Netbook Reflection

Having a netbook has helped me to get my work done faster. I don’t to wait for my teacher to tell me what to do. I can just go on our class site and see what I need to do. I have had my Netbook for 3 years and it has always been useful.

I advise having a Netbook could probably help anyone with their learning. It has definitely helped me with my Reading and Writing. I personally think that my netbook has helped to build up my vocabulary.

My Netbook is useful in lots of different ways. For example if I am unsure about something, I can research online to confirm my answer. Last term my friends and I researched about world war 2, and we made a documentary about it.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela, a famous man known all around the world. He has recently died at the age of 95. Nelson Mandela used to be the President for South Africa, from 1994 to 1999. It was a big shock to find out that this famous man had died. He stopped racism, poverty and inequality in his country (South Africa). Before Nelson Mandela became President he served 27 years in prison, for encouraging black South Africans to go on strike and for illegally leaving South Africa.

Nelson Mandela stood out to others so much that he won the following awards. 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Soviet Order of Lenin and the Bharat Ratna.

Kingston's Year Book

This is my Pt England Year Book.

MIHI

E te mauri mai tāwhiti

E te whare, te papa, te kainga noho, tēnā koutou

Ki ngā anahera, kua rere hei taki, hei tuara mo te hunga ora, haere

Ki a tātou, he mihi nui

Ko Maungarei te maunga

Ko Te Wai o Taiki te awa

Ko Ukutoia te papa

Tēnā koutou

Ko Peter tōku pāpā, nō Niue ia

Ko Sandy tōku māmā, nō Niue ia

Ko Kingston tōku ingoa

Ko Panmure tōku kainga noho

Tekau mā toru ōku tau

Nōreira

E ngā manuhiri tuārangi, ngā tauira, kaiako, kaumātua, he mihi nui, he mihi aroha

Anei he kōrero a te kura, “Whaiā kia eke”

Nōreira tēnā koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa

Thrust Investigation

In Extension we got split up into groups, to find out how fast our balloons could get from one side of the string to the other. This is our results for our 2 investigation.

Week 6 maths Strategy

3. Tiaki is fixing part of his fence. The pickets he needs are .68m long each. How many metres of timber does he need to cut up 45 pickets?

30.6

0.68 X ? = 45

0.68 X 10 = 6.8

40 = 27.2

0.68 X 5 = 3.4

27.2 + 3.4 = 30.6

Week 5 Maths Stratey

12. Tama is making costumes for the production. Each of the costumes he makes uses  .39m2 of material. How many can he make with 33m2

85

0.39 X 10 = 3.9

0.39 X 20 = 7.8

0.39 X 40 = 15.6

0.39 X 80 = 31.2

0.39 X 82 = 31.78

0.39 X 83 = 32.17

0.39 X 84 = 32.56

0.39 X 85 = 32.95

Podcast

Kingston and Darius Astrosaurs from Team 5 PES on Vimeo.

Podcast

Kingston and James podcast from Team 5 PES on Vimeo.

Week 6 Strategy

1. The world record for throwing a cellphone in 2012 was 102.68 metres. James attempted to beat the record but only managed to throw 97.89m. How much was he short by?

4.79

97.89 + 0.11 = 98

98 + 4.68 = 102.68

2. Sione uploaded a presentation to his blog but it was too big. In the HTML code he saw that the size was 920  pixels wide by  648 pixels high. He thinks if he reduces it to ¾ of the size it is, it should fit. What dimensions does he need to change in the HTML code?

230 pixels wide

920 divided by 4 =

(92 divided by 4 = 4 x 20 = 80  4 x 3 = 12 4 x 20 + 4 x 3 = 92)

4 x 200 = 800

4 x 30 = 120

4 x 200 + 4 x 30 = 920

230 x 4 = 920

162 pixels high

648 divided by 4 =

(64 divided by 4 = 4 x 10 = 40, 4 x 6 = 24, 4 x 10 + 4 x 6 = 64)

4 x 100 = 400

4 x 60 = 240

4 x 100 + 4 x 60 = 640

4 x 2 = 8

640 + 8 = 648

162 x 4 = 648

3. Tiaki is fixing part of his fence. The pickets he needs are .68m long each. How many metres of timber does he need to cut up 45 pickets?

30.6

0.68 X ? = 45

0.68 X 10 = 6.8

40 = 27.2

0.68 X 5 = 3.4

27.2 + 3.4 = 30.6

4. Julia is an artist. She has been painting a huge mural for the town centre. For the main colour she used a 20 litre pail of white mixed with a 10 litre pail of blue. Unfortunately she ran out of paint before she finished the mural. She thinks that she will only need 6 more litres in total to finish. How much blue and white paint does she need to mix up to get the 6 litres of paint she needs that is exactly the same colour she has been using?

