My Christmas Narrative!

 Hello! For last week's writing we were writing about a Christmas Narrative.

We all based our stories off a short video we watched about a banana named Aldi. He was portrayed as a character who hated Christmas, and one night the spirit of Christmas came to visit him, trying to get Aldi to see Christmas in his eyes. 

So for our task we wrote our plan in our books as usual, then wrote down our stories, used our plan and made sure to include describing the setting for the introduction and describing the character. After that we published our stories into a Christmas-themed slide, heres mine!

Why Games Aren't Bad For You!

Every year, in term 3 we have speeches where we write our topic we have to discuss, for today my topic was about 'Why games aren't bad for you at all!'

We presented our speeches in class last week, and yesterday students from the senior syndicate were selected to compete in the semi-finals. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them, although I was very impressed by the other students! Here's my speech. 

Why games aren't bad for you

I know that most of you have most definitely played video games before! Have you ever heard from other people of how video games or other types of games promote violence, and how it can increase aggression in thoughts, behavior, and feelings? If you are me, then you would agree with the questions above. Today, in my speech, I will explain why I strongly believe that games aren't bad for you. Firstly, video games can actually help you! Some games can actually improve hand-eye coordination, problem-solving skills, and the ability to process information. Another example of the kinds of games that can help you are arcade games, it improves reflexes and muscle memory, playing arcade games reduces stress and depression. How is this possible? Studies have found that people who play games that suffer from mental health issues actually have shown improvement in their condition after venting their frustrations through gaming! Some games actually improve people's moods and promote relaxation! Secondly, some games can actually benefit educational learning! An example is Scratch, it is a platform that can help with programming your own interactive stories, coding games, and more. You can also share your creations online for others to see! Some types of online games that are also helpful with learning are Prodigy. Prodigy is a game which teaches you mathematics, and helps you solve or answer different maths questions. This combines maths from grades 1-8 into a fantasy style game! This game is a gamification type, which adds game mechanics to something which is non-game!

Lastly, games don't affect a child's performance in school or a child's intelligence! The pure fact that people say how games rot your brain is outrageous! A study by McDermott et al proved that people who play video games are excellent at maintaining many memories and higher accuracy in visual spatial working memory, this is a kind of a visual representation. This allows people to visualize something and keep it in their "mind's eye". Another study says children who play games tend to do better at science, maths, and reading tests. 

For these reasons, parents need to reconsider thinking that games aren't bad at all. Thank you for listening to my speech.

What is Compost?

What is it?

Have you used compost for anything before? Compost is used as fertilizer for plants, like fruit trees, flowers, trees, shrubs, and other plants. It replaces used/removed nutrients used during the growing season, and improves soil structure.

How is compost made?
The fertilizer is made out of decomposing plants and food waste, cow dung, and other animal waste, grass clippings, twigs, branches, and dead leaves. All of these are collected and put into a pile in your compost bin. Accumulate and add kitchen waste and yard waste. It will take a few months for the compost to decompose and be ready to use, it can take from 3 months to 2 years to fully rot.

The benefits of composting
The benefits of using compost is that it reduces the need for chemical fertilizers which may damage the plants it is used on. It prevents plant diseases and pests that can harm your plants. It recycles yard and kitchen waste, and reduces landfill waste. It provides other key nutrients for your plants like calcium and magnesium, and it improves the ability of soils to hold key nutrients.

Conclusion
In conclusion, compost is a better choice of fertilizer for plants instead of using chemical fertilizers, and it helps the environment. In my opinion more gardeners/people should start using more compost instead of chemical fertilizers to keep your plants/vegetation even more healthier and to help the environment!

My Poetry about My Eyes!

Hello! Last week our focus was on writing poetry about a part of our body. I decided to write about my eyes. I did have trouble making a concept for my poetry, though I did research words that rhyme with a specific word in my piece of writing so the task would be less difficult. As you can see, I made the background colour a gray tone so that the background would match with the picture on the right side.

My learning went well, I loved writing a poem and I learnt a lot from writing one. I'm very proud of myself since I've acquired a new skill which is writing poetry! Have you written a poem before? What was it about? If you can, let me know in the comments!

My Ordinary Bedroom

 Hello! Last week we created a piece of 'Descriptive Writing' about our bedroom, our goal was to paint a picture in the reader's mind, we described what our senses smelled, heard, saw, said, or tasted. The tricky part when it comes to writing something descriptive is that you need to describe what you tasted or smelled, but not physically. Though I feel like I've perfectly mastered how to add those kind of senses into my pieces of writing. Here's my piece:

My Ordinary Bedroom 

The best part about my room is the beautiful view from the window, vibrant colours from the flower garden outside, I most of the time work somewhere else, though I prefer somewhere quiet like my room.

