Creek Tranquility

 For a whole week now everybody in Miss Morrow - Rankin's writing group have been focusing on learning personification. Including this piece unless you were away we should have written four stories with personification in each paragraph. We also needed to add four other language features, eg: similes, metaphors, nouns, dialogue and onomatopoeia.

For me the most difficult or challenging part on this activity was choosing what I was going to write about. We had to write about our favorite place to be. I ended up choosing the creek we have on our property because I remembered how peaceful and tranquil I felt when I was there. The creek on the title page doesn't look like the creek in my story but we saw something like that on the way to the creek / lake. 

I found it rather easy to describe how I felt and what the area looked like. The lake I was writing about is actually the end of a long creek that wound through the bush on our property. Other then that there is practically nothing in particular that I found easy, but nothing was extremely hard either. 

To improve I feel like I could have described the bush part quite a lot more. I feel like other then that I did pretty good. But if you have picked up on something I missed on how I could make my writing better please leave a comment below telling me how I could improve.

Brazilian Ju Jitsu Recount

The learning intention of this writing session was to write a recount about the best or worst day of our holiday. It has to be about one moment in time, using rich descriptive language to paints a picture in the reader's mind. I think I achieved that, don't you? I chose to write about my first Brazilian Ju Jitsu session in quite a while, and since we went to the library afterwards it was definitely the best day of my holidays. 

It was hard to figure out what I found challenging but here it is: I found it challenging to put in as many language features as I possibly could. I ended up only being able to put in one simile some dialogue. I also put in one example of hyperbole.

I found writing three paragraphs on my BJJ class to be the easiest part of this writing session. I also found it easy to use past tense. Our BJJ gym is near where the farmers market happens. Just go to said farmers market then head towards the back wall. That is where Te Kura Awhio is.

To improve my writing next time I will add more language features, for an example I could add in a metaphor, some onomatopoeia or maybe a piece of personification. How else do you think I could improve my writing skills?

Kayak Adventure

 Today in our writing lesson we were learning about creating a very descriptive recount about a moment in time. I finished my draft at home because my first session on this piece of writing was cut short because me and the rest of the house leaders had to go to the salvation army to give them our cans.

I found putting lots of description into very little words rather difficult but I think I did pretty well. I only wrote four paragraphs using 238 words. That might sound like a lot to you but some of the recounts I've written without restraining myself have used around 586 words.

Choosing a worthy moment in time to write about was the easiest part of this activity for me because the saturday before we started this writing piece Me and my family had gone to the river by the marine reserve to do some kayaking. So naturally I chose to write about that because I love kayaking.

I quite enjoyed remembering the moment in time I chose so I could spill my feelings onto the google doc, publish it then post it to my blog where it will be red by people like you!

Something I could improve on for the next time I do this would be to take a closer look at the example then follow its lead. For an example I could use more descriptive words to make the reader feel like they are really there watching me. What else do you think I could improve on?

Reading Webquest

For week six the task for Mrs Gomms reading group was to do a webquest about the olympics and the paralympics. A few of the tasks I did in the slide below include: The olympic and paralympic logos, the history of the flame the torch and the relay and the history of the olympic rings.

I found it rather difficult to get an even balance of facts and images. But in the end I remembered that the words are the most important part of any presentation, so I narrowed the amount of images down to two on slide two and one on slide four. The other hard thing was finding a Athlete from Canada that competed in diving.

The easy part of this webquest was following the instructions even though it was a bit confusing because Mrs Gomm called it a Paralympic webquest but the actual activity had nothing to do with the paralympics except the side about the paralympic and olympic logos.

If I ever do something like this again I reckon a good way to improve would be if I found something difficult and it was making me frustrated or confused I should either give it a break and come back later. Or another way would be to take a step back and look at it from a different angle.

Brain Box

 This science lesson my group did an activity using the brain box. The brain box contains lots of little electronic pieces. I was absent the day they did this activity but Naiya had written about it in her science book so I know basically what they had done. 

The first activity they chose to do was the smiley face light. According to Naiya they put it together using seven pieces, including a switch, four batteries and some smaller pieces. When they flicked the switch to the "on" position the smiley face would light up in blue and red.

With the blue and green light came a annoying beeping noise that wouldn't turn off until the batteries were unattached or the switch was flipped to the "off" area.      

Next time I would like to make something with the brain box that was a bit more creative and unusual eg something that used a lot of pieces and a lot of different variables.

100 Meter race

 Today we were publishing a piece of creative/imaginative recount writing. The writings topic was about the hundred meter olympic race. Mr Barclay was the teacher conducting this lesson, he created an example of the piece of writing we were meant to be making during the first lesson before lockdown. I had already published my writing to a slide so all I had to do was add some images and post it to my blog.

I found it rather challenging to do my mote because when I attempted to use the mote app it kept on making me do the sign in process again and again. Mr Barclay helped me solve this problem by letting me use his computer so I could do my recording properly.

The easy thing about this lesson was probably adding lots of emotion to my writing because to know what it would have really felt like I just had to imagine I was there so that is what I did. I think in reality it would be really hard to be an olympic competitor.

I enjoyed doing the whole thing because it was something different to what we normally do and what I'm used to. I also enjoyed trying to get my writing standards as high as possible, especially since Mr Barclay was writing a story too.

In future I think a way I could improve would be to end on a more excited note and to put more of the emotion from the story into my voice when I am reading it in the mote.

Spring Limerick

 For this learning at home activity we had to either write a recount about our bubble life, or you could do what I did, create a poem, an acrostic poem, a haiku poem or a limerick. I chose to do a limerick. No matter what poem you chose it had to be about spring. It took me a while to make my limerick but it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

The thing that was slightly easier than the rest was deciding the first line, I knew I was going to use it because that is what I wake up to every day. Because I have my own room and it is close to the top of my family's house. The other easy thing was understanding the rules behind the limerick. If you want to learn them click here.

The thing that challenged me most in this activity was making my limerick sound cool. In the video explaining limericks it doesn't say anything about the syllable structure. So I ended up adding too many syllables into my limerick. The syllable structure goes like this: The first, second and fifth line have eight or nine syllables and the third and fourth line have five or six.

To improve my limericks next time I will follow the syllable structure that I mentioned just now. It might be a little bit difficult but I would manage.