NZSL

Throughout the term we have been growing in our understanding of New Zealand Sign Language and Me and and my partner Anna have been going to extra mile and teaching ourselves twinkle twinkle little star in NZSL, below you will see the video of us doing it.

Teach this to yourselves and learn NZSL

Back to Camp

On Tuesday the 28th of November some of the Kaupeka students went back to camp to finish the activities that we missed last time. My group went because I had missed out on Abseiling. The activities were cancelled the first time because the rain became to dangerous for us to go outside and do water activities.

When we drove back up to Camp I was welcomed by the person who was taking us on the experience (Koryn). While I waited for the rest of my group to arrive I got ready into my harness, when they had finally arrived we all got our helmets and harnesses on and we were on our way. We all know that when we don't know what we're doing we have to have a safety briefing.

After all that, we started Abseiling, firstly when we started it was hard to go down the waterfall because I didn't trust the harness that it was going to hold me. As we got to the last waterfall I felt like a pro because I could trust the harness and I had a bit of practise. I think that this day was really enjoyable and I would like to go back there soon.

Have you ever been on camp, where have you been?

GRIP Conference

On the 22nd of November and the Year 7's at my school went on a trip to a conference.

This day involved leadership and teaching us more about leading others and having integrity, firstly the day started off with transforming into a leader. This taught us how to transform yourself into a strawberry ( A strawberry is something that is the same on the outside as the inside).

The highlights of this day was learning more about leadership because I have now realised that I lead people in the right direction everyday of my life. I had learnt about reality and how often people lead others.

Next year I will be one of the leaders in the school, I will be acting as a role model around the younger students. I haven also been thinking of the role I want to be in as a leader next year, and I want to make it more fun for the people who don't enjoy Religious Education.

The teachers asked us, after the conference, what we wanted to do next year.  I want to create a wall that would be signed by the people who have been at the school.

Have you ever had an opportunity to change something in your school?

Writing

This year in the Kaupeka Hub we have been learning about different ways of writing. This term we have been doing biography's and learning how to create one. I chose to do my biography on Pope Francis because he is a example of God's love for us and has shown the way to live with Jesus by your side. Below you will see my biography, it will be about Pope Francis when he was growing up and as a Pope right now.

Biography:Pope Francis

Have you ever written a Biography, who was it about?

NZSL

This blog post is going to be about what I have learnt this year at school, I chose to do Sign Language because it is one of our official languages in New Zealand. At first I was really passionate about the project because it is a new language. Below you will see a video of me doing the alphabet.

What have you learnt at school this year?

Book Character Day

On Friday the 3rd of November our school celebrated book week. The Year 8s in charge of library decided to create a competition that involves getting dressed up as a character from a book. Liana, my best friend, and I decided to come dressed as Lightning McQueen and Sally from Cars and yes it is a book. After we had shown off our amazing outfits, we went inside to take pictures of them so we could show the world what we had done at our school. The reason why we went and showed everyone our outfits was because our teachers were deciding the winners of the best dressed. Sadly my friend and I didn't win, the winners were boys dressed as Anna and Elsa (they were in dresses and high heels, it was pretty funny though). I think that this day was well planned out and I quite liked seeing the people that were dressed up.

Has your school ever done something for book week?

What the Kaupeka Hub is all About.

This blog is all about our hub and what we do. We have 66 people in our hub and that is including me. In our learning we work in rooms that are set by us. In literacy time we choose what type of writing we want to do and go from there. Our classrooms are set out so that our teachers can see us in the class and we can see them. In our school we do things differently, like we use chrome books in our everyday life. We use them to do writing and go onto websites so we can learn more.
Most days in our hub are the same but some are different and that can confuse most of us. The teachers needed a way to show us what we were doing everyday, the teachers created our timetables and I think that it has helped a lot.  Every term we have a different topic for PBL, my personal favourite would be the political PBL, which we completed last term. I liked it so much because it was like an election that New Zealand was having. I liked how we got to learn more about politics because I knew nothing. In learning we should have learnt the normal skills and more for what a year 7/8 leader should have when they go off to high school. For example we have learnt languages and PE.
In the hub I like space 2 because the layout is amazing and it feels a lot like home. Through this year in the year 7/8 hub my proudest moment would be becoming the Student Prime Minister of the school because we did the election and my party won. I think that this school provides amazing opportunities to learn more things you don't know. This school has given me a lot of knowledge about almost everything.

