Week 4 - Term 2

At Maths on Monday we revised Multiplying and dividing decimal numbers. I learnt that to multiply decimals by 10, 100 or even 1000 all you have to do is move the decimal point forward a couple of places. The number of place the decimal point is moved forward is determined by the number of zeros in the number that you are multiplying it by. To multiply decimals all you have to do is use an algorithm normally. I learnt that in every second row of working you have to put a placeholder. I knew this but I thought it was when you multiplied it by the number in the tens column and you didn't have to put it if you were multiplying decimals. A place holder is a zero that you  put on the end of your row of work, the first row has none, the second row has one and the third one has two and so on. To divide decimals you need to multiply both your numbers by ten, you can then carry on and do a normal division algorithm. This was important for me because in the fractions test that we did I forgot to do this. It was frustrating because when we were revising multiplication I kept on getting the answer to the second question wrong. Only when I moved on from this I realised that instead of putting a five for 51 up the top I accidentally put a four, therefore putting off my whole first row of working!

I added some extensions to my screen to make it easier to look up words and find pages. The first one is called Google Dictionary. I can double click on a word anywhere in google and a box will pop up and tell me the definition. The other one is called Save to Google. I can click on the icon up the top of my screen and it immediately save the page i'm on. I can also add tags to the page, I just click add tags and choose one of my already existing tags or create a new one, I can add more than one tag if I want to. To view my saves I just have to type' my saves' into google or right click the icon, click on the tag I want and open one of the pages by clicking on it.

In the middle block I worked on my Character analysis for Mrs Flowers by Maya Angelou. I learnt while googling the author, that Mrs Flowers is actually an extract from I know why the caged birds sing. The main character in the story Marguerite Johnson shares Maya Angelou's birth name, and I know why the the caged birds sing is an autobiography of her life up until she was 17. I added this to my Summary and wrote a bit more about the setting and the Characters of the story.

In the Afternoon we were supposed to work on our report writing, but we didn't get the chance. Next time we work on it I will add more to it. I learned on Sunday news that people have created a sealife edible 6 pack holder. Hopefully this will stop the Hectors dolphin and other  sea life choking on the old plastic rings.

Before we went home we watched a Volleyball video that taught the different types of hits and some drills to practise them. I learnt that the three different types of hits are called the Volley, the Bump and the Serve. I also learnt that when you Bump the ball you bend your knees and come up under the ball, this is helpful because when I Bump the ball I didn't bend my knees and the ball went in the wrong direction!

On Tuesday we started with science. The object of the lesson was to transport a straw to the other side of the classroom and back. I was in a group with Emily, Bobby and Jess. It took us a couple of tries, a lot of effort and four balloons but we finally did it. We put string through the straw and taped a blown up balloon to it. We put tape on the end of the balloon so it didn't go flat and took it up to the higher end of the string, then we let it go and it slide down to the other side of the classroom. When it hit the wall we took the tape off the end and it shot back to the other wall.

We did maths again today. This time we were practising converting fractions to decimals to percentages and vice versa. I learnt that when converting decimals to fractions whatever column the last number in the decimal is in, will be the denominator in a fraction. I also learnt that for 0.33 and 0.66 you have to put a recurring symbol otherwise it will be wrong. Another thing that I learnt was that if you wanted to convert 0.386 to a fraction with the 100 as the denominator you need to look for the hundredths column and and move the decimal point after it. The same goes for fractions with 100 or 10 as the denominator. To convert fractions to decimals to percentages all you need to do is find which the last number is in and write that number as the denominator. You then just need to write your number as the numerator. To convert it to a percentage you need to looking at that decimal and writing that number but without the decimal point. If there is a whole number in the decimal the percentage will be over 100 and there will be a whole in the fraction. The last thing I learnt was that 1/8 = 0.125 3/8 = 0.375 5/8 = 0.625 and 7/8 = 0.875.

We did some work on sentence errors today, it was just revision. I learnt that there are three types of sentence errors: a sentence fragment, a run on sentence and a comma splice. A sentence fragment is sentence that is not complete, normally you can fix it by adding a FANBOY. A run on sentence is two sentences that have been joined together with no punctuation. A comma splice is two sentences that have been joined together with a comma instead of a full stop.

