New Learning - Week 9

This week I have learnt a lot of different things:

• It takes approximately 1,000,000 mosquitos to drain the average human body.

• I learnt how to say goodbye in Japanese - ‘Sayonara’ , it is pronounced Siornara though (never say the ‘say’ bit separately from ‘onara’, unless you are wanting to talk about rhinoceros fart in Japanese. ‘Say’ means rhinoceros and ‘Onara’ means fart, but when they are both put together it actually means goodbye.

         In Japanese, goodbye is actually written like this: さよなら.

• In 2007, an American man named Corey Taylor tried to fake his own death in order to get out of his cell phone contract without paying a fee. It didn’t work.

• In 1567, the man said to have the longest beard in the world died after he tripped over his beard running away from a fire.

• A horse's teeth take up a larger amount of space in their head than their brain.

• The longest place name in the world is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a hill in Hawkes Bay.

I also learnt a lot more this week and I hope you learnt something as well.

Sir Edmund Hillary

- Week 8 Learning

This week, I learnt more about Sir Edmund Hillary. It was really interesting and I was quite surprised by some of the answers that I found on the internet and from my peers! Here are some facts about him………….

• He grew up in Auckland
• He has three children - Peter, Sarah and Belinda
• As a child, he was quite shy, but when he started boxing, he became more confident.
• He died at the age 88 (he was born in 1919 on the 20th of July and he died on the 11th of January in 2008).
• Sir Edmund Hillary was named one of the most 100 influential people of the 20th century, by The Times magazine.
• He helped build lots of schools and hospitals in Nepal and he devoted most of his life, to help the sherpas (the people who helped guide him up Mount Everest).
• The sherpa that helped him up the mountain, was called Tenzing Norgay.
• He finished primary school 2 years early and at high school, he got average marks.
• Sir Edmund Hillary attended Tuakau primary school in Auckland.
• He became a beekeeper in the summer and in the winter he pursued his time to climb mountains.

Here is a photo of Sir Edmund Hillary:

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Are Animals Colour Blind?

- Week 7

This week I learnt that lots of different types of animals can see differently. It was very interesting and I learnt a lot! Here are some animals and the way they see………....

Snakes see like this:

(They can see heat waves and in the dark)

Cats see like this:

(They can only see shades of grey and a bit blurry.)

Flies see like this:

(In slow motion, they can't focus and they see things with a mosaic effect)

Fish see like this:

(Some fish can see ultraviolet light.)

Dogs see like this:

(They can see more because they have eyes that are on the side of their heads.)

Mice see things like this:

(They can only see blues, yellows and greys.)

Bees see like this:

(They can see ultraviolet light and they have the ability to see colours faster than humans.)

Sign Language - Week 6

Sign Language - Week 6

This week (and some of the other weeks), I learnt some sign language. Sign language is a language that can be spoken internationally for people that are deaf. It is a language that you can't hear, because it is just signals and movements made by your hands. I learnt how to do the signals for the colours, good morning and good evening, shoes, dolphin, clap and lots more! Sign language is a really cool language! 

Here are some examples of a few sign language signals:

• Sign for thank you - put your hand on your chin, then put it down
• Sign for please - brush your hand down your chin, quickly
• Sign for dolphin - it is sort of like how a dolphin jumps, move your hand up and down
• Sign for good evening - put one of your arms down flat and start with the other arm up straight and then move it down until it is flat down on your other arm
• Sign for good morning - do exactly the opposite of the good evening movements (instead of putting your arm down, move it up)
• Sign for book - put your hands down flat together

Electronics - Week 6

 LED Emergency Light - Week 6

In electronics, we have been working on our LED emergency lights for the last couple of weeks, and I have now finished mine! I learned a lot while I was making my LED emergency light - I learned how to drill holes in corflute with the driller, how to solder and connect wires and resistors, which way to put the LED lights into the drilled holes (I was a bit confused about this one at first) and lots more helpful and interesting things. It was fun finding a picture to glue on the front of the corflute. I chose dolphins, seeing as they are my favourite animal!

Here are some photos of my finished LED emergency light:

Week 4

Electronics - Week 4

This week, room 21 went to technology and half the class went to Electronics (me!). We were looking at circuits of electricity and other things to do with them. I found the lessons really interesting and I learned heaps!

I learned all about Breadboards - why they are called that, their history and what they are used for now in science experiments and circuits. We were learning about circuits because we are going to make our own LED lights in case of emergencies - such as power outages (we were also learning about crisis's like the Christchurch earthquake, the recent fires here and in Christchurch and also the Gastro bug in our water too). LED stands for Light, Emitting, Diode. I had no idea what LED stood for, before the lesson and now I know a lot about LED lights and circuits! 

Music - Week 5

Music - Week 5 

This week, I learnt how to play a few simple songs on the guitar, when I went to music. I learnt how to play Polly Wolly Doodle, Rock My Soul, Me He Manu Rere, Yellow Bird and The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I was just using D, A7 and also G. It was the first time I have ever played a guitar and I really enjoyed playing the songs. At music, we also learnt a bit about Mozart, a famous composer. It was fun, interesting and I really enjoyed learning to play the guitar. I can't wait till next week!!