Bay Of Islands College Orientation

Hello, the year 8 students at Paihia School in Te Ngahere got the opportunity to attend orientation day that was held at Bay of Islands College. Orientation is basically giving year 8 students the opportunity to see how a high school runs because it’s the year 8 students last year at primary school. I went because I most likely will end up going to Bay of Islands College and to be honest it was tiring well most of the classes were, there wasn’t much to do during interval but I enjoyed it. I met some new friends saw some old friends, won a coloring contest, saw some students perform kaha haka and it was amazing, I then learned how to play volleyball correctly, we had nachos for morning tea, I can play two cords on a guitar, I can code something new, I learnt more about science, I learnt about gardening so it was a pretty amazing day. Oh and I found out that Shakeal was the runner for their school, (the one that has to do barely any work but has to run around a lot.) They also had very pleasant teachers and I appreciate how much time they spent to make it happen. Have you been to an orientation? I hope you enjoyed and please check out my D.L.O.
Ka kite!

I Am Hope

 Kia ora, Te Ngahere had a special visitor come in and talk with us about mental illness, his name was Tai. He had started with a story about his backstory and then started talking about inner critic. It was sad when he said that he could be in a room with his father but only have a conversation with him in his head. Inner critic is a voice inside your head that has negative thoughts about your surroundings. Tai said that inner critic is a voice that puts you down or beats you up inside. It makes you feel down and stink about yourself because of how people look at you, (for example, if someone smiles at you your inner critic will be like they don’t like you or their laughing at you etc). But there is something that helps you change called voice of reasons, voice of reasons is that there's a reason for your inner critic, (for example, if someone looks at you and your inner critic is beating you up inside, your voice of reasons will be like their just smiling at you they're not laughing etc.) Tais talk was very inspirational and we could all use it in the future. I hope you liked this blogpost but don’t forget to check out my D.L.O. Have you had a I Am Hope talk?

Science Fair

Kia ora. Te Ngahere has been working on science projects. We have been working on our science projects to be judged and hopefully to be entered into the Kerikeri High School science fair. Gail Mahana and my experiment is about testing the absorbency of toilet paper. Something I learned was the variables, I learned that the controlled variables is something that stays the same. In our experiment I also learned that 3 ply is only 3x the size of 1 ply. Something I found hard was displaying the slides in the correct order, but I found that time management was easy for me because I manage my time pretty well. Something I would change next time would be to have used the same ply number of toilet paper because we used 2 ply and 3 ply and I think it wasn’t a fair test. I did get stuck in the pit at some point in time (the point where we tried to test the strength of the toilet paper but nothing we had would break it,) but when I got stuck I used my hoe of Kaha and Tu Maia to keep rowing our waka to success. I enjoyed making our experiment and completing it. Have you created a science fair project? Thank you for reading and I will embed my D.L.O at the bottom.
Ka kite!

Dot Plot Graphs

Kia ora, in Te Ngahere last week we were looking at different areas in math around dot plot graphs. To me this was intriguing to look at the students skills and strengths (meaning how far they could throw a tennis ball.) This blog post is going to be a reflection on this activity and also my D.L.O.

Something I learned while doing this activity was how to analyze a dot plot graph and make one using the data we were given, (my D.L.O will show and explain that.) Something that made this activity tricky was that there were some words in there that almost everyone needed to do some research on, example: range, after research I had a better understanding of it as it can mean value in some platforms. Something that could have made my D.L.O better would be to display it differently because there were too many slides that were unnecessary. I really enjoyed this activity because I liked the true and false statements we had to answer. Have you done an activity like this before? I really hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and check out my D.L.O below. Ka kite!

 

Tremendous Task Master

On the third day of school for term three Te Ngahere did a Taskmaster challenge. For this challenge we had to get into a group of three. Each group had to get some scrap paper. Before we started, we had some time to work on some strategies we thought would help us win the challenge. The challenge we did was a paper airplane challenge. In the practise round we made a practise paper airplane. In my group was Tiana, Azure and I, we were doing great in the practise round. When it got to the competition round we had a couple of minutes to make our good airplane. The trick was that we had to throw the airplane from behind our backs. We started with a boys group who won because their paper airplane got the furthest, when it was our turn to throw we had so much faith that we were going to win but Tiana (who threw it) had so much anxiety running through her body that it didn’t go as planned. Something I enjoyed about this was collaborating with my friends who I don’t really work with in class. Something that was tricky about this was throwing it behind our backs (because in my group while we were practising we all practised throwing behind our backs.) I really enjoyed this activity and can’t wait to do more like this. Have you done a challenge like this before? I hope you enjoyed.

Ka kite!

Marble Run 2.o

Kia ora, In Te Ngahere last term we attempted the marble ramp challenge once again. This time we only improved and adjusted our previous ramp. Tiana, Gail and I tested our ramp with a smaller size marble. Now the difference between these marbles is that the larger marble rolls further and the smaller marble stops before the larger marble.

While testing with a smaller marble we noticed that it stopped before 110cm so we then decided that we will add an adjustment underneath of the box that held the tube. This made the marble closer to where we wanted it to go and it was a huge improvement. After that we then fixed our instructions because they were not clear. Our instructions said push and flick but we noticed everyone doesn't push, flick, kick etc with the same force so we changed it.

Our new results were 21 and our old total was 8 so I am very happy with our new and improved ramp. Something I learnt from this is to experience and not to be afraid to change something about our ramp. Something I enjoyed was running another groups ramp, and see the improvements they made. Have you made a marble ramp?
Ka kite!

Marble Run

Kia ora, in Te Ngahere we have been learning how to make a marble run. The purpose of this activity was to try and use the scientific method. Our ramp was basic. Our marble ramp had a cardboard box supporting a tube that our marble goes down.

Something I enjoyed about this was making our ramp because it was pretty easy. Something that we could have done better was, tested it with different people and see if we could have done better with our ramp or changed any variables. Our instructions were not the best. We had written tap but others tapped things harder than us and we could see that on the marble run day. I really enjoyed this activity.

Have you done anything like this before?
Ka kite!