What are some similarities and differences about your classroom/hub/school?

Community PBL

In Term 3 we were put into groups that involve giving back to to the community.

Throughout this project we have been learning new things from different people, The most important thing I have learnt during this project would be the new entrants and how they work down there. It kind of reminded me that I learnt down there first and I think how far I've gone from there.

I wish that I spent more time on asking questions to the teachers about the juniors and what they needed and already had. The other thing would be that my group didn't work well as a team and I think that we could've worked a bit better.

I think that my group worked best on creating something to give back to the community. We had chosen to put some posters out that would help them learn a bit more around the hub.

The most enjoyable part of this project would be working with new people in the hub. I enjoyed it when we got to eat lunch with the people and asking more about them in questions.

The least enjoyable part in this project was that not everyone was taking part in this project because some of the people was sitting around and not helping finishing the project.

I think that the teachers did a pretty good job on organising this project but I would've liked if we got to choose the groups.

Have you ever learnt something from kids that are younger than you.

Athletic's Day

I know that we have just started school but on Wednesday we had Athletics day. I really enjoyed it even though I am not so good at athletics, I liked it because I tried everything and gave everything a go. First off we started with sprints, I didn't do very well because I am short and there are people in my class that are faster than me at sprints. After that we went off and started our other events like shot put, discus etc. The only thing I did well on was high jump and that was quite surprising because I am really short, I didn't practise much either and I thought that that would've effected me when I jumped. I thought this day was really well done and the teachers who made this day possible should really be proud of themselves for what they had done.

Have you ever organised something really big before?

Political Party Campaign

Throughout the term we have created political groups that will be elected this Friday to become government of the school. Through this project I have learned more about politics, so I think that it is really important for you when you go to high school. If I were to change this project in a way I would give a bit more time for us to work on the project instead of the teachers leaving it to the last minute. My favourite part of the project would be that we have this opportunity to know more about politics so I know for the future. The worst part of starting this project is we are going up against people in our hub, so there is a bit of tension between us. I do wish we had more time as a group because we don't really have enough time to do everything together as a group. I am hoping that people will vote for my group so that they will have positive attitude towards learning and school.

Have you ever campaigned in front of a crowd or tried to get people on your side of opinion?

RE Reflection.

In Kaupeka we have been reflecting on prayer, the questions that we have been asked to give our own answer as down below...

 My favourite time and place to pray is…...
- My favourite place to pray would be in my bedroom because it is one of the most quiet place I can think of because other places like school can get quite loud and at home people are always talking. So the I like the most quietest places are my favourite places to prayer.

Sometimes I pray for…...
- I usually prayer for the people that I know who are ill because they are the people that have cared for me and the return I give them is prayer. I sometimes pray for myself because when I am feeling stressed out in school I ask for help to feel his comfort around school.

When I pray I imagine Te Atua (God) as…...
- When I pray I imagine God is with me at that moment and that he is listening to me. I imagine that he is sitting right in front of me talking to me and hearing about the hard times I have been in at school and at home.

My favourite Karakia is…...

- My favourite prayers are the traditional prayers because they are a reminder of the prayers back in the day.

Most of my prayers are about…...

- I pray for the people who are unwell and are in need of some help. They are the people who are having babies, who have lost there loved ones and who are sick. These prayers usually involve thank yous because the Lord helps them and sometimes listens and answers me.

Where is your favourite place to pray?

Political visits

For a few weeks now we have been visited by some politicians who have talked to us about how the elections work. The Kaupeka Hub have been asking questions about politicians and they have been answering them the best way they can. Before they came and told us about politicians I had no idea what the election was about.

Jo Hayes, the MP for Christchurch East came for a visit and she talked to us about when you are in parliament you don't spend enough time with your family. She said that she sometimes finishes work at 1am in the morning. As well as being a good leader you need to listen to everyone's opinion and interpret them into the group, you need to have a good slogan that would stay in people minds so they know who you are. Jo Hayes was very helpful and she helped me with knowing more about politics.

The next person who came to talk to us was Duncan Webb, he was the person who told us about that social media is helpful because it tells people what you are up to and what good stuff you are doing. Facebook is very important to him because he is showing people where he is. Even though it annoy's people because of the signs, but when you put them up it reminds people of your group. Printing flyers is another example of showing people who you are and what your slogan is. Duncan Webb was very helpful with what we were going to do in our groups.

