Recreating Famous Artwork

LI: To use Google Draw to recreate a famous artwork

LI: To use your knowledge of colour and colour mixing to replicate the colours used in the artworks.

This week we have been learning about famous artworks and colour mixing. The artwork I chose was The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. This artwork was painted in 1665. Today it can be found in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague.

I enjoyed experimenting with the different tools in Google Draw to recreate this famous art piece. I also had the opportunity to learn a lot about art and the painter of The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer.

Swimming Reflection #2

 LI: To practice different swimming styles.

For swimming, we were focusing on practicing our streamline, switch, backstroke and diving. We also practiced swimming as far as we could underwater.

The switch backtroke and streamline is where we kick six times in streamline and then switch to backstroke and kick six times. We continued this to the end of our mark.

The underwater diving is swimming as far as we could underwater, preferably in streamline but this was a freestyle opportunity.

I enjoyed this session because I practice focusing my energy and swimming technique on staying underwater.

Mindfulness # 2

 LI: To understand and learn about gratitude.

For pause, breathe and smile, we have been focusing about gratitude. Gratitude is being grateful and happy for what we have and what we are being given.

We rang the mindfulness bell and focused on our breathing with straight backs, soft bellies and having our eyes closed. We breathed steadily and thought about what is happening now.

Mindfulness is focusing on what is happening now, and not worrying about what has happened or what hasn't happened yet. I enjoyed this task because I learnt about gratitude and focused on my breathing.

Ancient Greek Olympics Presentation

LI: To give a presentation on the Ancient Greek Olympics.

Last week, LS2 gave presentations to the class about what we know on the Ancient Greek Olympics. For this task, my group used Prezi to present and recorded a Screencastify to present to the class. Prezi is a good way to keep your audience entertained by animating the different areas of your slideshow.

We talked about what the Ancient Greek Olympics was and what took place on the five days of the Olympics. We also gave 5 fun facts about the Ancient Olympics.

I enjoyed this because it was fun to present and learn about the Ancient Greek Olympics as well. One fun fact that I learnt about the Ancient Greek Olympics was that one athlete trained by lifting a bull calf everyday until it was a full grown bull.

Hauora as an Athlete

LI: To write what Hauora might help an athlete with.

Our objective for this task was to make a Hauora poster based off what we know of athletes. We wrote what we might think an Olympic athlete would use the four areas of Hauora in their training or during the Olympics.

Hauora is the four walls of our well-being. They are our physical, mental, spiritual and family well-being.

I enjoyed this task because I was able to look at Hauora through an athletes eyes and see Hauora from an athletes perspective.

My Science Investigation #2 - Blood Pressure and Pulse Rate

LI: To learn about pulse rate and blood pressure.

Your pulse rate is the speed that your heart pumps blood through your blood vessels. Today, we performed an experiment that measured our high and low blood pressure when we do physical activities.

The activities that we did were sitting, jogging on the spot, throwing and catching a ball, stretching, star jumps and running as fast as possible on the spot. Each person in the group took turns measuring their pulse rate after doing these activities.

Hauora and Olympians

Good athletes train mentally and physically because both the body and the mind should be strong in order to have balance as an athlete. It's important to celebrate the success that you have earned, however it is just as important to embrace the times where we are less successful. What really makes you stronger mentally and physically is the time you take to learn from losing to learn from your mistakes. When something doesn't go as planned or takes an unexpected turn, it may be frustrating or stressful to fail but you can stay calm and confident. By having belief in yourself and having the support you need from family and friends, you keep yourself motivated to push yourself to success.

Bella and Kqwizan

Being Prepared for Learning

LI: To focus on understanding how to be prepared for school.

For PB4L, we have been focusing on being prepared for school. Prepared means being organized and all set for learning. Ways that we can be prepared and organized for learning is wearing correct unifom, having tidy hair, bringing the proper equipment on the correct days and charging your netbook.

I enjoyed this task but found it simple and easy to complete because we went over being prepared for school and I am familiar with this topic.

My Science Investigation

LI: To perform our own science investigation on the senses of the tongue.

Today for Tech, we were focusing on learning about the different senses of the tongue and our taste buds as well as learning about it in our own science investigation.

We learnt about the main senses of the tongue: sour, sweet, salty and bitter. We went over how they work and what allows our tongue to taste. The experiment we performed was tasting different solutions and determining if they were bitter, sour, sweet or salty depending on our taste buds.

Consideration should be given to the fact that not everyone has the same taste buds. The tiny microscopic hairs on our tongues detect taste and send messages to the brain, so it determines if it tastes sour, sweet, salty and bitter.

I enjoyed this science investigtion experiment session because I learnt about taste buds and the senses of the tongue. One thing I learnt that was interesting was that you have 10,000 different taste buds that reset every 2 weeks or so.

Swiming Lessons #1

LI: To work on and develop our water safety skills in a pool.

Today for swimming at the YMCA pool, we began practicing three different swimming strategies which were the dolphin kick, streamline, duck dive and we also practiced floating on our back and kicking.

