For Reading this week, as this day falls during the school holidays, so we had to learn about it this week, It’s ANZAC DAY! Anzac Day is a very special public holiday for all of Australia and New Zealand, for this has a very heroic and sad story behind it. Basically, it was WWI, and something called The Gallipoli Campaign. They needed volunteers to continue with the campaign, and so they gave people the option to sign up, and evidence of people poured in. Everyone really wanted to help, and so, soon after, they had chose enough people to go with the campaign, this begun The Battle of Gallipoli. I won’t explain any further, because you can have a look at this slideshow for more information. For my task I had to read an Anzac Story, then do a range of tasks to go along with it. This has all the information you need to have a better understanding of Anzac Day.
Question: What else can you tell me in the comments about Anzac Day?

For writing the past 3 weeks we have been learning about biographies. More specifically, how you’re supposed to write one. It has to include things like the person’s significance, like how they made an impact! A timeline, demonstrating all the events in chronological order! Lots of events from their early life, and how they came to be. After we had learnt enough information, we were given the task of making our own biographies about any person that has made an impact over the years! I thought about who I was going choose, and eventually settled on Stephen Hawking! The great theoretical physicist. First, we had to do some research. Luckily for me, there was a whole website based on Stephen Hawking (stephenhawking.com), including a sub biography! So I used that as inspiration to make my own! For the next few weeks, it was just writing and writing and writing. Each paragraph had been divided into categories. the first being the intro, then the early life, main events, and finally the outro/how they made an impact. After finishing the base writing, we had to edit and improve parts that might lack something. The final step is your biography getting checked off by someone else, just to make sure they didn’t notice anything either and that’s it! Below is my biography of Stephen Hawking.

Question: What do YOU know about biographies?

This year, my teachers asked us to remake the “All About Me” poster that we did years ago. This time, we’ve approached it a bit differently. Instead of making things like word clouds and making avatars, this time… we’re using AI (Artificial Intelligence) From Canva to compose another poster, showing our interests and passions. This is what mine looks like.

Question: What are YOUR interests?

For reading this week, again we are still learning about different leaders. This week, we were learning about kid leaders. Surprisingly, there are many kid leaders all around the world who help different scenarios, ranging from Malala to Greta Thunberg. This week we read about Bethany Hamilton and the story about losing her arm to a shark attack. What happened was that she was dangling her left arm in the water and a tiger shark crept up behind her and bit down on her arm, thus ripping it off and swimming. She is still alive to this day, and is helping others with lost limbs. For more information, below is a Google Drawing about Bethany Hamilton.

Question: What other kids do YOU know have made an impact.

For reading this week we have been learning about more leaders! As you might know, last week we were taking a deep dive into all the Maori leaders, and we found lots of information about Hakaraia, a religious Maori leader who was a big component in the New Zealand wars which protruded after the treaty of Waitangi was signed. After we read about Hakaraia, our create task was to make a student cheat sheet on how to make accurate predictions using any text and the illustrations included. This week, our goal was to make connections between texts, and athlete leaders. This week we have been learning about 2 great athletes who are leaders: LeBron James and Michael Phelps. People might know these people as just very talented athletes, however, LeBron actually helped others get meals and people who can’t afford items that are essential. Michael after he retired from swimming, offered people with mental disorders or problems help to regain control over that part of their brain. Our task was to make a collector card about one of the 2 athletes and show what impact they have done, I chose to do LeBron James. Below is the collector card I have created.

Question: Is there any other athletes YOU know about? I’d love to know in the comments!

For reading this week, we have been learning and reading about different types of leaders. There are many types of leaders, ranging from Maori leaders to even kid leaders! But the leader we’ve been learning about in my group is called Hakaraia! He was a very important role in the early 1800s. He was a really good negotiator and was a warrior peace maker. We were also learning how to make really accurate predictions from just looking at the text, title or even the illustrations to figure out what will happen next! Our task was to make a cheat sheet for other students to use so that they also can learn how to make very accurate and detailed predictions about all different types of stories! Below is a google drawing, depicting how to make great, well thought out, and especially accurate predictions.

Question: What are YOUR steps to making accurate predictions?

