Aria's Maths learning story

Aria’s Maths learning story.         

At Porirua College there are 220 boys.  132 boys choose to wear a lavalava.

E.J says that this percentage is because Porirua College students have a strong Samoan identity.

Do you agree that the percentage E.J worked out is enough to show that Porirua College has a strong Samoan identity?

Maths is a subject where everyone thinks it’s a waste of time.

Well that's not what I think and maybe it’s not what you think at all either. In my perspectives I think that it’s how you are going to solve a problem with or without anyone. Now let’s see how I solved this problem shall we.

Well first off I wrote down what I knew...

• ½ of 220 = 110 = 50% who wore a lavalava.
• 10% of 220 = 22 boys who wore a lavalava.

How did I know that 10% = 22. Well I wrote down...

220 = 100% then

22 = 10%. So mainly I took away the zero from the 220b and the 100%.

But we are trying to find out if we agree with E.J’s percentage and if P.C has a strong samoan identity. Now that would mean that we are trying to find out what 132boys is as a percentage. So I…

Plus 110 (50%) + 22 (10%) = 132 (60%). So that means that P.C does have a strong samoan identity because there are 60% of boys who do wear lavalava and 40% don’t.

Relating to others. This K.C helps all the time in maths because I used it by explaining what we were doing in a way others in my group can understand. Also I can answer any of their question if they wanted to know more e.g “How did you get that” or “Why did you do that”. Somethings I will explain it in a different way if they don’t understand me the first time.

My next steps would probably be to make sure I really understand what the problem is about and what I’m being asked to solve  before jumping into it. I can achieve that by reading and reading again so I can understand it better or I can just ask my group to explain what the problem is about.

You don’t know it but maths is all around you!

Aria's Reading learning story

Aria’s Reading learning story

“The whole book was a great read!” “To sum this book up in one word: Brilliant.”

Stephen Measday, is the author who wrote a fiction book that made me fired up - Send Simon Savage. Do you know what the purpose is for a fiction book?. Well ifiction means it’s all made up, so it would most likely be to entertain you with all the exciting parts in the book. An example of Send Simon Savage,

“Mum!” “Simon dropped onto the couch next to his mother.” “What’s going on?”

Glenda Savage gripped his hand. “It’s your father.” “He’s . . . he’s disappeared.”

Why did I choose this book? What made me think that I would like this book? Well., the blurb at the back was just filled with all the excitement that made me feel so thrilled and I had to know what would happen next in the book e.g

“Time travel is real”

“It is also a tightly kept secret”

“But there are people somewhere in time, who know more than they should”

“And they are doing things that they shouldn’t.”

“Someone has to stop them.”

“How did that hook you in Aria?” Well the kind of books I like are adventure and mystery. They make me feel like I am on a road that leads me to a quest of dangers and risks that lies in a exciting book and that's what the book did to me. That little bit of the blurb made me feel like I was about to start my new quest.

Understanding the book is pretty hard but that’s why you have to read over and over again so you can understand it or use the reading skills like evaluating. That was a reading skill that helped me to be the best learner I can be. What I did was that I thought of being the character in the story e.g if I was Simon Savage (The main character in the story)  and my father disappeared then I would feel depressed for a while but in the meantime I would also look for him because I care about my dad and I’m sure that he would look for me too if I went missing.

Locating information. How it makes me a learner is that I find out interesting things about something in the book and it makes me curious on what’s going to happen next. E.g I located information so I found out that when Simon’s father use to be a scientist and he was still alive he worked in a lab for a top secret government called the Bureau to create fantastic machines so they can use in the future e.g Simon’s father was the one who created the time machine. But none of his family knew anything about it.

Look at this video I recorded and see if you can imagine what’s going on.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zifC77Wj2g8jbHkoNickEb-kJWgY4Q3E/view

If there’s no end then there is no beginning.

Aria's Tech learning story

Aria’s Tech learning story

12:30 to 2:30 on a Thursday is the time when the year 7 & 8 go over to Brandon Intermediate where your favorite subjects may be there. Art, Sewing, Cooking, Woodwork and music. Cooking is my favorite because you get to make delicious food that you share with friends and whanau.

Woodwork, is the first class I was put in when I came back to Brandon Intermediate. Not one of my greatest skills because I am not great with wood e.g I always seem to drop a piece of wood and it would make a huge noise. But that didn’t stop me making a box.

The purpose of making a box was to put in something that is valuable to you or just storing something in it because you have nowhere to put it. I achieved that by working with people that can help me to achieve my goal to make a box e.g Gabby, Titi and Ata. We helped each other to accomplish the goal by giving each other a helping a hand and reminding each other what the next step was.

What I found difficult was that I had to use a block plane. “Are you talking about a flying plane?” Well no. A block plane is a small woodworking hand plane that has a blade on the bottom.it’s designed to carve the wood as you push it along. Yeah so as I was pushing it, I did it at the wrong angle and that would prevent the shape to be a bit crooked but by practising over and over I knew that I would get better at it.

The k.c skill I used really well was managing self because I always listened to the teacher so I can get finished and done with the things that needs to be done instead of just mucking around and being left with a piece of wood which nobody ended up with. I also used relating to others really well by helping somebody if they were getting left behind so they can catch up and move on.

When I finished creating my box I felt proud of what I made with all the hard work I put into to it. Everytime I look at it, it always reminds me of how I never gave up and just kept going until I have achieved creating something that needed to be done.

