Tech at Tamaki College (Coding)

This week Friday we went back to Tamaki college for coding with Mrs. Ferguson. It was my first day being back at tech, but the year 8's have done coding last year so I still have a lot of experience since then. So today we tried coding our robots to create a star shape. I got close to making one of the star points but I was struggling to get the angles and timing right. I had a lot of fun though watching Mrs. Ferguson tape markers onto our bots to see how accurate our bots were when they made the stars.

Solving with long division

L.I: To be able to explain the steps of long division.
This week in Math, we learned a new strategy called long division. This is used to solve all sorts of division questions using a certain process that breaks down the strategy in an easy way to understand. After we tested our understanding by solving a few questions and playing a game to try calculating the answers by ourselves. Florence and I worked together to create our DLO about how to do long division by using one of the questions in our maths book as an example. I feel very confident using long division and is one of the strategies I want to try including in my learning since it's actually simpler than it looks. Click the links below to watch the video in our DLO or play the game!

Math Antics - Long Division (Video)
Mathopolis Questions (Quiz)

Facts about light

L.I: To understand how light works.
For Inquiry Mr. Johnston has been coming to our class to teach us about light. Together me and Ellenora collected some of the information on Light and created a DLO with 5 facts. We've also done a few activities to experiment with the white light, such as creating a quick toy that shows us the 7 colors on a circular paper wheel with string through the middle that merges into white when it is spun really fast. And also putting transparent 3D square pyramids and triangular prisms where the sun beams, which is a form of light, and creating a rainbow. This activity was really fun and I enjoyed talking about it with Ellenora.

My Blog post Analysis 2020

This week in Maths we created graphs and analyses on our blog post data. We've been learning online throughout the COVID-19 lock down so it would be realistic to try and set a blogging goal for ourselves. I used the information of how much work I did in the years I've been blogging (2016 - 2020). We also found an average meaning the standard number out of all of did. To find this I divided the total amount of blogpost I did that year by the months I was blogging.

Evaluating - The Wahine

L.I: To read the information the text, think about what you have read and form an opinion.
This week in reading we looked at a book called The Wahine, a true story that records what happened during one of New Zealand's biggest maritime disasters. And later we got together to form an opinion on the text, and share our thoughts on what happened while having a learning conversation. We evaluate the different factors and who we thought was to blame. One of my questions after reading the text is..What happened to the captain?

My Kowhaiwhai Pattern

L.I: To design a kowhaiwhai pattern for our PBS blog.
This week we were challenged to create a Kowhaiwhai design the Te Reo PBS class blog. The first thing we notice about my design is the two dolphins. I thought about the environment around us, and most known about New Zealand. Dolphins resemble protection and good luck. And the swirls in a kowhaiwhai pattern symbolize new life, strength, and growth. I think this is a beautiful message for our school. I really enjoyed creating this design!

Summarising - The Wahine

L.I: To explain in fewer words what the text is about.
This week in reading Kakapo read about The Wahine disaster, and created a collaborative DLO to summarize what we learnt from the text in a few sentences. The story was based off true events, about one of the biggest recorded New Zealand shipwreck.

Maths Challenge Exponents

In maths we've been learning about exponents and trying to solve questions with these numbers in it. We practiced using exponents as a way to simplify an answer like 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 3125. The word problem about the Lernaean Hydra, is trying to get us to solve how many heads would grow in three to ten days of trying to kill it.