Category: Hanga | Create

Recently Te Ngahere has been reading a text about possums and how they are harmful to our environment. I learnt many things like how they were introduced to New Zealand and how they harm our forests. For our creative activity we had to make a video on possums. I paired up with Bernadette and we did a great job. One thing that I really enjoyed was adding the silly pictures. Next time I think we should have watched the video again before downloading it to make sure there are no mistakes. Here is my video: 

In Te Ngahere we have been learning about the ngahere ecosystem. We learned about producers, consumers, decomposers, ect. Our create activity was to recreate the ngahere using Minecraft and I partnered with Christina. 

To show our decomposers we had worms, and mushrooms. For our consumers we had, bell birds, slivereye, kiwis, and a weka. We also showed seed dispersal by having a silver eye pooping after eating berries off a tree. To show mutualism we had a birds nest in a tree and a bird doing seed dispersal. 

The biggest challenge was building the birds because they needed the most details. In the end we solved the problem by getting an example of a minecraft bird and modifying it to the birds we want. Out of everything we built, I am the most proud of the birds. 

Hope you learn something about the ngahere from my video. Here is the video:

Recently in Te Ngahere, we had our own movie showcase to see which one will be sent to the Paihia School film festival. From there we’ll pick 3 movies that will be sent to the actual Film Festival. The topic this year was taonga. My movie was about two siblings going to the museum and having so go through a course of challenges because they stole a taonga.

There were many challenges that we had to overcome. One of them was that a couple of my group members were sick. Another challenge was having to share the green screen area with other people, since we had most of our scenes were there. A really big problem that we encountered was that our words kept getting cut, so that cause us to refilm a lot. In the end, we did solve all of the problems. 

My group worked well together, because we were in the same group last year. There were times where they were being silly. My group did well at saying our lines cleary. One thing my group could of done better was making the story more understandable because we kinda rushed through it. Therefore we didn’t think it through very well. 

My advice for next years film makers are not to use too much greens screen as it can be hard to find a good background. If you are, then make sure to think about your shots so your background match. Another piece of advice is to give it a second before you start saying your lines so your words don’t get cut.

Here is my movie:

Today for E-Symposium, Tautoro School taught us how to make mosaic art on google drawings. I learned the process of making a mosaic art on google drawing. In Te Ngahere we actually have some mosaic art on the wall from past students, and I’ve always been curious on how they did it. I enjoyed colouring in the art, because that’s when you bring your art into life. It was different choosing what to do a mosaic art of. I would definitely use this if I am making a poster. I think it would make the poster eye catching. The presenters examples helped me get an idea of what we’re aiming for. If I was running this toolkit I wouldn’t change anything.

Here is my art so far:

Today for E-Symposium we were taught how to use the ai art on Canva to illustrate our writing. I discovered the magic media tool Canva was actually pretty useful. I had heard about it before but never took the time to check it out. The part I enjoyed the most was checking out the different styles the ai provided. This tool might be helpful for when I’m making a comic or animation. The presenters helped me learn where the graphics button was for choosing different art styles. If I was running this toolkit I might of provided or given them some time to grab a piece of writing. 

I learned how to customize the sprites. For example, I learned how to change the colour of the sprites. 

It was really fun playing around with the coding blocks. 

A challenge for me was finding the coding blocks that I needed. 

This tool might be helpful if you ever wanted to make a game or animation. 

The presenters helped me with a refresh of everyone on scratch that I forgot about. 

If I was running this toolkit I wouldn’t change anything. 

Recently we started a writing wall. Its where we choose a piece of writing that we’re proud of and decorate it to put on the wall. For my writing I chose my most recent one, which is a moment in time writing about a math test and how nervous I was. I chose that as my favourite because it’s a piece of writing that I enjoyed the most and the descriptive writing Idid. 

The part that I enjoyed the most was decorating it. Next time I would check what size I need to make my poster because I made it two sizes too big so I had to redo the whole thing. Here is my writing, have you ever been in a situation like me? 

For the last few weeks we have been working on a create activity. The create is about us being a volcanologist and on a special mission to a dormant volcano that started show signs of eruption. Our challenge is to create a vehicle or safety gear that would protect us. 

I partnered up with Raaken for the challenge. We decided to create a vehicle, and we based our design off of a hummer. We chose some high heat resistant metal for the car. The part that I enjoyed the most are conversations with my buddy talking about the flaws of ideas and materials. The most challenging bit had to be the how creative and thorough you needed to be when making the vehicle. 

Here is the image that will explain more about it: 

This week Te Ngahere learnt about the new school lunches programmed that started this year. We watched a documentary about the new school lunches and how everyone thinks about them. 

We found out some shocking facts about school lunches: most of the lunches we’re receiving doesn’t meet the nutritional requirements a child needs per meal. Also, the lunches has a lot of additives that are not good for a human body. Lastly, the amount of waste in the pig buckets in schools have doubled.

After that, everyone made a poster about the school lunches. I personally made mine about how the school lunches (including shipping) are $3. Meanwhile, everywhere else in the worlds budget is $6 per lunch. I used Canva and chose bright colours for the words. For the lunch, I tried to make it as close to the normal lunches as possible. 

Here is my poster:

Recently, in Te Ngahere we did The Great Marble Challenge Take #2. Just like what’s said in the title, this time it was a redo of the challenge. If you didn’t know already The Great Marble Challenge is when groups design a ramp for a marble to roll down. The goal is to get the marble to stop at exactly 110 cm. Every ramp gets ten tries to hit 110 cm. On competition day the group who made their ramp will hand theirs over to another group to operate, while only using written instructions. The ramp group will be unable to communicate or interfere when the ramp is being used on competition day. 

This time we got 21 points in total, and we got one 5 (within 1.1 cm of 110cm). The major change of my groups ramp was the materials that we used. Instead of cardboard and paper, it was changed to sturdier ones. We used a ruler instead of paper towel tubes. It was a really successful change because it prevented the slide from being damaged. 

Something we could’ve done better was our time management. I think we could of evened out the amount of time we spent on the ramp and instructions. I think we could of simplified our instructions, because that lead to the people who tested our ramp overwhelmed and confused. 

One thing I enjoyed the most about the marble run was finding out or witnessing a creative way to remove variables. 

Here is a drawing of my ramp: