Artifact for PBL ( ﾟヮﾟ)

Recently in class, my teachers have encouraged us to create an artifact based on our learning topic we have chosen. We were given the choice of something we would like to researched and then we were placed into groups. As you may or may not know, my group was researching the Ancient Olympics. We were first asked to research about the topic by putting it into notes and then we had to create a report. Finally we were asked to create an artifact. My artifact is a small diagram of what the Ancient Olympics looked like when it was in action (over 1000 years ago!) My Artifact is a 3D Model I have made sure everything looks real and not flat. Something that challenged me was trying to make sure everything stayed together and everything was 3D because it was very hard to glue everything together with only me, but I managed to get it done.   Here are some photos of my artifact:

My Whole artifact.

 In this photo there is: The temple of Zeus (White building) Mount Olympus (Red Mountain) and the Prynaterion (Orange and white building)   

The temple of Zeus with the statue of Zeus inside

The river and The hippodrome

The learning muscles I used in this project are my:

1.  My Independence muscle because I gathered all my things that I needed for my project and then began to work on it independently.  

2.  My Planning muscle because I planned out everything I created, From my report to my project everything was planned. 

And 3. My perseverance muscle because I persevered when my learning was tough by getting some of my friends to help me complete it. I also pulled myself out of the learning pit when I couldn't complete my work so I just changed my mindset and got on with it. 

Olympics ｡◕‿◕｡

Recently in class we are learning all about the Olympics. Our teachers have asked us to choose an athlete to study. First we had to search the Rio website and pick our athlete (Mine is Nicky Samuels). Next we were asked to create a report. We had to explore websites and write down all our notes we had collected from the sites. Here is a photo of my notes:

After we had completed that we were asked to present our information in some way. Using our notes as a guide, I made a slide about our athlete! Here is my slide:

Something that challenged me was writing down all the notes, because I'm just used to seeing it on the website and writing it in my own words.
The learning muscle I was stretching was my revising muscle because I had to make sure I was organising my information into sub-headings. 

Matariki workshops (◕‿◕✿)

In school we are learning all about the Matariki Moari New Year. In celebration to the New Year and the culture, we decided to create workshops, and we were given options. Before we started our workshops we were asked, if we wanted to, to create mural of the school for the workshop. I created one and it was all about our spring and how it feeds into our school river. If our art got chosen it would get hung up in front of the school forever! I was delighted when I realized that mine got chosen! Here is a photo of it when it was painted!

My amazing art painted by another class

My art was painted by a different class, however I chose mural art as my workshop so we painted a different mural. Here are some photo's of me and my peers painting our mural:

Me and my classmate Beau painting the mural

Me and our mural art group all painting the mural together

Something that challenged me was being very careful and staying inside the lines when I needed to paint our trees.
The learning muscle I stretched was my noticing muscle because I noticed when my painting was outside the lines and I needed to fix it up.
Matariki was really enjoyable for me and it was very exciting when my design was painted!

Old tired dog ｡◕‿‿◕｡

In class we are learning how to summaries about books we read. Our reading group teacher asked us to create a summary of a very emotional book named old tired dog. Our success criteria was:
1. make the viewer feel as emotional as we did
2. make it believable
3. enjoy it!
I really think my group achieved all our success criteria!
Something that challenged me was trying really hard not to smile because I had to act like I was sad
The learning muscles I used in this video were:
1. My persevering muscle because I had connecting with the book and I realized how the characters were feeling
2. My connecting muscle because I made a strong connection with the book
3. My collaborating muscle because I collaborated with my peers

Here is my video!:

Acting wrting

In Totara Whanau we are learning to do procedural writing. My success criteria was:
1. Hook the reader in with a great introduction
2. Start all steps with a verb (You can't use the same verb more then twice)
3. Over-exaggerate the steps
4. Make sure the steps are in the right order
Something that challenged me was starting all of my sentences with a verb because my brain had to really think about it.
I am very proud of my piece because I feel I worked really hard to make it awesome!
Here is my piece:

How to Act on stage!

Acting! Isn’t that a funny word? Acting is my passion, my dream, my… Life. Although acting may seem heart thumping, it’s actually an exquisite art and the feeling of being on stage and doing it, is just amazing! Do you have trouble with acting or are too scared to do it? Look no further for I have the instructions!

