath

Swimming - we are so lucky to have our pool open, thank you Mr Ball. We go swimming on Tuesday and Wednesday. We start with a warm up as the water is slightly cold. We have a race to the other end (12.5 metres) and then play a game, ‘ships’ or ‘stuck in the mud’. We have used the noodles but they have to be cleaned each time a class uses them. Miss even taught us side stroke, where you lay on your lower arm positioned above your head and pulls the water to your middle, the other arm moves from the middle and pushes the water away. Feet are doing a scissor kick. 

The tricky part was making sure we stayed 2 metres apart at least. Are you able to go swimming yet?

Footit - My New Game

 We are looking at Cultural Sports, we have been investigating Kilikiti. Today for our early bird task we had to use the combination key to mix a sport with cricket. I choose Football to mix with Cricket. Here is my new game - Footit.

I can't wait to give it ago with the class. Have you ever played sports where the games are a bit mixed up?

Kilikiti - Island Cricket

 Today we tried a different type of cricket called Kilikiti. Samoa was introduced to English Cricket many years ago. But they thought it was boring as it took 5 days to play one game. So they change some of the rules. 

You must always have two hands on the bat, and if you are not facing the ball the bat needs to be on your shoulder. If you step out of the pitch you are also out. Hopefully the teacher will take some photos for us to share what it looks like.

I found it hard to bowl, as I haven't bowled for cricket in a few years. Next time, I hope to have a bat.

Creating Algebraic Equations

  

 Today we are learning how to create the formula for the rule in an equation. we needed to remember to use a letter which symbolises a number that could be any number in a sequence for the 1st to the 500th and the formula could still work. We start using 'n' as the variable (number that changes), but the sheet referred to the 1st term and 2nd term so we thought this was easier to translate to 't'. Initially working out the formula was tricky, but then we got the hang of it. Can't wait until we do some more.

Super Duper Students

 Congratulations to the following!

Thank you for your hard work.

Brain Break

Today we were making posters about being safe back at school. After a while we needed a brain break. We had a fork, a cup and four straws. We were in teams of two.

We fast walked to the table and using one hand how to hold the fork and try to get all four straws on with out touching the straws with our other hand. Mrs Mundy lined all the straws up and got them all on at once. I wish I had thought to do that. Once all the straws were on the fork, we had to stand the fork in the cup. That was tricky because of the wind blowing in our class. 

Have you ever had a brain break, What did you do?

Cooking Food - Yum!

I was trying to find an online version of School Journals about different ways of cooking but lots of them were older. So I took the book and made it in to a set of slides. After reading and discussing it we found out they use a similar method of cooking even in Somalia, where one of our students is from. 

This method of cooking is a traditional way Maori cook for celebrations such as weddings, funerals/ ngā tangi, births and even birthdays, this is because it is a great way to feed a lot of people. In this story they were using the hangi to raise money for the school.

The author talks about how the food is prepared, and how the students lost count and had to count again so they had enough potato and pumpkin. She also talked about how the prepare the hangi pit and fire to cook the food, she used photos to support what she was saying and to help us understand.

This text was a recount because she was explaining using past tense, dialogue or talking showed feelings and frustration with others and their was personal voice. Mr and Mrs Universe, Eat was the best part.

Using Tables to Solve Problems

How does a table help us solve a maths problem?

Not that sort of table, she means tables, you know times tables.

Actually you are both on a different plane.

Look at this:

At the bottom we have a table that helps us work out the problem. The top row shows how many days they worked. Then who was working and how much the earned each day.

Who would you rather be?

Congratulations and Salutations

 Congratulations to the following...

Well done to these students for all their hard work during lockdown.

Tradition of Quilting

 Everyone has a different method of making a blanket, whether for a special event or everyday use. I remember sitting of the old tartan coloured blankets for picnics. I even have a guide blanket with badges and scarves sewn on from when I was a girl scout. 

I love how the Tivaevae and Ngatu are used to tell stories and are passed down through the family.

What is your favourite type of blanket?

Drawing Pictures to Solve Word Problems

This is my favourite way to solve number word problems. 

WALHT Solve word problems by drawing a plan or image to help us.

SC - Read the question to get all the information

- Reread to check followed instructions

- Check drawing matches 

These are the 3 examples we worked through, which one did you find easiest? Which one made you think a bit more?

