Question, Hypothesis and Background research

During last Term we have been learning about Science, the teachers have been running workshops on different areas so that we could elaborate more on different topics.The students then had to decide what workshop to go to but there were guidelines such as, we had to go to a certain area one or two times within the Term.

From what we have learnt in the Term we now had to create our own science projects from the Question onward's. I had chosen to do my project with a partner, my partner and I struggled to fins a project that would suit both of us. So we came to our teacher with our problem, then our teacher came up with the idea to our project on laughing because we laugh a lot. So we all searched up laughing topics and it came up with this monkey so of coarse we started Laughing. SO our teachers helped us to create our Question. "The laughter of which age group is more contagious??"

To elaborate on this question we had to research and find out more about contagious laughing, my partner and I weren't that sure about the topic so we researched and found that human brains react better to positive sounds such as laughter and triumph rather than negative sounds like screaming and retching. After we had found this out we realized that younger people have higher voices, so our from that we created our Hypothesis. "The younger the age of the person laughing the more contagious it will be because the younger you are the higher pitched sounds you make." I have enjoyed researching about this topic and I can't wait to go further on this topic.

Have you ever done a Science project, if so what was it about??

Term 1 holidays

It is now the first day of term two, we have just had a two week holiday before going back to school. Through the holidays I have enjoyed hanging out with my mates and having a laugh. In the first week me and my friends were a bit busy throughout the week so we only hung out on Friday.

Me and my friends organised to go ice skating but we didn't realise how long it took to get there from my place until we arrived twenty minutes early. As we waited in line, we talked about how excited we were to go ice skating again, I know I was. Throughout the time waiting in line we kept asking Liana what time it was, I think that she was pretty annoyed by the end of it.

It was finally time to go in and man it was freezing, I was only wearing long pants and a t - shirt in the freezing cold climate. We grabbed our skates and we started skating. It felt really weird to be on the ice, so for the start I went slowly, behind me was Liana struggling to stand up. Me I was just laughing at her because she looked really funny wobbling around, then she fell over and that cracked me up I almost fell over. Then I started getting the hang of it and I was a pro, I felt pretty cool and then Liana fell over again, this was her third time in about ten minutes. Yet me and Anna hadn't fallen over yet, I wondered how many times she will fall over with in the next 2 hours.

We all ended up splitting up but ending back together, it had been about an hour before there was the speed skate, first of all I didn't think that I was fast but when I saw the competition it changed, I went out on the ice and I felt amazing. Everyone was looking at me and I felt free, when it was over we went back to our normal speeds and I fell over, me and my friends were holding hands before we turned and Liana fell over and I fell with her. The next activity was spin the bottle and with that we all spread out across the sides and when the bottle hit us we would get a prize unfortunately none of us got it. We skated around for 20 minutes until there was a new activity and it was a dance competition, me and Anna joined in while Liana was on the side. We did the dance to YMCA, I forgot that I was in skates when I jumped in the skates and landed smack on my bum. It really hurt, once the dance competition had finished the guy came over and gave Anna a ticket for free candy floss. The speaker came on and they told us to get off the ice but Anna didn't want to get off so she kept doing rounds of the ice.

Then we left to go buy some food for the night, we went to the super market and bought a lot of food. It was funny because we were walking around with a massive trolley with just junk food in it. We got home and we started eating but we couldn't eat too much because we were having fish 'n' chips for tea. It took a while for us to choose our movie but in the end we chose Barbie and the twelve dancing princess, it was a very emotional movie but it had a happy ending. When we finished the movie we realised that we had gone through half the food, so we ran outside and danced like the princesses in the movie. It was very dark and I think I fell on the ground more than I was standing up. After that we went back inside and we chose another movie, we watched a movie that had cheer leading in it and that inspired me and Anna to create a cheer for our school. While we created the cheer Liana was sitting on the couch just watching us.

This was one of the fun activities I a had with my friends but throughout the holidays I have more fun.

What did you do in the holidays?

Netball trials

On Sunday, me and my friends had a Netball trial. Honestly I was pretty nervous because I hadn't played the game in a year. When we got onto the court all that was going on in my head was, Charlotte don't muck up, don't muck. The whistle was then blown, I then started to feel a bit ill. Through the game I had to keep reminding myself how to play, after 10 mins the game was over. Man it felt like forever. It was really difficult to calm myself down, so I sat down and slowly took sips out of my drink bottle. We played about 6 games and through the games I got better and better. I think that my last game was the best because I was confident and I new where I was going.

Have you ever experienced a sore stomach when you are playing game? 

Reflection Term 1

2018 has been really fun, I have enjoyed coming back to school and seeing my friends again. I have loved the trips that we have been on, I loved when we went on the bridal path trip and Ferrymead because I learnt so much about New Zealand history. I loved when we weren't in the same groups as our friends because I got to know different people in my hub. As we go into Term 2 I want to achieve a few things, like I want to get into special character because I want to lead the school by there character. I want to achieve better in my learning like maths because I think that I need to try harder to be better at maths. To ensure I complete these goals for the term I think that I need to practise and try my best to achieve them.

