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! 

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!

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? 

 

Summer Haiku

Today, I chose to complete a quick writing task from the Summer Learning Journey, all about writing poems! But not just any poems, Haiku's! A Haiku, incase your unsure, is a poem constructed of 3 lines, the first line has 5 syllables, followed by the middle line which includes 7 syllables and the last line once again made of 5 syllables. I have written a few Haiku's before at school, have you ever written a Haiku? However, the poem couldn't just be about anything, we had to write them around, Summer! Have you been enjoying your Summer? 

When I think of Summer I think of LOTS of things, but I'm not going to list them because when if I started I wouldn't be able to stop, although, 1 of the main things I think of is the river or going to the beach. So, I decided to write mine about the beach. Here is my Summer Haiku, (well I wrote a few, not just one!) Here they are...

(Sorry, in the image above I have made a small spelling error and I don't have the original to change it, 'shells' is supposed to be 'shell', thanks!)

I hope you like my Summer Haiku's! Enjoy the rest of your Summer holidays and be safe! What do you like to do the most in the holidays?

Rise Up!

Recently, the Summer Learning Journey featured a task called 'Rise Up'. For this activity we had to write our very own song chorus. We started off by listening to an incredible song written and performed by Mangere Collage students 'We Will Rise'. If you would like to listen to their song you can take a look here. 

For my song, I wanted to include all off my School values in my song, so without further to do, here is my song! (If you wondering my school values are Excellence, Perseverance, Community and Respect. This song chorus took a quite a long time to create, and I hope you like it! 

One more hing before you read it though, the bold words is the main parts of the chorus and the faded (not bold) words are the echo's. Here it is!

I hope you all enjoyed my blog post, can't wait for the next task!

(Part 2 - A few days later, after posting this)

Today, I finally got enough courage to post the video of me singing my song lyrics. I like singing (even though I am not good at it at ALL) but this style of singing I am not great at! Singing is not my passion or strength, but I gave it ago anyways, and I am not offended if you don't like it! Tell the truth! Do you like singing, leave you answer in the comments below, I will reply as soon as I see it! Anyways, here it is...