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.