For our PBL project, 3 weeks ago we had started to learn about earth’s systems! There were five different types  of systems: Soil, Water, Air, Lifeforms, and Rocks. Every few days we learnt about each system and why they are essential for life on earth. We took notes and then put them all together and started the task we had achieve within the coming weeks. We had to design a planet or island and use all of our notes and learning to compose the planet or island. I decided to do an island, but I didn’t know how I was going to make. I was planning to make a digital model, however, I couldn’t find an easy to use website or modelling system, so I decided to create a map, and add all the aspects that an island might need. One random name generator later, I got the name Tardide Island. Another name generator later, for the ocean, I got The Birheim Waves. I started to draw up my rough draft, and it looked pretty good! It had trees, valleys, caves, mountains, streams, lakes etc… So then I started my final copy. When I looked at the finished version, I’d say it looks pretty good, below is a photo of my Island.

After I had finished composing my map, the teacher asked me to add a little extra, and so I decided to make 2 QR codes. I made first Tardide Island’s origin, and then I also listed the wildlife that was present on the island. I generated the QR codes, cut them out, and glued them onto the back of map. I think it’s helpful, because adding more context to the island helps people paint a better picture in their heads. Below is the 2 QR codes if you would like to scan them and take a look and the origin and the list of wildlife yourself!

Question: If you made an island, what do you think would be required for any lifeforms to survive? I’d love to know in the comments!

For reading this week we have been analysing a story called “MeMe & Me”. If you don’t know what the story is about, it’s about this girl called Nina who had saved up lots of money vacuuming her Grandmas house and also cleaning her windows too. After months of saving, she earned enough to purchase a real phone, but within a few days of owning it, things slowly turned south. She meets someone online called MeMe, but Nina was very confused because she checked the call log for the account and found it was her OWN phone number. Then they started talking. MeMe was very nice at first, but when Nina’s phone died, and she turned it back on, and suddenly she got a call from MeMe, and she wasn’t happy. As time passed, MeMe got more and more angry, eventually leading to the climax which Nina destroys her for good. However, the author was hiding a secret message behind it all, and our goal was to decipher what the message was. What we did was looking at different chunks of the text to find out the message, and eventually, it all linked together. But we also had another task to do. We had to list the pros and cons of the phone, using the stories quotes, and what the author was trying to tell us. On top of that, I have created an essay on the goal that was surrounding this whole story which is “Analyse the text discussing the authors point of view, use quotes from the text.” Below is my Google Drawing, showing two pros and cons, plus the essay, adding more detail on top of the drawing

• Question: Do YOU have a phone? If so, have you ever experienced some of the things Nina is? If so, let me know in the comments!

For reading this week, we have been learning about something I thought was rather interesting… Geology! Geology is the study of rocks and all of the minerals that different types of rocks include. We also read an article about rocks, and where they come from! We found out that there are 3 ways rocks are made, these include: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks are the type of rocks that are normally created from remains from VOLCANIC eruptions! An example would be obsidian. Sedimentary rocks is the type of rocks that forms over very, VERY long periods of time. More specifically, MILLIONS of years!  An example would be flint. Finally, metamorphic rocks are rather self explanatory if you know what metamorphosis means. Metamorphic rocks tend to start as as something different, then an event like for example, tectonic plates crashing together, it can form these types of rocks! Some metamorphic rocks include Coal or Chalk. Anyway, below is my Google Drawing, explaining 5 different rocks, with their type, and some facts to do with the rock.

Question: What do YOU know about geology? I’d love to know in the comments!

For writing this week, we have  been working on something a little different, and if you’ve read my most recent post which was “Rambunctious Reading!”, the writing task has been split up into five little minor tasks to do. Our goal is to complete at least three tasks, each representing a different goal. The idea is when you complete a task and the teacher thinks it has fulfilled the criteria, this means that you have proven that you understand what the goal is and how to do it, and they green it off. I picked three tasks called “Complex, Compound, and Simple Sentences”, “Future Me”, and “Describe The Setting”. For an example, I’m going to present one of these tasks, explain the goal, and then give you the task to see for yourself. I’m going to use the “Complex, Compound, and Simple Sentences” task. The goal for this task was “Use a variety of sentence structures, beginnings and lengths to give effect”. The task was to write a paragraph on any topic, in this case I chose to do it about Transport. We had to include two simple sentences, two compound sentences, and two complex sentences. They have each been colour coded to demonstrate what sentences are which. Below is a Google Document, with one, simple paragraph, consisting of basic information about different types of transport.

Question: Do YOU know what the difference is between each sentence? I’d love to know in the comments!