2013 Reflection

This year for me has been very fun and cool. I have enjoyed being in room 20 and I have learnt a lot from my teacher, Mrs Squires. It’s been a fun, educational experience playing sports and learning. I played Rugby and Soccer earlier in the year, it was fun and pretty cool playing with my friends.

I liked being in this class working with my mates, Waata, James, Raenan, Kingston and them. Term 1 Fiafia was also a another great experience being in the Niuean group. Learning P.S.I in term 2 was fun and in Term 3 we learnt about Life’s a Stage. It was also fun and cool. But my favourite term, term 4 was the best for me because it was fun and our topic was What in the world is going on?

This year for me has to be one of my favourite years at school for me, and I have only been at Pt England since last year when I came at Term 2. I have learnt lots and made new friends while being here, I reckon this year was good. Next year I'm off to Glendowie College. I am looking forward to it, to starting something new.   Although my friends and I are going to different schools I think we will still keep in touch.

Kendrix Netbook Reflection

Having netbooks to learn is a great,cool and effective way to work at school. I like having netbooks cause it’s fun and I still learn lots. Xtramath and Math Whizz are very educative and fun to use to learn maths. I’ve learnt things from adding and dividing large numbers to timesing and minusing small decimals.

I think using this technology is really effective to our learning. I enjoy learning like this more better than pen and paper because this is more open and easier. Being online, I have learnt more than just maths, literacy and work. I have also learnt how to do things easier online, like shortcuts and stuff.

Being able to share docs and work with classmates is also very cool, and it also helps with group tasks. We are very fortunate to be able to learn in this digital way. My netbook has helped me learn more and it’s a better learning experience for me. But still, sometimes I can get distracted and go off track and do other things such as games.

The netbook helped me learn with maths easier, with Maths Whizz. Maths Whizz is a great maths learning site which you do tests and lessons to help improve your maths skills in heaps of areas. On maths whizz I’ve learnt how to do things better like adding,multiplying, subtracting and dividing large numbers, or decimals.  Xtramath has helped with simple addition, multiplication, subtraction and division.

Being connected online helps heaps because you can also research your work at the same time. Being able to research can help a lot if you don’t really know what you’re subject is about. I also like learning about the actual netbook, like what else we can do on it. I’ve learnt even by learning with netbooks.

Yr 8 Camp Reflection

Last week we had our Year 8 Camp. It was down at Rotorua, a campsite called Camp Keswick (Kesick) Tuesday was the day that we headed down to Rotorua on the buses. We got into groups and sorted stuff out on Monday. There were about 7 groups, I was in the KB’s (The Kick Backs) After school on Monday I brought down my bags and stuff.

On tuesday we were all prepared to go on our journey to Camp Keswick. I was curious to know what the camp was like. We all assembled in the hall in our groups. All our bags was laid out in the hall. We got a talk from Mr. Burt about the camp, and too be respectful. After we left to the buses. There was two buses waiting. We chucked our luggage into the luggage area below.

Heading to camp, i was still curious and thinking about what it’ll be like. I was at the back with the boys, singing songs and stuff, while Dillon played the guitar. After a while it. To Be Continued.

Kendrix Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela the great revolutionary man, who once was the president of South Africa. Not long ago he passed away, known all around the world he died at the age of 95. Born 18 July in South Africa and he passed away December 5.

At the time South Africa was in poverty and it had a apartheid thing which separated races. He focused on breaking up the legacy of the apartheid. He helped heaps of people, and it is sad to know that he has died. He had a hard life, but still it was worth it. He was imprisoned for 27 over years, and still came out to be the first dark skin president South Africa has had.

His name Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, is actually Rolihlahla Mandela. The name Nelson was actually given to him by a teacher in one of his schools as a child. He was sick before his death and he was also very old. It is still sad to see him pass away, he will always be remembered as a great man.

