For the last couple of weeks we have been working on a story book to share with the younger kids at my school. My books name is the Captivating Journey of Cornelius Camel and it is about a masked hero who gives corn to the homeless. I started making my book by making my characters, there is only 2 main characters, their names are Cornelius Camel and Fergus the Fly, Fergus fights in a mech suit with a TV on the mech suits chest. I then started making the book, I drew all of the pictures and I took a picture of them and put them into book creator.

I really loved making this book and I want to do it again sometimes, this was really fun.

Have you ever written a children’s book?

Yesterday for art we were working on an art piece based of a new Zealand artist named Flox. We had a criteria to go by when making this art, the criteria was to have a gradient background using a color palate grid to figure out what colors we would use. Then we had to make a repeating pattern with shapes, the color of these shapes had to compliment the background color. Then we had to add two types of plants and 1-2 birds. We then would watch a video which had instructions that were easy to follow.

This is my art.

I had a lot of fun making this and I would do it again. I felt like I had a lot of control for what I could put on the art.

Have you ever done art like this?

This term in maths we have been learning more about Algebra, specifically about patterns and rules. We are usually given a visual representation of a pattern with 3 stages, then we have to use the information given to us to write a rule and figure out more of the positions, we usually also make a table to help us.Yesterday for our independent maths task we were told to make our own rule and put it on a slide to figure it out.

As you can see my pattern grows in 4 every time so the recursive is x4. Then do 1 x 4 which make 4 but to get to the 3 of the first position you have to minus 1 which will make the rule 4p-1 and this rule works for all of them, like for position 2 you do 2 x 4 which is 8 and then 8-1 which is 7.

I find algebra very fun and challenging, I would like to continue my learning about algebra but we always have to learn about more things.

Have you ever figured out a rule?

This term for reading we have been doing a novel study. There were two options Whale Rider and Holes. Whale Rider is a New Zealand mythological story and Holes is a mystery story. After watching the trailers for both films based on the books I ultimately chose Holes. We started reading the novel a couple weeks ago and we are on chapter 31. The story so far starts with a rundown on Camp Green Lake. We learn that the lake is now barren and dried up after a massive drought 100 years ago. Then we get introduced to our main character, Stanley Yelnats. He had a run in with a pair of shoes, which ended up with him in handcuffs. He gets a choice to either go to jail or Camp Green Lake. He picks the camp.

When he gets to the camp he is instantly surprised because there was no lake. He is given a task every day of digging a 5 foot wide and 5 foot deep hole. We keep following his story and learning more about his and other peoples history, like his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. We keep uncovering more mysterys and that is all we have read up to.

I have really enjoyed reading this and I am excited for the rest of the story.

Have you ever read Holes?

This Week on Wednesday we had a school wide Olympics day, to start the day off we had a visit from New Zealand gold medalist on high jump, Hamish Kerr. He told us about his experience with the Olympics and how he got to be a Gold Medalist, some of his stories were abut his early life but most of them were from his time competing professionally at the Olympics, I even got to hold his gold medal! After this cool surprise the people who were going to play created a flag for their country, while most of the year 8s (like me) set up their station. Some of the stations were, gumboot throw, sack race, pickle ball, dodge ball and parachute, which me, Christian and James hosted.

The parachute is a big multicolored parachute with handles on the side, and you can play games on it, for example yo could play the game where you get the ball to shoot up into the air. This one was very successful because it entertained everyone their they loved it. Another game that we did was the crocodile game, which is basically duck duck goose but under the parachute.We did these games and more with many other classes and the day was very fun. I liked how we also got to participate with the people and how involved our station was.

Did you do anything special at school for the Olympics?

This week continued further into our learning of the Olympics, this week we learned all about events. Our task was to add a new sport to the Olympics and why it should be played. I chose pool because it is a sport that many people play which means a lot of people will watch and it has a straight forward scoring system. The only problem is that the games can end very quickly if you hit the 8-ball into the hole before getting the other balls. I do think the sport will be popular because it is also very intense with how you don´t know if the ball will go in. I think pool also will fit in with sports like table tennis, I think that it will work similar to other sports with how the competition works, it will have a quarter final then a semi final and then a final. I then had to make a poster about how the game works and how to play it.