What you need:

• Time (This may take a while)
• Yourself
• A can do! attitude

Steps:

• Face your fears! Gradually take long deep breaths, visualize the crowd cheering your name, just imagine life slowing down.
• Concentrate on your character, you have to make your character believable, if you believe you are that person the audience will believe you are the character.
• Adapt to changes, you may have to pretend that there is a character interacting with you when there really isn’t (Eg: Tinkerbell from Peter Pan).
• Exercise the muscles in your face! Do all expressions possible (Happy, sad, angry, crazy, distureb, scared etc)  we do this so our muscles are prepared for what we are about to do
• Increase the volume of your voice! Be loud and proud!

Enjoy the rush of excitement you get as you explain your story!  

Creating Ice cream ☜(⌒▽⌒)☞

In Totara Whanau we have started a new task which is science, in science we learn all about different substances, new things about the topic we have chosen, and many more. There were three groups we got to choose from, they were:
1. Bread
2. Mould
3. Milk
I selected milk because I wanted learn more about milk. In milk we are learning about chemical changes, we are doing this because when we get older, we know what a chemical substance is, and we know the difference between all of the liquids, gasses and solids. Also in science we are doing lots of experiments, one of the experiments we did was.... CREATING ICE CREAM! Once we had created our ice cream (And gobbled it all up!) we were asked to create instructions on how to make it, so that we could share our scrumptious recipe with others. In our writing, our challenge was to put verbs at the beginning of all our sentences and hook the reader in with a great introduction,  Here is my piece:

Do you slurp down milk with your breakfast? Do you enjoy gobbling it down? I know I sure do! Milk is really entertaining to do experiments with and it creates many scrumptious things such as…. ICE CREAM!! Speaking of ice cream, Today I will teach you how to make your own homemade vanilla ice cream!

Ingredients                            Equipment:            

• 30g sugar                                              > Small ziplock bag             
• ½ Cup of milk                                         > large ziplock bag                                               
• ½ a bag of crushed ice                       > Empty ice cream container
• 2 cups of salt                                        > 1 measuring cup                                            
• ¼ of a cap of Vanilla essence   

Method:

How to make your own freezer!

1. Unzip your large ziplock bag and scoop ½ a bag of crushed ice inside    
2. Pour 2 cups of salt inside the large bag with the ice (the reason we do this is to make a more bleak freezer)
3. Secure the large ziplock bag shut and rapidly shake it.
4. Set inside empty ice cream container.

Done!

How to make vanilla ice cream!:

1. Grab the small ziplock bag and gradually tip ½ a cup of milk inside
2. Tip in 30g sugar and ¼ of a cap of vanilla essence
3. Place small bag inside larger bag of ice and violently shake until liquid becomes solid (Gradually the liquid will get harder and harder, but make sure that it is not to hard before you eat it).
4. Remove small bag from larger bag, unzip and watch in utter delight as your taste buds burst slightly in your overwhelmed mouth!

Mothers day Poem And I am Poem \ (•◡•) /

Recently In room 2, 3, 4 we we're working on a poem to describe how we feel and to describe us. My poem is all about my thought a feeling's towards others and myself. Here is my I am poem:

I am individual, I am Unique

I wonder if others feel the way I feel for them?   

I hear the sweet melody of songs as they explain to me their story  

I see clouds and visualize a whole new world, a whole new life

I want others to know they glister just the way they are

I am individual, I am Unique  

I pretend I am something I’m not

I feel youthful and free  

I touch the fearless hearts of others  

I worry I am nonexistent   

I cry at the thought that others feel they are worthless... so they hurt themselves  

I am individual, I am unique

I understand I can’t change others

I say my thoughts and beliefs

I dream of creativity, light, love and abundance  

I try to reach for the gleaming stars

I hope one day I make a difference in this wonderful world  

I am Individual, I am Unique.

Something that challenged me was trying to explain all the things about me in words because it was hard to decide which words fit it best

I have learnt to use adjectives in my poem, we have talked about adjectives to know what an adjective is and why we use it in our posts.

Also since  mothers day is here I have made a little song for my wonderful mum. My younger sister and I will be singing the parts to our awesome mum! Here is our song.