Week 5 Maths Strategy

The school has been donated packets of felt pens to share out evenly between the 22 classes. How many felt pen packets does each class get if they got given 308 packets?

308/22 =

22 X 10 = 220

22 X 4 = 88

Week 5 Maths Strategy

There are 8 boxes. Each box has 25 apples in it. How many apples are there altogether?

200
8 X 20 = 160
8 X 5 = 40
160 + 40 = 200

Friends

Kendrix, the friend to always look up to. He is a good friend to rely on and to talk to. He is tall and very sporty. He is brainy and has a good reputation. Kendrix and I played for the same Rugby Union club, (MARIST). Kendrix is a Flanker/Lock for our Marist team. At the end of the day he is a GOOD friend!

Waata, He is a sporty kind of a guy, and very kick back. He is a good league player, and can tackle some big guys. He is a good friend to talk to and to be around. Waata and I are in the same class, he is tall and I am short. Waata is brainy too, and he is very good as Maths. I have known Waata since I started school. Waata is a good friend!

Samuela, is very athletic. He has made rep teams for Rugby union. He is funny and is always being a good friend. Samuela is very fast and went to the zone athletics. He is always known for being fast. Samuela is taller than me and has good grades. I have also known this good friend since I started school.

Crusader, the funniest guy I know. He is very sporty. He was born one day before me but, he is way taller than me. Everyday he is always funny, I never get tired of his jokes. This guy has also made rep teams (Bill Mac). Crusader has always been a good friend to talk to. He is a good friend.  

Week 5 Maths Strategy

Tania saved the same amount each week after 16 weeks she had saved $96. How

much money had she saved after 6 weeks?

My Strategy:

$36

96  16 = 6

$6 a week

6 x 6 = 36

Auckland VS Syria

I woke up to another day of the same boring routine. “Get out of bed and make breakfast” I said to myself. It is so boring to get out of bed just before sunrise and to waste 10 minutes of your day making breakfast. But if you think about it, I am actually blessed to even have easy access to food and water. “Praise the Lord”, I said to myself.

The sound of guns firing was such a disappointing thing to hear. I thought to myself, “can’t there just be one day where I wake up and hear the sound of birds flying past my house, chirping?”. Anyway I hurry to my siblings room to get them to safety. It was time to leave the country.

Life at Pt. England has been really cool. Learning, playing with my friends and most of all getting netbooks. I have really easy access to the internet and knowledge where kids in other parts of the world don’t go to school. I am so                         grateful for living in New Zealand.

“I really need to go to school” , I think to myself. I know I can be successful but I need to learn. I wish I could go to school but my family can’t afford for me to go to school. I don’t have internet, and not enough food and water for my brain to develop properly. I need to get a better education.

As I settle down into my nice warm blankets, I stare at the ceiling, thinking about how great my life is.

AQW

AQW is an online game that is very addictive. Kids all over the world probably play this game all day and night. I used to be at level 36 until my account got banned, now I am at level 6. You can challenge other players, do quest and buy armors, weapons, helmets and capes for your character. You can also buys adventure coins or a membership to upgrade your account. In this game me and my friends are in a clan called the ‘NZ_CLAN’.

Halloween

Halloween List:

Pumpkins

witches

Lollies

spiders

decorations

costumes

I don’t know much about Halloween, besides from knocking on random people’s doors and asking for lollies. Over the years nobody in my family has told stories about Halloween. If there wasn’t a reason for Halloween then there probably wouldn’t be a such thing called Halloween.  

History Channel:

After watching a movie about Halloween, I have gathered lots of information about Halloween. Samhain To represent the dark half. The days became shorter and the nights were longer.

Purgatory, souls that don’t go to heaven or hell. People get given a cake, so that they could pray for people in Purgatory.

Since my previous piece of writing, I have learnt that Halloween has much more meaning. They moved ‘All Saints Day’ from May 13th to November 1st. People used to say All hallows eves instead of Samhain, which was a day before All saints day then finally it became Halloween. Samhain was a day to celebrate good harvest, the days became shorter and the nights grew longer.

Laumoria is a day that people pour milk on graves. November 2nd, also known as all souls day. On that day People used to pray for people in purgatory, and in exchange they got little soul cakes.

Top 5 Jobs

- Rugby player

To be a Rugby player you need to be a hard runner and a good tackler.  When I grow up I would like to play for the All blacks.

- Make fireworks

Apart from Christmas, Fireworks (to me) is the best event of the year. I like fireworks that blow up and make loud noises. Making my very own Firework would be so cool.

- Builder

A builder is one of the things I would like to do when i grow up.