I the afternoon we started with SSR. After this my reading group went on to the floor to learn about different points of view. I learnt that there are five different points of view, they are: first person point of view, third person objective, third person limited, third person omniscient and second person point of view. First person point of view is when the narrator is part of the story. You can usually tell if a story is written in first person because there is normally words like I and me. Third person objective is when the narrator is not part of the story and can only tell what people say and do. It is harder to tell if a story is written in third person objective but there is usually words like he and she and there is nothing about the characters thoughts. Third person limited is when the narrator is not part of the story but sees from the vantage point of a character. They only know what the character thinks, says, does and witnesses. You can tell if a story is told in third person limited because there is words like he and she. Third person omniscient is when the narrator is all- knowing and can see into all the characters minds. You can tell if a story is in third person omniscient because it will have the same words as the other third person points of view. Second person point of view is mostly only used in letters because the narrator is talking directly to the reader. You can tell if a story is written in second person point of view because there will be words like you quite a lot.

On Wednesday the first thing we did was a Otage problem solving test. Some of the questions were easy and some of them were harder. I think I got three out of five because I am not sure about some of my answers. After this was maths. I learnt that to add fractions all you have to do is multiply or divide on of the fractions so that they both have the same denominator. But if I multiply or divide the denominator, I have to do the same with the numerator. You can then easily add the fractions together. After I practised adding fractions I worked on converting fraction and measurements to decimals. This was pretty easy so I don't know why I got it wrong in the test. To convert fractions and measurements to decimals is mostly the same as convert between fractions, percentages an decimals so I won't explain.

After maths I went to the library because I had nothing to read. I got out to books because I found out today that we are allowed to get up to four. The books I got out are called Catching fire and Mockingjay, These are the last two books in the Hunger game trilogy. I got these books out because I have read the first book in the series and enjoyed it so I decided to read more.

The middle block started with SRR where I started reading my books. After this was writing I almost finished my report on the Hectors dolphin, I only need to do half a paragraph and a conclusion. I had to miss out some of the information I wrote on my note taking sheet because otherwise it would be to long a hard to read.

At lunch time I went to the dance and drama studio to learn more of our competition routine with the other competition jump jam leaders. We are working on Uptown funk. It is very hard to remember because it has lots of different moves. We learnt the second half today because on Friday last week we learnt the first half. We are training fro WIMS jump jam. The competition is being held at our school.

After lunch was French. We learnt how to say how we are, for example: ca va tres bien - I am very good. Other ways to say I am good are: oui ca va and ca va bien. We also learnt to say I am bad, sick and tired and a couple other phrases like bof - i'm not sure.

After French we had jump jam. I was excited about this because we were teaching a new routine. The routine was called Freaks. This routine is quite easy to remember because it is quite repetitive and has a few main parts. I enjoyed teaching this routine and I hope we have a chance to teach another routine soon.

On Thursday I went to extension art. This week I painted the sand. In the picture that I'm painting the sand is purply grey so it was quite easy to get the right colour. I have to mix lots of white and a little bit of black into red and blue. Once I had painted this over the sand area, I added more black and more purple to make it darker. I then chalked in the patterns on the sand and painted them with the darker mixture.

After morning tea was maths. I worked on fractions and decimals. I had to practise multiplying decimals again because I got it wrong the first time. After this I finished my work on converting fractions and decimals when I finished this I tried to write a long learning reflection so that if I get stuck on converting fractions and decimals in the future I can easily look back and see how to do it.

In guitar Mr Ellis handed out a new song. It has five pages! We didn't get a chance to practice anything new because the bell rang and we had to go to a house meeting about Inter house Winter Games tomorrow.

At the house meeting I decided to play netball. I was lucky to get a place on the team because there was only ten places and a lot of girls wanted to play. We then practised our house chant and I learnt it properly because I didn't really know it before.

After lunch we went to a student assembly. Student assemblies are very different to Monday morning assemblies because student assemblies involve games and videos while Monday mornings are about the coming week and what's going to happen. The game for this week was called chocolate biscuit. We all watched as Will tried to eat chocolate fish of a rod that Emily was holding in the air.

The last thing I had today was rock band. We didn't actually play anything together because we were working on our original. So far we have written one verse and the chorus with guitar and bass to match. Next week hopefully we will get another verse done.

On Friday the first thing we did was a decimals test on the computer. I'm happy with the answers that I gave and I think I did well. Next we did maths. I learnt that to write fractions in simplest form you need to keep dividing them until you can't divide them any more. I finished lots of learning intentions today so I am no longer behind on maths.

After interval was science. We learnt about forces and friction. I learnt that to make a object move you need to either weaken or strengthen a force or add or take away a force. We then had to construct a marble run that goes for exactly 20 seconds. I was in a pair with Emily, we are making a square shaped marble run because if it was round it is harder to stick strips on card to the sides. No one finished theirs today so we are going to work on it next week.

At lunch Sophie, Raiha and me worked on the words for our original. We came up with a bit more for the chorus and on Wednesday next week we will write some more.

