baba’s Blog

It’s finally the last week of school! My time here at TAI has been great and I have made lots of new friends in my two years here. But in saying that, I cant wait to leave and move on to bigger and better things like Boys High which is just around the corner for me.

Tech Arts:

Tech Arts this year has been really fun. We did cooking first, then music/dance, soft materials, science, hard materials, and finally, art. my favourite Tech Art this year was hard materials. We had to make a prototype  of something that could hole things. I made a scaled down skyscraper that opened up a a cupboard.

English:

This year in English I have learned to write in compound, simple, complex, and compound-complex sentences. I have learned how to create a book trailer and have learned to focus on showing not telling when I write.

Maths:

In maths this year I have learned about alternate, corresponding, and co-interior angles. I have also learned how to find the radius, diameter, and circumference of a circle and how to find the angles of any regular polygon.

PE:

For PE this year we have done cross country, athletics, inter class sports, and various inter house games. Our class came runners up in inter class softball and we won the inter class competition for cross country.

Band:

I joined the band this year and I am really glad I did. Recently we did an alternative program to the Northcross exchange because they canceled for the third year in a row. so we performed for our contributing schools as well as Insoll Avenue Primary. Earlier in the year we went to Totara Springs for band camp and performed with Matamata Intermediate.

The first few weeks of this term have been testy. Literally! We have been doing tests for most of the term now. Thankfully, we are nearly done. Some of the tests we have done are asttle reading, asttle maths, asttle writing, PAT maths, PAT reading vocabulary, and PAT reading comprehension.

This term Nicky Wise and the LIfe Education Trust have been with us. Our class has been doing ‘In The Shadows’, which is teaching us about drugs and what they can do to our bodies and minds.

On Friday afternoon last week, we had our grandparents concert. I was part of the band that played spiderman and latin fire.

This week I have learned:

Maths: I have learned how to find the interior angle sum of any polygon and I learned how to find each interior angle in a regular polygon as well.I have also learned how easy it is to translate shapes. All you have to do is move the shape in the way the vector describes. For example: if the vector is (-5,3) you will move the shape five spaces left and three up. If the vector is (7,-8) you move the shape seven spaces right and eight down. Vectors always use horizontal first and then vertical. Positive numbers are right or up and negative numbers are left or down.

English: I n English we have been revising on ‘Show Not Tell’. this is the process of describing how something is instead of just saying that.

Visual Language: We have started doing an inquiry project on the topic ‘How Prepared Are You?’. We have gotten into groups of 3 and we have to do a poster in our groups about how prepared are we if disaster strikes.

We spent Monday at the tech art block preparing a boil up and doing different activities like carving and flax weaving. Everyone had a special part in preparing the boil up and everyone did their job well. We did this to celebrate Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori, or in English: Maori Language Week.

This week I have learned:

Maths:

In maths this week I have been learning about how to find the unknown angle in a triangle. I have also learned what complementary and supplementary angles are.

English:

In English I have been learning about the different sentence types: simple, compound, complex and compound-complex. I have also been learning about active and passive voice.

This week I have learned how to cancel out numbers when I am multiplying fractions. I have also learned how to convert fractions to decimals and percentages and add fractions with no common denominator. In English I have learned how to write a report using notes and what a topic sentence is. A topic sentence is a sentence at  the beginning or end of a paragraph that lets the reader know what the paragraph is about.

This week we have been learning about topic sentences. I learned that a topic sentence basically summarises what a paragraph is about. For example, if you are writing a paragraph about what an elephant eats, your topic sentence would be something like elephants spend a lot of time eating. Another thing we have been learning is how to punctuate dialogue properly. Doing this, I learned that each new speaker has to go on a new line. For maths we have been learning about fractions and I was reminded about how to add and subtract fractions.

This week was great. I have been on band camp at Totara Springs until Wednesday and I was part of  the Waikato Literacy Quiz on Wednesday night. at Totara Springs I had more fun than I expected which is quite hard to believe as I knew I would have lots of fun there. While I was there I learnt how to play four songs on my saxophone, including Bandroom Boogie and Power Rock. The Lit Quiz was a good experience for me too and I had lots of fun. I also noted down some good books to try while I was there.

This term has been great. I have been in the inter class softball team for us and we got runners up, losing the final by ten to fifteen. I also found that I am doing better in my writing this year because I am taking my time more often and paying more attention to put down detail. I also think that I have made a lot more friends this year and altogether years eight is a lot better than last year. I can’t wait for the other terms.

What I have learned this week:

• The meaning of some words such as rectify
• How to find the product of prime factors using a factorial tree

My goal for next week:

• To finish my book review by Friday. I will achieve my goal by using the time I have and not goofing around.

This week I learned:

• How to play twinkle twinkle little star on the saxophone
• How to divide integers. It is the same as multiplying; if the signs are the same the answer is a positive and if the signs are different the answer is a negative
• How to run a cafe in cooking
• How to make good custard in cooking

Mg goal for next week is:

• Is to start and finish my book review. I will achieve this by using the chances I get to do as much of my book review as I can