For Reading, Mrs Anderson taught her group about the 2011 earthquake that happened in Christchurch and how heavily it effected the community. Then she read us the story that included the group of artists who painted murals or what people called “graffiti” over the town to bring happiness back to the town. Beautiful Murals were painted all over walls in the town and their purposes were to bring life back into the community. Our task was to create a Google draw showing our idea of what we would paint for our community and I wanted to express my Fijian side and created this. Something I enjoyed about this task was being able to use our creativity to create a Mural.
Maths DLO|Long Division
For Maths we have been learning how to solve division equations but instead of using short division, we use long division, then after we understood fully on how to use it we created a DLO to show others how we learned how to do long division step by step. Something I liked about this was learning that once you get the hang of long division it can be also as easy as short division.
Tech| Te reo
Today at tech, unfortunately our usual Te Reo teacher, Matua Adrien was away at a family reunion but fortunately we got a reliever and she got us to colour in different parts of a big drawing so we could put it all together and create a big drawing all together. at 10:00 the reliever left and swapped with another teacher who gave us free time on our Chromebooks and paper and pencils to draw aswel. Then we packed up and lined up to go back to school.
Art | Building our Class Culture
For Inquiry and Art LS2 was split into 7 groups and took on the challenge to recreate a specific leader such as, Malala Yousafai, Jonah Lomu, Kate Shepard and many others in an art piece. The group that I was in chose to recreate Malala Yousafai. Malala Yousafai is a great leader and one of her famous quotes are “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.” What I liked the most about this Art project is the collaboration that took place while completing this task. Because of our colaboration we have created an amazing art piece of the leader great leader Malala Yousafai.
Maths DLO| Short Division
For Maths Group 2 have been learning short division and when we finished we created this DLO to show our learning to others and also teach those who don’t know how to divide using short division and we collaborated to create it because some have different understandings on how to do short division and put our different understandings together to understand short division better which was the reason I liked while creating this DLO.
Johnny Pohe and the great escape
For Reading we are learning about Johnny Pohe and the great escape and learned about the prison Johnny and many others were were kept in which was also known as the Stalag Luft III and we found out the pros and cons of their staying in the Stalag Luft III or escaping. In my group all of us had different perspectives meaning different opinions but I thought that it was better to escape along with some others in my group.
Tech| Te Reo
For Tech this term Year 8 group B have been learning how to weave in our Te Reo class. We learned that when you weave you don’t just weave randomly, you need to learn what pattern and colours to use to be able to tell a story with it. If not a story than make sure it means something like if you use the colours of the Maori flag it can be seen as the Maori history. Something I like about weaving is that you tell stories with the finished product and pass it down to others so they can now as well.
Maths|Multiplication
For Maths we just finished learning Multiplication and wanted to let others know how to do it so using our knowledge on Multiplication, Group 2 created this DLO that shows others how to Multiply numbers using algorithms. Something I liked about this task was that we knew what we were doing because we learned first before sharing it with others for help.
My first Flight
Mrs Anderson read us the book ‘First Flight’ by June Crebbin. We talked about the narrators point of view and used a Gemini Gem to prompt us to think more deeply about what the story might look like when told in the first person. Me and my partner created this story and wrote it in first person as if we were Blink who was the main character in the book. Something I liked about this task was being able to learn more stronger words that we could use while writing.
As the sun took its place, allowing the moon to rise, a wisp of gentle breeze through the forest made me shiver as I started to prepare myself for my first flight ever, mentally and physically.
My talons gripped the branch tightly and I was about to take one talon off until a gust of wind almost blew me over and I quickly held back onto the branch and my fear got a hold of my confidence.
The quite small branch shook slightly with the wind but I tried not to get that hold of me and built up my courage and thought that I was finally ready to soar in the sky with the rest of the parliament calling my name.
But as my eyes filled with curiosity I took a peep over the long branch only to see how elevated I was.
My wings tingled just by looking at the distance from the branch. I was terrified and I could only think of the worst, I couldn’t bear the thought of everything going wrong and falling into the dark and cold abyss.
My Mother, who sensed my overwhelming fear, sauntered next to me and as just I lost all hope of flying Mother reassured me and she took me under her wing.
“Don’t fret little one, we have all been there before and you need to remember that I am here with you.” Mother comforted me.
“But what if everything goes wrong and I mess up my first flight? I would be known as the owl who messed up his first flight!” I exclaimed in fear.
“It’s fine, you can only be scared of something if you make it scary. So you should learn that you should take chances. I believe in you.” Mother reassured me with her gentle and kind words.
I then started to gain more hope in myself and as Mother stepped back to give me space to finally fly.
My confidence and courage began to skyrocket. The only thing I could think of was to just take that risk, only then would it all be over and done with, I prepared myself once more, ready to take action. My wings were spread wide ready to glide with my talons set loose, I stood tall prepared for the wind to blow me over.
I wasn’t scared this time. I took my first leap of faith by relaxing my talons causing them to set loose letting me fall. I was flying! Mother and I were hovering across the quiet and sleeping city, from then I have never been so happy. — “Don’t let overthinking kill your happiness because you can only be scared of something if you make it scary.”
Life in the Annex
LI: To write a description of life with the Frank family in the annex in 1942
The Annex was quiet except for the sound of creaking from the old wooden floorboards whenever we walked, the loud chimes of the clock could be heard from inside. It was very cramped and whenever we ate because we always hit someone’s elbow or bump someone’s plate because it was such a small space to live in for 8 people and up to 2-3 of us had to share one small room. We had to stay silent to stay hidden from the German people who raided and persecuted many other Jewish people like us.
The silence was slowly clawing at all of us, you could even hear the sounds of heavy breaths and thumping hearts because of how quiet it was. We had to keep this Annex a secret to stay safe so they only used the basic necessities. Food was rationed and most of the time it was gross but it was the only thing keeping us from starving to death so it was that or nothing.
Everyday we had to live in fear because we didn’t know when it would be our last day together so we had to cherish every moment we had with our family and being alive. One fateful day we heard the boots stomping up the stairs. We heard glass shattering and the shards scattering all over the floor and we thought it was the Germans but on a very slim chance we didn’t get caught but it was still terrifying to think about.
We are reading the book ‘Diary of Anne Frank’. Mrs Anderson created a Gemini Gem to prompt us to think more deeply about what life would have been like in the annex, what we felt and why we felt that way.I enjoyed using the Gem because it helped me notice things that I wouldn’t and fix things that I thought were fine but when Gemini pointed it out it made me realize that I could change it to make it more better.