Jabberwocky

This weeks poem of the week was to read "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. Once we finished reading the poem we were asked to create a digital collage of one of the fanciful characters.  Polyline, cropping, the explore tool and remove background on Google Drawings were my main tools to create the Jabberwock (the Dragon) from the poem. 

To create the background I used a light green felt texture for the grass and denim blue for the sky. I fitted the patterns to size of the drawing. I searched for two different green fabrics on the explore tool, and cropped them into a cloud shape to use as the leaves of the Tumtum tree. I then used poly line to do the trunk and branches of the tree and coloured the shape a dark brown. I decided to incorporate the Tumtum tree as its an iconic tree from the Jabberwocky poem. 

For the actual dragon I used Polyline, the explore tool and Remove bg. I started with inserting two golf balls of the eyes/eye sockets, then used two wheel rims for the pupils, two light green plates/bowls for behind the eyes, frog legs for the arms and legs of the dragon, and rabbit teeth for the mouth as the inspiration I used from google had large teeth, pointed outwards teeth. I also used a large green wing for the dragons wings. A green hay bale for the dragons body, and a yellow circle on top of that for the stomach. Overall the creature/dragon looks quite weird, and its defiantly not my best creation, however I did have some fun, inserting images and creating it. 

These are the two reference photos I used to create the image. And my final result.

(Above reference images and below is my picture)

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Boy Overboard animation

 On my last blog post I mentioned that the we had a series of tasks to complete about our class novel, Boy Overboard. Here is the animation I created using Google Slides, the and Explore tool. I choose the scene from the book when Bibi, Jamal's younger sister kicks the soccer ball, landing near a tank, and then standing on a landmine. I couldn't even image standing on a land mine! Luckily the mine was just a old dud and Bibi was safe. Overall, I used 120 slides to create the animation...here is my work! You can also use the arrow keys down the bottom of the slide to make the animation go faster. Have you ever created an animation? 

Boy Overboard

JUST before lock down, we finished reading our class novel, Boy Overboard. In class we created a animation or comic-strip about the novel. I chose to do a novel at the time but I have started drawing a comic, now we are at home. More tasks were set over lock down to complete such as book reports, drawing the setting of the book, character tasks, writing a letter, timeline and a few more. However I chose to a book-report as I quite enjoy summarising the book afterwards. Anyways here is my finished book-report....

I forgot to add who I would recommend this book to however I'd probably recommend the book to anyone who is interested in soccer, sports, adventurous sailing etc. 

Poetry Ideas

If you haven't seen my recent blog post, I explained that our class was writing a variety of poems to create a poetry collection slide. I also showcased my work alongside the explanation. We have written poems such as, Limerick, Haiku, Acrostic, Diamante, Alphabet, Cinquain and Colour poems. Here is how to write them, and the structure needed. Maybe even give them a go?

Have you ever written or attempted any of these poems? 

Poetry collection

Through out the year, especially in term 2 and 3, we started writing and creating a collection and wide variety of poems. Poems we have written so far, have been, Sound poems, Diamante, Acrostic, Limerick, Haiku, Alphabet, Cinquain, and Colour poems. My favourite have probably been the Limerick, or Acrostic poem, as you can be very creative (not to say that you can't be creative with the others) But I find that its easier to write, and that I feel I can create a better poem. My least favourite is Haiku poems, as its quite short, and you have to stay between 5 and 7 syllables. However I love learning new ways of learning, like learning a new structure/type of poem. 

After writing the each poem, we transferred, if we hadn't already written the poem straight onto a Google Slide. Added a picture/background and repeated that for every poem so we could end up with a collection like this..

I met a Dragon face to face...

Today I wrote a poem inspired by "I met a dragon face to face" by Jack Prelutsky. The task was to write our own poem using his format, and think about adventures we have encountered while reading. After I wrote the poem on Google Docs, I copied it onto a Google Drawing and added images to help picture my writing. 

In the poem by Jack, the character was 10 years old, however I changed this to my age so it was like I lived the adventures.

By Hayley

Tui Collage

 This term our learning focus is based around plants and native animals. Recently we were asked to try and create a native bird using collage materials. Everyone in class got a different animal to recreate. I chose to do a Tui. To make our collages we used Google Drawing, then using the explore tool we searched up different textures and cropped them as shapes to make our bird. For example... I searched up "Cardboard" and used the texture of that to make my harakeke, and brown silk fabric to make the breast on my bird. Anyways here is my finished result...

Ngahere Writing

To incorporate our study on plants, biodiversity and native bush this term, we recently did some slow writing about our native Ngahere. Slow writing is small 7 sentence writing exercise however it helps to enrichen our writing by using things such as similes, metaphors, questions etc. After writing, I added it to a Google Drawing and from there I placed on a background of New Zealand native bush. Here is my writing...