First, we did a streamline where we put our arms into the shape of the rocket and with our head under the water, we kick with our arms still in that shape. To dolphin kick, we keep our legs together and kick. To duck dive, we streamline first and then we bob up above the water without touching the ground, then dive to grab a pool ring. Finally, we float on our back and kick by holding our breath.

I found this swimming lesson fun because I was able to practice swimming techniques and learned what I need to improve on next time. Next time I go swimming, I would like to learn how to skull and how to backstroke.

Olympic Torch Route

LI: To use the most efficient strategy to find the answers.

This activity was based around calculating distance and time with the given information to create an efficient route for the Olympics Torch. We have been focusing on completing maths challenges that resemble the olympics. We answered a list of questions (see below) to answer and write about. We created our route and determined the most efficient answers to the questions.

'What is the total distance of your route in kilometers?', 'How many minutes long is the route?', 'How much longer (in terms of time) is the route when passing through another city or other cities along the way compared with the direct journey between the starting city and your final destination?', 'Now you could try and find the longest route (in terms of distance) for visiting all five cities (we might decide we will only visit each city once)', 'What about the shortest route for visiting all five cities?' and 'How much longer does it take to travel the longest route compared to the shortest route?'.

I enjoyed this task because it challenged me to create an interesting and efficient route to the Olympic Torch. One thing I would like to do differently next time is creating multiple routes and comparing them to see which one is longest and shortes in terms of time as well as distance, then being able to answer the questions.

River Safety Brochure

LI: To promote river safety.

This activity focused on keeping ourselves safe in rivers, especially since NZ has many water bodies to offer. On the outside brochure, we talked about and gave information about rivers as well as gave facts about rivers. These facts can keep others safe. On the inside brochure, we talked about the river safety rules, more specifically about how we keep ourselves safe and still have fun. I included river activities that you could do or participate in at rivers.

If the water is shallow, you should not try to dive in as you can be badly injured as result. You should check with an adult to make sure the current of the river is safe to swim in, because sometimes the current is strong and can pull you out to a wider water body. If you are not a confident swimmer, you should always be supervised by an adult or stay near the shallow end.

This task helped me understand more about how to keep myself safe in the river as well as what I should do in case of help.

Thinking Grid

LI: To determine prior knowledge.

For this activity, we answered six questions surrounding water safety and determining our prior knowledge on how to keep ourselves safe in water.  I answered the questions based on what I knew about the topic and eventually researched some information to extend my understanding of water safety and prior knowldge.

Water safety is important because it will help you stay safe in any body of water. It will not only teach you how to swim but how to survive in oceans, rivers, lakes, pools and more.

I enjoyed this task because it was interesting and helpful because I expanded my prior knowledge and found out more information that will help me in the future. Water safety is especially important for NZ kids because there are lots of lakes, rivers, streams and water bodies in our country.

Mindfulness Reflection #1

LI: To practise mindfulness.

Today, we focused on mindfulness and having a peaceful mental well-being. Sometimes, our mind isn’t concentrating well and is doing something called ‘mind wandering’. We calmed ourselves down by using the Pause, Breathe and Smile method.

Mindfulness is calming your body and your mind, focusing on your mental health, focusing on what’s happening right now, removing the negativity from your mind and being mindful of yourself and others. Mindfulness is a way to balance the 4 pillars of your hauora.

Often in a frustrating situation, our mind enters the red zone. The red zone is when we feel angry, anxious, frustrated, irritable, stressed, overly excited, worried, distracted or any other negative emotion that we usually cannot control. We use a mindfulness technique which helps us to be calm, clear, content, balanced, peaceful, relaxed, curious and engaged in what we are doing.

The mindfulness bell is used to clear our mind of any negativity in your mind. The bell is treated like a Taonga because it is a delicate and traditional piece of peacefulness.

This session of mindfulness helped me stay calm and be understanding of my surroundings. I now know how to have a clear mindset is frustrating situations and it is important to know how to control your emotions.

Olympic Measures

LI: To use the most efficient strategy to find the answers.

Our objective of this activity was to search and sort the world records to its correct olympic sporting game. We were given 20 subjects to sort the correct world record of.

I solved this by searching up and looking for the world record of each olympic game and wrote it down, eliminating each olympic sport and I continued. These are the correct world records for each sporting even of the olympics dating back to 2016 and possbly before!

I enjoyed this task because I was able to learn more about the olympics and their world records as well as practice gathering knowledge and using an efficient straregy to find the answer.

Rackets Challenge

LI: To use the most efficient strategy to find an answer.

Our objective for this task was to find out how many 90 degree angles there are on a racket. We used the information we were given to find the answer. There are roughly 250 squares on a racket and four 90 degree angles per square. Therefore there is one thousand 90 degree angles on a racket.

The strategies I used to solve this were multiplication and prior-knowledge or understanding of a piece of text. I enjoyed this task because it was simple to find out the answer, easy to solve and was able to practice my multiplication.