Starch Art

“Art made from Starch?”  Last week Friday, My class and I had to make art with starch made from corn.  I know it sounds weird but I was very excited.  It was a new technique for me to make art.

To make the art, we had to draw a sketch of the New Zealand landscape.  I chose a picture with a mountain in it because I liked how the sun was behind the mountain.  We then had to go to the hall so the starch could be made.  The starch was made from corn powder and hot water.  

I then had to set up tables so everyone could take a seat and make their starch art.  When the starch was finished, everyone who had a sketch done was allowed to put starch on it.  When the starch was put on my art, it was still hot so I could see steam coming from it.  From the way the starch looked, I would say it looked like goo.  

I also had to put dye on my art so the teachers put dye on the starch to rub.  Rubbing my hands on the starch felt rather nice.  It was soft, gooey and also warm so my fingers were relaxed.  I had to rub my hands on the art where the starch was placed.  There also was a problem where if you leave the starch on your artwork for a long time, it would get cold and hard.  We had to put different colours on the art so what we had to do was wash our hands in a bin filled with water.  Imagine that!  It was cleaned so I didn’t worry.

With the art done and looking nice, we had to leave the artwork in our classrooms until Monday.  Before we did that, we had to carefully carry the art with newspaper to the classroom.  I was a little bit worried because the wind was trying to make my art fly away like someone was trying to steal it.  

When I went back on Monday to check on my artwork, it looked great.  I had to remove from the newspaper and that was quite hard.  The art got stuck on the newspaper like it was like glued on.  It was hard because the art ripped a tiny bit so I had to make sure there were no rips.

Speech

Cellphones.  Do they belong in class or not?  Cellphones belonging in class is a battle of good reasons and bad reasons.  Their are reasons why they are good and reasons why they are bad.  I am going to tell you the good reason and the bad reasons.  Here are the good reasons.

Agreements

My first reason why cell phones should be allowed in class because you don't know when disaster will strike.  If it does strike, they can call their parents or the police.  Also if the students are hurt or sick, they can call their parents to take them home.

My second reason is that using a cell phone may be helpful in class.  The students can research information on the topics they are learning to help them like the Pyramids of Egypt.  That is sounds like a hard topic to research.

Lastly, in some schools, many students don’t have Netbooks or Chromebooks so if they bring their own cell phones to school, it can help them learn and it should be just like using a Netbook.  Except for the size.

Finally, the reason why you are listening, the reasons for cellphones not belonging in class.

Disagreements

My first reason for not allowing cell phones in school is because they can be very distracting.  They can be holding the class up when everyone else is trying to listen and learn.  This can be bad for students because when they are listening, they are not learning.

My second reasons is if cell phones are allowed in class, students can be doing the sneaky move of cheating, searching google for answers on their basic fact tests or other tests important to their school work.  They might be having the phone in an invisible location in their desks, pretending to do something.

Finally, one of the reasons I think is the most important is that students may be talking to their friends by texting each other.  It doesn't sound bad but when they are texting, they are ignoring the face to face talk.  They could be right next to each other and instead of face to face talk, they might text each other.  

In my opinion, I think that cellphones do not belong in class because of the reasons above.  They can stop students from learning things.

Athletics

Athletics                                                       Samuel

Everyday from Monday to Thursday, most of the classes go to the field to do cross country but my class goes after morning tea so we have more space.  We do cross country because we need to get fit for the athletics coming up.

After morning tea, we all got ready to go to cross country.  Before we went to cross country, we had to make sure our school work was finished.  We only went for 15 minutes so we had to use it before we go to class.  Sometimes it was bad because some of the kids were being silly and we had to go back to class.

Before running the cross country,  we had a warm up.  We all had to run to the fence on the side of the track, touch it and run back to our starting point.  There was many kids who chose to walk instead of run or jog so it wasn’t a warm up for them.  

When the warm up is finished, we were split up into teams of 4 which had 4 people waiting at points to run.  Who over was the first person to run, had to give the baton the other students waiting at the spots.  Then they had to run to the others so that team would come first.  The people that were waiting had to face where they were running with the hand at behind their back to receive the baton.

On most of the cross country races, I was always was the first one to run.  It was tricky to come first because I was racing with my friends and some of them were fast.  When I was split into a team, we came second or first.  It was cool because I sometimes had fast runners and they usually win the race for the team.

Near the end of the time, we use the last minutes to do some relays.  The relays were in year groups so I raced with fast students.  I was lucky because I am quite fast so I sometimes beat them.  After we do relays, we then go back to the class and carry on with our work.

Making A Chain

Making a Chain

WALT: 1) Write a recount.

           2) Integrate maths and writing.

On Monday morning, our class made some paper chains.  The purpose for making paper chains was to see who could make the longest chain out of A5 paper.  We had to cut the paper to make the longest chain.  We also had to make a pattern with the two A5 papers, red and green.  My partner was Munokoa.

The first thing we had to do was to estimate how long each of our paper chains were.  When I estimated mine, I thought it was going to be at least 3 metre long because of how I was going to cut it.  The pattern we decided to make was 3 green and 3 red.

Next, Munokoa and I had to think about how long we were going to cut the strips.  We decided to use the width of the A5 papers so that we could get short but thin strips to make our chain long.  It was a good idea because most of the other students cut their strips into big and fat strips.  

Thereafter, we all finished our chains.  We then measured how long each one was using a metre ruler.  Munokoa and I made the longest chain.  It measured 3 metres and 20 cm.  My estimation for my chain was at least 3 metres long so I think I had the closest estimation.

Finally, we recorded each of the chains we made in our class.  By recording the measurements of the chains, we compared all of the chains students made in the class.  The longest was 3 metres and 20 cm and the shortest was 86 cm.

Although my chain was the longest, it was the thinnest chain out of all the other chains.  Everyone else made a chain the was short but was bigger than ours.  I learned that if you make cut smaller strips to make a chain, the smaller the longer and the bigger the shorter.

Lengths of Chains

Length of Chains

WALT: 1) Arrange length in order.

           2) Find mean, median, mode, range.

           3) Explain the differences in length.

Pairs	Length of Chain in centimetres
Ben and Dion	86
Wesley and Koliata	169
Lorenzo and Liam	170
Ifa and Tane	192
Alyssa and Shanelle	192
Andrea and Lana	200
Ketura and Serena	220
Stephanie and Cherish	286
Petuana and Yazmin	304
Munokoa and Samuel	320
Viliami and Howard	383

Mean of this table is 230.  

Median of this 200.

Mode of this table is 192.

Range of this table is 297.

I think most of the chains have a different measurement because of how the students made them.  The shortest chain was Ben and Dion having a measurement of 86 centimetres and I think it was short because they cut the strips into big strips.  The longest chain was Viliami and Howard’s measuring 383 centimetres.  To make it that long, they had to cut the strip into thin strips.  The difference is that if you cut the strips bigger, your chain will get smaller but if you cut the strips into thin strips, your chain will get longer.

Samoan Artwork

Jonah Lomu Comic