Akomanga Kaihanga Projects - Term 2

For term 2 projects, I joined up with Kurtas, Saia, Tata, and Mathew to implement our project based on improving and maintaining a 'rain garden'.

Throughout the project, a challenge that genuinely appeared to me was adapting and adjusting to our timelines. I personally struggled to complete the practical tasks, especially with the theoretical tasks within their time limits since I was heavily relied on by my team. Our project involved a lot of ideating and prototyping before we got physical, so time mostly wasn't on our side. However, I challenged myself to finish most of the theoretical tasks by spending most of my spare time at home to improvise and get things done that would support the project. Another challenge we faced was taking in a lot of information from differing ideas/topics and processing it, remembering the key things. I struggled to cope with learning in our usual timetable classes while simultaneously worrying and trying to work on our projects. In the end, I was fortunate to have my peers learn beside me and would constantly support each other including myself in the learning areas we lacked.

I really enjoyed term 2 due to the challenges I faced. Looking back, I'm glad I took those challenges head-on since it also exposed me to different methods of learning and having fun. A new passion of mine I recently discovered was that I'm into gardening. I was never bored of the rain gardening we did in our project and I've always been eager to resume our project since the term ended. It was fun and of course educational which is why I love it.  Furthermore, the learning trips we took were extremely helpful. My group's travel to the Botanical Gardens was very educational and aesthetically entertaining. I was able to remember and process what we learned much easier since we were physically involved; as opposed to listening to a teacher teach or reading, I'm engaged but not enough.

Pentagonal Base Prism

 

10KME using GeoGebra to make the Pentagonal Base Prism. Image Below 

Greenhouse

 

Math Revision (2020/2021) Part 1

 

Multiples, Factors & Prime

Prime numbers	Prime numbers are numbers that have only 2 factors: 1 and themselves. For example, the first 5 prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11. By contrast, numbers with more than 2 factors are called composite numbers.
Composite Numbers	In math, composite numbers can be defined as the whole numbers that have more than two factors. Whole numbers that are not prime are composite numbers, because they are divisible by more than two numbers.
Multiples	A multiple is the result of multiplying a number by an integer (not a fraction).
Factors	A number or quantity that when multiplied with another, produces a given number or expression. A number divisible with a product with no remainders is a factor.
The number one	1 (one, also called unit, and unity) is a number and a numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals. It represents a single entity, the unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of unit length is a line segment of length 1.

Subtracting Integers 

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Multiplying & Dividing

Order of Operations 

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Rounding

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Significant Figures

Waitangi Day

 The Treaty of Waitangi is a contract between the British Crown and the Maori Chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand to establish a relationship between the former rivals. It was signed by a former Lieutenant-Governor, William Hobson in 1840, 16 of February and was also signed by the Maori people using Maori translated Treaty. Henceforward in 1934, the Treaty hadn’t been celebrated yet until then. 

Up to now, there are people who accept this event as a day to celebrate every year; and those who are in opposition to this day being a “happy uniting day”. Citizens that celebrate Waitangi Day see it as the day the diversity in New Zealand was finally united and purified. Some also see Waitangi Day as a general public holiday to be with family and friends, which is great. Excluding this are a type of people who cannot tolerate this being a public holiday, and so petition that it’s a day of shame for New Zealand--remembering the violence between two races--” there’s no point! ” says Mike Hosking on television.

I myself can understand the perspective of both groups against the two different things, but however, I support the statement of it being a day to remember the alliance of the British and Maori because I personally believe that this day is appropriate for us to cherish, as it’s an important event to our New Zealand history and its indigenous people.

Health - Equality and Equity Between Culture !

To search for a place/area that’s composed of cultural and non-cultural belonging; relating to equity and equality. 

I felt like I lacked to understand the cultural representation in our community, but I do know Glen Innes is interactive with all ethnicities and nationalities. 

My group included myself, Maya, Paikea, Tiana, and Chastyti. Before taking off, we noted a few places to go to, and en-route, we thought of a couple more areas. Our first destination was around the Ruopotaka Marae, Te Oro (G.I Library), along with the Police Department - the environment involved several patterned rocks and walls that contributed to our Maori chronicles. Afterward, we headed toward a small area right beside Countdown, it had a walkway that embraced Maori culture possessing carved wooden statues and seats - the Countdown itself possessed no cultural belonging. Also, the Panmure train station comprised identical Polynesian detail on many objects.  

Throughout this amazing experience, I managed to capture key information that will cooperate with my Health classes and my knowledge for our society. My team could improvise on having a specific time-line to spend at each location. This will ensure we collect equal amounts of data, without wasting time. Overall, I will cherish this learning style and hopefully receive the opportunity to re-do it.

Akomanga Kaihanga Posters !

 

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The Power of Gratitude

Throughout the corona virus lock down, all schools in New Zealand up to college continued learning; but online. Nothing was going to interrupt our learning time! Especially my health class with the one and only tutor, Whaea Kata. She and our class (9KME) did multiple activities individually and together. We talked and learnt a  lot of gratitude: what is it? How do we grow and use it? And much more. Two of those activities were to create a gratitude box and also create the blog post you’re currently reading. I’ll be explaining what gratitude means to me and how much power that’s within it!

I thought gratitude was just being thankful for something in appreciation, it is, but there's so much more to it. Gratitude is a small thing but makes a huge impact on a person. It can do so many things to help improve your well beings and release negative attention, believe it or not. It helps control our moods and feelings towards things. You develop capabilities to become a person people would want to be around. It activates relaxation in sleeps and calm thoughts. It also allows you to be more self-disciplined with your actions and beliefs. To grow our gratitude furthermore, we use the 3 E's 

- Exercise, Emote and Extend. 