Ways of presenting

 We have been talking about different ways of presenting our work and how it doesn't always have to teacher directed. We have already shown you our reading using google doc earlier this week here is the same tasks with different readings being compared.

Kau ma te Wehi

 Congratulations to the following...

Thank you for participating in discussions, it makes learning more interesting and I like to hear all of your ideas and points of view to help me understand mine.

Exploring in our DNA

 We have been looking at how people are explorers. We have talked about how this can be in our own backyards, to across oceans and into space. Traditionally explorers didn't have a compass and they created their own to help with telling stories to give a more accurate account of where they travelled, not just west as this is almost covers half of the compass directions. They used up to 32 points of the compass so you would have to listen carefully to make sure you went the right way. Here is a compass that has our boat in the middle and 16 points of the compass.

I am glad we can use a compass now when navigating, waiting for the clouds to clear, the sun to rise to stars to come up could be depressing if waiting for weeks after a storm to check you are on the right path or even to find it again.

Tradition of Exploring

The tradition of Exploring goes way back. People still like to explore, there have been many movies and books written about exploring under the sea, space and the local area. 

This week I was looking at different ways of presenting our discussions and answers to questions. I was really happy with lots of contributions today. 

Where would you like to explore?

Estimating or Guessing

Using estimating helps me to figure out what the right answer should be near. When I work it out for real, I know I have gone wrong if it is too different. 

Sometimes, I wonder how far to round up like do I round $2.25 to $2.30 or $2.50. But I can double both and the estimate is similar. 

Cultural Diversity and Traditions

 For Inquiry and Reading we are looking at different traditions cultures celebrate. We are looking how they have changed and how they might change in the next ten years. This week following on from last we our big questions was Why is important to keep these traditions alive? How do we know that. After some discussion here is some of our answers. Thanks Levi.

Postcard from the East Coast

 

Today we had our final session on Media and Creating it with a purpose. My purpose is to convince you to visit the East Coast or more specifically Hokitika. I use a photo I have taken and enhanced it. Then on the back told about all the reason I love it down there. It certainly takes a special type of person to survive down there when you can be cut off easily.

Tokelau Language Week

 This week we have Tokelau Language Week. What I have found fascinating with all these different languages is the similarities. 

I am grateful for the words that a similar as it helps me with the meaning of what I am trying to say.

Which is your favourite language to speak?

Solving Word Problems

 Our focus for the next few weeks in maths is solving word problems. There are many ways to solve a word problem and each problem can be solved in a different way but eventually we should all get the same answers. 

How do you solve word problems?

You could try:

• drawing a sketch, a graph or a table (my favourite)
• acting it out or using material like counters
• making a list
• finding a pattern and adding to it
• guessing and checking
• working back wards
• breaking the problem into smaller parts.

Today we are going to look at working backwards.

My new shoes arrived in a rectangular cardboard box. The length of the box was double the width and the width was double the height. The length was 28 centimetres. What was the volume of the shoebox?

First thing you always need to do is work out what you know.

The length is 28 cm

the width x2 is the length

the height x2 is the width. 

Second thing you always need to do is find out what you need to know

We need to work out the volume: Volume = height x width x length

To work backwards lets find out the width

Half the length is the width so half of 28 is 14 cm

Half the width is the height so half of 14 is 7cm

Volume is h x w x l or

28 x 14 x 7 = 2 744cm3

Altering Media

 Our second session on Media we had Phil join us and talk about how Media tries to influence us. One example of this is before meal times and later at night we see adverts trying to convince us we are hungry by showing us food. We may have already had dinner but the images remind us of some of our favourite food and make us hungry again. The companies are hoping we will go out and buy their food.

We talked about Covid and how the signs are trying to inform us of the risk and symptoms we could end up with trying to influence/persuade us to get double jabbed. 

We then had to change a piece of writing from Jack and Beanstalk. We had the choice of whether we were going to write to inform, persuade or entertain. And we only had 100 words.

Jack cried himself to sleep he didn't like being in trouble with his mum. But she was right as always they needed the money and beans weren't going to help them save the house or get food to eat.

When he woke up in the morning (or at least he thought is was) it was still dark in his room, he tried to look out his window but the view was blocked. He tried to dress but he couldn't get his head through the right hole. Finally outside he saw it the beanstalk. He scurried up the giant plant never to be heard of again.

Well that's the end of my 100 words however...