Would you read Pax?

Recently our class finished reading our class novel Pax. While reading this book, we were asked to share our thinking and predictions about what we think is going to happen in the book. One of our tasks was to draw each character in our reading books (Pax the fox and Peter the boy) With one character per page, then rule the page in half and on one side write what we know about the character and on the other our predictions and what we don't know about them. We also had to visualise and use our imagination as there were no pictures of the characters in the book for us to use and copy while drawing them.

After we read the story we had to write a book report on the novel. To publish/create my book report I used Google Drawings. When I had finished typing the blurb I took photos of my drawings in my reading book, removed the background and added them on the side. Here is my book review... Would you read Pax??

TerraCycle

A few years ago, when I was scrolling through the internet I found a website and company called TerraCycle. After a little bit of reading and researching I found it was a recycling company that recycle non-recyclble waste. I though straight away that this was a really cool idea and introduced the idea to my principal. He also loved the idea, however we never had the time. At the end of last year we quit, and a new fill in principal came. This year I handwrote a letter to him about the idea and though it was amazing, and helped me and my friend start the 

Suez Canal (group reading work)

Today in class for reading and word study, our reading group (the Itlots, the name created by 2 words (it and lots) found in a book and combined together) Mrs Bennett introduced a new reading topic... the Suez Canal! After a bit of reading and researching we were asked to make a slideshow to display work, then share our work onto our blogs. Here is our presentation...

Snr Bike Ride Slow Writing

On the 18th and 19th of March, Room 4 went on our annual Snr Bike ride. We rode the Rakauroa Road, the Koranga Valley Road, and the Te Wera Road. Then pitching tents and staying the night at a woolshed. (I will be doing some writing about the trip with more detail and information later!) 

 Afterwards, when we were back at School, we did some slow writing about or trip/journey. Here it is...

Awa Poem

Recently in class, we read a poem in class about the river mouth. After reading the poem we did some writing changing the words but keeping the same format. Here is my poem... 

Enjoy! 

All About Me!

 

Kia ora, my name is Hayley, I’m a year 8 attending Matawai School. I live an hour out of Gisborne, with my family of four on a small farm or lifestyle block with many animals and a humongous garden! My family and I are from Australia and moved here in 2016. This year I'm looking forward to the Snr bike ride/camp and another camp later in the year.

At School, I love all subjects, but I find Math the most challenging of them all. One of my biggest goals for this year would be to keep trying my best and progressing in all subjects for high school next year. Some of my favourite things to do in spare time are to spend time with family, friends and animals, along with drawing, playing sports, doing photography, playing the ukulele, writing, silent reading, looking after the environment, driving motorbikes and racing my Go-Kart. My favourite author currently is Justin D’ath and his book 47 Degrees which is based on a true story in Australia about the bush fires not far from where I used to live. That is just one of many books and I'm sure I will find many other favourites throughout the year!

In the future, I’d love to have a job in the medical field and be a paramedic, vet/doctor, police officer or firefighter and if those plans don't work I’d love to travel the world visiting a wide variety of countries and trying new things and cuisine along with inspiring and spreading awareness along the way. Otherwise I'll try to become a professional driver and race F1 cars, motorcross or karting. I’m looking forward to finishing my last year positively and seeing what 2021 brings, I hope you enjoy reading my blog posts! Mā te Wā

Float Your Boat

For today's Summer Learning Journey task, we had to make paper boats. But, that isn't all, we also had to test our boats to see if they could float. 

From there, if we wanted to complete the Step It Up task we also had to see if they floated with weights (rocks) and see what boat can hold the most weight. 

To test my paper boats, I went down to the river with my family. At our river spot we have a small flowing creek which I used to float the boats in to see if they floated in both still and flowing water. 

I found the making of the paper boats really easy and fun, my boats floated perfectly with and without weight, although once I added to many rocks... it sunk! But to be fair, it was already a little bit wet and so the paper had already been soaking in the water and there were way too many rocks in the boat. 

Anyways, without further to do, here is the pictures I got...

In this photo (above) I am holding my 2 boats, I also named one of my paper boats Bateau De Papier. I don't really have a reason of why I called one of my boats 'Bateau De Papier' I just thought that calling it 'Paper Boat' would be boring so I chose a country, used Google translate to translate paper boat, and that's how I got the name!

In this picture one of my boats (above) is floating down the stream

And in this photo, my boat flowing down the stream once again. I got sidetracked swimming and playing around at the river and completely forgot to get any photos of the paper boats carrying weights, but the Bateau De Papier did manage to carry over 10 rocks before sinking. 