Do you have any goals that you want to achieve this year?

Diana Isaac Visit

On the 23rd of March me and 4 other students went on a trip to Diana Isaac. When we arrived we talked to the residents about their history and learnt what it was like in their time. I talked to two people and one of them said that at school they had drills, their drills were a lot different to the drills we have now. Their drills were for the bombs, so they had to run home from school when the sirens went off. When they ran home they would hope that they wouldn't get bombed by the Japanese. The people that lived far away had to run to their friends house or they would stay at school. Back in the day they would live fairly close to the house so they would walk to school. When they told me this I was quite surprised that they could've been bombed on the way home because it isn't very safe. After we shared our stories we went onto blogs, I told them how to set it up and I showed them a few of the blogs that I had already done and they were really impressed. I loved hanging out with the residents at Diana Isaac. I really enjoyed their company and would like to do something like this again with them. For example, the resident's coming over to my school so we can have more fun again.

Have you done something fun with your grandparents or some elderly people that you know?

Ferrymead trip

On Friday the 16th of March, the Kaupeka hub travelled to the bridal path. When we arrived at the bottom of the bridal path, we started walking,  honestly it was very challenging, so with determination we got to the top.When we got up to the top of the bridal path we looked around and found two ways that we could go to the top. So we asked a lovely lady to show us the directions to the gondola, so looked behind a building at the top and found a small path that took us to the gondola. On the way up the path we rang the other parents and teachers that were following us that they should look behind the building to find the path. Of course they had already gone down the road, so they had to jump the fence to go onto the track. It was really funny to watch the other groups go the other way. 

Q1: The differences I found out when we went to Ferrymead to now was that they are very polite and when there rules were set, they had to actually be done. It was very interesting when I found that they didn't have any fridges surprised me because I had no idea where they would put there cold food items because they would go off. After the lady had told us that they put there cold food in a safe in the coldest place in the house, it made more sense. It is now a lot different to back then, there are so many more differences and some of them hasn't actually helped us. 
Q2: When we went over to Ferrymead, from what we learnt, I think it would've been pretty difficult to live because there wasn't any appliances like a fridge. So you would've had to eat your milk quickly but not too quickly because then you would have to buy more. Of course you don't have the money for that. I don't think many people had washing machines so they would have to clean there washing by hand. Then they would need to hang it out on the clothes line to dry. From my experience at Ferrymead, life was pretty difficult back then because you had heaps of jobs to do. 

Q3: When we climbed up to bridal path, I think that it would've been very tricky because they were holding all there belongings. I heard that they brought a piano so they had to lift it over the bridal path too. For when I walked up the bridal path, I found it tiring and it was hard just to carry my school bag. Since the early settlers had all there belongings and they were wearing long dresses to top that off. I would have hated walking up and down that then. 

Q4: Anna: In the 1860's era, the school was pretty strict and we had to use ink pens. There were a big variety of wooden toys like stilts, wooden horses, bubbles, long rope, and a whole lot more. The toys were mostly made out of wood. In the bakery, we made biscuits that were burnt but other than that, it was pretty nice.

Q5: I really enjoyed this trip because we learnt heaps and I got to spend some time with other people in my hub, it was really different talking to other people. When we went over to Ferrymead, we tried on our dresses and they were really tight around the neck and I had to wear that for the rest of the day. Learning about what it was like back then actually reminded me that we take so much things for granted now and I don't think we really should be. 

Q6: This trip has changed my understanding for what school was like back then because they were not allowed to speak until you were told to speak. It was girls before boys because it was polite. It was really funny when the girls went first because the boys would complain because they are just not polite. I found out that NZ are slacking on politeness. 

Have you ever been on a trip with class that involves exercise?

Think, Make, Solve

Through the term the teachers have been challenging the students to work out different challenges within a group. This week our challenge was to build a structure that would hold a maths book, the equipment that we were able to use were toothpicks and a set amount of blue tack. Me and my group created a plan and searched up some ideas that would hold the book. At first it was pretty tricky but as we went on it got easier. After a while we realised that we needed a few more toothpicks, by the time we had finished the base of our structure, we realised that we didn't have much blue tack left. We thought for a bit, until we started sticking the toothpicks to the blue tack that was already put down. We were done, honestly it didn't look very pretty but they weren't judging it on the look. It was on the strength. So we got a few books and started piling them on top of the structure, it was holding!. It was actually holding! Then we added more and more, it was really surprising to see what this little thing could do. We were up to our 15th one until it started falling. So we just pushed the books down and squished it. This was an interesting experience for me and my group. I had no idea that we could work this well.

Have you ever done something as crazy as this?