Thank you letter to Mrs. Anderson | CARE Awards

For my first activity of respect for CARE awards, I have written a thank you letter to a teacher or staff member. CARE stands for Confidence, Attitude, Respect, Excellence and Innovation. I decided to write my letter to Mrs. Anderson because she was my first teacher that has welcomed me to the school. Something I wrote in my thank you letter is how she has welcomed me to the school as I was a new student and how she has made me feel welcomed. 

Tech at Tamaki College

This week was the last week of graphics with Miss Ferguson. For our last lesson of graphics with Miss Ferguson, we painted our games or got them cut out on the laser cutter. For the whole session working on our game and creating a scary character on tinkercad. We went on tinkercad and created a scary character based on Halloween. I really enjoyed making 3D objects since it was a first for me and I enjoyed making a game not having any knowledge of how to create a 3D object or game. I was really fascinated at how I could make things on tinkercad and enjoyed using the website. I'm looking forward to my next rotation and I'd like to thank Miss Ferguson for making my first rotation wonderful and interesting.

Group Point of View : Plastic Straws

In Writing Joel, Taheesha and I have been learning about plastic straws and why they shouldn't or should be ban from fast food restaurants and stores. In this task we created a collaborative DLO persuading our opinions and provocation( an action or motion to make someone angry or emotive about specific issue ). Our first task was to look at 5 websites that talk about why we as New Zealanders should prevent plastic straws from causing destruction to our marine life + our wildlife. Our first perspective is that plastic straws should be banned from all areas because they are just as harmful as other plastic objects that are provided in supermarkets and in fast food takeaways. In our next opinion we give our point of view about why we shouldn't ban them because whats the point of buying straws if no one is going to use them anymore and it means its just a waste of time. 

Reading Week | Joy Cowley

For this activity the class chose a author that is from New Zealand and write about them. In my DLO I wrote about Joy Cowley who is a well known author who writes picture books for children and some adult novels. My favourite books that Joy Cowley has written is Greedy Cat and the Goldfish, Mrs Muddle Mud-Puddle, Mr. Whisper and Mrs. Wishy-washy as they were my favourite picture books as a child. She has had three marriages and is now happily married to Terry Coles and also has four children. I chose to do Joy Cowley because she made the best picture books and I found her very interesting.

Reading Week | Describing

This week for reading week Joel and I created a DLO. Our task was to choose one of the pictures that were displayed on the slide e.g- either a castle or a fun house. Our main priority was to describe the picture and write adjectives to make our DLO more interesting. We had to think about what we were going to write and what setting we were going to use since there were two options. In our DLO our goal was to make our information sound more interesting and informal.

Reading Week | Reading Pathway

For this task we made a DLO about our reading pathway as it is reading week. In my DLO I have showed what books I liked when I was younger and to now. My favourite book when I was 5 was Clifford the big red dog because I just liked how the friendship was between Emily and Clifford. My favourite book when I was 7 was Marmaduke Duck because I found the book hilarious as the animals just wanted the ducks marmalade. I started reading chapter books when I was 8 and the first book I read was Diary of a wimpy kid. I found the book fascinating as it was funny and serious which is the type of books I like. My favourite book now is Wonder because it talks about a boy named Auggie who has a deformity and is insecure about himself, but I just like the book because its so interesting.

Tech at Tamaki College

This week for tech we started making our games using the 3D printer. For this we had gotten an explanation from Miss Ferguson of what we have to do. Miss Ferguson 3D printed some game boards and in 2 different shapes such as squares and circles. For my game I couldn't use these game boards as I have a puzzle which needs different ways of making. The boards that Miss Ferguson printed were sanded. After that we dusted the dust off the boards with a duster and then glued the two boards together.

Persuasive Speeches

Speech

Talofa Lava everyone, my name is Haylee and in my point of view we, New Zealanders have made the right choice to keep our flag that we fly today. When this event occurred it made me think about why they would change the national flag when the flag has a lot of history and meaning behind it. It made me so frustrated that people were moaning about not getting their vote counted. It was time that they should’ve realised that the flag has a lot of history and meaning so we can’t, and we shouldn’t throw the history of our flag away.

For over the last 100 years the flag has flown, the armed New Zealand forces have worked and fought hard with the flag on their arms and in their souls. Changing the flag would mean wasting millions of dollars and disrespecting those who have fought and risked their lives for the freedom we have today. 

