A Challenging EPro8 Challenge!

In Te Ngahere on Tuesday when the year 7 & 8’s went to technology. While the year six’s were at school we did an EPro8 Challenge. The first challenge we were trying to do was Castle Siege. We had to build a protection system for the king because he was under attack. My group is Te Hauata and Manaaki. We used Bamboo sticks, rubber bands, paper, tape and a ping pong ball to build the catapult. When we were doing the EPro8 challenge we learnt about two types of energy, they were called Potential energy and Kinetic energy. We learnt that Potential energy is were all the energy stores up in the ball and the Kinetic energy moves and pushes all the energy that the potential energy stored. For example: when you are playing bowling and you use potential energy when you are storing all the energy and then you use Kinetic energy it pushes the bowling ball. Also the bowling ball is really stiff but when you use Potential energy and store all the energy then you use Kinetic energy the bowling ball will move and roll. The Kinetic energy worked really well because the Potential energy stores all the energy for the Kinetic energy so that the ball can roll. When we were testing our catapult we didn’t finish it in time to be checked by the judge(Whaea Becks). What my group and I found challenging was when we were trying all of our ideas but it still keeps on breaking or not working we got really upset and we were in the pit. Then when Gina came along and talked to us. Then Gina starting talking to us we kept on building and coming up with ideas and then we got somewhere. This made us very happy. What I thought my group and I did well was that we had a lot of ideas that we all came up with and we worked as a team. Next time we do work in a group I will try and work faster with my group and keep on talking to come up with more ideas.

Did you already know what Potential and Kinetic Energy is?

Can You Follow Directions?

In Te Ngahere for the first day we did a reading test that was called ‘’Can you follow directions?’’. First,

Whea Becks gave us the piece of paper with the directions on it and told us to get a pencil. We had four

minutes to do this reading test and it has 23 questions on it. By the time I was up to question 5 I was

thinking that I was doing everything right because everyone else was doing that. The funny thing was that everyone was saying i'm the master at following directions or saying their name out loudly. Then when we

got called down onto the mat that's when my sister Angela realized what the first step said, it said‘’read

everything carefully before doing anything’’ and not one of us in my class did that or passed the test. We

did this test to learn to read it carefully and read the whole thing not just little snips of it because when

we read little snips of it we think we got it but we actually don’t. The last question was Now that you have

finished reading this test you only have to do question one and two!. After that you can draw on the back

of the paper while waiting for everyone to finish. At the end when the teachers read us the last question

we were all like ohhhh. What I learnt from that test was to read the success criteria carefully and to read

the whole thing, now I’m going to try and do this in the future.

Has your class done a reading test like this before?

Magnificent Learning About Te Reo

 In Te Ngahere we have been doing Te Reo. We had to make a DLO and record yourself on EP (Education Perfect) saying the alphabet, greetings and place names in Maori. We were learning how to say them properly. I learnt that Otautahi means Christchurch and Tamaki-Makau-Rau means Auckland. I think I did well with saying the alphabet and greetings because it was pretty easy to learn and in Kapahaka we learn our vowels so it made it easier. For place names some of them were hard but some of them were also easy because I knew some of them like Rotorua and Kaitaia. I need to practice on getting better at saying the place names. I’m going to practice on getting better at saying them and pronouncing them correctly. 

Have you used EP before?

Smart Surfing

 In Te Ngahere we have been doing something called Smart Surfing. I learnt that instead of saying the whole sentence you want to ask google, just say the keywords. For example, If I want to ask google a question like: What do spiders eat?, you would just write the keywords. For this example the keywords would be spiders and eat. Obviously if you type up on google “spiders eat“ it wouldn’t make sense, so you would change the word eat to diet and then it would say “spiders diet?” and you would get your answer. It is better to write just the keywords then the whole sentence because I learnt that when you type something up on google like “what spiders eat”, google will give you every page that has the word what in it and any other word that you write in google. I really liked doing smart surfing because I now know that when I search up something on google I will only write the keywords. 

What does your classroom do for cybersmart?

Incredible Facts I Learnt About Coastal Seas

In Te Ngahere we have been learning about Coastal Seas. First we had to

watch the video on Netflix. The channel was called Our Planet. While we

were watching the episode we were getting facts about Coastal Seas too. The

facts that I learnt were phenomenal. When we finished our facts we had to

make a DLO with about 10 facts about coastal seas.

Here are some facts:

Did you know that 90% of fish live in coastal waters?

Some sharks prefer to hunt in the dark because they can see better at night

Stingrays like to hide in seagrass when they hunt for their prey

Females lay their eggs on the sea grass and the male help fertilize so they can

grow and become a fish

White tip sharks can fit into thin coral places to get the fishes that like to hide there

Have you watched Our Planet before?

The Celebration Of Shivam's 10th Birthday

In Te Ngahere we went to Greens Indian Cuisine in Paihia because it

was Shivams birthday. Shivams parents own the restaurant so we all

got to eat for free. We were celebrating his 10th birthday with the

whole class, the teachers, the amazing cooks and his family. When

we were settled in for lunch we said our karakia and then got given

our food. We had butter chicken with rice and garlic naan bread.

When I tasted the butter chicken it was so nice and delicious that I

wanted more. It was so generous and kind of them to invite us to their

restaurant. When we all finished our food two of my classmates Angela

(my sister) and Jade said a mihi for the whole class and gave Shivam a

card. Just before we left we asked everyone to come to the front of the

restaurant so we could do a performance and show how grateful and

happy we are. We did a few waiata and on the last waiata we sang with

all we’ve got to show how grateful we were. At the end they gave us all

a big easter egg to say happy easter and thanks for coming to celebrate

Shivam’s birthday. 

Have you been to the Greens Indian Cuisine before? 

Magnificent Maths Evidence

In Te Ngahere we have been learning maths. For maths I have been learning

equal additions. We had to do a screencastify about our maths evidencing

and what we learnt. 

I learnt how to use equal additions subtraction.

I think it is the best strategy for me because it was easy for me to solve

problems, especially subtraction. It is also the best strategy for me because

I got the hang of it pretty quickly. It is very easy and helpful. I really liked

learning how to do equal additions because it was it was fun to learn another

way of subtracting.

Have you learnt equal additions before?