Order Of Operations

Today's maths session was spent revising and teaching people about BEDMAS or BODMAS. It stands for: brackets, exponents, division, multiplications, addition, and subtraction. I worked with Jeremiah and Ofa For this activity we were asked to choose three of the questions that we answered to explain how we got our answers. We have chosen questions that require us to abide by the BEDMAS rules. On our DLO there is an answer sheet that will give you the answers to the other questions. Also an explanation explaining how we got our answers.

SHOUTYKID: How Harry Riddles Got Nearly Almost Famous

For the past two weeks in reading we have been doing a book study on a book of our choice. I chose to do SHOUTYKID: How Harry Riddles Almost Nearly Got Famous. The reason that I chose this book is because he is a lot like me and on the first page it says that if you like The Diary Of The Wimpy Kid and Tom Gates series you are definitely going to like this. Throughout the three week I have really enjoyed doing this because I have learnt so many new things that I did not know before.

Spaghetti Bridge Testing

For the past two weeks for inquiry we have been making bridges out of spaghetti. We only had limited amount of supplies. Towards finishing our bridges there was not that much rubber bands left, so we had to improvise and use strings. Once we were finished, it was time to test them. We attached as many bricks as possible until it broke. The span of our bridge was 26.5cm and it was able to hold five bricks. I think we could have made our bridge a bit wider.  For this task I worked with Carl, Joseph and Alexander. At the end Jack and Sanujan's group did the best because their bridge was able to hold 6 bricks.

Presenting Our Overall Review

Today for reading, we in our READ groups presented the DLO's we had created about our book that we had chosen for our reviews. In my READ group (The E in READ) I presented to Sanujan, Fui, Jericho and Mele. They had a lot to say about my work, although everything they had said was on a positive note. They enjoyed the comics I drew. I had a lot of fun showing my work, and having them see what I had been working on for the last 3 weeks. If you would like to see my work in general, then you can look through my blog to check it out.

Special Duffy Assembly

Today, we had an unusual day. That's because we had our term 3 Duffy Assembly. Like normal, we had our special guests. Although today's guest was none other than comic book legend, Michel Mulipola. You may not of heard of this artist, although you should most defiantly see what he does. He came here to tell his life story, and what he does as a career. He explained about his personal life, and what he likes doing outside of illustrating. We even found that he is a professional wrestler that is a semi-professional gamer in the gaming franchise Tekken. Although that was not the main reason as to why he was here. He was here to tell his story of reading, and give us our Duffy Books. We all thank him for what he had done today, and we hope he'll return

Why Are Bridges Built? - Explanation

Why Are Bridges Built?

This isn’t about tunnels, nor is it about towers, but instead bridges. We cross many of them everyday. But have you ever thought about why we have bridges? It's a question we don’t really think about, and don’t necessarily know the answer too.

First of all, why are bridges built? These wonderful structures help us connect in many ways with different people and places. Bridges are built to carry traffic from obstructed places where you can’t build a road, (for example over rivers and lakes). They provide a pathway from two separate locations, and allow you to pass by the things that obstruct your routine.

Secondly bridges are constructed out of many different materials such as: iron, stone, wood, concrete and plastic. So there are many different types of bridges at different strength levels. Bridges made out of wood is the least strongest among the rest of the materials and steel would be the strongest. So more people would use steel as opposed to wood.

Lastly, what would we do without bridges? If we had no bridges we would have not be able to go over lakes, rivers and large ponds. We would need to use helicopters, boats, airplanes and subways. For example; back in 1857 before the Panmure Bridge was built, people used a small floating platform called a punt. This was not very stable, it would usually leak and it needed a lot of repairs. The people were really frustrated and it influenced them to write a petition to build the a bridge over the Tamaki River.

Bridges, bulky brilliant structures all around us. We cross many of them everyday, when we are going to school, work or shopping. This why we need bridges, without them it would not be same, and we would not we able to go to places as easy as we can today.