His mother worried about him day and night. Each morning she would go out into the fields to search for him. After months of searching she found one gold coin. She eventually fixed up the house, but she would cry herself to sleep wishing for her son be healthy and to return.

Jack after scurrying up the beanstalk had managed to sneak into a giant house. The lady of the house found him and feed him a pot of chicken. She told Jack stories of how lonely she was and how she wanted her very own son, but had not been able to have one. She locked  him up in his very own beautiful house (the size of a giant dolls house). She would bring him out to cuddle him and feed him and occasionally they would go out for walks but she never let him go. He felt like a puppy on a lead. 

As the days past, she took him into her vault filled with gold and silver. Jack thought if only mum could have a little of this treasure she would be happy. He often thought about his mum and even though she had been mad she had loved him. Jack tucked a coin into his clothes knowing the lady would take him for a walk, if he could reach the beanstalk maybe he could drop the coin.

Months went by it seemed like years. he had managed to drop a few coins down the bean stalk. But he missed his mum, he thought if only I could see her one more time. 

Niuean Language

 Today's Early Bird Challenge was to translate either ten colours or the numbers 1 to 10. On Monday we looked at greetings. During class we also looked at how we can introduce ourselves in Niuean. 

Students were asked to learn lines 1, 5 and 6 and make a recording

Language Warriors

Today we watch a you tube clip Language Warriors in response to it being Niue Language Week. Their thoughts and feeling I don't believe are limited to just the Niuean Culture but to making Cultures including other Pasifika and African.

The biggest challenge is people feeling comfortable in the discussion if they are repeating a view already shared.  But everyone view is welcome, you may even have a different reasons for your view.

These were some of the questions we looked at and will continue to discuss as the week goes on and we check out a couple of other videos and culture and heritage  and what this means to people.

What are your thoughts?

What Media have you been Viewing?

Our Cybersmart Theme for Term 4 is Smart Media. We complete a form about what Media we have been using over the last few weeks. When we looked at the resulted we discussed the bias that goes with it because today was the 'first day back at school' even if through Auckland lockdown. Hence, during the holiday period we had more time to do what we wanted and when we wanted (parents allowing of course).

Then we realised we didn't read the initial instruction which mentioned 168 hours in a week, so we were to consider how many hours a week we viewed the media form. Yeah, most of the students did media in one day.

There was an even balance of students across the youtube usage. But then I suppose it depends if people are looking for something particular.

The students guessed it right Mrs Mundy loves to read over the holidays and could easily spend 10 hours reading, and some day did. It would have been great to see 0% for the less than an hour. But overall, most people were doing some kind of reading.

This did not surprise the teacher as it appeared limited by the name Netflix, but if people considered Disney+ or Sky or another pay per view it could have been different. Having said that, it is also a cost factor so many people may not be able to afford pay per view and rather spend money on food and family. 

That could be why the next one TV was from 1 to 5 hours roughly a day.

And of course then there is the Gaming you either did or you didn't. I didn't even think about games on my phone, so I might of told a fib here.

It will be interesting to reflect back on this once we have settled back into school in the classroom and see how that effects the results. And of course making sure we are all on the same page about the viewing and what each title includes.

Tapa Pasifika

Not only is this week Chinese Language Week it is also Tuvalu Language Week. 

After looking at a range of Tapa Patterns, thanks to the site Tapa Cloths from the Pacific and Art Work, to inspire us. We made a digital tapa pattern, we had the choice of using a premade spreadsheet with a page each and 26 x 26 square (thanks to another teacher) or Google draw with a table 10x10 inserted and the cells reduced to a square shape.

Using google draw was a better way to achieve the pattern I like, that is because you could use the gradient to colour squares and in turn get straighter lines for the diagonal parts.

Have you ever tried making a digital tapa pattern? What did you use?

These 3 are all done in google sheets.

This bottom one was done by the same student who did the above black and white, you can see the difference creating it in google draw.

 

Awesome Alliteration

Last week we started practising writing sentences using alliteration. Here are some on the ones we came up with for A and B.

A

The angry alien ambushed the Army and ate an Astronaut. - Miss Thomas

The angered assault army are angry as aliens attack Auckland. - John

the active acrobat showed agility across all activities.

B

Brilliant, beautiful, bright blue butterflies bought buns.

Bright Beaming big hearted baboons wearing beard bounced babies.

