Go KARORO! Cross Country!

Welcome back to my blog. Today I am going to tell you about our first school Cross Country in our houses. Cross Country is where we run on the sand-dunes along the beach. If you place within the top five runners then you get to go to interschools. Interschools is at the fairgrounds. A couple years ago there used to be obstacles that you had to go over in interschools. Now all you have to do is jump over 1 tiny fence. It is disappointing.

Josefa in front and Sarah close behind!

At the beginning of this year we got our school houses. We have done one school event in our houses. The color of the houses are Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Even though we have had our houses for a while it was still a challenge remembering who was in your house. I am in Red/Karoro! If you came in the top five than you would get points for your house. When we started it was really cold, but when we were on our second lap then you would feel the heat.

I am a year 6 so we had to run 2 big laps of the course. Each lap is 1 kilometer so we had to run 2 kilometers. Every single year Kya always comes 3rd and I come 4th. And it was the same this year. Josefa came 1st, Sarah came 2d, Kya came 3rd, I came 4th and Ruby came 5th. It was a tough race! I am just glad that it is over.


Before School Today:
"I am so nervous for Cross Country."

After Cross Country Today:
"I am so happy that I am finished with that. I am so tired!"

Just look at that beautiful scenery!


Blog you later!

Science Fair!

Hi it's Miriam, and I am going to tell you about my science fair project. Since the beginning of this term I have working on my Science Fair Project. In the holidays I went to a presentation about native New Zealand plants. The presentation was at a local Marae called Te Poho O Rawiri. After the presentation we walked up Titirangi (Kaiti Hill.) Titirangi has heaps of Kawakawa bushes and we had to pick 20 Kawakawa leaves each.

The next day we went to a workshop where we learnt how to make a Kawakawa and Manuka balm for your skin. The way you incorporate the Kawakawa and Manuka is by making Kawakawa and Manuka infused oil. To make the infused oil you have to pack down Kawakawa leaves in one jar and Manuka leaves in another jar. Then you fill the jars with grapeseed oil all the way to the top, put on the lid, shake it up and then put the jar or jars in a dark place. You will leave the jars in the dark place for about 2 weeks and shake them every 2 days. Then the infused oils will be ready to use.

After the workshop I decided that I wanted to use the balm for my Science Fair Project. I decided that for my Science Fair Project I would see how long it takes for Kawakawa and Manuka to heal chapped or damaged skin. Working with native New Zealand plant is fun. You learn alot about the environment that we live in and how it is important to look after our native plants.  Now I am going to share with you my Science Fair Slides and my display board:

My Science Fair Board

   

Basic Facts, Whoops!

Hi it's Miriam. Sorry I haven't been posting anything lately. It has been a busy couple of weeks back at school. Today I am going to tell you about last week's Basic Facts Challenge. When we found out what we were doing everybody thought that it would be simple but it was not, and I am going to tell you all about it.

Our terms inquiry topic is Hauora. Hauora means well being. We have been doing some writing about our well being. For our quick writes we had to write about our physical well being, our social well being, well being for family and friends and our spiritual well being. When our quick writes were finished we had to make a cube out of paper. Each square that makes up the cube net needed to be 8cm by 8cm. You would think that it would be easy but it was so hard to do. The part that made it hard was getting the measurements exactly right.

When we had finished the net we had to draw a picture of us on one side of it and our name one another side. Once finished there would be 4 more sides left blank. On those sides we wrote main points from each of our pieces of Hauora writing. Then we got to decorate our cubes. My cube got crushed a bit because people decided to put there books/chromebooks on top of it. It is much harder than it looks.

Have a try!

Here are our finished products:

Reading Refugee

Hi it's Miriam. Today I am going to tell you about a book that my reading group is reading. My reading group is taken by Koka Ngaire (my home room teacher.) She loves books so she gave my reading group a book to read. The book is Refugee. We have been reading it for less than a week and I like it alot so I am going to tell you about what we are doing along reading that book.

So when we found out that our reading group was reading a novel written for year 8 and 9 students we all were really excited. But of course like all other good things there was a not so good thing. Koka Ngaire is only releasing bits of the book at a time. During the week along with our other priorities we have to read the book and answer questions and do activities on the book. We can read the book at read to self and at home. We also got given a little orange writing book to display all of our work in. We can do whatever we want to display our answers in our book. We also can make a cover page in it. Koka Ngaire said that this work was how we could shine in different ways.

