Orana Park Trip

This week on Monday, Bh and our new buddy class Tz went to Orana Park. We were given name tags with a number on it and I was in group 1. After we were given the name tags we sat in the learning commons for about half an hour and that's when the bus arrived Most of group 1 & 2 were able to fit into the bus but the rest had to go in a van. When we got to the park we were led to leaders named Elizabeth & Bethany. They told us all about keeping safe and how to keep the animals calm while we were there. Then both groups were led to a platform but on the way there we saw the little Meerkats and I got a cute photo of them but I don't have it. We were split into our groups then we went and saw the Spider Monkeys, Emu's, Tasmanian  Devils, Lions, Tigers ( Sadly Not There ) Kiwi, Kea's and then the Reptile House. Then we had lunch which was very fun.

Sorry Didn't Finish :(

Hurumanu Digital Technology

This week for Digital Technology we looked at some different apps called Scratch and another called Sphero Robots. I am going to tell you about what they both are about and then I will write a personal comment. I prefer to use Sphero Robots because I think that Scratch is a little hard to use and the Sphero Robots are really easy.


Scratch:
Scratch is a web based software which is about coding games, animations and stories. There is also a Scratch Jr which is a little bit easier to use for the little kids who are learning to code.

Sphero Robots:
This app is about coding robots to do cool tricks and other things. You can manually control it and you can also program It as well.
You can also make the lights change colours and then that makes it look really cool.

Personal Comment:
I think that the Sphero Robots are really cool but I just don't think that Scratch was made to be easy for anyone.

Hurumanu PE

This week and last week for PE we have been working lot's of different things. We have been doing maths and our chosen sports with our teams. On Monday the first team shared their sport, they chose Bench Ball. Earlier in the year in another hurumanu we learnt how to play Bench Ball and so we got to play it again. The team that was running the Bench Ball made us do warm ups, drills and then games. I wasn't here for the warm ups and the first drill but the second drill we did was Sneak Up Granny. The first game we played was Tz yr 8's vs Bh yr 8's and then it was the same with the year 7's. Then. after lunch we played all yr 8's vs all year 7's, the year 8's won. last week we did maths as well because this sport hurumanu also involves maths and writing. For the maths we had to work out how many cans of paint we would need to paint four whole football fields. The maths was really tricky and my group hasn't finished yet. We used some multiplication strategies and some addition strategies. I think this week I worked pretty well with my team even though I had a little disagreement with them about our sport. The graduate profile subject chose to work on was to understand how my feelings and actions effect others and I think I did this by encouraging my teammates on and not getting too frustrated.

C.I.P

This week and last week for C.I.P we have been working on a new recycling project. We are working with a company called TerraCycle and they are helping schools all around the world recycle pens and other stationary supplies that have run out and then they will come and pick them up and recycle them.To give information about TerraCycle we made DLO's to show our work.  We are also decorating boxes to put the empty pens in. Here is my DLO.




We also have to answer some questions about the TerraCycle project:

How are we going to spread our message to our community?
We are going to spread it by talking to our family and asking them to talk to their friends and spread the message.

Who do you think will get involved?
I think some of the stationery shops around Hornby will get involved and maybe some other schools.

How many kgs do you think we will collect?
I think we will collect 10 or over kgs of used up stationery.

What should we do with the donation money we get from TerraCycle?
I think we should spend the money on new stationery for each classroom so that we aren't spending the schools money for new stationery.

Ella West

Today a author named Ella West came and spoke to the year 7&8's about her books Night Vision and Rain Fall. As you know my reading group is reading the book Night Vision and we are almost finished. She also gave us a sneak peak about a new book that she is writing called The Sound Of My Heart which is about a girl who likes to run and when she does she hears her heart beat loud and clear.

Night Vision is about a girl named Viola who basically see's someone who gets murdered in a car fire next to her farm and she tries to figure out why the man committed the murder and why he had a big amount of cash.

Ella didn't tell us much about her book Rain Fall but she said that it was about two kids who liked to ride horses on the beach and then they find out about a murder that happened and then they get brought into the investigation.

Personal Comment: I think I would like to read Ella West's other books because I think that they will be really interesting and fun to read because of what I know about them.

Community Circles

Today we had to make a blog post about a thing we do called community circles. I worked with my best friend Shelby on this piece of work. We do community circles because it gets us to think about our emotions. Here is my slideshow! Enjoy.

Digital Tech, Hurumanu

For the past few weeks we have started a new hurumanu called Digital Tech. Digital Tech is where we were introduced to three different themes for issues in our earth. They were Ethical, Social and Environmental, I chose Environmental. 

My issue is that our house cats are killing off our native birds and that is NOT ok. But, a man named Gareth Morgan is trying to kill off our cats which is not ok either. So I am going to make a game or app to show that we can keep our native birds and house cats around at the same time. 

References:

1. Youtube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7czFfK3nVks

This video was a youtube show and they were talking about how this man wants get rid of cats non stop. But, if we get rid of cats then there will be more rats and they are disgusting.

2. Website https://www.forestandbird.org.nz/resources/cats-pet-or-pest

People think that if we get rid of cats It will be a good thing. ( that's what this website said I want to save the cats) The think that if we....

• Get our cats neutered or spade
• Put a bell on your cats collar
• Not replacing your cat when It dies
• Keeping it inside at night

that will solve the problem.

3. Second website https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/31/17804982/cat-ban-new-zealand-omaui-conservation-wildlife

This website was about the other side of the story. They think that the cats should stay alive but we find a solution to save both the cats and the birds. They have a few ideas but the haven't made them public yet.