Behaviour

Did you know behaviour patterns can be changed. We talked about how our behaviour can be changed by things like a sticker chart and pocket money. We watched two video clips and the first one was about a cat named Harry. He jumps onto the fly screen and puts claw marks in it. There was a man that came and put a sheet of perspects over the door  so that the cat couldn't grip onto the door. To stop him jumping him onto the bench he put a little mat down that shocks him. So eventually he will stop doing that which means that he changed that cats behaviour. It's not only cat behaviour. Our behaviour can be changed too. Like having pocket money if we clean our room we will get into a habit of keeping our room tidy and we will get money.  I learnt that behaviour patterns can change.

Geometry

Which way is North? I learnt how to use a compass. Darryn showed us a couple of maps. They were both old and newer ones. We noticed that the older ones didn't have a grid on them and there was hardly any bush too. 

On the newer map we used the compasses to find which way was North. Once we had done that Darryn told us about the orange lines. If they were close together that meant that it was steep. We were given some spots and had to say what the easiest way to get down. It was a lot harder to use a compass than I thought that it would be.

Once you get to know how to use the compass it is actually quite easy.

Crash!!!

Have you ever seen a plane crash? I did. You film the room and then it will have a plane crash right in front of you. It is a special effects app. Lots of people like it and were playing with it all the way through morning tea.

I put beams across the river hoping it wouldn't break and... Crash!!! It split into three different pieces. Darryn was teaching us about some of the apps on the iPads. The first app was called Simple Physics. You have to build a structure that will not break even if it is used as a ramp for a boulder of a dam for a river. It is very hard but fun and challenging.

The final app was Pic Collage. You can cut out pictures and add text to it. I had a play around with a chicken. By holding down on one of the pictures of text, you can switch the placement from having the chicken on the top to at the back. Next week I'm going to play around with that a little more so that I get to know how to use it better. 

The caped man...

I always dreamed of being a super hero. That is the first line to the monologue that I'm doing in performance. Instead of singing today, Nicola grabbed some sheets of paper and told us what they were.

Nicola read them all out individually and once she had read all of them we had to pick one that we wanted to learn. Mine was about a boy who wanted to become a super hero, but didn't work out how he wanted it to.

I didn't realise that we had to have a costume too. Nicola's idea was to wear our underwear on the outside like in superman and batman, but Nicola went and looked in the box of clothes and found a cape.

Then we had to practice our words lots and lots of times. We went through our words about 10 times in 45 minutes. By week 6 we should know it really well.

Checkmate

The Pawn moved, then a Queen and a Bishop. Were you were able to work that out it was scholars? I didn't go to Luke's chess workshop, I played chess instead because I wanted to play chess to see if I could move up a little more on the leaderboard, but I didn't move at all. Then Luke did the workshop again  so I chose to go to it. 

He taught us about Scholars, opening moves and I asked about stalemate because I wasn't to sure how that works. I'm still not to sure, but it shouldn't matter too much. (I hope) 

There were two different kinds Scholars There's knight scholars and bishop scholars. I prefer the Bishop scholars. It's just because I can remember that better. I hope that I can stay at fifth on the leaderboard or higher.

Dunedin, here I come?

Finally! I won a game of chess. Today I played leaderboard chess against Jake. We both chose to use a chess clock. I quite like using a chess clock because I usually win. I'm not quite sure how but it just seems to happen.

I didn't think that I would beat him but as I actually used a strategy. Maybe that's how because I just move pieces most of the time and don't plan my moves.

Near the end of the first game Jake had one piece left and I had two and then his time ran out. It is not very often that I get someone into checkmate but it has happened. I win by their time running out usually. I think it was about the same ending on the second game.

Now that I've won,  I'm fifth on the leader board. I'm trying to stay in the top six so that I get to go to the chess tournament which is in Dunedin because it's our last chance to go while we're at primary school.

Performance With Nicola

Yah! We're back at Enrich for term 2. When we started our passion projects today I ran off to go to the back of the room to do performance with Nicola. 

First she gave us this little golden fluffy material and we had to pretend that it was something else. I used it as a T-shirt that was way too small for me. We were still playing the same game but Nicola gave us this pretty big green sheet. I used it as a sling for a broken arm. 

We had another warm up activity. You had to point at someone and say you and then we slowly got louder and LOUDER until we were yelling. Then it changed a little bit because we went from loud to quiet and after that it was quiet then loud and quiet again. It was really loud at some points.

Then we started to practice one of the songs that we had last week. We went through the song so many times it's stuck in my head now and it's kind of annoying too. 

We went and got a drink and then we came back and Nicola had put some new lyrics on our books. It was "Life on Mars" by David Bowie. That song is also stuck in my head. We listened to it once and then played it again and started singing along with it and then we just got better and better so now we already know the song quite well. So by week three we should know the new song very well.