Bridge Building

For the past two weeks Ms Kirkpatrick's inquiry groups have been building bridges out of spaghetti, it sounds simple but it really wasn't because we needed to: Draw up a plan, tie spaghetti together with rubber bands, add tape to everything and also tie everything together with string. Other problems didn't help the production much either, like the sudden shortage of rubber bands and spaghetti. My group had four people in it, Fraidoon, Carl, Joseph and myself. Near the end of the week my group only had three walls so instead of having a rectangle we just connected two to make the sides, so we then had a triangle which is a stronger shape. When it was weighing time the block that could distribute the weight of the bricks wouldn't fit so instead we needed to use the hook, which wouldn't distribute the weight at all, therefore one piece of the bridge would be under lots of strain and the pieces next to it wouldn't be able to help much. After six around about one kg bricks our bridge broke. I had lots of fun whilst building my bridge because since I'd kept some rubber bands from the first day, whenever we were low on spaghetti we could just go and trade for more.

Book Review

Today for reading we needed to get in to our groups and present our slideshows on the books that we'd read. We needed to explain the theme, the setting, our overall review and other parts related to the book. After we'd explained the work that we'd done our next task was to explain why we did/didn't like the book and who the main characters are as well as where the story is set.

Bridges Explanation

Our task this week and last week for writing was to write an explanation on why people build/built bridges, we also needed to add colons and write at least three paragraphs as well as the introduction and conclusion. Since our topic for inquiry this term is structures I already knew a lot about bridges so this was easier to write.

Why Do We Build Bridges?

Bridges, they’re those long structures that we always cross to get from one side of
something to another. Ever since the medieval ages, bridges have been used for
transportation and settlement.

Since most people couldn’t swim through a fast river whilst holding their horse and
belongings, some smart person thought up a way to get across the water. Other
reasons as to why going through a river was bad are: They might be swept away
by the rapids, and if they didn’t dry themselves off in time they might catch the flu or
pneumonia.

Bridges can help with many things, people always used them. Due to continuous use
bridges sometimes broke. So instead of increasing the quantity of bridges people
decided to increase the quality. They began to use materials like: Iron, Brick, Stone,
Concrete and Steel.

There are many different types of bridges, some of them allow boats to go under
them, whilst others swing open for them. Some of the first bridges were built in 850
BC and since then thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more have been built.

So, the main reason as to why we build bridges is pretty simple, for transport. Some
might argue that they’re mainly used for settlement but they need to transport their
items to settle somewhere else.

Billionaire Boy - Novel Study

For the previous three weeks Ofa and I have been reading and studying the book Billionaire Boy, which was written by David Walliams. Ofa and I have learnt different skills whilst reading this book like identifying the theme. This book was written to entertain us because it doesn't have real life facts or try to change our thoughts about the characters. I really liked this book because it's a tale of friendship and lots and lots of money.

Kiwi Can

This week for Kiwi Can we were learning about perseverance, when you persevere you don't give up on what you're doing, no matter how hard or frustrating it is. One example of persevering is when you play a sport, your team might be losing the game but no matter what you keep going, We also played two games, for one of them one person needed to try and tag other people, when they tagged the other person they both needed to link arms and then keep tagging others until everyone was tagged and there was a big line. The aim of the other game was to get an invisible ball from one side of a court to another without being touched by the other team.

Mixed Numerals And Improper Fractions Conversion

Today as an extra task from the teacher Jeremiah, Miki and I were tasked with creating a DLO that explained how to convert mixed numerals into improper fractions. We also needed to add in a picture of the game that we were playing because for the game you need to convert mixed numerals into improper fractions. If you'd like to test your own skill with converting the two then play this game But remember to simplify.

Three Exponents Questions - Maths

 

Our maths session today was used to revise our knowledge of exponents and to introduce it to some students who were previously in Learning Space One. Exponents or powers is a shortened version of writing a whole equation. For example, 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 but to simplify it you can write 4 with a little three in the top right corner. I found this activity easy as it was really easy to get used to and I did it last year. I completed the question sheet relatively fast and I really enjoyed doing this work. For this activity we put a DLO together to explain how we answered three of the exponent questions. I worked with Jeremiah and Miki

Inter-School Rugby

Last week the yr 7/8 rugby team participated in the inter-school, along with yr 5/6 rippa and barbarian teams. In our first match we sadly lost but after that we went on to win every single match after that, once, we even won 11-2 against Saint Pius X. We all had fun whilst playing and we managed to come second. At the end of the day everyone was tired and wanted to sleep.

Virtual Reality Learning

Last week a group of researchers from the Augmented Human Lab in the University of Auckland came to use LS2 for their research with VR (Virtual Reality). The first test that we needed to do was read some small letters on one of the boards, the next test was for balance, we needed to walk in a straight line as fast as we could. After that another test was for eyesight, for it we needed to wear some special glasses and then look at a special book, if you didn't have the glasses on then you wouldn't see anything, but if you did, rough shape outlines showed up. The examiner would then point to a spot on the book and we would be told to say what we saw. Another part of the research was when they showed us a video and we then needed to answer a sheet related to it. They showed us two videos, on of them showed the very first Panmure bridge's construction and the other showed the way of transportation before the bridge. After that our task was to then re-do the sheet to see if we did any better.

Orchestra Trip

Today most of LS2 went on a trip to the Auckland Town Hall to watch an orchestra as well as a dance, the whole trip was funded by Kiwi Kapers. Whilst there we listened to three different music pieces, for the last one a group of dancers from Saint Kentigern's. I liked how the music went high and low and was also pretty loud so we could hear it well. Some of the instruments that were used are the: Flute, clarinet, harp, violin, viola, cello, double bass, drums, cymbals and the triangle.

Sensory Verbs

Today for writing our first task was to create go onto a site and then answer some questions on sensory verbs, I answered all of the questions correctly because all I needed to do was select the correct sense for the situation. If you'd like to try the test yourself here's the link. The test uses all of the senses which are; taste, sight, smell, hearing and touch. Our other task was to go through a list of sentences and place a colon in the spot that we thought it should be, I managed to put the colons in all of the right places. After that, the second part of the task was to illustrate one of the sentences.

Novel Study - Billionaire Boy

This term for reading Mrs Anderson has made reading fun for our group by introducing a novel study, for it we needed to partner up and in those partners our task was to read the same book or books by the same author and then complete tasks. This was a great opportunity for people who don't like reading to love reading. This is a fun reading task because we get to work in partners. I'm working with Ofa and together we  chose the book Billionaire Boy. We decided to choose this book because there were two copies for us. This book talks about a boy name Joe Spud who's the richest 12 year old in the world. Joe Spud is spoilt by his rich dad who owns a toilet-paper making company. He's gotten anything he's every wanted like more than 400 pairs of Nike trainers and a roller coaster in the back garden. We're still reading so we'll need to finish the book for the ending.