Yo Bubba, Yo bubba, What are we going to do? We haven’t made a present for mummy, to give to

Oh no! What a pitty, that sounds really bad, we don’t want to upset her or make her really sad!

Wait Bubba, Wait Bubba, I have an idea, lets do it quickly and hop into pairs

I like that idea, I said I like that idea, but what about we make a song, to show we really care  

Technology ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

During class we have been given a subject to study. We have been given three options, they are:

1. Lost in the bush
2. Save the bush
3. Fun in the bush

 I have chosen 2. Save the bush because I Know that we need to protect NZ's Bush. We are doing this because we are learning as children to keep NZ Beautiful, so that when become adults we will have a wonderful world to live in! The teachers asked us to write down some questions on pieces of paper. Once we completed that we all chose a question as our topic. My question is this: 

What can we do to stop littering in the bush?  

Next our group teacher asked us to create an invention to solve our problem. Our success criteria was:

1.  To make sure it was safe for the bush 
2. Your invention only caught the thing it needed to catch
3. It didn't hurt any plants
4. It made sense 

After we discussed our question with the teacher we planned it out in our planning book. Our plan had to have a diagram of our invention and a name. My inventions name is the bin-o-matic. Here is my plan that I created

My amazing plan! 

Once we presented our plan to the teacher and they said it was good to go we were allowed to create a prototype of our invention, BUT before we we're allowed to do that we had to create a diagram of all the materials we we're going to make it out of. My diagram contains all of the materials I need. Here is a photo of my diagram!

My diagram of all the materials I will need!

Next I presented my plan to the teacher she asked me what happens inside me bin? I replied saying

"Inside my bin there are 4 compartments, 1 for paper, 1 for cardboard, 1 for plastic, and 1 for glass" She liked my idea and said I was allowed to start creating! 

One thing that challenged me in my invention was figuring out how to make my inside compartments because I take the bottom off of my bin and then cut out my compartments and then glue bottom back on again.

Once I had glued everything on my invention came to life! Here is a video and some photos of my invention:

My inside compartments of my bin

My bin!

Animal Writing

In Totara Whanau I am learning to start my sentences with different sentence starters. We are learning this because we need to keep the reader interested. I'm also working on taking on my feed back. This is one of many of my stories! It is all about an animal...
As you can see I have taken on all the feedback my teacher has given me. Also I have learnt to use adverbs at the start of my sentences, and all I had to do was swap around the words Eg: 
(Bad) I quietly crept over...   
(Good) Quietly I
Here is my story, I hope you enjoy! (You can see in my story I have underlined where I have taken on feedback.) 

The Animal...

Zzzzzziiiiiiiiipppppppppp.. Slowly we crept into the darkness, my flashlight glimmered.

“I knew this was a bad idea charz..” Muttered Hannah. THUMP!... THUMP!... in my chest. I glared behind me, the tent now the size of an ant got further and further away…

“Yeah.. well we wanna show those idiots that we’re tough! Don’t we?” I responded.

“I guess…” HOOWWWLLLLL “WHAT WAS THAT!!!” Hannah Screamed “Probably just an owl..” I informed, “Just an owl!?!?! JUST AN OWL!?!? THAT WAS A WOLF, YOU KNOW WHAT IM OUT! NOT DOING THIS BYE!” She stammered.

“woah chill out scaredy cat!” I mockingly replied.

“Ugh… you know you sound just like my brother sometimes…” She whined.

 As we stumbled towards some raven black, naked, trees, my throat became dry. Suddenly! A dark small figure caught my attention… I glared, as it emerged from the darkness. Blood seeped out of it’s numb ear, it’s small glimmering eyes stared at me. What had happened? Where was the thing that attacked it? Is it bad? Will it hurt me?  So many things raced through my mind. Quietly I crept through the glistening grass towards the quivering little cub, When I suddenly felt a hand grasp my shoulder

“What are you doing?!” Hannah screeched.