This is my poster

Pool is a very cool sport and I hope that someday it gets added to the Olympics.

Do you know how to play pool?

This week in reading we continued from our last weeks reading but instead of learning about the ancient Olympics, we learnt about the modern Olympics. I learnt that the modern Olympics was started by a man name Pierre de Coubertin, who thought that a big sports event might bring people together and give them peace, to achieve this dream he found the International Olympics Committee or IOC. The first modern Olympics started in 1896 and he made some changes, first he got rid of Pankration and added new sports like, fencing or shooting. For our first task we had to answer questions about the Olympics and talk about some integral Olympics, I did the first modern Olympics and 1900 Olympics of Paris, which was the first Olympics to let women compete.

Click on the image to go to the slide.

For the actual task we had to do a timetable of some of the Olympics and why they were important. Some of the Olympics I did was Tokyo 1964 because of their technological enhancements and the 1924 Champion, France Olympics because it was the first winter Olympics.

Do you know a lot about the modern Olympics?

This week for reading we were learning the Olympics, more specifically the ancient Olympics. We learned a lot of things some of these include, that all of the contestants were naked during the games, also that only Greek men were allowed to compete. We are learning all about the Olympics because of the recent starting of the Paris Olympics. Our task was too go through a slide deck and read articles and answer questions, but before we start that we had to write what we notice and what we wonder about an image to do with the ancient Olympics and the sports that they used to play. The first article was  about the overall origin of the Olympics, I found out that there was a sacred truce that they all agreed too, this truce made all wars pause so people could have peace while watching the games. The second article is about the athletes, I learned that the athletes used to use a bag with oil and a sponge to clean. We read one more article but I want to tell you about the actual create, for the create we had to imagine that we were at the games, then we had to write down what all the 5 senses would be in a short story.

Do you know anything about the ancient Olympic games?

On Tuesday last week me and some of my class went on a trip to the Sumner sand dunes. We learned about how the sand dunes help our planet, what threatened them, what wildlife is there and what we can do to save it. After the long trip we got there and we got guided to the dunes by a lady from the city council, she told us a little bit about what sand dunes are. Sand dunes are big build ups of sand making a makeshift mountain, the sand comes down because of wind and because of lakes. After this she sent us to do a task.

Our task was to build a mini sand dune with a group of four, we had 20 minutes to make this,  then she told us a story about how one time the people who live by the beach wanted to see the beach sunrise in the mornings but the sand dunes were blocking it. They asked the council if they could take down the dunes, the council did not want this but to make people happy they took down a bit of the dune in front of a house so they could see the sunrise. It was all going well until they noticed that the sand had been building up in their roof, they found this out by the roof collapsing because of the weight of all the sand.

Later the teacher tought us about the wildlife who live in the sand dunes, some of these creatures are the katapo spider, the sand hopper, all of the different types of seagull and even some grubs, we had lunch after this. Then we learned about the threats of the sand dunes, all of the threats were, people running on the dunes, dogs running on the dunes and the king tide, the king tide is basically a mega tide where the water rises really high and it can destroy the dunes. As a demonstration we ran our fingers across our dunes to simulate the rugby players who ran on the dunes while training for the world cup.

Then we were told to rebuild our dunes and add stuff to help it, we added wood bridges and fences so people would not walk on our dunes. After this we were supposed to be judged and have on of us be the winner but then it started raining and we had to leave prematurely.

What do you know about sand dunes?

For RE we have been learning about Laudato Si, Laudato Si is a message from Pope Francis to the whole world. This letter is talking about the state of our world and how we can change it. There was three options for the task but you had to pick one, I picked the create where you make a poster advertising saving the planet. For my poster I wanted to talk about recycling, I used the saying “reduce, reuse, recycle” to talk about our problem with rubbish on this planet. I made a bin using the shapes in google drawings and I put the recycling logo on it. I then also put earth as the background showing that if we dont do this our earth will continue to decay.

This is my work.

Do you know about Laudato Si?