Now woodwork ticked off.

On to the next subject… Sewing

Aria's Art learning story

Aria’s Art learning story.      Success Criteria

We all don’t know what's real and what's not real but we do know that it comes from our imagination.

This is Surrealism art. Just before you ask “What the heck is surrealism art” I'm going to ask you guys some questions. Have you ever imagined combining a bridge as your eyes on your face? Or on the other half of your face there’s a tiger? Actually that’s what surrealism is, combining two or more pictures together to create something extraordinary  instead of ordinary.

I was good at putting in something that was important to me that told you about my identity e.g as you can see there is a cat, you might just think “Oh I guess she like cats” Which I do but I drew a cat because he’s been with me ever since I was like around 6 yrs old. He’s taken care of me whenever I am feeling emotional or sick but later on he is just being lazy!

Fact: Surrealism was created in 1920 and there were many artist that was doing this kind of art like Pablo Picasso.

What I felt about my surrealism art was like, how can I explain it. It was like a cheery feeling that just make me smile whenever I looked at it. How? Well it reminds me of how much hard work I put into it by making it how I want it to be.

What I got better at was not going all random. What I mean is that the first art I did was just putting a bunch of stuff on my face and that turned out to be quite messy so then what I did was just do rough drafts and putting less than two things on my face. Each time I had to think carefully about how my art communicated important things about my identity. This was the hard part.

Tip: Always do a plan and by doing a plan you have to draw fast so then you can  move onto the next draft. Also try not to do bold lines because it’s meant to be quick and done. You can do that on your perfect draft.

My next steps is maybe to include something that seems impossible because I want to try and take some more risks and also see what I can do. I will achieve that for next time. I will think of something that is nearly impossible for me and I shall draw it and see where it will go.

Aria's P.E learning story

Aria’s P.E learning story.

“This is where I lose weight isn’t it” “Oh  geez”

P.E. is where it makes us all excited to play games and trying our best to either win or lose. Or it’s the total opposite where you get exhausted and you lose a bit of weight. Well I think that all of us agree with the second reason but let’s stick with the positive things here everyone.

Over the past few weeks room 12 have been focusing on the purpose of trying to expect the best from ourselves and also from each other when we play team games. But by achieving this purpose we had to encounter a few games. T - ball, Softball, Rounders and dodgeball.

First, I want to talk about dodgeball. Dodgeball is a game where you hit people below the waist and get them out. The main goal is to get every player on the opposite team out so your team can win. My team was good at…

• Using clever strategy e.g catch the ball so you can get the other team players out
• Talking with each other so we know what to do.
• Always trying our best.
• Working together as a team e.g sharing the ball with each other so everyone gets a turn.
• Not caring if we win or lose
• Being a good sport to the other team.
• Including everyone so no ones a passenger.

By using these I was mainly good at including everyone on my team so no one is a passenger by sharing the ball with them so everyone can have a  go so we can all have fun and enjoy the game.

The K.C skill I used was relating to others seen as the paragraph above is how I used that K.C skill. But there were other ways I used relating to others by..

• Cheering for everyone that is giving their best shot
• Always caring for someone that gets hurt.
• Being a good sport to the other team so they know that I am not the type of person to just shame the other team because we win some games.

Experiencing these skills I used helps by letting everyone know that we can trust each other whether I am in their team or not so I could use these skills to help everyone e.g Always caring for someone that gets hurt.

My next steps are to use the strategies that the other team is using e.g aim at the foot instead of going high up because if I can see what they are doing then I would talk to my team and then use it against them to try and win.  

Aria's Writing learning story

Aria’s Writing learning story.

Writing is full of passion. Writing is full of emotion. Writing is full of hard work. Once you use these elements you can finally start.

The purpose of a good but interesting piece of writing needs to entertain the reader, make the reader visualize and make them read on.  If you didn’t do any of those things then you need to use the success criteria.

Here is an example of my personal profile and you may see that I have used some of the success criteria to complete and achieve my goal to write an interesting piece of writing for the readers and to communicate ideas about my identity.

Our Purpose: To communicate someone’s identity effectively, as writers we can…

• Use a hook
• Use other ways of making our reader want to read more, like …(ellipses), or only giving a little information at once.
• Make our readers work something out (infer) by:
• giving clues and not stating directly (Show not tell)
• using anecdotes and examples. Stories from our past.
• Use a creative and interesting writing style (poem, news report…)
• Use clever dialogue.
• Carefully choose language to create a picture for our reader.
• Use punctuation to help your reader make sense of your writing
• Use informal language - everyday language/ Language we use with our friends.
• Rhetorical questions.

One of the success criteria I was mostly good at was using hooks e.g“The whole book was a great read!” “To sum this book up in one word: Brilliant.” That was from my reading learning story. I used a praise that someone said about the book so I used it as my hook also so the reader would probably know that it’s a brilliant book and would want to read it themselves.

What I found hard was to make a piece of writing interesting so the reader can be entertained. So I had to get some ideas from the help of my friends and then use their feedback to improve my writing e.g “About 12 years have passed and many things have happened since. Until now Aria knows that there is still more adventures that await her”. (Personal profile)

What I need to improve on is to use show not tell in my writing. Why do I need to work on that? Well, what I am doing right now is just stating something directly so I am just giving you facts. Instead, I should give the reader clues so they can infer and work something out. This helps them to think more about what I’m saying.

“If you have a story”

“It has to come out”

(Quote by William Faulkner)