Kiwi Sport: Gymnastics

Yesterday at gymnastics LS2 was learning how to do dive rolls, to do that we needed to jump onto the mini-tramp and put our arms in front of ourselves to roll forward. The three circuits that we work through have different activities that require you to use different parts of your body. My favourite circuit is the spring circuit since there's a jump board and a spring pad in it.

Space Activity: Earth And Beyond

This week was the first week of our second rotation for Inquiry, LS1 and LS2 are joining together to learn more about space. We needed to use our prior knowledge about space to help us with our first activity which was a bus stop task that I worked together with Ong and Oscar to complete. After that we watched a video on space and the planets in our solar system, we learnt things like Neptune rains diamonds and Venus is the hottest planet.

Reading Responses

 

This term for reading we have been focusing on reading responses, our task was to create DLOs or complete activities and if we weren't the first person doing the activity, we were to comment and give feedback to someone before us based on what they'd done. The person that we'd commented on would then reply after reading our comment and start a dialogical conversation. A dialogic conversation is a talk between two parties that involved ideas or opinions, sometimes we had different opinions whilst in others we agreed on the topic. One of the tasks that I completed is a Venn Diagram that compares two articles, the other two are Kahoots on articles that I read. Our learning focus was space.

Inquiry: Science Session

Today Mrs Wells came in again to help us with our science project, the fertiliser that I'm using changed from baked beans to peanut butter because there were no baked beans. In order to do this right we needed to follow a method; Put gloves on, get an ice cream container, get a scale, put an empty container on top, 0 the scale (Reset the counter so the container's weight doesn't add on), retrieve soil from junior garden, measure 40g of Peanut Butter into the ice cream container, measure 400ml of soil into the ice cream container using a beaker, label container with name and ingredient, use hands to stir and mix for one minute, measure 200 ml into one pot and the other 200ml in the other pot, mark 3 cm from tip of finger, push finger into middle of soil, drop in 1 bean seed (Phaseolus Vulgaris), cover seed with soil, water plant with 20 ml every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for two weeks. Thank you to Mrs Wells for coming in again to help us out.

Tech At Tamaki College

This week of tech was the last one of our rotation, next week we'll be moving on to a different technology. At the beginning of the session most of us were finished with painting and either helped others or started to draw a cubism portrait whilst I worked on an outline for my clock. To draw the outline I needed to scrape off all of the excess paint and carefully go over the edges. Thank you to Mrs Ferguson for teaching us during this rotation, I really enjoyed making my clock.

Stardome Trip

On Thursday night most of LS2 went to the Stardome to learn about the stars. A man named Tobias told us about the different constellations and planets, we learnt that there are 88 official constellations like Sagitarius and Scorpius. We also learnt that Saturn's rings are made out of ice and dust particles, Jupiter has 67 moons and Saturn's rings can appear to disappear every 14 years. After that we were allowed to have look around the building, there were Lego models of space ships and rocket related activities.

Emperor Penguin Information Report

CC by SA 3.0 Owner: Wikimedia Commons

This week for writing in groups our task was to find out information on penguins or a specific type of penguin using a template and then write an information report on them. I worked with Julian and Jack and together we found out interesting things like; the Emperor Penguin can hold its breath for 20 minutes or more and, the Emperor Penguin is the biggest penguin of them all.

Emperor Penguins are one of 17 Penguin species that live all across the southern hemisphere. The scientific name for Emperor Penguins is Aptenodytes Forsteri and the family name for Penguins is Spheniscidae. Did you know that the Emperor Penguin’s body colour also helps to camouflage them from predators in the ocean?

Adult Emperor Penguin’s necks are mainly white with a yellow tint at the top and their heads are dark black. Their backs are mainly black but fade to grey on their flippers, whilst their torso is completely white. Emperor Penguin chicks are mostly light grey but have a white and black mask.

An Emperor Penguin’s main diet consists of fish, krill, squid and other small aquatic species. In order to catch fish, Penguins work together as packs to herd schools of fish towards each other- to make it easier to catch them. Once all the fish are together, the Penguins just swim into the horde and swallow as many fish they can. In order to feed their young, Penguins regurgitate into their chicks’ mouths.

Emperor Penguins live on the coasts of Antarctica, the icy continent is home to 7 different species of Penguin. Emperor Penguin colonies live on the coasts of Antarctica because all of their food comes from the ocean. In order to move from one place to another on land, Penguins either waddle or toboggan (Slide on their stomach). Some of the predators that Emperor Penguins face are Orca (killer whales)

Emperor Penguin colonies can average from hundreds to tens of thousands, not only are they the giants of the Penguin species, they can also hold their breath for more than 20 minutes!

Mrs Wells Inquiry Session

Today a woman named Mrs Wells came over from Tamaki College and taught Nyjah, Fui, Victoria, Mele, Julian, Giovanni, Jack and I about independent, dependent variables and different other terms. Over the next few sessions with her we'll be planting beans and fertilising them with an item of our choice; Nyjah chose tea leaves, jack chose soap, Giovanni picked crushed lollipops, Victoria chose salt, Julian's using potatoes, Mele's doing pear skin, Fui chose pencil shavings and I picked baked beans. Our task is to see how much the beans can grow by using our chosen fertiliser.

Tech At Tamaki College

Today at tech my group was finishing off the painting of our clocks and adding the clock pieces. I've finished painting and adding the clock machine parts so I only need to touch up the edges and put the numbers on. After Tech was finished the year 8's stayed behind and were taught about some of the subjects that they do in college like maths and science. For maths we were drawing a picture using code and in science we were experimenting with dry ice. Thank you to the teachers who showed us how to do things, I enjoyed the challenge and am looking forward to college next year.