Each slide has a picture with that letter the focus of the picture like the book Animalia (but no where near as awesome or inspiring unfortunately. Student brainstorm words for that particular letter and on the next slide make a few sentences using those words. The slides can be posted to their blog and kept for later if they wish to use alliteration in their story they already have a list of words starting with the first 5 letters of the alphabet.

Tuesday we looked at the letter C and here are the sentences we came up with.

C

Christian the clown circles the carnival chucking cans in circles.

Carl clips cherries as he climbs carefully clinging to corners.

Catherine cleans up carefully collecting cookie crumbs.

Charlie choked on chocolate and cheese.

Christian climbed on a chair to claim a clean cup.

Today we are looking at the letter D. What words can you come up with that start with the letter D? Can you make them into a sentence. Share them in the comments below.

Finding the Area of Joined Shapes

We have been learning how to work out the area and perimeter of different shapes.

Today we had to work out the area of a flat house or rocket. We had to break the original shape into parts. Such as a rectangle/square and a triangle before we could work out the area.

I love maths and using formulas to work out answers. We even talked about the Pythagoras theorem to help work out the height of a triangle. Only to work out the triangle was a right-angle triangle. LOL

What do you like about maths?

More Proverbs

As I was reading a list of Chinese Proverbs, I realised many of our saying come from this list. I am not sure who had the saying first, but as I can't say them in Chinese I have taken the English version of the Chinese proverb and explained how it inspires me.

Even my Grandmother used to say nothing good comes to those who sit around all day doing nothing. In other words, if you wait for fortune to fall into you lap or come to you, you will be waiting a long time. If you get up and work hard are considerate to others then you will have all the treasure in the world. 

Do you have a saying whanau say all the time?

Chinese Language Week

We are learning Chinese phrases for Chinese Language Week. I like having the how to say it part e.g. here you can see the Chinese Characters, the way it is transcribe into Romanised characters and then the how to say it translation in brackets.

你好 Nǐ hǎo (nee how) Hello

我叫譚雅 Wǒ jiào Tanya (war-jee-ow) My name is Tanya

謝謝 Xièxiè (Sh-ye - sh-ye) Thank you

再見 Zàijiàn (Z-eye gen) - Goodbye

I enjoy learning new languages and hope to be able to use them when I am out and about. 

What languages do you like learning?

Friday Fun

Today we looked at different ways to make art using a computer. there are many ways and these site just helped us think outside the box to create images or backgrounds we could use in our animation.

Sand Art

First we looked at the sand art, it was great to here the students discuss ways to make it better. the other day when I tried it I managed to change from a rainbow of colours to just black and couldn't figure out how to change it and was too scared to try anything. But, my boys just tapped and talked and shared their wow as they went. Of course the colour circle in the top right would change the colour. It takes you to a colour palette and you can pick a specific colour or the target circles in the left corner (of this page) give you a selection it will randomly choose from.

This top one is using the random circle of colours and then a blue top.

I am sure you can image the black mountains of night, turning into just black.

The second one is using colours I selected for different areas, attempting to make a lot of mountains on the left and a valley leading to the sea on the right, in the evening with the sun setting.

Silk Art

This one was interesting as you could change the number of symmetrical points from 2 to 12. You could also alter the size from smaller to larger. 

What we did notice is if you left the marker in one place too long the colour turn to white. This also occurred if you returned with a second colour (if you were trying to add layers. 

I can see many applications for this, if you use remove.bg then the image could be add easily to a drawing and the layers i mentioned earlier achieved by putting a red one over top. Then download as a png and insert it into your presentation.

Manetas - Pollock

This style is like painting with ink pen that doesn't like working, but a lot of fun. It starts out with black and every single click changes the colour randomly. I even tried to see how many colours their were but they just keep changing the hue and I started to run out of room. 

Double click starts a new image. So have fun.

Quick Draw

We ended the session using Quick Draw, you have 20 seconds to draw the object they suggest and the computer /AI has to guess what you have drawn. Not always as easy as you think. Here are my results, I had to draw a chandelier, a mosquito, an ice cream, a monkey, a strawberry and a wine glass. Listening to the guess the computer had us laughing.

Have you tried any of these, which did you enjoy? What techniques did you use or figure out?

Robotics With SDA

Throughout lockdown, I have continued to teach Robotics, Coding to a Technology Class that comes into Wesley Intermediate. 

