Angles

 In class we have been learning about different angles, we have been learning the names of them, why we have different angles, and what is the difference between each of them. We have been doing whole class lessons on them and have been doing worksheets to understand them more.

Mrs Cutler found protractors for us to use to get the correct measurement and to figure out what it is, the 3 we have been  mainly working on is Acute, Obtuse, and right angle, the teacher taught us what the differences were, an Acute is an angle that is less than 90°, and Obtuse is an angle that is larger than 90°and less than 180°, and a right angle is  exactly on 90°.

How we use protractors is to measure from the the center semi circle and out, make sure that the 90° line I your middle point, if it isn't you would have incorrect measurement.

The symbol ° means degree, a degree is something you use when measuring angles and temperature, if you don't add the degree symbol then you would be marked wrong because if the answer was 50° people sometimes just put 50 and that could pretty much mean anything so you have to have the symbol when dealing with angles.

The worksheet we had to fill in looked kinda hard but once you knew how to use a protractor properly it became more understandable, the worksheet was a mix of Acutes, Obtuse, and Right Angles, so that is why we need to use the protractors, we then had a little break from angles.

Later on we went outside and Mrs Cutler  then told us to point out angles that we could see, the ones we saw we measured, she then told us to take a protractor and got around the school and try and find different angles and figure out what the angles is, Holly and I were buddies and we went around the school and we were mostly finding Right Angles, but we did eventually find a few Acutes.

Local Legends

 For the past 2 weeks in Kakapo we have been learning about NZ local legends, it was one of the tasks on our contracts. My local legend that I chose was Valerie Adams, the reason why I chose Valerie Adams was because of her determination for what she is famous for, also in 2014 a class from our school went to have a fun day with getting to know Valerie and also setting goals for ourselves.

We did some research on the person who we chose, we had to fill in a document about the person who we chose, some of the questions on the document was, birth date, place of birth, early life time, what are they well known for, and what are some significant moments in their life.

After we filled in the document we made posters showing our legend and we could add anything we would like, I draw a picture of Valerie Adams and the NZ flag to show where she is famous from, I then attempted to draw a shot put because that is what she is famous for.

Mr Hobson had an idea that he was going to make it into a local legends book, the entire class had to do one and they all picked different people, we had a template of 3 boxes and some writing space underneath, that is for significant moments in there life, significant moments meaning special moments in there life that the have either witnessed or been apart of.

Mr Hobson printed the document and glued it on the back of our posters and glued our significant moments at the bottom of the document, he then laminated them and put them into a ring binder, he made a cover for the front of it and put every ones in it, Here is the finished result of mine.

X-Counrty

Yesterday on Thursday was our PCS X-country, all the year levels ran for year 8-0, the year 8's, 7's, and 6's and 5's ran 3km and the rest ran  1.8km. Some kids got rides out with their parents and the rest went to school and caught the busses out to the Cutler's farm where it was being held.

When we were getting ready to go we had to line up in our house groups and follow a teacher out to the bus, on the first bus was Marcellin and McAuley and on the second bus was Aubert and Channel. We then got there and the teacher told the seniors to buddy up with a little kid and help them walk to the farm, we got there and put our bags with our house groups and started to get ready and warm up. 

We have had a couple X-countries at the Cutler's farm and every year it gets better and better, looking at the farm I felt like I was looking at a jungle jim with all the trees surrounding us and the hills as rock climbing fences as our surrounded area to keep us safe, hearing all the parents and kids cheering us on and the wind howling, the sky as blue as the ocean, I smelt hot dogs being made, cow poo being demolished and mostly the smell of body odor 

The years 8's were running first then it was the year 7's which is my year level, the boys went first and then a couple minute's later the girl's went, then the teacher called all the year 7's to get ready for our run, the teacher showed us the course and said that we would have to go across a bouncy piece of wood, used as a bridge and duck underneath a tree that had fallen and also go under fences, the teacher then told us to start jogging and then she said '' GO ''  and we all started running. 

About halfway through I started to get a stitch so I started slowing down and then eventually walking around the coroner then passed the first water trough I felt like dunking my head in it but I didn't, I then came along the part where you head do the hill and I couldn't stop running and I ended up falling over about 3 times, I then got to the bottom and walked for a bit, I then ran from another water trough and then had to go through a gate with a little water on the ground, there were pieces of dry dirt and grass in it but I decided to walk straight through.

I then could see the finish line from where I was and started sprinting to it, once I passed it I felt relieved that I had finally finished, Mrs Watson was there to congratulate us when we finished, I was very happy to see her there, so happy that I hugged her and I don't really like hugs but it felt good, I came 5th and I could have done better but I'm happy that I placed.

Rain Forest

Last week we did research based on the Rainforest,we were going to be doing art based on the Rainforest. We were doing 3D birds and a leaf background, how we started was we researched leaves found in the Rainforest and we did a draft on a normal piece of paper and then we used cartridge card as our good copy because we were using dye for the background and cartridge was the only card that wouldn't curl up when it was drying.