Our second to last person was Poto Williams, the MP for Christchurch East, she talked to us that having an opportunity for everyone. She was telling us that personality in leadership will help with the votes and when you have someone as the leader that everyone likes it will help you get better scores in the elections. She was very good about informing us about working as a team and what makes a good leader. I think that having an opportunity for us to learn more about politicians was very helpful.

The last person who visited us was Nicky Wagner, she was very helpful because she told us that one of the first priorities in a party group was needing a policy. If you don't have a policy there is no point of having your party group. It got me thinking because my group does not even have a policy yet and we don't even know what to do. But from her, she has given me something to think about for my group and to get done.

Have you ever had visitors that have given useful information?

Speech

Through the past few weeks, Kaupeka have been presenting our speeches. I presented my speech on Wednesday to the class, it was quite scary but when I started talking I became more and more confident in what I was saying. The topic of my speech was, "Blondes aren't as dumb as you think." I know it sounds weird but I thought that it was the best to show who I was.
When I was writing my speech, it was really hard to know what to write, so I researched a bit more about the topic and I went from there. It was a challenge to make the time for the speeches because it had to be 4 minutes long.

Have you ever wanted to show people who you are, with writing?        

Digital Badge

In the Kaupeka Hub we have been getting to know how technology works on a Chromebook. So the teachers decided to create a challenge for us, that would help them know what we knew in docs. One of the teachers created a doc so that we would be able to check off what we had done on Google Docs. I had finished the check list and I got a badge to show what I knew about Google Docs. As you can see below.

Have you ever been proud of something that you have done?

Winter Sport Term 3

This term we have been playing winter sport every Thursday. This year I wanted to try something new for sport. So I chose football, through the terms I have been getting better at the sport because at the start of Term 2 I had no clue what a right wing was. By the end of the season I have more knowledge about playing football. I have loved playing this sport, and getting to know my team a bit better. Through the past few weeks I have thought that my team is passing the ball and being more like a team.

Have you ever realised a change through the season with your team?

Creativity in the Kaupeka hub

Creativity is one of the key things in Kaupeka and we use this sort of thinking when we do Scratch because we are creating our own new coding projects on it. For example, I am currently creating a RE Scratch board game. I have been working on it for quite sometime now. I started the project with no idea how to use Scratch. Since then I have been practising and I am now understanding how to work it better.

Have you ever had something really hard that you wanted to finish but had no idea how to do it?

Community PBL Collaboration

Through my PBL groups I have been working with other people and collaborating with different people in the Kaupeka hub. Since everyone  in my group is now all at school, now I know how they work and how we all work together. I think that we work well but some of the time we would get off task and talk a bit. Most of all it is getting our work done on time, the collaboration side of the group hasn't been going too well because not everyone has been on task when we are writing a letter together as a group. I think that my group needs to work on working together and being on task. Our group mostly finishes our work on time, so that is a bit of a plus.

Have you ever had to work with different people in a group?

Political PBL

This term in the Kaupeka Hub the teachers have organised political groups. Last week in our groups we got to choose the party leader, a deputy leader, the technology people and the analysers. In my group we had a chat about who wanted to be what and if the person was likeable to be the party leader for the group. In my group the party leader was elected to be me and the deputy became Henri. The idea the teachers had to do this in the hub is to learn about the political side of things, it will help us to learn a bit more and so we get a better understanding of it for the future.

Have you ever been elected to be an important leader?

Start of Term 3

When I got to school on Monday the 24th of July I was really nervous about the changes that would've been made in the hub. One of the changes that had been made was the eating times of the school. The eating times had been changed because we eat in our break and then burn off all the energy by running around. So the teachers had an idea of changing it that we play outside first and then we come in and eat. I like the way they have changed it because we have longer to play and eating inside is still the same. The change to the school is a good idea and I think that it will be beneficial for the students.

Have you ever had a change in your school before?

Learning Showcase

On Wednesday the 28th of June the Kaupeka hub had a Learning showcase to show what we had been doing in the kaupeka hub. I didn't have my parents come to look at my learning so I just participated in the poi. The poi was very enjoyable and I had fun showing what we had been doing in Kapa Haka. I think it was a good idea to show everyone our learning and I thank them for the opportunity.

Have you ever showed something to your parents from school? 

