As you know we have been doing a lot of STEM challenges recently and here is the latest one.  I liked this one the most because we won!  I also liked it because of the designing included.  Our goals were to hold a stuffed toy for a minute.  We could use two pieces of a4 paper scissors and glue.  In the case of a tie breaker the tallest one won.  Read more about it in the reflection below.Justin, Poet and Jacob Paper Chair Challenge Reflection

On Friday of week 4 Matua Jacob from Manaiakalani came to teach us something new.  He showed us an app called screencastify and we used it to have a conversation about a topic.  First we had to read a story called Roland Fish Rises Up.  It is about a boy who verbally abuses the main character but one day the main character snaps and threw the bully across the room.  We were then given two questions: is okay to physically abuse someone and was okay for the main character in the story to physically abuse the bully.  For these questions we had to come up with some reasons for and an against the question.  This was hard as if we had an opinion for one side it was hard to talk about the other side.  I barely managed this.  We then partnered up and joined our reasons together.  That’s when we started the talk.  We had to take a side whether it was ours or not and say the reasons.  I enjoyed this challenge as it is a new way to learn.  Here is a video that we made of us talking hope you enjoy. 

Look through slides No.1 and 2 is answers to the questions and 3 is the actual video

On week 3 of term 4 we did another STEM challenge.  In this one we had to make paper chains.  We actually did it twice.  The second time we did a lot better.  The hardest part was realizing that our chain was not going to work in the first challenge.  Read more about this in my fantastic reflection below.

 Click this link

Recently we had a STEAM challenge where we had to make a paper cup that could hold water for the longest possible time.  Read more about it in our screencast of what happened below. 

In Te Ngahere we had a taskmaster challenge.  We had 15 minutes to find out how to make a shadow.  We could use one prop and we could have as many people as we liked.  Our group was a group of 6 and we struggled for most of the time.  In the end we had a desperate idea.  We made a art gallery.  Luke was the Mona Lisa, Cahlay and Chamberlain were the American Gothic painting.  Jack was the thinker, Mikaira was a muscular sculpture and I was the statue of liberty.  We thought that the teachers liked our idea.  I thought that the one downside was that we all separate. The hardest thing was the stress of having a time limit.  The easiest was posing as them.  We learnt about being creative in a short period of time.

What’s your favorite shadow to make?

For a couple of weeks we have been making movies.  They all had to be based on NZ history.  Our group chose the Dawn Raids.  My group was Henry, Cahlay and I.  Our group had challenges in the making of our movie.  One example of this was having to change our story plot because it didn’t relate to the Dawn Raids enough.  This was hard on us and it put us behind.  Another was that our movie had to be 3 minutes long.  We filmed this knowing we had huge pressure on us.   We kept on working and in my opinion we made a excellent movie.  Once we finished it felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders . My favorite part about the process was acting for my characters.  Once you do it for a while you really get into it.  Here’s our movie.

Have you ever made a movie  about the Dawn Raids, if so did you use a similar plot?

On Friday of week 8 Matua Jacob came into our class again to teach us about quick cuts.  Quick cuts are short shots  that make the person look like they’re moving fast.  All the shots had to be a close up.  We had to remake an everyday activity with quick cuts and make a scene.  Our film was about opening a chromebook and signing in.  The thing that I found most challenging was editing the movie because we had a time limit and we had to shorten our shots.  The thing that I found easiest was acting out my part of the movie as it was not very much that I had to do.  If I did this again I would have more time to brainstorm because we were stressed and went for a simpler scene.  If we had more time we could make it complicated and it might look better.

When you are watching movies what is your favorite part?

http://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ky9CNc0u5qNkHLParhim-EfApQIrVmfX/view

On Friday the 19th of May most of the kids in our class went to Maromaku sports day to play either netball or rugby.  I played netball.  We learnt about strategies in netball  and studying our opponents.  We also learnt to make space.  Most of our team have never played before so it was new experience for all of us.  It was so hard but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The thing I enjoyed most was just giving the game a go.  The most challenging part was getting thrashed by the other team as I did not know the game.  If I were to do anything different I would research and practice the game more before the sports day.  The day was horrible and we only got to do two of our games before we had to go back to school.  Overall the day was really fun and I would do it again.

What’s your favorite thing about playing sports?

If you could have any 3 superpowers in the world what would they be? For me I would choose to control water.  I chose this because I like the water and the things that live in it.  With this power I would go into the water and explore unexplored areas.  The next power I would have is telekinesis because I could do things by using my mind instead of moving.  (Basically being lazy).  I would use this power to do all my chores without even moving.  My third and final power would be to influence chaotic energy because I can create anything I want anytime I want.  I would use this to help make life easier.      

What would you choose?