$26 million dollars is a lot of money being spent on designs that never got chosen. Yes the designs took time and effort to make but this money could’ve been spent on other things that could’ve helped others or animals or even construct shelters for the homeless. If the money was spent wisely it could help keep all of us above the breadline.

If we didn’t have this election the money could’ve been spent on things that were in need. This election wouldn’t be needed because others need to know that the flag means a lot to people, and the people that have past, have died knowing that the flag that we fly today, will always be in their hearts. Imagine having to change a tradition that had lasted for over 100 years because others didn’t like how it was. To me the New Zealand flag is a reminder of my ancestors and the past.

Our national flag should never be taken away because a few people want a change. Our flag should stay the same because it’ll cost money for new things, and the money may be needed for other situations. There will always be a time where you want a little change but remember, you are not the only person in this world and others have different opinions. I hope you think twice about things and don’t rush straight to conclusion.

LI: To write a speech that persuades others to think the way you do.

This week we wrote persuasive speeches for the speech hall competition. For my topic I chose to write about the election that happened during the flag change a couple of years back. We had a few weeks to plan our speeches and communicated with each other to proof read and give feedback. We used OREO which stands for opinion, reasons, explanation, and opinion. While doing the speech we were to give the audience eye contact, show expression, to be confident and hook in our audience with persuasive language features. Some read aloud to the class and some read in groups. In groups we read our speeches together and gave marks to everybody and told them our feedback. I think I did well at speaking clear and loud and giving the audience eye contact times. I don't think I did well at showing expression so next time I should try doing that. We all voted for who should go into the speech hall competition and they had a chance to say there speeches in front of the class before the competition on Wednesday. On Wednesday we had a guest from Tamaki College, Mr Stevenson to judge the speeches. Everybody did great and I enjoyed listening to their speeches.

STEAM Challenges

This week for our STEAM challenge we got into groups for the activity we were going to do, in my group were Florence, Fui, Chavda and Taheesha. For this activity we constructed a newspaper mangonel catapult which was one type of catapult we could chose from.. We were given STEAM baskets which have materials that we use for our challenge. In our STEAM basket we had newspaper, tape, rubber bands, scissors, and a little cup with a lid. We first planned out everything and how we were going to make the mangonel and the roles we were given. We made progress and our catapult worked and at the en every group got to test their catapults by trying to hit the target. After everyone got a turn at testing we all sat down and talked about how we can improve our catapult. The strength wasn't as great but our catapult was still good and could function properly.

Tiny House

For the last few weeks, we have been working on constructing a tiny house, in groups or partners. For the tiny house activity I was working with Sakina and Chavda. For this activity we used our knowledge on the perimeter, area and geometry. We created a plan to write down the measurements of the base, the roof and the furniture we needed. Then we started creating our tiny house. This activity was difficult, because of all the maths working out and the measurements we did.

Tech at Tamaki College

Today for tech we finished making our games. Today I looked on thingiverse which is a website that has designs that you might need to create your game. I looked around the website to find jigsaw puzzles. Most of the pieces I saw were cookie cutters which weren't useful to what I was creating, so I looked for a plain white puzzle base on google. We were creating the game pieces that we made on tinkercad, so it could be 3D printed.

RISE UP: THE STORY OF THE DAWN RAIDS AND THE POLYNESIAN PANTHERS

Today Me and Angela worked collaboratively to create a DLO about the story about "THE STORY OF THE DAWN RAIDS AND POLYNESIAN PANTHERS". First we read the story together and then formed an opinion on what we thought about this true story. My opinion on this incident is that the white people shouldn’t have barged into Polynesian house early hours in the morning and been racist because everybody is human right? In our DLO we have summarised the story in our own words and included pictures of the Polynesian Panthers logo as well as the march that took place.

Tech at Tamaki College

This week for tech we started doing our games and started to do our game pieces. Today we started making our game pieces and used tinkercad to make our game pieces in 3D. I created a jigsaw puzzle so I didn't use tinkercad since you have to make the jigsaw pieces from scratch. The website I used was thingiverse because on there you can search up a topic and then people might've made something related to that. There were multiple puzzle pictures that I could chose from so that next week I could start making my puzzle.

Swimming

This week was our third week of swimming lessons. For this lesson we had James as our instructor. The swimming skills we did were free-style, we did swimming with the swimming boards, backstroke, dolphin diving, and many other skills. I learnt that when I do free-style I shouldn't bring my head up all the way because that is how you sink. Instead you should roll to the side and not lift your head up. I am excited to go swimming again next week because I'm learning how to stay safe in the water and I'm also having fun.