Place mat of my learning

Poi Performance

Science Driving Question

To conduct a successful science investigation is to start with your question and then research your investigation to get a better understanding of the question. Then you will predict what will happen in your experiment from your research. After that you will do a procedure and a list of materials for what you need for your experiment. When you start your experiment to know that you have the right information you will trial the experiment three times so that you information is accurate. To show others your science project you need to summarise your project to get other people a good understanding so that they fell they were there at the experiment. This is how you can en up with a good and thawed out science experiment. 

Have you ever had a successful experiment before?

Science Experiment

A few days ago I did my experiment and it was a bit tricky at the start of it because I didn't know where everything was in my house. When I had found everything I started my experiment and I got my sister to be my volunteer to help me time  my experiment. When I dropped my wood block into the water I was timing how long the water took to get to the other side. After I had done my experiment I had found out that when the water is deeper the speed is faster and it will get to the land quickly.

Have you ever done an experiment on something like experimenting your taste buds?

Peer Mediator

Peer Mediation has been pretty interesting over the past few weeks because the year 5 and 6 have been saying silly things about peer mediation and it is very frustrating. That is something that year 7/8 have trouble with because we have other problems other than opening a chip packet. We have helped younger kids like 5 year old's get friends when they are sitting on there own. I have helped a few kids that are fighting with each other but it has been  really cool to help little kids and be the leader.

Have you ever been a leader?

Collaboration Reflection

Through the term I have been getting better at my collaboration and working together in a group. Lately I have been partnered in small groups and they have been better because I have talked to people and seen their opinion, I have included all their ideas and I haven't been doing everything by myself. When I have been in a pair I have asked what they would use to answer the problem but we have been getting off task quite a bit lately though. In a bigger group I have sometimes been left out but that is why I haven't been participating very well. There is one problem that I have in collaboration is that we always go off task and don't finish it in time. But I think that I work well in small groups because there aren't many people to involve in and we don't fight about who is what we just get along. In collaboration I need to work on talking on task, getting everyone involved and helping everyone to know what they are doing. Collaboration in the hub should look like they are on task and they are letting everyone into the conversation. Collaboration should sound like chatting on topic and whispering. When you are in a group in collaboration you should feel happy because you are getting it done and you are getting along.

How do you go with Collaboration independent, pair, a small group and a big group?

Method and Materials

This is the next stage for my science project, method and materials.

This is what I will need and how I am going to do it...

Materials:

• Water tank; a 38 Litre under the bed type
• Source of water
• Wood, 2 inches (in.) thick x 4 in. wide x 8 in. long
• Permanent marker
• Ruler, metric
• Digital stopwatch
• Lamp; preferably a bright ceiling light directly under which you can position the water tank
• Hand towel
• Volunteer (1)
• Lab notebook
• Graph paper

Procedure:

1. Find an indoor space to work in preferably something that is alright for water to splash on it
2. Fill the tank of water with a few centimeters,have a few practise making and tracking the waves
3. Draw a small line with the permanent marker,around 2.5 cm below the rim of the tank.Draw another line shorter on the end of the rectangular shape.This is the height of where you drop the wood block,Use a volunteer to help you track the waves
4. Once you feel comfortable tracking the waves start the experiment
5. Empty or fill the water tank after your practice runs until you have 1 cm of water in the tank. Use the metric ruler for accuracy.
6. Have your volunteer ready with the stopwatch to start timing how long it takes a wave to travel from one end of the tank to the other. Hold the bottom of the wood block at the mark on the tank. As soon as you drop the block and a wave is created, the volunteer should start the stopwatch. The volunteer should stop the stopwatch when the wave hits the other end of the tank. Record the time in the data table in your lab notebook.
7. Repeat step 6 nine more times to ensure more-accurate data.
1. Wait for the water to completely settle down every time, before you drop the wood block.
2. Hold the wood block the same way each time your drop it into the water tank.
3. Record all data in the data table in your lab notebook.
8. Now fill the water tank until the water depth is 2 cm. Use the ruler to confirm the water depth. Repeat steps 6-7. Record all of the data in the data table in your lab notebook.
9. Fill the water tank until the water depth is 3 cm. Use the ruler to confirm the water depth. Repeat steps 6-7. Record all of the data in the data table in your lab notebook.
10. Empty the tank and repeat steps 5–9 two more times so that you have a total of 3 trials for each depth. Performing 3 trials for each depth ensures that your data is reproducible and repeatable. Be sure to record all of the data in the data table in your lab notebook.