- Rapper

I think rappers have a big vocabulary. I want to become a good rapper and meet other artist when i’m older.

- magician

There is a show called ‘ Dynamo Magician Impossible ‘. I am inspired by this show to become a great magician.

What in the world is going on ?

The Al Qaeda from Yemen have said that they attacked a Yemen army base last month targeting an operations room used by the United States to use drone strikes against Indians, and threatened more such assaults.

Heaps of Al Qaeda soldiers rushed in and captured the headquarters of the Yemeni army's Second Division in the eastern city of al-Mukalla on September 30. They took some military people hostage. Military fullas said four Yemeni soldiers were killed and nine wounded in a counter-strike to retake the base.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is said by the United States as one of the most active force of the international jihadi terrorist network, posing a serious threat to the U.S interests including nearby sea lanes with oil tankers.

Halloween

Halloween List:

Pumpkins

witches

Lollies

spiders

decorations

costumes

This is what I think about Halloween:

I don’t know much about Halloween, besides from knocking on random people’s doors and asking for lollies. Over the years nobody in my family has told stories about Halloween. If there wasn’t a reason for Halloween then there probably wouldn’t be a such thing called Halloween.  

This was created last week on Wednesday for extension

Mahia's Mural

Mahia is an artist. She has been commissioned to paint a mural on wall of a company's warehouse. The company wants the mural to be abstract (non representational) and they want it to show the colours of their company logo. They have specified it needs to have 1/3 blue,  1/6 red, 1/12 yellow, 1/12 white 1/12 purple and 1/4  green. They want it to have 2 lines of symmetry (reflection)  and  a rotating and translating pattern somewhere.

X Factor U.S.A

Have you ever watched or heard of the X Factor? Well this year the X Factor is holding a competition in America. The winner of the X Factor U.S.A will win $1,000,000.00 and a recording contract with Sony. People from all around the globe wouldn't travel to America just to watch the X Factor, so thats why you can watch it on your television, just click to channel three at 7:30pm on a Thursday and Friday night.

So far there have only been auditions on the X Factor. There have probably been hundreds or even thousands of auditions, but only the ones that the judges think have potential go threw to the round. The judges are Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato, Paulina Rubio, and Kelly Rowland. There have been good, bad, excellent and terrible auditions, but so far my favourite audition has to be ‘AKNU’. AKNU is a group that consist of three men, they are all brothers, and without a doubt they are good singers.

I have not seen all the auditions but I can’t wait to see the auditions to come. Even though there are still more auditions to come I wish that AKNU wins the X Factor U.S.A for 2013!

This is a link to their audition:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smUrgRWeKAQ

Holidays

"YAY, its finally the holidays",I said to myself. After all that learning and development that I have gained this term, I finally get a break. It is the holidays, always the perfect time when families relax.  So far my family hasn't done anything cool, in other words my holiday has been pretty boring. I wish I could go to Rainbow's End, or even go to the pools, but instead I have to stay home with my 3 siblings and parents.

When school was still on I couldn't wait for the holidays to come. Now it has, I am stuck at home with nothing to do. Sometimes I wish I could get out of bed at 7:45am and go to school. I don't know why I hate getting up to go to school so much, but sometimes I like it. Maybe its because of all the learning ? I don't know, but when I'm at home I feel like playing touch with my friends on our school field.

Hopefully in the weeks to come my family will do something Cool. TO BE CONTINUED!

World War 2 K,R,D

Our movie was based on the start and end of World War Two. Our purpose was to inform our audience about how  world war 2 started and ended. I think we achieved our goal because that was our main focus in the movie.

P:

(Positive)

What was good is that we did a lot of animation and we finished the actual movie (wasn't on time)! We completed our movie in the extended time we were given.  We did a good job with the voice over, because it was clear and it explained a lot of information. Also we put a good sound track in the background, that matched the mood of the movie. Another positive was that we were happy with our finished product.

M:

(Minus/things to work on)

I think we needed to finish our movie on time and to draw our own graphics. We traced some of our graphics, but I'm happy that we finished our movie. We didn't finish our movie on time because we were so busy with other things for the school.  We could've had more acting in our movie to make it more interesting and to

I:

(Interesting)

The information that we found was interesting to me, because I didn't know much about the World War 2. Another interesting thing about our movie is that we had cool animations to help the voice over.

Maths Strategy

Cross Country

“Take your marks... get set... GO”! This was Mr Burt’s signal to say we could leave the start line. I took off in a hurry. Last week on Thursday, Pt England school had our annual Cross Country event.  

Before all the runs, Mr Burt said a prayer and the House Captains said their chants. I am the boy house leader for the colour red, but at our school we call the colour red Te Arawa. Myself and the other Te Arawa leader (Jay’Lee) tried to be the loudest which I think we were.

