Chrome Music Maker

Today we got challenged to blog two activities from the Winter Learning Journey site, I came upon a really cool activite that really hooked me in to do so much more and be more creative and the site was called Chrome Music Lab. What Chrome Music Lab Song maker is a website created by Google that gives a big heap of interactive music samples, designed to make learning about music more accessible and fun. I have had lots of fun with this site and I really think you should give it a try because it is real fun to play with. Here is a song I made to give you a  example of what it sounds and looks like. If you don’t have anything to do in the School Holidays you can use the Winter Learning Journey site that I have linked or do the Summer Learning Journey I hope you fun in the Holidays, Ka Kite.  Winter Learning Journey

Impact of Volcanoes

Our challenge was to research the impact of a specific volcanic eruption in Aotearoa. We could choose from Mt Tarawera or Whakaari. Me and my partner chose Whakaari, one thing we found out was 70 percent of its bottom is fully submerged deep underneath the sea. I found this task really fun because we got to learn more about how lethal and terminal the Whakaari volcano is.

Volcano Poem

  • We have been exploring cinquain poems. A cinquain poem. A cinquain poem has 5 lines. Each line has a different purpose. Line 1 is a noun which is a name. Line 2 has 2 adjectives that describe the noun. Line 3 has 3 verbs that end in ‘ing’ and describe the actions. Line 4 is a noun phrase which is a group of words (not a sentence) that go together to describe the noun. Line 5 is a synonym which is a word with a similar meaning to the noun. 
  • We used our poem to show our understanding of volcanoes.
  • Something I found interesting about this was we could make powerful description to make our poems sound better.

Word Problems DLO

This term for Maths Group 4 made a DLO about Word Problems, I liked how we started to help one another to use the right strategies in order to get the correct answers, the one thing that I loved and enjoyed about the Maths DLO was us collabrorating together to make something the represents Group 4’s book work.   

Why Maungarei Sleeps – Porquoi story

It is told that long ago, before Maori ancestors set foot on New Zealand there was a mountain named Maungarei the Troublemaker, she was a little mountain and she was naughty and horrible. She would make other Maunga around her erupt and would cause the other Maunga to cry out lava because of her silly and crazy behavior. Now her whanau found out she was uncontrollable then they were furious and were scared of her, making them feel petrified and sad they couldn’t do anything. All they could do was just sit there and watch the environment change with the gases shooting into the air. 

People on the land were not safe they thought they were a threat to Maungarei. But Maungarei she had caused a lot of trouble and she couldn’t control herself. It was like her brain couldn’t work anymore and her behavior was getting out of hand. 

All of the maunga couldn’t stand seeing the other Maunga’s volcanic heart go broken which would cause them to explode and would change the environment with dioxides filling the air making people around the mountain getting injuries which would also make people pay for the damages but Maungarei never knew she had to change someday. 

Days later Maungarei’s Koro came to speak with her and he asked her “Moko you have to change this behavior. “It has caused a lot of damage to Tamaki Makaurau and even beyond the pacific ocean” Koro said. 

“But it is fun, have you seen how cool it is to see other Maunga explode” Maungarei replied. 

“Moko please your behavior has caused too much and now you need to settle down and be quiet as a mouse and don’t cause trouble anymore ok moko, Ka pai” Koro said. 

“Yes Koro,” Maungarei replied. 

Soon Maungarei had started to apologize to all the Maunga around her and started to close her eyes while saying goodbye as she peacefully went dormant. It went peaceful and the people that lived around Maungarei lived in harmony and were not aware of Maungarei anymore, their environment started changing everyday and the environment suddenly filled the air with happiness and joy, making Maungarei and the people live in peace. Maungarei’s Volcanic heart is still in her but she has put it to rest and till this day she has not been forgotten yet.

Volcano Animation

This term we had a challenge to make a animation of how a volcano erupts, if you are wondering what a volcano is, is that it is a landform or a vent of the earths crust. There are 4 layers in the earth Mantle, Outer core, Inner core and the Earths crust, the features that the volcano has is the Crater, Main vent, Secondary vent and the Magma chamber where it stores all the lava and magma. How it explodes is that there are these objects under the volcano which makes it erupt and they are called tectonic plates. They first collide together and pressure builds up and then soon reaches the crater and explodes some of the lava comes out of the secondary vents which makes it go everywhere with dioxides going up into the air which makes the air not very good to breathe in.   

Diary Video

Today we have been looking at the events that took place at ANZAC Cove on 25 April 1915, during WW1. Many of our NZ soldiers were wounded or killed in action. We looked at videos of life in the trenches, explored the Walking with ANZACs site and read Hami Grace’s diary. Doing this helped us put our own diary entries together.

We used Google Vids to record our diary entries. I enjoyed using this as it allowed me to learn more things.

Something I found interesting about this task was we could add music in the background.

 

Time Traveler’s Podcast ft Samuel Marsden

For Literacy we have been doing Inquiry and what had to make was a podcast script to do a podcast, we had to write questions that we might have asked Reverend Samuel Marsden when he went across the Tamaki River. This was a great activity because we got to take turns  being Samuel Marsden and we also got to Express ourselves while recording. One thing I think I learned today is that you get to bond with more people when you’re with them, and that’s what makes it more joyful and fun.

 

Dot to Dot Connections

Last week, we got to make a Dot to Dot connection if you do not know what Dot to Dot connection is it is when you put 7 dots anywhere on a google drawing and put words that mean about something and you put a line and connect it to another dot that has a word under it and you got to write something on the line with both words in the text here is an example. What I got to do here is do a Dot to Dot connections with special words that have a meaning to the Marathon bird which is Bar Tailed – Godwit the Māori name for it is Kuaka. One interesting fact I found out about the Kuaka bird is that it was brid of the year in 2015 because on how far it flew from New Zealand to Alaska with 11,000 to 13,000km.

Kuaka Bird – Bar Tailed – Godwit DLO

Today our teachers gave us a challenge to make a DLO about the Kuaka bird which has another name for it which is called the Bar Tailed Godwit. This big bird is probably unknown to people, but this is a marathon bird what I mean by this, is that this bird flys really far non-stop which gives them the world record to fly from New Zealand to Alaska non-stop. How there body system works is they eat so much food until they bulk up until they grow big and then they are ready to fly but they have to wait for the other Kuaka birds to finish up eating so they can fly but how they search for there food is quite simple. They fly in circles around in the air to scan or navigate for there food like molluscs, worms and even aquatic insects that are in the shallow water. After they have had there feast they lift there wings in the sky and start scanning where there location is which is another word for navigation, while they fly they burn the food in there stomach and it makes them stronger so that makes them fly longer, when they get tired, there is a phenomenon where Kuakas do this, it is called a unihemispheric sleep which is where the Kuaka bird goes half its brain turns off and the other one stays on and they switch over and repeat the process  until they arrive in Alaska and they just do the same thing again and migrate back to New Zealand with 11,000 to 13,000km under a week.