Have you ever read and done a method right?

Winter Sport

This term the years 5-8 have been going to Hagley and participating in the winter sport tournament. This year I chose a different sport because I didn't want to have the same sport each week. I chose Football because  I enjoy kicking a ball around and having fun. As well I do know how to play because I have seen my brothers play there games and the words that they use for it too.
Have you ever tried something new?

Science Fair Hypothesis

Through the next stage of my science project I have created a hypothesis. In my science project the waves in the container will have a greater velocity when they are in deeper water. I know this because tsunamis are faster when they are in deeper parts of the ocean.
Have you ever been in a science fair or been to one?

Families Culture

This week at school we told everyone something that is a tradition in our family. My tradition is every Friday me and my family get together and have fish 'n' chips for tea. After tea we get some fizzy to digest all of the food better. Roman Catholic's tradition is not to have meat on Friday's especially during lent. Fish is not meat and that works for Friday's. After that it became a routine on Friday to have Fish n chips. As well Mum's don't always want to cook on Friday's.

Does your family have a tradition?

Peer Mediator

Last week the Kaupeka Hub started peer mediating. Peer mediating is when the older kids go around helping the younger kids with their problems. Last week during peer mediation we walked around waiting for children to come to me and tell me what went wrong. I was surprised that no kids were fighting  and I was happy that no-one was being bullied.

Have you ever been a leader?

Science fair Question

How does water depth effect wave velocity?
I chose this question because it links to Tsunami's, I have had a real interest in tsunami's and I just wanted to study the theory. My question is to figure out how an earthquake effect's the water depth.( This will not make a tsunami?!)

What are you interested in?

Learner profile

Over the past few weeks Kaupeka have created a Learner Profile, a Learner Profile is a poster of the words that us, children value and need to work on at school. My strength on the learner profile is 'self managing' because I work by myself better with no-one interrupting me. I do everything to the highest of my ability and that is when no-one is next to me talking. My weakness is 'collaborator' because I usually do the work all by myself because the others are either talking or away with their friends. It is really hard to do work as a group sometimes because I always get the hitchhikers (the people who do nothing and don't even know what we are doing). This is why we are learning about collaboration in class! 

Think, Make, Solve

Most Friday's the Kaupeka hub does a Think, Make, Solve. The teachers give us, children, an activity to solve and this week the teachers gave us Lego to create into a new vehicle. It needed to actually have a purpose to it. My group and I created a fire engine, this fire engine had a ladder at the back and an extra seat for the other fireman. It had all the accessories that firetrucks have, but ours was way better. This fire engine was only finished because we worked together as collaborators and that was how we got our end result. Have you ever had a challenge like we did?

Camp

On the 10th week of school the Kaupeka hub went on a journey to Glentui Meadows. When we got there we went on a walk to find a nice spot to have lunch, but little did we know that there was more of the walk to go. After we had lunch we went to a waterfall and man it was beautiful. To get back to our picnic spot we went the long way. There was heaps of mud and it was very slippery and to top that off it was raining (it wasn't just raining it was bucketing down with water). Mostly everyone had fallen and got mud on them but that was usual when it is raining and the ground is very wet and as well we were on camp. When we were about half way through the walk Mrs Bryce told us that there was only 30min to go , but she didn't know that the rain and the slipperiness would've slowed us down by 1 hr. When we all were back after the walk around the waterfall, we saw that Miss Hanson had a great fall, I was pretty sad that I wasn't there to see her fall but I bet that the people who were there when she fell would've laughed because she had mud on her from her feet to her back. We got back from the walk, the only way that we could have afternoon tea was to have a shower and of course we had one because who would want to spend the rest of the camp feeling dirty, It was annoying that there was only 3 showers for each floor of the buildings and there was probably around 20 people on the floor that I was on (the top). I got down to the hall and I was surprised that there were hot chocolates there, because to feed 75 people that must have been a lot of drinks. Since we were all wet and no-one wanted to go outside again we got free time till tea time at 5:30. After the day that I have had, I knew that this camp was going to be wet and amazing!

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my student blog. This blog is for my learning that I am proud of.My favourite subject is maths and I will be sharing lots about what I am learning through maths.Please follow by email so that you will get notifications of what I have been getting up to.