Mihi

Mihi

Kia Ora Koutou,

Kua haere mai nei,

Ki tenei kura,

Ki te mihimihi,

I nga whakaaro pai

Ka nui te aroha,

Mo to koutou maia,

Ki te haere mai,

Ki te ako,

I nga kaupapa,

E pa ana ki tenei wananga

Mihi (english)

Greetings to you all\

(who) have come here

to this school

to greet

the good thoughts

Great is the love

for your strength

in coming

to learn

the topics

concerning this school of learning.

Maths Problems

Q1. James had $83.50 and he wanted too buy this thing. But to get this thing needed $120.99. How much more money does Kingston need to get to have enough for this thing ?

Q2. This boy Zyrin was saving money up for this game he wanted for some time. He had $749.259 in total after saving up. But then he got robbed and lost nearly half his money. The thief stole $324.131. Now how many much dollars does he have now ?

Q3. There was 35.5L of water in the small pool. They needed 6 x this much too fill the pool up fully. How much more litres does the pool need ?

Q4. John had $84.60 and he needed to share it out evenly between with his 3 mates, because he was rich. How much money does each friend get ?

Q5. There was 6 pies. and Kingston ate ⅔ of them. What fraction of the pies are left ?

Q6. Raenan is a Tagger. She has been painting a huge Graffiti behind a building. For the main colour he used a 30 litre pail of white mixed with a 60 litre pail of blue. Unfortunately he ran out of paint before he finished the graffiti. He thinks that he will only need 10 more litres in total to finish. How much blue and white paint does she need to mix up to get the 10 litres of paint she needs that is exactly the same colour she has been using?

Outlook for Someday Workshop Movie

Balloon Thrust Investigation

In extension we were given a task too experiment different ways too tie a balloon to a string with a straw. The air coming out of the balloon would make it go across the string. We had too find a way which will make the balloon reach the other side of the string the fastest. All groups had to make three experiments and try them out.
Our first experiment had two tapes and we used a big balloon.

 This is our second balloon experiment. In this experiment we used two tapes like our first one but, with a smaller balloon.

This is my third experiment, and I chose too use only one tape on this one.These are our groups balloon investigations.

Kendrix Self Explaining Roads

Question:

Differences between self-explaining roads (‘SER streets’) and other streets – what differences you notice, what’s good and what’s bad?

B/R, Hypothesis, Experiment, Data:

My hypothesis was that I thought that we will get heaps of responses and people will think the SERs are good and safe. We made a survey about SERs. After we ended getting 46 responses and most of the kids were year threes.

Observations, Conclusion:

Some kids did not know what I was saying and talking about so after asking some students I realized that I needed to state what a SER is, after that some kids gave answers. Some questions were hard for the littler kids to understand so I changed the way I asked them. After doing this survey about SERs and getting responses from 46 kids from Pt England School. After doing this investigation I think that the SER are unsafe and can cause many problems, like accidents.

Communication:

In extension we have been working on surveys about SERs(Self Explaining Roads) My question was What differences you notice with SERs and normal roads, what’s good and what’s bad. After getting responses from 46 pt england kids I have found out that more kids think that the islands on the SERs make the road safer, because it slows down speeders. Some kids thought the islands were not safe because the car might not see the kid behind the island and hit them.

Kendrix Halloween writing

List of things you noticed during halloween:

Scariness

Camps/trips

Festivals/celebrations

Costumes

Scary Decorations

Pumpkin heads (jack-o-lanterns)

Trick Or Treat

Lollies

Scary masks , Masks

Horror Stories

Scary Movies

I think halloween is about lollies and trick or treating. I think it is just a day when people dress up in scary costumes . I’ve never heard any stories or reasons why there is a halloween day. My guess is that Halloween originated when someone died that night, and his/her name might of related to the word Halloween.

But after learning more about Halloween, I now know that, Halloween has many different meanings in different cultures. In the ancient times, the celts had their own celtic calendar. Which was split in half with a light half and a dark half. On the start of the dark half there was an event called Samhain (sel-win), it was a harvest festival. The harvest festival meant the peoples food was ready to gather. On that day the veil between the spirits and the real world could be crossed. If a human crossed into the spirit world, they could be trapped in there, forever. The people would stay inside to be safe. The harvest time was scary because they would not know if the food they had would supply them through the winter, they might of died of hunger.