The Interhouse Winter games got canceled because it was raining, so instead we had Maori. We were writing more of our story and putting it onto Google Slides. We have almost finished and just need to edit it as we already have five pages with pictures. We will get a chance to do this next week because Mrs Crowe is away and if we run out of work then we can work of our stories. We will be presenting them not the coming Friday but the Friday after that because next Friday is a teachers only day.

 

Week 3 - Term 2

On Monday we started our report writing, I'm doing mine on Hectors Dolphin. After interval we did Volleyball in the ALC,  we learnt how to serve and pass properly. We also did some reading. I have almost finished my report on Mrs Flowers, the story I have been reading. After lunch we did a fractions test so Mrs Crowe could see what group to put us in. On Tuesday we had our first Science lesson at Tech Arts, we learnt about Predict, Observe, Explain and What if and we had to do one on a UFO ball. We didn't have French or Jump Jam  on Wednesday because many of our class are on band camp and they are using the Hall, ALC, Dance and Drama studio and Music room and of course Mrs Shaw was helping. We did get to go to the wood room to finish our trucks, I finished mine and am happy with final product. On Thursday I only had art, so I went for two session and finished quite a lot of my painting. I only need to finish doing the island and then the water and sand. On Friday we had science. We had to tie our hair back and wear covered shoes because we were using fire in a experiment. Were actually emptied the tea out of a Tea bag, unfolded it, stood it up and lit it on fire. It turns out when it's almost burned down it flies up into the air. We POEWed it in groups of four and Emily, Bobby, Jess and me tried lighting it's on it's side, from the bottom, lighting it when it's opened out and when it's folded over. We figured that you need to light it from the top for it to be effective. After lunch I went to a Jump Jam competition group meeting, we were learning a new song for competitions. It is up town funk. At Maori we got into groups and wrote a story about the Waikato river. It had to included three place names, three river uses, two Maori vocab words and five pictures. Emily, Bobby, Jess and me wrote about a trout named Trotty, a eel named Elizabeth and a flounder named Floggle.

Week 2 - Term 2

On Monday we had Lacrosse for the whole middle block. We learnt how to catch, throw and pass using sticks. We also learnt about how the native Americans started Lacrosse and the French named it the stick. Tuesday was our second to last session in wood I learnt how to use filler to fill in the holes on my truck. At French on Wednesday we choose a French name for the session and practised having a conversation that included what our name was and how to spell it, my French name was Ariane.  You ask what is your name like Tu t'appelles comment? and you answer like Je m'appelles ......, we also did a geometry test covering the work that we have done so Mrs Crowe can see what we have learned. On Thursday I finished painting the  trees on my island and Mrs Dickson gave us some information on protraits and how to draw them. I learnt that you can easily get the feature of the face in the right places by drawing an oval for the face with a grid over it. At Rock Band we warmed up with our cover and practised our original, we have started to right the words for it. On Friday at wood I assembles my truck but when it rolled it was wobbly so I have to take the wheels of and sand them so my truck goes straight I also need to oil my truck with Linseed oil to give it colour. In the afternoon I had a call back trial for the Belmont Netball team. This week I started to research on my science fair project to find information to base my Hypothesis on.

Week 1 - Term 2

On the last week of term 1 our class went on camp with room 7. We went to the Narrows and stayed for two nights. During this camp we participated in activities such as Trolleys, a Waterslide, Air rifles, Go karts, Archery, a Burma trail, Fire challenge, a Bonfire and Paintball. Paint ball was my favourite thing even though it was hard because we had to use sling shots instead of guns.

On Monday we had a Powhiri to welcome the new Japanese teacher, it was a bit smaller than the other Powhiris we have had this year because we weren't welcoming as many people. On Tuesday I did quite a lot of my truck at Tech Arts so I think I might get it finished. We also talked about the science fair. I want to do my project on different liquids freezing. At 12.30 to 2.30 we heard Mike King speak about depression and addiction and how to deal with it. At 6.30 I attended the Kid lit quiz in a group of four with Sophie J, Max and Ben. We came eleventh which is very good as there were 45 teams. At French on Wednesday we learned how to say My name is in French, afterwards we had Jump Jam. On Thursday I finished painting the sky in my picture and started painting the island. At lunch time I trialled for the Jump Jam competition team. Emily and I did the same routine. On Friday I did lots at Tech Arts. I have almost finished the box of my truck, I just need to cut out and glue the back wall on. I also need to attach my wheels. I found out that I got a call back for Jump Jam, so did Emily. At lunch I trialled for the Belmont Exchange Year 7 Netball team.