Travis Wetlands Blogging Post.

On Monday the 30th of November the form classes 9my, 9st and 9dn went on a trip to Travis Wetland. 

We got onto a bus and set off to Travis Wetland. Once we got to Travis Wetland we stopped at the bench to divide into groups so we don't all bunch up. My group were with Mrs. Saunders and Dr. Borella aswell as Mrs. Mason. We first stopped at the bridge looking over to see some eels and ducks swimming across the water, Swans were resting on the bank and the harakeke was draping over for the native birds to come harvest. 

We had 15 stops to go to and we made it through looking at the scenery and the beautiful native plants and tress. The many houses guarded by a fence because some had predators to the native birds such as, cats and dogs. New buildings and houses were built since the last time the teachers went and it was an interesting experience. 

Once we stopped at number 11 we decided to have a rest and have some snacks to energize ourselves up again than afterwards we set on our walk again. The rain started to pour as our walk was nearly over and we hurried to the shelter but luckily some people brought their umbrellas so we were guarded from the rain for some time. 

I learned new things about what the native birds and animals eat and where they find their shelter from predators. I learnt that the wetlands was a place filled with all different species and animals. Harakeke and different plants were all around the place and workers cleaning out all the clutter in the fishes and birds habitats. 

By the end the teachers made the decision to call it off early otherwise we have been very sick and drenched in the cold. Mr. Carter had some peanuts that he gave to some people while we were waiting for the bus to arrive and once it did we all rushed onto the bus into the warmth of the bus. 

While on our trip home we began to recognize that this wasn't the way to our school infact the bus driver had drove us to the wrong school, Marshlands Primary School. We all joked about it than we were on the right path to our school, Mairehau High School. We all arrived back to school and rushed into the library to get a movie on but technical difficulties were an issue so we had talked in our groups. 

Summarising things we see and read.

In English, we have been working on summarising things we see and read. 

Moving to the next level of difficulty, we started looking for similarities or comparisons between texts and book covers, or between movie posters.  

Another level of difficulty, we started looking for differences, or contrasts, between texts and book covers, or between movie posters.

Here’s the example I did on the BEE MOVIE. 

Compare- what is the same? Firstly… The title uses the same font and colours as each other. Secondly… Barry is in both of the movie covers. Next… Yellow is the dominant colour in both of the movie covers. Lastly… Both have “BEE MOVIE” on the covers as the title on both of them. They both have the same production team obviously because they made and produced the movie. This poster was not my favourite because it didn't showcase enough colour and it didn't draw my attention like the other poster. Although the poster did draw the attention to Barry as the main character I wished they added something else in it.

Contrast- what is different? Firstly… The cast is different on each movie cover. Secondly… Barry is doing a different pose in each of the movie covers, one he's leaning. Next… The font colours are different in each of the movie covers. Lastly… In the last cover Barry sticks out more than the other movie cover. This poster was my favourite one out of the two because it showcases more than just Barry. It had lots of colours and just captures your eye once you look at it. Therefor this one is the best out of the two.

After all this I made my own cover about BEE MOVIE.

Here are both my covers side by side with and without the white background. I prefer the poster without the white background because it goes with the theme of yellow and black, the colour of a bee.

Summary in ENGLISH

Summarising

All Mairehau High School Year 9 English classes this year are part of the ALL Programme ( Accelerated Learning and Literacy.) We are practising the skill of being able to summarise what we read.

Firstly we highlight difficult words in YELLOW

Second we highlight keywords in PINK 

Lastly, we use firstly, next and lastly to summarise the paragraph. 

In English we have been summarising about animals and their ways to protect themselves from predators. We chose three animals to summarise about and here is one of mine. When high lighting the keywords we were only allowed to highlight 6-7 words so it would be easier to summarise it better. 

Firstly, Skunks are most known for their way of defending themselves from predators and other things that alarm them. If Skunks feel threatened they will spray a nasty smelling liquid beneath their tail. A skunk will carry out a threat by raising its tail when threatened or challenged. Skunks spend their days sleeping and are most active during the evening and night time. Skunks are in North and South of America and people tend to avoid them because of the smell they spray.  

Summary- Firstly, The skunk defends itself by spraying a nasty smelling liquid beneath their tail. Skunks are found in North and South of America.

23 words for final summary. 

Street Art.

Summarising Street Art 

What is your reaction to the art? 

I thought her face was serious and the moko on her chin was traditional as well as the head piece. The bird (huia) does not exist anymore and was last seen in December 28, 1907. The colours contrast each other and the clouds and leaves. I have not seen it in real life. 

What are the colours in the street art?

The colours used in this Street Art are orange, cyan and black and green with a little bit of white. The orange stands out the most because it's a dominant colour because all the other colours are cold and orange is a warm colour. 

What do you think the art represents?

The woman holding the bird looks like shes holding like she has to protect it. The bird is in danger or becoming in danger. The mood is serious because of her straight face showing no emotion apart from seriousness. It looks like she is Maori with a moko and the leaf headband on her head.

 

Artist name- Erika Pearce

Art location- Allen street, CBD Christchurch.

Street Art Vocab.

