Category: Hanga | Create

We created a digital image of “Moko ika hiku waru,” a special eight-tailed taniwha from Māori lore believed to live under New Zealand’s Panmure Bridge. Working in small groups, we began the project by outlining the creature’s basic shape on the computer before adding details to bring it to life.

Our group’s main goal was to make the artwork look striking, dynamic, and visually appealing, like something straight out of a fantasy story. To achieve this, we used a mysterious palette of blues contrasted with pops of orange, and applied a radiant glowing effect to give the creature a sense of energy and magic. Ultimately, the project was about combining imagination with digital skills and teamwork to create a legendary creature that sparks curiosity and awe.

After reading the Diary of Anne Frank and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas we talked about what people must have felt like having their whole world turned upside down.

I can’t imagine what it would have felt like back then being a prisoner in a German concentration camp, and being a part of the mass genocide.

Yesterday we discussed how we could put their cloth of dreams back together again. We drew things we imagined would mirror their cloth of dreams, and put a substantial amount of effort and creativity into making them. We worked collaboratively to minimize the amount of time it would take and maximize the efficiency/creativity resulting in a beautiful group dream cloth.

Last week in tech we learnt how to bake cheese scons, this task we really fun and it didn’t take very long either. We did this in partners so it would be quicker and easier to bake it. Every single week we have to choose different partners for baking. after we finished baking we got to put some spreads onto the scons like jam, butter, and whipped cream. everyone got to eat 2-3 scons, I had two because I still have lunch for morning tea.

Today LS2 learnt about abstract nouns, and how to put them into use. Abstract nouns are something you can feel mentally but not physically. Abstract nouns are words that help you feel a multitude of feelings wether it is empathy, sadness, anger, or joy.

Talofa lava,  Laast week was Samoan language week, and our class made google videos to explain how to make Samoan speaking students feel more comfortable and understood by giving examples on common phrases that are said in Samoan.

We listened to the audio book of The Boy in the Striped pyjamas by Jobn Boyne. After each chapter we explored the mood and atmosphere.

Mood is when the author of a book uses words to make you feel how the character feels; the atmosphere is how the room feels as in “the room was tense.”

We worked collaboratively to summarize each chapter in 10 sentences. This  helped us practice simple, compound, and complex sentences. Some days we  used a Gem to prompt us and some days we worked without it to improve our memory and independence. Ultimately, this process enhanced both our comprehension of the novel and our understanding of sentence structures.  Something I found unjust about these traumatic times was that the Jewish people didn’t even get a chance, and their people got put to shame due to their religion.

For this week’s Maths , Group 1 learned how to do the division algorithm long and short. We figured out a way to solve the quotient but using the standard division method. Writing numbers in vertical with the bigger numbers on top. While you’re dividing the numbers, keep track of the remainder to make sure the problems have been solved correctly, using this method has made me confident when solving division and letting me have a better understanding.

This week in math, Group 1 is learning about something called the highest common factor. Basically, the highest common factor is the biggest number that can divide into two or more numbers exactly, without leaving anything left over.

To understand this better, think about what factors are. Factors are numbers that you can multiply together to make a bigger number. For example, if you multiply 6 by 8, you get 48. So, 6 and 8 are factors of 48.

When we talk about the highest common factor of two numbers, we are looking for the biggest number that can fit evenly into both of those numbers. For example, if you look at 12 and 18: the factors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12; and the factors of 18 are 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 18. The biggest number that appears in both lists is 6. So, the highest common factor of 12 and 18 is 6. This means 6 is the largest number that divides evenly into both 12 and 18.

One interesting fact I learnt was if I taught students and learnt st getting good at finding the highest common factor it helps them to understand how numbers relate to each other and can be useful in many math problems, like simplifying fractions or dividing things into equal parts

Today in LS2, we used our previous experience with AI to create images. Our goal was to make pictures similar to a specific photo of a leopard lying on a tree branch, looking out. My partner and I each used different techniques and styles to make our images look unique. To do this, we had to give the AI a detailed description of what we wanted, including three main parts: the subject (what’s in the picture), the description (more details about the scene), and the style (how the picture should look artistically).

For example, I gave a prompt that explained the scene like this: “A leopard is resting peacefully on a tree branch in the jungle. The image should look like it was painted with watercolors, which gives it a soft, flowing, and artistic appearance, similar to watercolor paintings. The overall mood combines the calmness of the leopard with the gentle, artistic feel of watercolor art, making the picture look peaceful and beautiful.”

This helps the AI understand exactly what kind of image I want, including the scene itself and how it should look. We practice this process to get better at making creative and realistic images with AI.