Have you ever made a Paper Boat? Did you find it easy or hard to make?

String Games!

Today I completed the 'string games' activity from the Summer Learning Journey page. This blog post was super fun to do! This blog post is quite short, but their really isn't a lot to it. All we had to make was a cup and saucer, I remember making one of these when I was younger, and it was relatively easy, anyways without any further to do, here is my cup and saucer... 

There is a 'Step It Up' task coming soon! 

Sundial w/ Nanogirl

For today's SLJ blog post I completed one of the the tasks with Nanogirl. I found this task super fun and I only needed a few things to make it! Anyways, you'll be wondering what I made with Nanogirl, so... I made, drum roll please, *drum rolls* a sundial!

If your unsure on what a sun dial is, it's a simple device for showing the time only using the sun. To use a sundial, you need to read where the shadow is on the dial, it's pretty simple to use, however the idea of using the sun to tell the time is very unfamiliar these days. Sundials were originated in Greece around 5,500 years ago. 

Anyways, here is my sundial... 

Podcast!

Today's Summer Learning Journey task, was to create a Witchy Airwaves podcast. I found this activity super fun! The book I chose to make a podcast I chose to read the children's book Hansel and Gretel. And to record my podcast I used Screencastify. The reason I chose the book Hansel and Gretel, is because it was one of my favourite books when I was younger (around age 4) and the book is Witchy like the example on the SLJ page. Anyways, the instructions were pretty straight forward and I'm pretty sure that I have followed the right steps, however here is my podcast... 

(I also forgot that Screencastify has a recording limit of 5 minutes, so I had to split my podcast in 2, sorry for the inconvenience)

Summer Symmetry

Today's task for the SLJ was all about Symmetry, Summer symmetry. For this task I started by completing the Kick start activities, which were to watch and sing a quick song about two kids at the fair explaining symmetry. Then from there, we had to read an article about finding symmetry in nature and finally play a quick game called Seafloor Symmetry. I found the game pretty easy! 

Finally, we were asked to take 4 photos of symmetrical objects, from there we had to draw a symmetrical line across every object. Anyways, here is my four objects with symmetrical lines...

I hope you enjoyed my blog post and look forward to more!!

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream!!!

The next Summer Learning Journey task is another Te Reo Maori task, this time about Ice Cream. What's your favourite flavour of Ice Cream? First, we started by making a copy and filling out a deck of slides, full of questions about ice cream flavours and how to pronounce them along with how much it costs. The deck of slides basically explains everything. 

So, here is my slide deck.

Next, for the Step It Up task we had to create an animation on Scratch of characters talking using words and sentences we learnt. I had some knowledge on who to use Scratch because I have used it in the past! I had so much fun doing this and I hope you enjoy my animation. (My animation is on the very last slide of the slide deck!) Enjoy!

(I'm terribly sorry about my screencastify, I am not familiar what so ever with Te Reo Maori, I don;t mean to offend anyone, sorry)

I hope you enjoyed it! Comment in the comments below, what your favourite Ice Cream flavour is! Do you like to have toppings on your ice cream? I had loads of fun doing this blog post and I can't wait for the next one! 

Summer sounds

Today I managed to achieve another blog post, this time about Summer sounds (sounds you can hear in Summer in NZ) 

First, we started off by reading a poem about Summer sounds written by Jenny Bornholdt. Next, we were asked to highlight all of the sound words and words we don't understand. 

Then, the funniest part of this blog post... was to go outside and record summer sounds that we can hear on our Chromebook. Listen back to them and create our own Summer Poem. Anyways, here is my poem...

I also chose to Step it Up and narrate my poem using screencastify. So, here is my screencastify...

Origami!

Today's SLJ post is about Origami and 3D paper! Our first instruction was to find a video clip on YouTube explaining how to fold origami, slow it down and complete the tutorial. I decided to fold and create a paper cup. After we created the origami, to Step It Up we were asked to create a screencastify to explain how we made our origami creations. This took me a little while to create, and I found it quite challenging, but anyways, here is my final result, and instructions to how I made my cup. Have you ever tried Origami, what did you make? Tell me in the comments and I will try to reply as soon as possible! Enjoy!

Surprisingly, the cup actually held water and I managed to drink out of it! 

Now, for the screencastify, and how I made it...

(there are actually two videos, sorry for the inconvenience!)

 

Which Face Is Real?

Today for the SLJ, I completed a task about faces, and guessing if they were real or fake. I started off by playing a game called, 'Which Face is Real'. When playing this game, you get given 2 faces, and you have to decide whether which face is the real one. Overall, I got 9/10 questions correct. 

