3D D.O.C Design

Last term, in Extension we were learning about Biodiversity and how to protect endangered species. I chose the Tieke or Saddleback bird and created two designs to protect them,  one being a trap for it's predators and the other a home. In this presentation, you will see my ideas and planning and also a link to see my movie that I created about my designs.

Term 2 2015 Reflection

Term 2 is coming to an end now and I am are half way through my final year at PES. Term 2 has been full of opportunities, learning, fun and for me, getting to know the people in our team (Yr 7 & 8) better. Even though, there haven’t been any really big events, I feel like this term has been great! I have especially liked our Inquiry topic, Tinkering Tools and Toys and I feel like I have learnt lots in Maths.

For the first 5 weeks of the term, Team 5 was learning about WW1 and the events that occurred during that four year period. I enjoyed that because when I have learnt about WW1 in past years, I didn’t really learn much so this was really good for me. In our Zeal Zone groups, each teacher had a different class. There was cooking, history, P.E, music and art and in every class, we learnt something new.

In the last 6 weeks, we were focusing on trying to make Pt England better. Everyone in Team 5 got in groups and created something that they thought would make the school better. My group, the Instrumentos (Which is Spanish for tools) came up with the idea to repaint our hardcourts because they don’t have much colour and we think that it would make Pt England a more beautiful place for students, teachers and visitors to our school.  

Along with my normal maths class, I am a member of the Extension Maths group who are seen each Wednesday by a high school teacher from Tamaki College. At the beginning of the term, I was feeling like I was the only one not following the progression of the rest of the group but as the term went on, I understood more things and now, I can keep up with everyone else. In my normal maths class, I have learnt about pi, areas, perimeters, volume, surface areas which has been challenging but it has been good to learn all these new things.

In Literacy, we have been focusing on looking between the lines and interpreting what the author is trying to say. That has been quite challenging for me but I have enjoyed it. I have enjoyed reading different stories, poems and articles about war and other topics. I have published many presentations on my blog.

I have learnt lots this term and I have really enjoyed it. Another improvement has been doing the Koreros on Fridays at Assembly that the prefects do along with Mr Burt each week. At the beginning of the term, our Koreros were alright but they needed improving. I feel that we have improved a lot but we still have Term 3 and 4 to get better! I hope that Term 3 can be as excellent and exciting as this term and maybe even better!

Up the Pipe

Last week my literacy group, Aoraki were given the task to read the text "Up the Pipe" We then had to complete this presentation which was created by our Literacy teacher Mrs Tele'a. I found this activity a little bit tricky because a lot of the questions required me to  look between the lines to get the answer. Even though it was challenging, I did enjoy it, I think that it helped me because it made me think a lot. I look forward to more activities like this next term. 

Week 11 Maths Presentation

This is my last maths activity for Term 2 2015. It is the Week 11 Presentation and this week is all about volume word problems. It is full of questions that require us to work out the volume of rectangular prisms. I enjoyed this task because, even though it wasn't as challenging as the other presentations, it gave me the chance to practice my new skill of being able to calculate the volume of rectangular prisms. I think that I am quite good at doing this now that I have practiced it. I would like to do more of this next term, even if the skill is quite easy, I would still like to do a presentation on it to practice and get used to it.

ANZAC Animation Term 2 2015

This is my animation for Term 2 2015. It is a bit delayed because I haven't had much time to put the images into imovie so I could post it on my blog. It is an animation of poppies and a ANZAC memorial that I drew from the front angle, the back angle and from the side angle. I hope you enjoy it :-)

Week 11 Thinboard

This is my thinkboard for Week 11. The question this week was to find the volume of a cube that is 9cm high, 7cm in length and 4cm in width. My answer was 252cm. If you read my thinkboard, you will see the strategy I used to solve it, a diagram of my working out, a word story problem that I have written and 10 other similar questions written by me. This will be my last thinkboard for Term 2 but I think that there will be plenty more next term!

Week 10 Thinkboard

This is my thinkboard for maths in Wk 10. This week, there was a question about adding big decimal numbers, the question was 23.345 + 3.953 = ?? I found this question easy and quick to complete but the challenge for me was making up a word problem. The thinkboard shows my working out, a diagram of my working out, a word problem that I made up and 10 other similar questions to the main question. 

Week 9 Presentation 2

This is my second think board for Week 9, I completed this with my friend Rave. It has the same sort of question as the first think board, we had to find the area and a perimeter of a triangle.

Week 9 - Maths Presentation

This is my maths presentation for this week, it is all about volume, surface area and pi. I completed this task with my friend Rave who is at the same level in Maths as me. I found this task hard because I still don't really understand surface area properly. I hope I can learn the surface area properly so this is easier.

Future - Thinkers

This presentation is my activity that I completed for Literacy. For this task, we had to read the text Future-Thinkers by Pat Quinn and answer the questions that were given by our Literacy teacher. We were given two weeks to complete this so I also wrote about the Mobile Phone and how it started and how much it has changed since then. I enjoyed this task because we were writing what we thought the text was saying and giving our perspective on the text. I would like to do another presentation like this again.

Week 9 Thinkboard

This is the thinkboard for Week 9. It is a similar question to last weeks one. We had to find the area and the perimeter of a triangle whos base is 25 cm and sides are 15cm. We are given the dimensions and the shape and from there, we do the rest! I completed this with my classmate Rave. We solved the question and there is our working out and a diagram of our working out in the thinkboard. There is also 10 other similar questions and a word problem. 