I have a loft bed with a study table and a small wardrobe under, the design is made mostly of wood, In my opinion the design is very lovely and modernized. The bed is located in the top right corner with an awning window at the side. I also have a reed diffuser in my room which makes the scent of the room AMAZING. There's a bean bag where I just lounge around and watch videos online and read books in peace under the natural light coming in.

I seem to always have a messy room, bags plopped down on the bean bag, or a book spread around the study table like a flock of sheep on a field. Though I clean my room from time to time, I do make sure I make my bed and clear my room and keep things organized.

The room wallpaper has a warm cream beige colour, with gold damask design which in my opinion looks astounding. The temperature may go stone cold in the summer but it has a warm comfortable atmosphere in the winter, the fresh lavender scent spreads across the room which makes the fragrance heaven. The room is very silent and still, it makes me feel relaxed and comfortable, the bed is fluffy and soft, the texture of the mattress makes me fall asleep quickly.

Overall, I think my room is my favourite place in my home.

My Recount Writing on Our 2021 Marae Stay!

Good Morning/Afternoon! This week we created a Recount writing on our recent Marae trip, the name of the Marae was 'Takipu Marae'. This took me a week to finish, and we were learning how to: Use specific nouns in our writing. I added photos of our experiences in the trip. Here's my piece: 

Our 2-Day Stay at Takipu Marae

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" The students yelled, I pushed through the inflated stardome. Inside it was dark, with only the projector lighting up the room. All the students from our group, Group 2, settled down on the soft fluff rug. 

Auntie suddenly spoke over the headset, "I'll now play a video for us to watch." The blank screen lit up and flashed hues and animated people from Māori tribes illuminated from the optical device. Auntie continuously explained and reflected the story and the valuables and stratagems the tribes used during travel at sea, their early lives, and traditions.

After the short movie clip, she introduced us to the picture of the start our ancestors used to navigate to their locations, and everyone sang a beautiful tune about the image of the stars she taught us. Next on the exhibit was the best part of the stardome, the projector played overhead a collection of heavenly bodies of stars, I layed down, gazing up. The stars looked like an empty black canvas, with white paint dotted and sprinkled on the frame in a caressed way, I felt a sense of unexplainable joy. The room went quiet and relaxed, inaudible "Oohs" and "Woah!" can be slightly heard. "Look Hannah! It's those stars we saw earlier!" My friend, Seddon exclaimed, pointing up and following where the little sun went. "Oh there it is!" I enthusiastically replied back, spotting the miniature orb.

"We'll have to go now everyone! Say thank you to her for being here with us today." Mrs. Naden announced. Groans and mumbled complaints could be heard from the kids, everyone got up and waved goodbye, I decided to utter my gratitude to Auntie for being able to teach us about fascinating history, "You're welcome, Hannah!" She replied back, the same as before, we counted to five, a student left the stardome, repeatedly until everyone was outside the platform. As we left the Wharekai, I thought to myself "I hope we can do this another time!" as I pull on my shoes for the next activity at Takipu Marae.

Pictures from the Marae stay:

Two Truths and A Lie!

 For writing we created a 3 pieces of recount, to write about what happened or what we did in the holidays. Two needs to be something that happened and 1 needs to be a lie, we planned, wrote into our writing book, and published our pieces in a slide document, this took us 3 weeks to complete though unfortunately my slides was a draft from 4-6 weeks ago, but I'm going to share this with you all anyway. For these 3 weeks, we brainstormed, planned, wrote and published as I said earlier every week until it was done. 

To make our slides even more interesting we thought of good backgrounds, tones, and fonts to match with the theme and mood of the text! 

Here's my slides, can you guess which are the real ones and the fake? Please comment your answers and thoughts, I will gladly reply after!

My Kapa Haka Diamante Poem

For our writing subject we are focusing on exploring "Using Different Language Features" using verbs (doing words), adjectives (words describing nouns), and lastly, nouns (words that name places, people etc.) For this we created a draft of a "Diamante Poem" on paper, after we opened a slide and wrote in words we could think of for our theme "Kapa Haka Festival" 

Using google photos folder, we chose a Kapa Haka photo of our choice. 

Here's mine : 

Explanation Writing - How black holes work

Hello, Goodbye Poem by Hannah

I was inspired by Camille so I did a similar to her, check out her Hello, Goodbye poem, it's really amazing here's the link to her poem:
https://saintmarysgiscamilles.blogspot.com/2020/05/goodbyehello.html#comment-form

Anzac Acrostic Poem

WALHT Add Detail

The Tale of Three Brothers

Today i've been learning about the story of three brothers.
I enjoyed creating the characters.
I found it hard to make the bridge out of a line.
Next time I will change the fonts.