Yesterday was our Parent Conferences. The Parent Conferences is a gathering for parents to come and look at our work, also to improve our explaining skills by practicing with our parents. I introduced my parents to my teachers first and then I presented each piece of work on the wall, aswell as a explanation of what we did. My mum and dad were amazed to see all the creations and artwork that were displayed and they enjoyed my blogs that I showed them. After showing them everything we did for the term, they wanted to see how I am doing in class, everything was great and the one of the most important things I need to work on is my confidence. We also made Learning journeys for our parents to find links to our blogs, aswell as decorations for looks. This was my learning Journey.

Today we were creating AI images of people and things that could contrast from the story were reading (The boy in striped pajamas). I made an AI image of Bruno and his friend Shmuel and did contrast between their two characters. There were many differences between them and I realized they were very distinct.

Definition of Contrast: The difference between two objects, persons and things.

Today we were trying to understand some key ideas about stories and characters. We focused on learning what Mood, Atmosphere, Round and Flat characters, and the Protagonist and Antagonist are. We then put all this information together into one which is a (DLO), which is like a helpful display or presentation to explain these concepts clearly. We did this as a group, splitting the work so everyone had their own part to explain. For example, I was responsible for explaining what Round characters are, which are characters with many or complex qualities. Someone else in my group took care of explaining the Antagonist, the character who opposes the main character, or protagonist. Then, that person in turn explained what Mood means, which is the feeling or emotion that the story creates for the reader. Our team worked closely, sharing and gathering all the necessary information about these six topics. After collecting everything, we displayed it in a way that helps anyone understand what each of these terms means and how they fit into stories or books. The goal was to make a simple, clear resource that answers questions about how stories develop characters and setting moods, and how different characters work together to drive the story forward.

In maths, we were learning about prime factorisation in our groups. We learnt how to break bigger numbers down into smaller prime numbers by using factor trees and solving them step by step. We worked together to figure out the answers and helped each other when someone got confused. We also checked our work to make sure all the numbers at the end were prime numbers.

For example, if we were doing the number 36, we would split it into 6 x 6, then split those again into 2 x 3 and as we know 2 and 3 are prime numbers. That would be the factorisation of 36. We practiced different numbers like this so we could get more confident and faster at solving them.

When me and the Year 7 in LS2 first arrived at our new class rotation in tech, we started by filling out some worksheets. One of the papers asked us to name four people we would make a custom cushion for and what kind of things they like so we could choose decorations and designs that matched their personalities. We also completed another sheet about health and safety rules and learned about how important it is to stay safe in the classroom. After that, we were introduced to the sewing machines and learnt a little bit about how they worked before using paper with blacklines to practice tracing and controlling the machine. It was a fun and interesting first lesson, and I learnt a lot about sewing and safety plus I look forward to the term ahead as I can create various types of things when I learn properly.

This term we had researched about the Pacific North-West Tree Octopus. At first, LS2 believed that this type of octopus was real but later on we discovered that it was a hoax, our teachers had specifically planned this to teach us a valuble lesson which was to not always believe everything you hear and to actually provide legitimate evidence. Today we are careful with what websites we go on and check facts to confirm its real.

Today we were making a DLO about prime numbers. We were making it because we had just learned about prime numbers so we created a DLO that can help people understand prime numbers. Prime numbers are numbers that can only be divided with 1 and itself. For example, 2 is a prime number because it can only be divided by 1 and itself. Any number that does not fit that description is called a composite number.

Recently, our school went on a walk around the Panmure Basin where we learnt about the myth of a taniwha called “Moko ika-hiku-waru” According to the story, it was a taniwha that used to live under the old Panmure Basin bridge and it had eight tails. I found the story really interesting because taniwha are an important part of Maori legends and culture. For our challenge, we worked with a partner to create a Google drawing of what we thought Moko ika-hiku-waru might look like. We also had to design the scenery around it, so we added details to make it look like the Panmure Basin and the area where the taniwha lived which was under the bridge. Everyone had different ideas, so each drawing looked unique and creative in its own way. My partner and I worked together by sharing ideas and helping eachother with the design. When everyone finished, it was really cool to see all the different taniwha creations people had made. This is me and my partners Google drawing of Moko ika-hiku-waru.

Today our school went on a trip to the Panmure Basin and we spent the most day walking around it. We didn’t just walk, we learned more about the area aswell while enjoying our walk, One of the things I found most interesting was the legendary myth of the Taniwha called “Moko- ika-hiku-waru”, its a taniwha that used to live under the old bridge at the Panmure Basin and had eight tails, we also learnt other facts like the mangrove trees for example: They are one of the few trees that can grow under salt water.