Lemuria was on May 13th, on that day people would pour the milk on graves to stop them from rising. They believed that the dead will rise. The christians changed it to all-saints day. All Saints’ day on May 13th was moved down to November 1st. They moved it so it could drain the life out of Pagan samhain.  All-saints day name changed to all-hallows day. Then people started calling samhain all-hallows evening, because it was the day before all-hallows day. After, All Hallows day,’ name was turned into Halloween day.

They made november 2nd, All-souls day. All-souls day was made to honour the dead people.   Priests would ask for christians to pray for the people in purgatory. So some people would ask a church for soul cakes, in return they would pray for the spirits in Purgatory. Purgatory was a place in between hell and heaven. Trick or treating might of came from this day because of the kids asking for the soul-cakes. If the spirits in purgatory got enough prays they would fly up into heaven. Purgatory was a described as a fiery place, but still not as bad as hell.

From doing this research, I have found out that Halloween is not just a day of treats and scary costumes. I’ve learnt that Halloween is actually very complicated and originated a long time ago. October 31st was originally a Celtic harvest festival called, Samhain.

Maths Problems 4

Julia is an artist. She has been painting a huge mural for the town centre. For the main colour she used a 20 litre pail of white mixed with a 10 litre pail of blue. Unfortunately she ran out of paint before she finished the mural. She thinks that she will only need 6 more litres in total to finish. How much blue and white paint does she need to mix up to get the 6 litres of paint she needs that is exactly the same colour she has been using?

20L of white and 10L of blue paint.

20 + 10 = 30

6 divided by 30 = 5

4 x 5 = 20 and 2 x 5 = 10

4 + 2 = 6

4L of white and 2L of blue paint.

Maths Problems 3

Tiaki is fixing part of his fence. The pickets he needs are .68m long each. How many metres of timber does he need to cut up 45 pickets?

28.2m

.68 x ___ = 45

.68 x 10 = 6.8

.68 x 20 = 6.8 x 2 = 12.4

.68 x 40 = 12.4 x 2 = 24.8

.68 x 5 = 6.8 divided by 2 = 3.4

3.4 + 24.8 = 28.2m

If the timber comes in 5m lengths only what is the minimum amount of lengths he needs to have enough for 45 pickets?

6

5 x 6 = 30, (more than 28.2)

6 x 5m lengths

30m

The timber is $3.55/m. How much will he have spent?

$106.5

30 x $3.55 = ___

30 x 3 = 90

30 x .50 = 15

30 x .05 = 1.5

90 + 15 + 1.5 = 106.5

Maths Problem 2

2. Sione uploaded a presentation to his blog but it was too big. In the HTML code he saw that the size was 920  pixels wide by  648 pixels high. He thinks if he reduces it to ¾ of the size it is, it should fit. What dimensions does he need to change in the HTML code?

690 pixels wide and 486 pixels high

230 pixels wide

920 divided by 4 =

(92 divided by 4 = 4 x 20 = 80  4 x 3 = 12 4 x 20 + 4 x 3 = 92)

4 x 200 = 800

4 x 30 = 120

4 x 200 + 4 x 30 = 920

230 x 4 = 920

162 pixels high

648 divided by 4 =

(64 divided by 4 = 4 x 10 = 40, 4 x 6 = 24, 4 x 10 + 4 x 6 = 64)

4 x 100 = 400

4 x 60 = 240

4 x 100 + 4 x 60 = 640

4 x 2 = 8

640 + 8 = 648

162 x 4 = 648

690 pixels wide

230 = ¼

¾ = 230 x 3

230 x 3 = 690

486 pixels high

162 = ¼

¾ = 162 x 3

162 x 3 = 486

Maths Problems 1

The world record for throwing a cellphone in 2012 was 102.68 metres. James attempted to beat the record but only managed to throw 97.89m. How much was he short by?