Then we were asked to take a screenshot of one of the questions we had, and add it to a Google Drawing to point out why we decided to chose that face over the other one. So, without further to do, here is my question and why I chose the face I chose. 

To Step It Up, we were asked to try out a tool on Google called reverse image search to see if it would help us find what face was real and which face was fake. To explain more about this feature, I have made a screencastify...

(I was having some problems inserting the video so to watch my video, here is a link)

And just another thing I would like to add that I forget in the video above, if your using the last way I showed you, it only works on Chrome. 

The very last step for this task was to, explain in our own words what we think the old saying "the camera never lies" so here is my explanation...

I think that the saying means that, words can twist and lie, but a photo tells the truth, or a photo captures a moment and when you look back on it, it brings back, emotions, feelings etc.

What do you think the saying means?

Here is one for you to solve, which one is real? 

Tell me in the comments! 

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Today, I completed the Giuseppe Arcimboldo task on the SLJ website. This task was all about creating a collage of fruit and vegetables. To create my collage I used old magazines and newspapers lying around at home. I went through just about every magazine we own at home and cut out every picture of fruit and vegetable, along with words related to fruit and veges. I managed to fill up a whole page. Here's what the final product looks like...

I also made another collage or art piece, the second picture I created digitally online. I made an animal out of 2 cabbage leaves (for ears), a kiwi fruit for eyes), a carrot (for the nose), a chilli (for the smile), an eggplant (for the neck), and orange (for the body), and corn for the legs. 

I hope you like it and here it is... 

Comment below what you favourite fruit or vegetable is!

Tastes of Summer!

For today's Summer Learning Journey task, we had to create a Summer food collage using Google Drawings. This task was pretty simple, and all we had to do was add Summer foods to a Google Drawing, and describe at least 3 foods we featured in our collage using adjectives. To Step It Up, we were asked to write in a different coloured text box, why we like particular foods. However, even though this task was simple, I still had loads of fun doing it! I hope you enjoy, so without further to do, here it is... 

What is your favourite Summer food? Comment below!

It's Cool To Be Kind!

For today's SLJ task, we learnt about being kind, and that it's cool to be kind. Our first step or activity for this task, was to play a little game It’s Cool to Be Kind. Which is a game all about spending kindness to others and blocking the bully. Personally, I found this game quite fun! 

Our next step was to screenshot a nice comment (and our reply) from our blog and place it onto a Google Drawing, provided on the SLJ website. Our last step was to embed the Google Drawing a PNG and post it to our blogs. 

So, without further to do here is my kind comment..

Do you think the comment and my reply were nice, and kind? Tell me in the comments below, I'll reply as soon as possible!

I hope you all enjoy the rest of the Summer holidays!

Te Huarere

For this Summer Learning task, our two main focuses were... Te Reo Maori, and the weather. For a start we had to complete a deck of slides full of questions and activities, all about pronouncing "What is the weather forecast today?" in Maori and answering that question. Afterwards to Step It Up, we were asked to create a screencastify. So, without any further to do, here is my screencastify and deck of slides... 

What is the weather like where you live? Today, for me we had rain, cloud and sun!

Building a Dam!

Today the Summer Learning Journey challenged us (SLJ participators) to create a dam, out of natural resources. I made my mine in a aluminium foil baking tray, because their isn't a lot of running water at the moment. While making our dams, we were asked to take pictures of the steps, progress and final result (if we could). Here is how I made my dam... 

First off all, I started by folding up the edges of the tray to make more of a container. Like this..

In the photo above you can see the tray before I folded the edges.

And in this photo above you can see the tray after I had folded up the edges.

From there, I placed a layer of dirt in a straight line right across the centre of my tray. Then I added sticks and bark to support the centre of the dam wall. Like this,

After that, I used another layer of dirt to cover up the sticks, followed by a layer of ferns. I used the ferns as I thought that they could mesh it together with their shape.

And once again, covered the ferns up with dirt. Here is what my dam looked like, before I added water.

Afterwards, as my final step, I added water to one side of the container, to test if the dam wall in the middle blocked the water from seeking though to the other side. 

After pouring the water into one side, I left my dam sit there for around ten minutes. As I watched I saw that water was starting to flow into the other side of the dam. I think in conclusion it worked quite well, and it kept a lot of water from flowing to the other side. 

Although, next time if I made my dam again, I would make my dam wall a curved shape, and not just a straight wall, this is because the curve usually used in huge dams around the world like this one...

makes the structure stronger, and harder for the water to burst the dam wall. Next time, I would also use thick mud or clay, because when I placed the dirt, the surface of my tray was flat, so there were little gaps between the dirt and the tray. 

Have you ever built a dam at the river, creek, or at home?