Week 8 - Maths Thinkboard

This is the thinkboard for this week. I completed this task with my friend Rave who is at the same level as me in Maths. The questions required us to find the area and the perimeter of a square that is 13cm by 27cm. Our answer was Area: 351 and Perimeter: 80. We worked this out by adding 13 + 13 + 27 + 27 which equals 80. (the perimeter) and 13 x 27 = 351. (area) I like using area and perimeter but I still don't understand it fully, yes I know how to find the area and perimeter of someone but if someone was to give me a question that was more complicated, I would have no idea how to solve it. I would like to learn more in that area sometime in the near future.

Week 7 - Maths Presentation Word Problems

This is my Maths Presentation for Week 7. As usual there are word problems to start with then other kinds of questions. For the first time, there are volume, area and perimeter questions to do with measurements and shapes. I found this presentation quite challenging and hard because I don't know much about measurements and volumes and haven't really been taught anything about it. I hope I can learn more about that soon so questions like these won't be as hard. 

First Inquiry Session Recount

For this half of Term 2, three times a week, all the students of Team 5 will return to their home classes for Inquiry. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we only meet in the afternoon block but on Friday instead of Zeal Zone, we are in our home classes for Inquiry for the whole morning till lunchtime. The topic for this term is Tinkering Tools and Toys so we are learning about what we can do to make Pt England School better. For the first half of Term 2, we were learning about WW1 so these rotations are new to Team 5.

During the first Friday of Inquiry, we had the challenge to choose things around the school that we want to add, adjust or take away. Our first step was to get into groups of about 5 or 6. We would be in those groups for the rest of the term because we have points that are given out every session and group presentations. I got into a group with my friends before we started our first round of pictionary and charades.

After every round we would stop and talk about the word that we just acted/drew for our group. We talked about how they work and how people would do that job in the old days. For example, a dryer, everyone knows that if you put wet clothes into the dryer, they will come come out dry, but what did people used before dryers were invented? That activity made us think about what life would have been like in the 1800s and what would life be like in 2100s? If the world has changed so much since then, how much will it change in the next century?

After morning tea, groups were sent out with I-Pads to look around the school at things that could be made better. It ranged from leveling the concrete on the hard courts to planting more gardens. When we returned to the classroom, we put all our ideas into our group presentation and explained why we wanted to change them. We had lots of ideas but we finally picked our top 4 and put them into the final ideas slide.

At the end of the day, we had time to share our group’s final ideas and why we wanted them with the class. There was still more to do on the presentation but we would have time next week. I really enjoyed this session of Inquiry and I really look forward to the next one. I enjoyed learning in a group and in a fun way. Friday’s lesson made me stop and think about our school, what are the things that we could make better and is there some way we can fix it? I hope our students can do something about the things that could become better.

Week 7 - Triangle Addition

This is my Triangle Addition for Week 7. We were given a different top number from last week but the task was still the same. The numbers in bold are the numbers that were already there and the numbers in normal font are the numbers that I added in. All the numbers in each row add up to 5.283. I really enjoy triangle addition because I find it challenging to first of all find the missing number and then spilt it up into different parts. I would like to continue to do triangle addition every week because I think it helps me to get faster at adding and splitting. 

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels

Last week, in Literacy, we had the task of reading the poem, The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels. We then needed to complete a presentation about the poem. I won't give away too much about them, you will have to read it yourself! I really enjoyed this task, I liked the reading the poem and writing my own inferences. I would like to do more of these activities in the near future.

Maths Presentations Week 6 Yr 8-1 and Yr 8-2

These are my last two tasks for this week, two presentations full with questions that are at a Yr 8 level. All the presentations are Division related so the questions all involved division, mainly long division. A new stragety was introduced to our maths class on how to solve long division. You will see lots of the questions in the first presentation with have the strategy format as the question, followed by word problems that involve long division. I really enjoyed these presentations because I learnt a new strategy and got to practise it a lot. Long division is definitely one of my strengths now because I can solve the questions so easily. 

Here is first presentation 1: Division Year 8-1

Here is the second presentation: Division Year 8-2

Maths Task - Thinkboard

This is my second maths task for the week, it is a think board about a division question. The question was 467 ÷ 9 = ?? My answer was 51r8. I have a picture of how I solved the question and how I solved it written in one of the boxes. I wrote a word story about the question and created 10 other questions that are the same kind as 467 ÷ 9. I enjoyed this task and would like to do another one of these in the weeks to come. There will be another post on Maths either this week or next. 

Your challenge is to answer my questions and put your answers in a comment below. Remember some of them will have remainders. 

Triangle Addition

This is my first Maths task for this week. We are learning to use our problem solving skills and knowledge of addition to make the given number at the top of the triangle. Our number was 3.518 and we had to find out what the numbers were added up. The bold numbers were already there and the non-bold numbers are the numbers that I put in for my answer. There will be something else to do with maths later on this week for everyone to see.

Maths Presentation - Word Problems Week 5

This is this week's maths presentation full of word problems. If you have been reading my blog, you will know that each week, I have a maths presentation that I complete and post up. This presentation has questions that my maths teacher found and adjusted the numbers for my maths level. 

I found this presentation quite challenging because it had questions with different components in them. Questions that require division, addition, fractions and decimals all in one! There will be another presentation next week as well.