Samoan Language Week

 

As it is Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa (Samoan Language week) LS1 and LS2 embraced the Samoan culture by learning certain phrases and cultural beliefs. Today we created a DLO explaining what the coat of arms of Samoa is and what it symbolises and what the Samoan flag is and what it symbolises. The most interesting I found out about Samoa was that they gained independence on June 1st 1962. I also enjoyed reading the motto on the crest. It is Fa'avae i le atua Samoa. It translates into 'God be the foundation of Samoa.' The theme this year is Alofa atu nei. Alofa mai taeao. It means Kindness given. Kindness gained. 

Art Tech - Last Session

Today was our last session of art tech and to end a great orientation we learnt about jewellery boxes from the maori culture. The jewellery box from the maori culture is known as a waka huia. A traditional waka huia consists of feathers from the huia bird and has cultural maori patterns. Contemporary on the other hand does not have feathers from a huia bird and nor does it have carvings. Prices also differ because of the authenticity and the age. We were asked to create sections of the waka huia. The photo above is a Kiwi who is sticking his beak in ferns. That is the lid of my waka huia. A waka huia usually holds green stone pendants and special jewellery. The waka huia is similar to the Japanese himitsu bako. I really enjoyed learning something about a culture and it was fun being taught by Mrs Telefoni. Mrs Telefoni is without a doubt one of the best tech teachers I had. Thank you Mrs Telefoni for a great orientation.    

Animal Charts - Bar Graph

This last three weeks students have been missing quite a bit of work because we were usually out of school. During catch up time Alex, Ofa, and I worked together to create the task above. The task was based on two graphs, They were based on animal lifespan and the speed of the animals. While doing this activity we learnt a lot of new things because most statements were true and only a few were false.

Fraidoon and Alex - 5 year Salary

For this task I worked with Jeremiah and together we attempted to figure the problem out, at first we were confused by the bonuses that we needed to add on every year and after that we were confused by the adding of the money, the person who made the most money in five years was Fraidoon. The margin was closing because Alex had a higher bonus than Fraidoon.

Fence Post - Word Problem

Today during math time the task was to finish off any work that needed to be done (And blog it), I worked with Alex to finish the problem. The equation was quite easy to figure out because all we needed to do was count the number of fences (7), the number of fence posts (8) and for every fence times 8 by 1 (Meaning, 8 x 1, 8 x 2 etc for every fence- which made us end up going to 8 x 7). After that we continued writing about how we solved the problem. 

Popular Travel in Secondary and Primary School.

Our set rich task was based on how students from primary and secondary students get to school in England. The options were either: walking, taking the bus, driving, biking, taking the train, or other. The main transport for pupils from primary school is the car. Their are many answers that could be right but we think that parents are being protective and they do not trust the world or their kids. On the other hand secondary students most popular travel is the bus and the reason might be because parents trust their children because they are older and more trustworthy. Overall the most popular travel method is walking because it is more environmentally friendly, is good for physical and mental health, and kids can interact with their friends. After this, everyone was asked to do a survey about how Ms Kirkpatrick's math group gets to school. The most popular travel is car and then followed by walking. Car is probably more dominant because some students come from long distances and it is faster to get to school in a car. For this activity we showed our findings using a pie chart that is sorted by percentages. We then outlined the differences and similarities between the two charts. A percentage is an easy way to see the proportion of a whole.

Speech Differences

 

 Today for writing, we created a conversation between two people that contrasted between formal writing and informal writing. My conversation was between two friends and one did not attend school when an important presentation was due. The difference between the two pieces was that on the right their are speech marks meaning it is the more formal piece of writing.