All the year 8’s had to do a 3.5km run. It was a tough challenge but I managed to finish the race. I knew it was going to be hard but I had done even further runs so it was ok. During the race I nearly slipped over a few times, because the wet and muddy surface was too hard to run on. I tried to keep up with some of my fitter mates but my legs were killing me so I stopped to have a breather. Next thing you know they were well ahead of me. I knew then that I was going to have trouble keeping up, but I tried my best.

As I was fastly approaching my second lap the whole school was cheering. That gave me the momentum to try and catch up to the others. My second lap wasn’t as difficult as my first lap, but the soggy mud I stepped into caused me to slow down. I could see it, It was in an arms reach. I was so determined to cross the decorated finish line. My friends that had already finished, were waiting like I was a special guest or something.

SER Investigation

Since last term I have been investigating on Self Explaining Roads. A partner and I made a form to see what kids aged 5 - 13 thought about SER Roads. I gathered some information together and made a movie about it. He is what I have come up with.

Apirana Taylor

Apirana Taylor is a 58 year old man (born in 15/3/55) who is a writer, poet, storyteller, painter and actor. This man went to Te Aute College and then from there we went to Massey university. He must have learnt a lot in school and University because he is well known for his powerful poetry readings and magical story telling.

He has been working for many labouring jobs such as working on building sites, labouring and cleaning toilets. Apirana chose to work at these places,because he thought it would help him with what he wanted to write about. He has been invited to perform all over the country, and also visited Europe and India twice to perform.

This man has really developed in writing and storytelling and one day I wish to see him perform in front of me!

StoryLine Blogpost: http://www.storylines.org.nz/Profiles/Profiles+T-Z/Apirana+Taylor.html

Different Angled Shots

In our Literacy block we have been learning about different angled shots and how to do them. So this is a short movie to show what two of my mates and I have made!

Pacific Rim

Have you heard of a new movie called ‘Pacific Rim’? Well on Thursday my dad, older brother and I went and watched it at the Hoyts cinema in Sylvia Park.

“Lets go, we’re going to miss the movie”, I said as I walked out the back door. I was so excited to watch the movie, BUT my only doubt was that we might have missed the movie. We were actually supposed to go to Manukau to watch the movie but traffic was moving like a snail so our plans changed. We arrived at the Sylvia Park Mall at 5:30 and the movie started at 5:40.

As soon as my dad paid for our tickets my brother and I collected our snacks and went into Cinema 7. The movie started and two men appeared on the screen. They were brothers getting ready for a mission. They had to fight this big monster but one of the brothers died. Over the years their country was getting destroyed and wrecked by these enormous monsters called Kaiju. It took many years but the humans found out a way to fight back, they created monster of their own. Their monster were huge robots, a bit like Transformers but these ones needed two people to control it. The two people were located in the head where they could see everything and control the body.

The movie carried on but it was set 5 years later, and it got really interesting. The brother that survived in the beginning had a new partner and she was just qualified to control a robot. There were 4 different robots that protected their country a Russian one, a Chinese one, an Australian one, and an American one. Their mission was to protect the town from three Kaiju from attacking a town nearby. The Russian and Chinese ones ended up getting killed so the American one took on all three a ripped them to bits.

I have tried to explain the movie in the best way possible but it is too hard because the movie is too extreme. Anyway if you have the time and your parents are willing to take you, then you should watch the movie for yourself!  

Matariki Festival

Recently there was a Matariki light trail which took place in the Maybury reserve in Glen Innes to celebrate Matariki. Since it was so interesting to see all of the colourful lights that lit up the Maybury reserve, I am going to write about it.

 The light festival was on for a whole week (actually 8 days). On Thursday night my whole family went down to view the festival. We parked in the G.I. Community Hall car park, near the library. As we entered the Maybury reserve some lights that were hung on the fences were the first lights we saw.  Then there were more lights than I expected. When we stepped into the park it was like we weren't even in G.I. anymore.

The lights were all around the reserve. It felt like we were in a town square in Las Vegas. It seemed like the whole reserve was covered in colourful neon lights.I think some of the lights had meanings but I didn’t know what they meant.

On the last day (Saturday night) the organisers lit up fireworks to help mark the occasion. The last day of the festival was really cold so only my mum, older brother and I went. There were loads and loads of people crowding around the food stores. My family and I tried to work ourselves around the crowd but it took forever. We were going to wait for the fireworks to happen but it took too long to wait, so we left. Even though I didn’t get to see the fireworks I still think it was an awesome thing to put on for the public!  

You can go onto this site to find out more about the meaning of Matariki:

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/matariki-maori-new-year