Three different kids.

One mission in common: ESCAPE.

Josef is a Jewish boy in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world…

Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety and freedom in America…

Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe…

I got this information from the back of the book

This is the trailer to Refugee sorry that I can not have the video on my blog, but I do not have access to it.

Term 2 Fun

Hi, it's Miriam and today I am going to tell you about what we have been doing this term. This terms topic is retro tech. We have been doing lots of thing to do with olden day technology. We have also been learning about Matariki. My maths group has been doing this thing called Auckland Island.

For retro tech we have been to 3 different museums to learn about olden day technology and try to figure out what our object is. The first museum trip that we went on is the trip where we went to the Local Museum and the Electrical Museum. The cool thing about the trip was that at the Local Museum we learnt about olden tech and at the Electric Museum we learnt about new technology. I enjoyed comparing the olden day stuff with stuff that is in the present. I liked learning how technology has changed over the years. The second trip that we went on was to the East Coast Museum of Technology. We had borrowed most of the retro tech items from the Museum and were very excited to go there. At the Museum it had all different types of retro tech dating back to the 1700. I liked how we got to see olden day computers, phones, water pumps, wheelchairs, scanning machines and much more stuff that people would of used back in the day.

For maths we have been doing this thing called Auckland Island. Auckland Island is where we have to answer a series of questions and then create a way to display it around the class. After each question we answered we had to complete a challenge about the question. Some questions were easy and others were really hard. There were road tips and maths tips. Road tips were where our teacher will give us clues about the history or some information on the topic. Maths tips are when the teacher gives us some maths equations that will help us solve the question. All of the questions that we are given have something to do with Auckland Island. All of the
 people in my maths group are year 6 including me. The Auckland Islands task was made for year 8,9,10 and 11 students. We only found this out at the end of the task. That explained why it was quite tricky. I chose to display my working in a Google My Maps.

This week we have focusing on Matariki. We had to do at least 4 activities that relate to Matariki and then on Friday we have to bring in a dish for shared morning tea. I completed a digital breakout, a feather for a cloak, a book about Matariki, a poem about Matariki and a dish for shared morning tea. I learnt a lot about Matariki and the stars. I learnt what the star names mean and that there are 500 hundred stars in the cluster but you can only see 7 of them. I like that we do the Matariki Makarena.

Winter Solstice

Hi it's Miriam today I am going to share with you some learning that we did at school around the shortest day of the year (the winter solstice) and the longest day of the year (the summer solstice.) In school we have been learning about some prehistoric landmarks that have a lot to do with the Winter Solstice.

 For our quick writes this week we have to write and information report on Stonehenge and create a Google my maps about Stonehenge, Newgrange and Maeshowe. Stonehenge is a prehistoric landmark in Salisbury, England. It was a burial ground as well as a place where you went if you wanted to be healed. Newgrange is in Ireland. It is much older than Stonehenge. It was built around 3,200 BC. Maeshowe is a passage grave in Scotland. It was built around 3,800 BC.

I found out that to build some of these great landmarks people had to build rafts to carry their supplies down fivers and then carry them across land by oxen or horses. This is my information report about Stonehenge:

Here is my link to my Google My Maps.


Blog you later.

Fa'afaite i te Ao Maohi

Hi it's Miriam, Today I am going to show you a video that Rosie and I made for our reading presentation. The task we got given for reading was: we got assigned a boat to research about and then do a screencastify of only photos and talk about what we found out about our boat. The boat that me and Rosie got assigned is the Faafaite i te Ao Maohi. It is one of the boats that will be taking part in the Tui 250 boat sail in October.

My teacher for reading is Koka Ngaire and she provided information about each boat on a google slide. The information that she provided for our boat was useful but we had to translate some of it into english so we could understand it. We learnt how the Polynesian settlers traveled to NZ. Also we got to go out on one of the Waka that is in gisborne at the moment. Well the other people in my reading group did, I had to go to Fast 5 Netball Tournament. Our boat has a Samoan name so me and Rosie had a hard time pronouncing the name so we might not be saying it correctly.

Here is the video that me and Rosie made hpe you enjoy:

Blog you later!