Kia Ora. For E-Syposium we have been doing Sketchup. I learned how to create a 3d house on Sketchup. The fun part of this activity was watching the presenters creating a 3d house. There was no challenge because we can’t access it (technical issue). This tool might be useful when we are designing stuff and 3d printing. The presenters helped us learn by showing us how to use the tool step by step. If I was running this toolkit, I would change nothing. Hopefully, the technical issue will be solved and we are looking forward to having a goal at Sketchup.

Kia Ora. In the E-Sypodium we have been doing pixel art. I learned how to make pixel art by using google sheets. The fun part of this activity was creating your pixel art. The challenge was that you have to create curves and detail your project. This tool might be useful when we are creating a project in google sheet or we are making pixel art. How did the presenters help you learn? The presenters helped us by giving instructions and further details. If you were running this toolkit what would you change? If I were running this toolkit I would change the way to present and add more examples to help my audience to understand better.

Kia Ora. In Paihia school we have been celebrating Matariki. Each class chose a/some stars to present. Our stars were Pohutukawa, Tupuarangi, Tupuanuku and Matariki. My group was Tupuanuku. Tupuanuku is the star that represents the food that grows in the ground, like carrots, potatoes, and pumpkins. For our presentation, our group chosen to present our star visually. Firstly, we explained what star we are and what it represents. Then we gave each child a seed for them to plant in their classes garden. Lastly, we gave them a pack of seeds to bring it back home to plant in their garden. The other classes also did some cool presentations. My favourite one was Te Maunga’s because they had cool decorations in their class and they had some cool animations. I think we did a pretty good job at entertaining our audience. 

Do you know the definition of the other stars?  

In Te Ngahere this week, we have been learning to infer in our reading. Inference is when you use clues from the text to understand what the author trying to tell us. We are reading a text called “Frog” by Paul Mason. For this text, we also did some activities around inference. We have to write down all of the changes we noticed in how life has changed in the future.  I think I did a pretty good job at inference but next time I will try to infer deeper. 

Here is the Inference activity: 

In Te Ngahere for reading, we have been learning about world war 1.  We watched some videos about World War 1 to add some background knowledge to help us understand the text we were going to read. As I said, we have been reading a text too. The text is called Lest we Forget, it described World War 1 using different veterans perspectives. I also learnt a lot of facts about World War 1. For example, I learnt that in world war 1 people fought in a place called Western front. My favourite part of this activity is to record a interview of you imagining intervening a WW1 veterans.

Here is the video

In Te Ngahere, we have been reading a text called “The Sea Devil”. “The Sea Devil” is mainly about how a German count called Felix Von Luckner and his men escaped from an internment camp. For this text, we are learning how to summarise the text and making connections. We’ve been doing some activities around the text. For one of the activities, we have to create a wanted poster for Felix Von Luckner. I think I did a pretty good job at making connections between other texts. Next time I think I might need to work on summarising.

In Te Ngahere we have been learning how to write an explanation. For this piece of explanation writing, we were writing about how different landforms are formed. We were writing about this topic because we are doing some activities about earth (check out my last blog post) and we want to tell other people what we learnt. We also have a success criteria and an example to help us on our explanation. The success criteria gives us instructions of how to write a quality explanation and the example gives us an example of what it looks like. We also have to try to not include personal voice in our writing, such as: you, I, us… I found it out easy to use the success criteria but I found a bit hard to not write personal voice. I think I need to work a bit more on my Tectonic plate paragraph because it’s not that clear and I need to simplify it.

Here is my writing:

How landforms are made.

“Have you ever wondered why there are different continents in the world and why there are earthquakes?”. Million years ago, there were no continents and countries. What it had was just one giant piece of land! “So, how did that giant piece of land become different land and continents?” Before starting, you need some basic information about the tectonic plate.

The layer of the earth:
The earth is just like a cake, it’s made from different layers: (in order from inside to outside) The inner core, outer core, mantle, the upper mantle and the crust, but today the crust is the main character of this piece of writing. The crust is the layer that we live on. The crust is uneven like the other layers, it’s not a complete layer. It is made up of tectonic plates.

The tectonic plate
Tectonic plates are pieces that make the crust. They can move on the softer mantle underneath them. The tectonic plates are just like a jigsaw puzzle. About 250 Million years ago, the earth’s land was just like that and it’s called Pangaea. 200 Million years ago, the movement of the tectonic plate split Pangaea into two pieces of land, they are called Laurasia and Gondwanaland. 145 million years ago, all of the land started to split apart and became to the continent now.

The movement of the tectonic plate
The tectonic plate boundaries move all the time, there are three ways that the tectonic plate boundaries move: Divergent, Transform and Convergent. These movements of the tectonic plate boundaries construct different landforms.

Divergent
Divergent is when two tectonic plate boundaries move apart from each other, that’s how valleys and rifts are constructed. For example the valley of the ten peaks.

Transform
Transform is when two tectonic plate boundaries move along each other, that’s how earthquakes are caused. For example, the famous 2011 Christchurch earthquake was caused by the movement of the Pacific plate and the Australian plate.

Convergent
Convergent is when two tectonic plate boundaries move into each other. Because of the force they push into each other, one of the tectonic plate boundaries went down and the other went over. This movement will construct mountains or alps. For example, the NZ southern alps.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the movement of the tectonic plate formed different continents and the movement of the tectonic plate boundaries constructed different land landforms.

Kia Ora, In Te Ngahere we have been learning about tectonic plates. We have been watching some videos about the structure of earth. I learnt that earth is made of 4 layers: Inner core, Outer core, Mantle and the Crust. Of course, we have been learning about the tectonic plates too. Tectonic plates are the rocky section that made up the crust. Tectonic plates can move around on the softer mantle underneath them, it moves around 1~10 CM every year. Infact, 250 million years ago earth was one large landmass called Pangaea. Also we have been learning about the movement of tectonic plates. There are 3 ways that tectonic plates moves: Convergent, Transform and Divergent. We have to create something to describe the movement of the tectonic plates.
Check it out:

Kia Ora, Koutou. In Te Ngahere this week we have been doing a Reading-literacy about Cage Diving with Sharks. For one of the activities, we have to create a fact file about the Great White Sharks. My favourite part of this activity is to create the animations but I also find that hard too.

Do you like sharks? Why or why not?

Kia Ora, Koutou. In Te Ngahere last week, we were reading a text called Tane Mahuta.  I have to read the text and answer the questions, here are my slides.