Carefully I Removed her hand and continued walking, it’s tiny little paws clutched the grass as the blood dripped faster by the second. Water droplets trickled down my back, now there was only one step between us. Leisurely I reached down below, my hands spread out wide. Delicate fur met my shivering fingertip’s, her miniature paws wrapped around my neck, my heart melted with joy. Time soon passed and we managed to saunter our way back to the tent. Calmly I unzipped the zip and crept inside. I placed the wolf down beside me, It’s small little tummy started to slowly quiet down…

The sun arose from the hills as I awoke. I glared around in panicking motion, WHERE WAS THE PUP?!? I jumped out of bed and ran outside “Looking for something” A voice bellowed

I swung my head around, only to find one of the boys grasping onto the pup! I Got closer

“Take one more step and I’ll drop her onto the sharp fence” He screeched

I glared at him in horror.

“You wouldn’t!” I replied not believing my own words

“Oh I’d be glad to! You girls always trying to outsmart me! Well not this time!!” He yelled

I fell to my knees and sobbed, all I could think about was the gut feeling I had. Just when all hope seemed lost, a shadowy figure crept out from behind the tent. There it was my hero! Hannah had slyly snuck up on our cousin. Slowly her hands wrapped around his legs, suddenly I heard a big THUMP! And I watched the wolf run into my arms! I picked her up and rushed inside! “I will always love you” I whispered.         

Camp 2016

Recently I went on camp with Kauri 89. I joined them on camp because I was going away when my class attended camp. A highlight of my camp was when I created my car (photo 2) Because I could let my creativity fly. There were 5 catagories: 
1. futuristic
2. Old fashioned
3. Pimp my car (bling)
4. A car that sells things (Eg: Mr whippy) 
5. Race car
There were many things we could use to create our car. It was kind of like master chef (but with cars) We had to  create it in a certain amount of time. Afterwards we had a war, Whoever cleaned up the most got to become VIP for our movie. When they announced the winners I crossed everything (Including my hair) I was so excited and nervous... "Charlotte" Mr ford bellowed "Ye... yes" I screeched nervously "YOU ARE A VIP!!" He replied. I can't describe how happy I was that afternoon. Finally when the night fell and the movie started I heard something in the kitchen, I glared over to the door, out came Mr ford dressed in a paper bag apron holding fizzy and ice cream, I was STOKED!

One thing that challenged me during camp was when we had to create our hut (Photo 3). This was challenging because I felt like our group did not work as good as we should have, Plus we all thought we didn't have enough time to create it. Despite all that It was actually a pretty fun task and I really enjoyed how funny my group was! The materials we had to make out hut out of were:
1. Bamboo
2. tape
Overall Camp was really fun for me and I'd love to go back again to see how much its changed/how fun it will be with new people!

Lucian, Vaughn and I holding up our hook

Me sitting in my pimped up car! #Style

My group and I sitting in our umbrella/hut 

My and my cooking group enjoying our wonderful Kai that we created ourselves 

Me posing while my group member holds up our hook!

Me splashing and sploshing in the nice warm water!

Our wonderful campfire before we lit it! 

Abstract art

Currently In totara whanau we are creating art. We had three options they were:
Nail art
Abstract art
And Mask art

I selected Abstract art because it looked awesome to me. We were learning about each other and how to express ourselves through art. We were also learning how to work slowly and carefully to create our art. Here are some photos of my art:

Do you want to make your own Abstract art? Here is the method and what you need:
What you need:

• Cereal box cardboard
• Paint
• Paint brush
• Sharpie colorful pens
• Box cutter
• Pencil and rubber

Method:

• Trace you letters onto your cardboard. (Make sure you leave some tabs for later)
• Cut out your base 
• Paint you letters and base Only paint one side of your letters!
• Draw your design with the pens on the other side of your letters. 
• Place your letters where ever you want to on your base and make some marks with the pencil so you know where to cut. Fun tip: I like to put the letters next to the cut so I know what letter goes where
• Cut your marks
• Place your letters into the marks and tap underneath the base so they stay up.
• DONE 

Maths work

Recently in Totara hub we have learnt a new maths stratagie its is called the doubling and halfing stratagie. Here is a video I have made to teach you all about it.

My Presentation

Recently, Totara teachers asked us to make a presentation about what we love to do. I have chosen netball because I really enjoy playing netball.

I am proud of my slide because I have worked really hard on it and I think I have done a good job.
Something that challenged me was trying to explain how to intercept because i'm so used to just doing it without explaining it.   

I really hope you enjoy! :D