What Christmas means to me

We were learning about writing a letter to the Gisborne Herald for a competition. The competition was, in the whole of Gisborne a few schools were chosen to make a piece of writing about what Christmas means to you. Ten people are going through and getting to have their writing put into the Gisborne Herald newspaper, I hope that I will be one of those people.

I enjoyed doing my getting creative part. After we had finished, checked and the teacher had printed our writing we could do anything to get creative about our writing. I made a scratch game with my family, a fruit platter and a roast chicken in it.

I found it challenging to find all the right things to make my scratch game, eg the fruit platter, my family sprites and I also found it challenging to make the roast chicken. I had to get the chick sprite then remove the legs and the beak after that I had to get a bowl sprite to put the chicken in then I put tiny half oranges around the chicken so that it looked like veggies.

Next time I make a scratch that is not just information but fun as well. To achieve this goal I will make my game a quiz or a real game, I could make there be roast chickens and fruit platters, stockings or Christmas trees and that you had to click a certain one or answer questions that my sprite has asked.

Fireworks Acrostic Poem

We were learning about Guy Fawkes and his story, we also were learning about writing Acrostic poems. My one was about fireworks, I tried my best to make all the ends of each line rhyme to make it more interesting and attractive.   

I found it easy to publish it on to my slide once I had found the words that made the most sense and rymed in a way that was the most mysterious and moving.   

I found it challenging to find the best words for my acrostic poem. Like I said above I wanted my poem to be mysterious, moving and make the reader feel how it was then.  

Next time I will choose an easier word to base my acrostic poem on because it took me one session and a half just to finish my draft. 

Fake postcard no.2

 We were learning about what is fake and what is real on the internet.

I found it easy to I found it easy to do the writing in the postcard

I found it challenging to make the photo look real.

Next time I will choose an easier background for the photo.

Fake Postcard no.1

We were learning about what is fake and what is real on the internet. Mrs Williams put a slideshow, two videos and a postcard template. She told us to open the template, make a copy, change the background to any place in the world that we would like to be and take a photo of ourselves then take a screenshot of it. After that we clicked onto a link that Mrs Williams had put on the Team Toroa site, it was a website that allowed you to remove the background from a photo for free! Then we uploaded it to the template and put it in the place that we thought would look the most realistic. We were then able to fiddle with the format like dropping a shadow or changing the lighting. We then had to write in the other part of the template about how we were in this country we were visiting. (Obviously not really!)

I found it easy to do the writing in the postcard, it really felt like I had been visiting Ireland for three weeks. This is the first part of what I wrote: To Mum, Dad, the Boys and Pania, I miss you lots and lots. It is amazing here in Ireland, I have been to lots of lakes and villages. You were right not many of them have those lovely thatched roof cottages. I hope things are going well at home, have the boys been good? I absolutely love it here in Ireland, the photo of me on the other side is me at one of the many castles that I have been to in these past three weeks.    

I found it challenging to take the photo.

Next time I will get a buddy to help me with the photo sooner.

The Top Ten Most Important Things In A Recount

We were learning about recapping about what a recount is, then with our writing buddy we were to make a blog post about what we thought are the most important things to have or do to make a recount a recount.

I found it easy to write the top ten things about recounts once I had started, (the starting part was hard.) This session was not the easiest so I don't have that much on the I found it easy to... paragraph.   

I found it hard to think of the top ten things that are most important to include in a recount in the first sesion, my head must have still been in weekend mode! But fortunately in the next sesion I managed to get my head around it. The only other thing that I found hard was working with Manaia.

Next time I will sit beside Manaia (my writing buddy) and try to corporate more thoroughly with her. Another thing I will need to do next time I am with my writing buddy is to not give up on working with her so soon, even if she is not doing the same thing as I am. I will just have to show her the top ten things I have made.    

Me and my writing buddy Manaia think that these are the top ten most important things to have or do to make a recount a recount:

#1. It has to be a recap of a recent event.                                                                                                    

#2. It has to be in past tense.                                                                                                                      

#3. It has to have paragraphs.                                                                                                                      

#4. Sizzling start and clever conclusion                                                                                                      

#5. Punctuation.                                                                                                                                        

#6. Descriptive language.                                                                                                                        

 #7. Language features.                                                                                                                              

#8. Senses (smell, see, feel, hear and taste.)                                                                                               

#9. Nouns/Adverbs.                                                                                                                                    

 # 10. Rich words.

My goal for this term is to be recognised as a leader for being the perfect Awapuni kid, eg: Wonderful manners, Correct uniform, A bucket filler and a lid fitter.    

Tui Flower Feeder

We were learning about like I said in my previous post we are learning about the different types of birds. But along with this we were also learning about two different pests to them. The instructions I was given this time were to make a copy of a document that Miss Mororankon had made for us, (Team Toroa yr 5's) it had some activities that we were to do on it. The very last one was that we had to make a google drawing about how we could attract Native and Endemic birds to our school. That is the post that I am making right now.

I found it easy to make the polylines for the base of my Tui flower feeder but unfortunately it was to small so I had to make it bigger so that slowed down my progress a little bit. While I was doing that I added on some extra details, (the little lines on the orange nectar and the little lines in the sugar water.) I spent a lot of time thinking it over and creating it, I am proud of the results even if it is not the best polyline I have done ever. It is probably the most detailed.

I found it challenging to write all of these stems! I got up to here and started to get a little nervous, okay a lot nervous! I am probably not going to finish it now and going to have to do it at home. From the beginning of this sentence in this paragraph I am now doing it at home on the couch, Dad has just walked in and sat down on the couch opposite me. Anyway back to the point, the other thing I found challenging was to get everything fitted back into position after I had made it large.

I achieved my goal from my Puriri slide stems, I have achieved that goal many times now but I have forgotten to mention it is my latest stems. Next time a thing that I really need to work on is to spend less time looking through the google images when I already have a faint idea that I like. I need to get onto the next post now so I'm going to stop now.

New Zealand Birds Slide

We were learning about the different types of birds in New Zealand, the Native birds, the Endemic birds and the introduced birds. Our instructions were: working in your 'Morere' groups, complete the activity about NZ birds using the website and video below. Below it was a link to a website that had a lot of things about NZ birds, here is the link: Native, Endemic & Introduced birds. The slide I was working on was the one about introduced birds, I got most of the information from the website.

I found it easy to meet the deadline for finishing my slide, and doing the polyline was easy too with some help from Vinny. We also created a slide to display all of our polylines, the one I made was a blackbird (an introduced bird)

I found it challenging to get all the names of the birds to fit in the place that looked the best. First I started with them on the side then it took me about fifteen mins approx to get them beside the photos of the birds (Pheasant, Peacock/Peahen, House Sparrow, Blackbird, Starling and Mallard.) Then I decided that it did not look quite titleish enough so I underlined them but it was not a good look to have it beside so then I made it above the photos. That was covering the heads of my birds so I made it below and thankfully that did look nice so I kept it until just now when I made it bold and un underlined it.

Next time I will use the builders saying my Dad told me in my learning because it will definitely help. The saying is: Measure twice cut once. It basically means check or rethink twice and do it once. It will help with the part I thought hard and I mean to use it next time.