Month: June 2022

Creative Sports Challenge | Kings Court

Over the past week, LS2 has been working collaboratively in groups to create a unique and competitive sport challenge. We did multiple challenges that lead up to the making of our official game, which includes making the mascot, a chant and a costume.

Some things we had to include in our game was safety rules, a scoring system, a list of the equipment we need, a map out of the playing area and we had to make sure to bulletpoint information so it is easy to read.

Our group’s game is called King’s Court and it is a tournament-style dodgeball game. To play, there are 5 groups of 7. Team 1 and Team 2 will verse first. Then Team 3 and 4 will verse while Team 5 rests. Next, teams 3 and 4 will rest while the winner between Team 1 and 2 will verse Team 5. This will continue until the end of the game. At the end, the losing teams will merge and the winning teams will merge. These teams will finally verse.

This activity and task helps us to become familair with using our prior knowledge and apply our thinking to our learning, as well as working collaboratively with a large group of people.

Ancestor Poem

LI: To create a poem that connects with your ancestors, by asking questions.

This week we have been learning about Matariki, and one of the things we have learnt is that reflecting is an important part when celebrating Matariki. A way we reflected was by writing a poem that is addressed to our ancestors. The way that we wrote the poem was by asking 5 questions about their lifetime. The questions that were used had to include powerful words to express the mood in that questions. As an option, we could write the poem in our own language because it shows respect towards their culture. If they were to do this, they would have to have an english version so others can understand. We also needed to draw a picture that relates with a younger person reconnecting with an adult.

I found this activity enjoyable because it expanded my knowledge on Matariki and Mood and Knowledge.

Cinquain Poem

LI: To write a cinquain poem to describe Matariki.

Our challenge today was to write a cinquain poem to help us strengthen our connections to description that describes Matariki. 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. 

What is Matariki?

In groups, LS2 have been exploring and unpacking the importance of Matariki. We used our smart searching skills to create an idea of what Matariki is so that we could explain to other people who might not know what it is.

Matariki is an important celebration because of the meaning and history behind it. Matariki is a cluster made of stars which represent and symbolise the nature of Earth. 

Each star symbolises a different element and concept. For example: Waiti is the star connecting to bodies of freshwater and Waita is the domain of Tangaroa with oceans. 

The Matariki celebration holds a great significance to the early Maori as it was a sign to start harvesting the crops they had previously grown. The Matariki cluster also helped them determine the direction whenever they would travel. The whole concept of Matariki is to bring people together, reflect, celebrate and plan for the future. Reflecting on the past means that you will have a clear understanding of what you can change, keep the same or add. Celebrating is to commend on the present achievements. Planning for the future is to create goals for the future.

I enjoyed this task because it expanded my knowledge on Matariki and how each star represents different elements of the earth. 

Link to the screecastify

Harvesting During Matariki

LI: to look at the significance of harvesting during Matariki.

This coming Friday it is Matariki so our class decided to do challenges based around the nine stars. There were three sets of challenges, Matariki itself or Harvesting or the food preservation process. Our group chose harvesting.

After picking one set of challenges we then created a DLO of any sort but we decided to create an information poster showing the time of harvesting, why was it important to early Maoris, the foods that was harvested, the tools used to harvest and how they were used.

I found this task enjoyable because it expanded my knowledge on how the early Maoris harvested their crops/food back in the day.

Link to the DLO

Exploring Mood and Atmosphere in World War 1

During the past few weeks, all of the reading groups had been exploring mood and atmosphere in different texts relating to World War one.

We identified the sensory imagery, which allowed us to paint a clear picture of what happened in the texts using the 5 senses: Olfactory (smell), Gustatory (tatse), Tactile (feel), Auditory (sound), and Visual which is sight.

The groups also explained the lists of the vocabulary which we didn’t understand in all of the texts we had read. We then later

We then later recorded learning conversations which allowed us to express our opinions about the texts. In this task we needed to make the conversations flow, by telling them weather or not they agree or disagree with each others opinions.

Then we did the vocab, which was about choosing words/phrases in the texts to explain why they said that, and to identify the mood/atmosphere in that certain line. 

After that, we did the mood chart which was rating each event that happened on a scale to 1 to 10. These mood charts were based on Rikihana Carkeek, and Hami Grace’s Diary.

Lastly we did the 10 word challenge, which was filling in the spaces, to create a powerful and strong paragraph explaining what the image was based off with our opinion.

I found this activity really enjoyable because it widened my knowledge of World War One.

Mood and Atmosphere | Language Features

During the past few weeks, all of the reading group has been exploring how the author used the language features to create the mood and atmosphere of the different texts. The task we have completed was language features. We identified these language feature. We identified these language features from a poem called ‘The Soldier Who Never Returned.’ 

Mood is the emotion that you feel when you are reading each line in the text. Atmosphere is the overall feeling of the whole text, 

In our time reading the text, we identified many language features. An example of this is personification, this is when the author gives an object a human like reference. 

We found this activity enjoyable because it expanded my knowledge on language features.

Current Events

This week our current events challenge was to find good news stories. We looked at Kiwi Kids News, Kea Kidz, NZ Herald and Radio NZ to find articles to match the purpose we were searching for. We then created a new map in Google my maps, plotted the event on a map, added the link to the article, added the author’s purpose, an image and sumarised the information.