Street Art Vocab

Word-	My prediction-	Dictionary definition-
Gallery	A place where art is to be seen.	Display of art.
Mural	A big painting of things.	Directly on the wall.
Graffiti	Art on buildings.	Scribbles in public places.
Theme	A style.	A topic.
Commission	Get someone to do something for you.	Trusted by the government.
Illegal	Something that will get you in trouble.	Forbidden law.
Expression	Facial expressions, how you feel.	Thoughts and feelings.
Gesture	Hand movements.	A movement.
Contrasting	Bright colours.	Being different.

Magpies.

Magpies Poem and Summary. 

Summary of the Magpies Poem. We had to summarise the whole poem with just 60-70 words. We had to use words to summarise like, The text is about, This part is about, First, Next, Last.

This poem is about a couple called Tom and Elizabeth. The first stanza is about how they bought a farm and they were poor. Next we learn that the couple worked hard for many years (stanza 2 and 3). The next part is about them losing their crops to the mortgage man. Lastly it is mentioned that Elizabeth died and the farm is abandoned today (stanza 5 and 6). 69 words.

Some links about the Magpie Story.

The Magpies.

The Magpies.

Magpies and Superstition.

Magpies Poem.

Bird Mascot.

CRANE.

What bird did you choose to represent yourself?; The bird I chose is a Crane. I originally chose this because Kung Fu Panda inspired me because of the crane from Kung Fu Panda.    

Where does your bird live?; Cranes live on five out of the seven continents. Africa, Asia, Australia ,Europe, and North America. 

Why did you choose this bird to represent you?; I choose this bird because of the Kung Fu Panda reference but also because in Asia the Crane is a symbol of happiness which I like to think I am a happy person inside. 

What is the bird afraid of?  Humans do not count.; A Crane is a protected specie. Foil balloons or flashy objects will scare Cranes away as well as scarecrows and black flags. 

Is your bird smart?; A Crane is not that smart. They are easy to capture by their prey and sometimes cannot recognise their own species. 

Crane Sound Calls.

some photos of a crane. 

 

BMEPNI summarising blog post.

Accelerated Learning in Literacy Term 3

Our class in Year 9 are looking at four main skills we will be looking at this term to improve our literacy.  The Fab Four skills are: 

Predicting

Questioning

Clarifying

Summarising

A skill that students use to improve their literacy is to be able to summarise what they see, read, hear, view or watch.

At the start of the term, our teacher Mr McCartney got us to write about our holidays under the heading BMEPNI - which is an acronym for beginning, middle and end, positives, minuses and interesting.

My original story was 219 words

Then he asked us to choose TWO sentences from each paragraph that were the main ones for beginning, middle, end, positives, minuses and interesting.

103 words on July Holidays.

The holidays were quick. It wasn’t really relaxing because I still had a lot of things to do and I always woke up late and stayed up late. I didn’t get a lot of sleep during the holidays because I was up playing games with my friends and texting my friends. During the holidays I got a text from some of my primary friends and I hung out with them and It was really good seeing them again. My uncle's sudden appearance caused a lot of stress to the family because he had to stay at our house so we had to reorganise.

B. Beginning. The beginning of my holidays were good because I slept in a lot and went to sleep late. I didn’t do much during the first couple of days but of course helped out with the chores. 

M. Middle. The middle of the holidays were getting colder and we had wood delivered to our place so we had to stack it up and put it into boxes and it hurt my back. I played roblox with my friends from school and watched YouTube most of the day. 

E. End. The end of the holidays were not so good because my uncle suddenly came back and we had to move all the rooms around to make space for him and my parents were quite annoyed and frustrated. 

P. Positive. The positive thing about the holidays is that I caught up with my friends from primary in the holidays and went to Margaret's birthday party. It was really fun.

N. Negative. The negative thing about the holidays was when my uncle suddenly came back so we had to rearrange EVERYTHING which brought stress upon everyone in the household. 

I. Interesting. The interesting thing about the holidays were, we were supposed to get our wood delivered on Monday but someone cancelled their order so we got our wood earlier! 

-219 words. 

The Table Blog.

What I have learned in English.	Other things I learnt in English.	ENGLISH
I now know how to use Kapwing to trim videos down to the timing I would like and edit them.  I can also copy and paste YouTube links to use them and make blogs using the blogging site. I can also make tables and paste them onto my slides as well as changing the colour of the table like this.	How to put docs and sides into English folders.  How to use this blogging website and upload the things that I have been working on during English.   Paste pictures onto blogs and change the size of the image so that It fits on the blogging properly, changing the width and height as well as the picture if I wanted too.	Overall English helps in different ways such as learning how to use different websites and how to change and import tables into blogs or even how to start your own blog so that you can post the things you've been working on and show people your achievements.  nice.

The Never Ending Story Slide.

The never ending story slide

This is my table

In English I made a slide about the never ending story and It's similar to the Toy Story one. I used Kapwing again to trim the videos.

ENGLISH-BLOG

                (TOY STORY SLIDES)

During English we made a slide about the movie Toy Story or the movie of your choice. I love the movie Toy Story so it was enjoyable to make and watch the movie again. In this slide presentation we had to include the characters and what was going on in the scene. Each slide had to have a heading which explained what the slide was about. As well as writing we had to include a short clip of the scene made by Kapwing an app to cut and trim videos from YouTube and a photo. Skills I learnt from this is how to trim and cut videos from the app Kapwing.