This week we have been focusing on comparing our life today compared to what life was like for us maori in the past.

For example now we have cars and shops to go to for food but in the past the men of the iwi were gone for days getting food.

We’ve also been learning about different maori icons.

Today I read about Billy T James. We read two pages about him. Whilst reading about him I found out quiet a lot of information about him and his life. I learnt that when he had passed it was due to a heart failure. He passed on the 7th of  august 1991 when this had happened he was taken away from his wife and child by his extended whanau. Although He was adopted by Wiri and Ruby Taitoko. His mum gave birth to 12 kids in his family. While reading through the two pages I found out his passions and what school he went to – Whangarei boys high school. I made a fact file and with the article I read there was a whakatauki that went with it. which I did a google draw on.

Heres my work

fact file 

google draw

Do you know Billy T James?

Thanks for reading my blog.

Every Thursday we go to tech on the bus. We go to Te Aratai college for tech. On my bus I go with my friends Ruby and Paige because were in the same group. The subjects we have at tech are cooking,sewing, coding and robotics. My ropu has already done cooking we are now in coding. In coding we make video games where we have to code different blocks or characters to move around. Most people in my class code their game around finding a object to finish the game. My favorite part of coding is challenges because we get a reward after. my least favorite on the other hand is finishing the video games because I’m terrible at games. The learning is fun though I like learning new codes and how to make them. Although coding is very difficult I still like it. If you’re a year 6. What are you most looking forward to next year?

This Monday a guy named Jeff from get wise came and taught us about money finances. He told us to get into groups 3 or 4 for a game. In the game we were gonna be living on a different planet. On the planet the currency was solar dollars and the point was to spend only what you needed, each group got 160 solar dollars to spend on shoes, a map and gift for the alien family we would be staying with. we got three options in each shop cheap, average and expensive. My group saved our money in the first two shops by buying the cheapest gift and pair of shoes. Then we brought the most expensive map to guide us easily threw the planet. I liked actually thinking about what option to pick.  What would you have picked would you have spent all of your money or saved it?

He did come on Tuesday but I wasn’t here. thanks for reading my blog.

Today in science we learnt about Isaac’s law of gravity. we put a ping pong ball in a cup and the point of it was to get the ping pong off the ground. The ping pong ball didn’t get off the ground because it was to light. We did other experiments like seeing which ball out of a rubber dodge ball, soccer ball, basketball,soft ball, ping pong ball and rugby ball could get the highest. To nobody’s surprise the dodge ball went the highest.

over all it was very interesting and fun.

Yesterday my group went to Harold the giraffe’s life education session. It was really fun we talked about different ways of bulling and peer pressure. Some examples are threats, black mail, bribing, reasoning. It all made sense.We watched a clip of some kids going to the dairy and this one girl Vi was forced to steal from the shop by this girl named Grace.Grace had black mailed and Peer Pressured Vi into stealing other wise she wasn’t aloud to be there friends.There were two scenes good and bad the good scene was where  she refused to participate into stealing,The other clip she did participate into stealing and that was just devastating.

I’ve peer pressured somebody before to buy me a food with there own money and they did, Then I felt really guilty and decided to give it back and let them eat it them self.

over all I loved it and cant wait to go next session.

What is peer pressure? good question. People think that peer pressure is always bad but that’s not true. peer pressure can be good and bad. Some examples of good peer pressure is pressuring your friend to Finnish the mahi so you can go to break. Although a bad example of peer pressure would be pressuring someone to steal or sneak out.

since its Christmas season whaea jasmine taught us some Maori sentences  that we can use on Christmas day which is very useful. we had to make a slide deck here’s my work. HERE

My favorite sentence was meri kirihimete ki a koutou ki te whanau which means Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Yesterday we did learning with Manija and Tehharau from otago university  We mainly focused on learning about the importance of Tīkouka and Harakeke. They taught as about how our tupuna used Harakeke and Tīkouka our tupuna used these Natural resources for shoes, rain coats, shin guards, and food (the sugar from the Tīkouka). We tested how strong muka is It really shocked me because it could hold a 28kg bucket of water and weights. Another thing we learn to do was respect both of these fascinating plants by treating them with kindness and saying a karakia before cutting them. We learnt how to make a little mini solar panel with glass, a pencil (colored in the glass with it), cables and a little box that tracks the electricity. My favorite part of the lessons was probably when we went outside and the solar panels electricity went really high. Thank you so much I hope u enjoyed reading my blog.

Today we had C.R.T team. I was with whaea Caroline she showed my group how to make a papel picado. A papel picado is a type of art from the Mexican culture for when its the day of the dead. The Spanish people make them for the day of the dead we also did a slide here my link HERE here’s my work

Yesterday we drafted a persuasive writing piece about why we think recycling should or should not be compulsory. I thought it should be compulsory because of how bad climate change is. here is my work HERE .

We learnt to put opinion sentence starters in our writing such as I feel, I think, I prefer, I know, I believe and in my opinion. One of these sentence starters I used was I believe that and in my opinion.

I love writing but I never know what to write so the persuasive writing is really fun to me.