4.79

102.68 - ___ = 97.89

102.68 - 2.68 = 100.00

100.00 - 2 = 98

98 - .11 = 97.89

2.68 + 2 + .11 = 4.79

Future Aspirations 2

The kind of business I would like to own is a cool business that would make lots and lots of money but still be fun to run. This business would kinda be like Apple or Sony, It would be like making cool stuff like games, computer stuff. Making games and that would be cool, because I like to play games, or if not owning a business like that, I could work for a job like that. I would still like to play rugby though. Other jobs I’d like to do would be anything cool.

Maths Illustration

Tiana saved the same amount each week after 16 weeks she had saved $96. How

much money had she saved after 6 weeks?

$36

96 divided by 16 = 6

16 x 6 = 96
10 x 6 = 60
6 x 6 = 36
60 + 36 = 96

$6 a week

6 x 6 = 36

Maths Illustration

There are 24 classes at school. ⅜  of them are Year 1 or 2 teams. How many is this? 

9

⅛ of 24 = 3

3 x 8 = 24

⅜ = ⅛ x 3 = 9

⅜ = 9

Future Aspirations

On Wednesday some  people came to our school, they came to tell us about our future aspirations. We started off in the hall with the year 7 and 8 all together. Andrew Patterson talked to us first and introduced us to the visitors, Mosa Mafileo, Emma Brown Tristan Pang, Aysha Hohaia and Caine Warren. They all had stories and things too tell us about them that could inspire us to try and do our best we can do.

We got split up into year 7’s and 8’s, the year 7s stayed in the hall with Tristan, Aysha and Caine. We went too the street with Mosa and Emma. Mosa talked to us and he was funny as, he talked about his dream of being a politician and trying to support pacific things. He said how he pursued his dream and he’s nearly there. He inspired me because of his determination and his thoughts. When I grow up I would probably want to be a business owner.

The Last Forest

The Last Forest :

The forest was amazing. It was a green forest, which had rain, and tall trees. But the forest was controlled by mutant aliens, that had tried to conquer Earth a few decades back. The aliens came here from their planet. Their mission to conquer Earth was a fail, but they still got control of Earths only forest. It was the last forest ever on planet Earth. The rest of Earth lived like it was a huge dessert.

It was too hot and humid to live normally. The forest was located in the top of the north island of NZ. The aliens had control of the southern hemisphere. THe forest supplied air and rain for the country.

Since it was the last forest and New Zealand was the only place that was hydrated and safe to live, the people tried to fight back. No farms or veggies would grow, in the heat of the sun anywhere else. Humans were in danger because of the forest.  The last forrest contained a lot of palm trees it was the biggest forest Earth ever had.

No human had seen the forest in ages, but from what they could remember the forest was lush and green. The scenery in the forest was It was very resourceful and home to many endangered animals. But now the humans are not sure of what it even looks like. The humans tried too fight back but they had no choice. Only

5 jobs

- Army

To be in the you would have to do heaps of training and practise to make it in. I would want this job because it would be cool fighting in the wars. But it will be dangerous. I would try join the New Zealand army, if I could.

- Spy / Assassin / Hitman/ magician/ dynamo

To be an assassin you would have to be trained hard and I would have to be fit and strong. I would have to train and get certain skills up. I would want to be an secret agent because you could do classified missions. Being a magician, with actual powers and magic tricks, would be cool so I could do things like "Dynamo".

- Make stuff , like games and consoles.

Playing game is one of my favourite things to do. I thought of making a ultra-game or console. This would be cool, because I could think of a game and try to make it.

- Invent cool stuff

I would invent a company like apple. So I could become like Steve Jobs. I would earn money off it. He got paid heaps but not now. Steve jobs was estimated to be worth about $31.6 billion before his death. That would be cool as. I would be the second richest company in the world. My company would make things like phones and computers and hi-tech stuff.

-  Rugby player

To be a rugby player, you would have to be good at rugby and do lots of practise and rugby. I like playing rugby now its my favourite sport. Being a rugby player would be cool, because I could play a sport I like and its still kind of like a job.