_________________________________________________________________

This week for writing we have been looking at explanation. Since our topic for inquiry is structures we were to write our explanation about why are bridges built? In our explanation we were not aloud to use a rhetorical question as our hook because we have used it a lot in the past. So I chose to do my hook as what its not. We also needed to have a colon and a semi colon in our piece of writing. I learnt that back in 1857 before the Panmure Bridge was built, people used a small floating platform called a punt.

HIIT - Final Week

For the past 15 weeks LS2 has been apart of an Auckland University research program. This program is called HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). We have been doing this twice a week for 15 weeks. At the start of the program we were getting puffed a lot faster than we are today: due to the lack of exercise. Now that we have been doing HIIT for a long time we are much fitter and we aren't getting puffed as fast as we used to.  I have really enjoyed doing HIIT because it helped me become fitter and I have also learnt a new way to exercise. The exercise that I did not enjoy doing was push ups because my arms would really hurt and I just don't like doing push ups in general. The exercise that really enjoyed doing was star jumps because it's one of the easier exercises. I really hope I can do even more HIIT in the future because it has really helped me and a lot of other people to become a lot fitter than we were before. 

Exponents / Powers

Today for maths, we all learnt about how to solve exponent (Powers) problems. Our challenge for today was to solve 18 problems based on our topic of exponents. This task had its ups and downs, although we all managed to find the answers and solutions. Next came creating a DLO that showed how to solve three different problems of the 18. To create this DLO I worked with Jack, and we had a lot of fun working, and creating together. In the end, we chose to make our DLO out of these problems. 73 (7 to the power of 3), 142 (14 to the power of 2), and 83 (8 to the power of 3).

Kiwi Kaper Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra

Today a majority of students from Panmure Bridge School, was lucky enough to get to see a live Orchestra performance at the Auckland Town Hall by the Kiwi Kapers Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra. There were 3 pieces of music performances. There were also different sections such as the brass, woodwind, string and percussion. After the music their was Auckland dance project by Saint Kentigern and Ngatapawae. I found the music and dance performance really cool, and I would definitely want to come again another time.  

VR Research

For inquiry this term our topic has been structures. Today, a group of researchers from the Augmented human lab at the University of Auckland, visited our classroom to use virtual reality to teach us about the history of our local Panmure Bridge. Yvonne, and her team brought with them numerous VR Cardboard's, and a few Magic Windows. Although sadly not everyone got to experience everything, but before any of us got to jump into the wonders of virtual reality we all had to do a few tests. These tests involved tests for our eyesight, our balance, and more. One of the tests in particular was based around our knowledge. We had to (Without researching) answer a few questions based around our Panmure Bridge. Although we did not work alone. Everyone had been put into table groups, and we would work together to solve problems, and dive into the depths of Virtual learning. Right after we finished our tests, we finally got into the land of virtual reality. My group started off by using a few iPads to learn about both how the construction of the bridge went, and how letters were sent before the bridge existed. This activity lasted for at least 10 minutes, and involved a whole lot of entertainment. Once completed, we would then revisit the tests that we had done before, and would redo it now that our brains had been refreshed with knowledge. We all had a lot of fun doing these exercises based around the technology of virtual reality. I give a big thanks to Yvonne and her team for the effort they had put into this. They have all done a good job, and I hope that one day they will return.

Sentence Using Colons

Today for writing, we had a challenge to complete. The challenge was to place colons into sentences that were missing them. Your job was to place them into the correct spots. Although a lot of people do not know how to correctly use these pieces of punctuation. So what Miss Kirkpatrick kindly did was link a video that described how they work. An example would be: I love watching superhero movies: Superman is the best. Once we had completed this challenge, we had a follow up task. Our follow up task was to illustrate one of the many sentences we had to fill in. We all had half an hour to draw any image that resembled the sentence we chose. Along with this image, we also had to come up with an explanation explaining why the colon was where is was. This was a fun challenge to complete. Although there were some parts that stumped me, I worked my way through it. I do hope that we can get another exciting task next week for writing. 

Sensory Verbs

Today for writing we were learning about sensory verbs. Our task was to go on a site and complete the examples of sensory verbs.  I found this task quite easy because I already knew what they were. Next time if we do a task that's linked to sensory verbs I would like it to be harder so it can make me think more.