Last week we started creating a game similar to the Gameboy layout. Students how to pick a back ground, create a sprite that appeared to move left, right, forward and back.

Here is what a student achieved well done Ryan!

The challenge was then set to see if students could add obstacles for their sprite to jump over, crash into and then restart. Here is an example I created using a maze.

Previously we had used the pen extension in Scratch to draw shapes and Ethan took that to another dimension.

Another way to look at code is through hour of code and making flappy bird fly. I had fun doing this and can see applications to scratch and other methods of coding.

Animation Creations

After looking at Myths and Legends we think we are ready to start our Animation for Ako Hiko Film Festival, all for the sake of learning. There are many ways to create animation. Tomorrow's post will show one using scratch (not quite the PG, we require for Film Festival).

Today we are looking at using slides again. This time we have some tips for you.

So we don't give away all our secrets before the Film Festival, I have taken a copy of the slide with the feature on to only show they tip.

1. You can show passing of time by darkening the back ground, you could also have the sun moving across the sky during the day.

2. You can show movement by creating an object in one slide, duplicate the slide and then move the object, repeat. You could use the initial slide to show rocking back and forward, or duplicate second slide and move object along a little further to show travelling.

3. You repeat a slide with talking on so the audience has a chance to read what is being said, this one also incorporates a moving boat.

Comparing Characters and Heroes

We are looking forward to creating an animation about our favourite Myth or Legend. But first we need to do some research and see where else there are similar heroes in the world.

After asking students to find heroes from their home lands we completed the list from different places about different heroes and of course heroines.

Here is an example of the stories we looked at and the sheet we had to complete about our hero. I loved seeing people finding out more about their history, Ka rawe, Awesome!

Morning Challenge

Let's get our brains up and going. I used to enjoy solving picture puzzles and word puzzles, not the crossword type they are to angry. So when I found them and learnt they were called Rebus puzzles I had to bring them into class.

I find it interesting to see who can think outside the box, and can explain their reasoning.

All the Angles Add up

We have been looking at angle this week and last week and even having taught everything about angles years ago. I still managed to learn something. Or at least understand why a fact I was told is valid. 

Facts I was told

• Angles inside a triangle add up to 180 degress
• Angles on a straight line add up to 180 degrees
• Angles around a point add up to 360 degrees

The last too facts were easy to get thanks to a protractor, all the way from the beginning of a circle to the end is 360 degrees, easy. Draw a straight line and measure using a protractor from one side to the other 180 degrees. No sweat.

The first one I just learnt as a fact. That was fine, maths is made up of plenty of facts I just learnt, like times tables. 

I never (or at least I don't remember) thought about a triangle as part of two parallel lines, and of course the lines on a straight line equal 180 degrees.

Who can write the best Comments Room 8 or 9?

 This morning we joined Room 8 it was neat to see how they are learning different reo Maori phrases and mixing in sign language too. Although I think we might need to check the positioning of the hands so we can all see them. 

Mr Margetts joined us and talked about Quality Blog Comments.

We all copied the slides and looked at what makes a quality comment. I am looking forward to seeing more comments on posts. Across the school on class and student blogs, especially before we start Tuhi mai, Tuhi atu. (Write to me, write to you.)

We even have a competition going so we can see who is doing quality comments, and they have to fill in this form. Click on image below, this link is also on our class site! 

Good Luck!!!! May the best teacher, I mean student win!

Useful phrases for school in Te Reo o Maori

After the discussion about phrase we could use at home I though we should have a list that can be used in class as Paahitia te ... pass the ...

Then we came up with some instructions that teachers can use, followed by the rules we have at school and in class.

Hope these phrases are helpful for you too.

What do you say when your in the Kitchen?

 Listening to my boys they are always asking for food. What do you ask for in the kitchen?

This week is Te Wiki o te Reo Maori and today we are looking at what phrases we might use in the kitchen. Pass the ... or Are you hungry? and how you could answer a question.

Hope you can try a phrase in your kitchen.

I think it will be tricky to say these phrase at home because my children tease me when I try to use te reo.

Mrs Mundy Mihi

 Back to Online learning and this week is Te Wiki o te Reo Maori, so we are all practising our mihi.

I like this one as it is all inclusive, people from overseas can use it easily too.

Ko Mrs Mundy tōku ingoa

Nō Ingarangi ōku tīpuna

Kei te noho au ki Papakura.