-Kendrix

Turbo.

One day in the holidays me and my brother went to the movies. We watched The Turbo, it was a pretty cool movie. My brother and I took a bus to Sylvia Park when we reached there we decided what movie we were going to watch and we decided to watch the turbo. I wanted to watch another movie but he wanted to watch The Turbo so I just went with him. We had 20 dollars each to buy something to eat. We headed to the food courts he went straight to McDonald but I didn't feel hungry. My brother ended buying sushi.

We went to the movies to see when the Turbo was coming on, lucky for us it was scheduled to play in 20 minutes we bought some drinks and we went to the game area for a little while. My brother spent the rest of his money there.

I checked the time and it was nearly time for the movie to screen. I told my brother and we straight to the counter and gave our tickets to the man and he told it was cinema 4. We went and entered the theatre he sat down on a random seat and I told him we should go to our seats just in case we were in someone elses seat. Then a few minutes later some people came and told us that this was their seat so we went to our proper seats.

The lights dimmed then the usual ads started after that the lights turned of. Then the movie began. Then the movie finished, we left the theatre and I went outside and left. I reckon Turbo is a cool movie and also pretty funny.

Marble investigation

In class we carried out an investigation. It was about the distance a marble would travel if we put it on a one metre ruler, and drop it from different distances. After getting the results we had to put them on a graph. After we had to estimate the distances of different places.

Homework shouldn't be necessary

Should homework be compulsory in schools?

At school we had to pick one of three choices we have been given to write about. They are, ‘Should pitbulls be banned in Nz? ‘Should homework be compulsory in school? and should Pt England be a single gender school. I chose should homework be compulsory in school.

I think that homework should not be compulsory in schools because it is our time at home and work is for school. The kids can decide if they want to try harder and do extra work. Another reason why homework is because some kids probably couldn't finish it because of other reasons, that the teachers might not believe and then they might get put on detention. I think that homework should be a choice to do it or not so the kids can focus on other things.

I think that kids from like a certain age that I don’t know shouldn't need to have homework.

But homework should still be encouraged at schools so the kids can keep what they have learnt in their brains. Homework or just reading books at home can increase reading age or maths age. Homework is a great way to keep your maths and reading stuff kept in your brain, but I still think that it doesn't NEED to be handed in.

Shack and the beanstalk, Twisted tale

Once upon a time there was a boy named Shack who lived with his mum. They lived in the far side of the forest in a tiny cottage. Shack was an only child and ever since his dad left them they became a very poor family. The only thing they had besides themselves, was their cow. “Shack, my boy go take our cow to the town square and trade it for something valuable” Shacks mum demanded.

As soon as Shack arrived at the town, a strange old monk approached him. Shack did not know what he wanted but the monk still walked towards him. The monk carried coloured beans in his hands. He said “take these beans because these holy beans are special”. The monk walked away while repeating the words “ Beware the power, beware the power , Beware the power. ” In a blink of an eye the monk was gone with Shack’s cow. Shack did not care about the cow anymore he was thinking of how his mum is going to kill him. When Shack reached home he thought of an excuse to tell his mum.

Later that night Shack had a visitor at his house. She was the princess of the town, but she was trying to escape from prince Jeremy . A lightning bolt struck near Shack’s house. The impact was so hard it made him drop his beans. He saw that the beans fell into a glass of water, then vines grew out of the tiny beans. Shack stepped back slowly as the green long vines thickened and grew. Shack noticed it grew higher and higher. The huge vine then crashed through the clouds and led to the sky. As they grew a vine reached out and pulled them up sky high.

Shack and the princess found themselves stuck at the top of vine. The vine let them go and they landed on a big white cloud. Peering through the mist of the clouds Shack managed to make out a shape of a village up ahead. They headed to the village where hobbits was laughing and playing. Suddenly, one of the hobbits spotted them and screamed out “Giants!!!” Shrieking with fright, the hobbits scurried back into their underground burrows.

to be continued...