We used wax crayons to colour the leaves in and the birds so that the dye won't stick on top of our leaves. We then dyed the background different greens and some of us let the first green dried and we added another coat but this time we were able to do a different green. After that we waited for it to dry, then we searched up Rainforest birds and draw the one that we picked, I chose a Costa Rica Toucan. I did a sketch of my bird and the coloured it in with the wax crayons, after I finished I waited for the dye to be ready and then went over some of the colours with the dye and the waited for it to dry.

We then had to cut out our birds and 3D them onto our background, how we 3D it was we used the left over paper and cut it so that we had a medium size and we folded it so that it would look like a spring and glued it to our bird and the background. This was then end result.

In our next contract Mrs Cutler said we had to made a presentation of why the Rainforest is important and some facts about it so Lucy and I Made a padlet to share our information on. We included the fires that happened and much more.
We were also working on a slide with Leticey, on the slide we added a link to our padlet so that people could check that out. Here is the finished result of the slide and the padlet. Click the link to see the padlet.

Yay Level 1

We have finally hit level 1, at 12am Tuesday was when we shifted to level 1. We are all proud that New Zealand has come to level 1. During quarantine, I was keeping up with online school work and also keeping up with my friends by calling or messaging them. The length of time we were in lock down for was the 26/3 - 27/4, we went to level 3 on the 28/4 - 13/5, then we went to level 2 for 14/5 - 8/6. Then it comes to 12am on Tuesday  and all of New Zealand went into level 1 with no active cases for 18 days.

We have been back at school for 4 weeks. We started coming to school at the beginning of level 2 up until now, it was hard to keep social distancing while we have been back at school. We are all very happy to be back in level 1 so that we can be close to our friends and go to visit family.

Writing a Letter

Last week we had to write a letter to a person in our class, Mrs Cutler chose the people who we had to write our letters to. The person that I got was Alyx, and the person who got me was Hiroshi, so he had to write me a letter and I had to write a letter to Alyx. To make my letter successful was to think critically on what I was going to do and how I was going to present my work, I mostly thought about what I currently going on in the world and how I could make a letter based on happy thoughts, so I tried to write a letter that would be happy. I started my letter with a normal "Dear Alyx" and then continued writing the rest of my letter, we were meant to send them in the mail if we could but if we couldn't we just emailed them the letter to make sure they still got it, here a my letter to Alyx.

Dear Alyx,
I hope you are safe in your bubble, hope you are having fun with your family and pets. I hope you always have a smile on your face to brighten up your day, and I mostly hope to see you, Mrs Cutler, and all of our friends when lock down is over.

Yours Sincerely Taryn K

ANZAC Day

Last week on Wednesday one of the activities on our contract was to make poppies for ANZAC day. I decided to make a wreath because at the ANZAC dawn parade we take a wreath up and then lay our poppies down. But before all that happens we sing the Australian, New Zealand, national anthem and then the last post, in the middle of the last post someone says "They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, Age shall no weary them, nor the years condemn, We Will Remember Them". We then finish the song and then march back into the RSA and the memorial gathering finishes. But that unfortunately didn't happen due to lock down, so we had to stand at our gate and preform the memorial ceremony. So we got up at 5:00 am went outside and had our own little ceremony, people started to come out and stand at there gates and listen to the national anthems and the last post. After that we went back inside and watched some TV channels based on ANZAC day theme and listened to what the people were saying on why we celebrate ANZAC day and the history behind what ANZAC means, it means Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.  

Kindness Letters

This morning when Mrs Cutler gave us our literacy contracts she told us that she would like it if we started our contracts off with our spread a little kindness activity.
The activity was that we had to write a kindness letter to a place that going through a lot with covid 19 this year and some of the places we chose were Switzer, Hospital, Pak'n Save, and places like that because they are the places that have lots going on right now.
The ones that I choose are Pak'n save and Doctors because pack'n save is getting a lot of people stressing of covid 19 and buying all the supplies at pak'n save and not leaving anything for anyone else.
And the reason  why I choose doctors is because the doctors have been getting a lot of people coming in sick and injured everyday and also stressing about covid 19 and it is a really though times when there family could be sick and they still have to come to work.

Heart art

2 weeks ago Mrs Cutler said to us that we were gonna be doing checker board hearts. We started off with cartridge paper and pencil, we then had to draw our heart first and our lines didn't need to be even or straight they just had to be lines. The lines had to go horizontally and vertically, we had to press light with the pencil so that when we go over it the pencil line wouldn't show through.
We used pencil to colour in the heart and we worn't aloud to have any white spaces in our heart so we had to sharpen our pencils so the we could get all the little gaps.
It took us about a week to do this and some of us 2 but we all finished our hearts we then did our black lines, it was so stressful to do our black lines because we didn't want to get black ink all on our work.
Here is the finish product.

Welcome to 2020