This is my personal routine of the 3 E's of gratitude:

Exercise: Whenever I decide to go to bed, I’ll grab my paper, pen, and gratitude box and start my 5 minutes of gratitude time before I drift into sleep. To ensure I remember to do this, I’ll leave a paper on my pillow in the morning saying ‘GRATITUDE’ to remind me when I come back in the evening.

Emote: I’ll make sure I’m in a peaceful and comfortable position before I start. I’ll also play some relaxing music to calm my thoughts then I’ll focus and imagine what I’m writing. 

Extend: Anything I’m grateful for I’ll physically take action to benefit someone or something, even if it’s small.

Practising a gratitude exercise the correct way enables us to access neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity means: having the ability of the brain to form and recognise synaptic connection, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury. It reveals that we can physically relocate connections between our brain cells.

The image below is my gratitude box, I call it Toks because it gives me the vibes and slang of a Tongan. I decorated it using a durag and an NBL headband to make it look as cool as possible. I use this box to put pieces of paper with written things I am grateful for each day.

After learning more about gratitude and the great deeds it has, I now think of it as a significant gift. We don't notice how much it can help us, but it removes barriers & negative thoughts & actions. It allows us to appreciate all the good in our lives in a way where usually we may have hidden it previously.

Siaosi Kava - Te Whare Tapa Wha - Hauora

 

Here are the four dimensions: spiritual - taha wairua, physical - taha tinana, social - taha whanau and mental/emotional - taha hinengaro. You’re probably wondering “what the heck are the 4 dimensions?” or “what’s the meaning of these words?” 

We’ll begin with physical well-being (taha tinana). Your physical well-being is what you act in real life, things you physically do using your arms, legs, eyes, etc. There are millions of things that can affect your physical well-being positively: going to the gym, brushing your teeth or drinking a nutrition milkshake every morning. There are also negatives about your physical well-being like dislocating an arm, getting a cramp in your leg or getting a disease. That’s your physical well-being.

Everyone has spiritual well-being (taha wairua), whether you think you do or not. It could be your sense of achievement or your purpose in life. Your spiritual well-being could be a huge part of your life, I go church and worship God, you might worship something/someone else, it doesn’t have to be religious. Some people believe that Minecraft is better than Fortnite, that could also be your spiritual well-being or your belief. 

Next is your social well-being (taha whanau). Being actively social could make a big impact on all the other dimensions. Communicating and listening to others is key to improve this well-being, you learn the goods and bads in life. There are many positive and negative things that could affect your social life/well-being: relationships, family, friends, compassion, caring, relating with others, sense of belonging, etc. These could also cause some of your other dimensions to fall; you get in arguments with the closest ones to you, it weakens your mental/emotional well-being and possibly your spiritual well-being too. 

The fourth and last dimension is your mental/emotional well-being (taha hinengaro). This is a strong wall that plays a huge part in your Hauora. These are your feelings, thoughts, and emotions. If your state for mental/emotional isn’t as good, then your other well-beings will be heavily affected negatively. Being excited, joyful or happy are part of your positive mental/emotional well-being; being tired, stressed or sad are your negatives, this is what leads people to depression and further issues in life. 

These dimensions are critical for your health and well-being, it’s basically what makes up your whole life. But at some point in your life, you’ll crash, you’ll struggle, it will be irresistible to change what happened, but you can’t; but what you can change is your response. Respond strong, respond with happiness, will, and strength. Don’t sit there doing nothing, make a change in your life!

My Class - Akomanga Kaihanga - The Poly's Project

THIS IS ME, MY TEAM, MY TEACHER!

What I think the BFG looks like!

The BFG lives in an old deserted village that’s now a cave. He’s very tall & thin with rusty, yellow nails growing on his bare feet & hands. He wears years of old green overalls that go down to his feet with rips everywhere but wears a brown shirt inside. Dusty skin with green bumps & bubbles growing on his ears, great wide blue eyes with poisonous & smelly lips. White hair but brown from the dust & dirt with a fringe with a grey beard from one ear to the other.

Similes

Similes are great for your narratives stories. These are a few similes I came up with!

MY TONGAN PEPEHA!

-All about me-

HSW - Activity 1!

I created a profile about the famous artist Lorde. There's loads of information about her career & her life.

For literacy I had created a profile about Lorde.

Athletics Day! 2019

Glen Taylor had hella fun having our athletics day. Our activities were high jump, long jump, sprints, shot-put, discus, relays & tug of war. This was one of my favourite highlights of the year.

Touch! 2019!

Our touch team had the best time out of school at the Marist Rugby Club fields having a touch tournament. We played a total of 6 games and won them all. At the end of the day we humbly came 1st place, we couldn't have did this without our coach Mr.Daniels!

My Expectations!

These are my expectations fro the rest of the year. I strive to achieve all these before i leave GTS because this is very important for my learning too.

AUT Millennium

Room 9 and a few lucky senior students got to go on a trip to the AUT Millennium. It was one of my highlights for the year because I had hella fun and had a great experience. The activities were kayaking, water safety, rock climbing and athletics. I hope to go there again one more time. 

Maths Groups!

Room 11 has days where we split and work in groups depending on our skills in maths. My group (exponents ) are working very hard to master what volume is and how to get it. We are very proud of our maths and enjoy learning about it.

My Pepeha

This pepeha is all about me and where I'm from. My class Room 11 made pepehas for Maori Language week.