Reflection on our year With Netbooks

Here at Pt England, all you hear about are netbooks, netbooks, netbooks. This is because it is a very important learning tool we use from years 5 and up.
   
Learning is easier now that we have netbook. I mean, I can share my work with the world just by posting things on my blog. This is a good thing because then my family could see it too. Another reason netbooks are so cool is that you’re not cutting down trees to make them.

Unfortunately there are bad things like small screens. This causes reading tiny writing sometimes hard. But luckily we can make it work but enlarging the page.

Also, making movies is very hard on our netbooks. As our school is creative, movie making is something we should be able to do on something we use everyday. Not just on the imacs.

With a few little tweaks, this could be the most amazing working tool every school should use(if they could afford it). Probably making the screen bigger or adding movie making apps and animating programs would make it so much better. 
Lisia

Somebody I Used to Know - Manaiakalani Film Festival

Gloria and her friends Lisia and Isara  watched the very clever music video of the Gotye song Somebody That I used to Know, and thought they could produce their own version.

This movie is completely done by these year 6 children.

This is the process they went through:
research different music videos and discuss concepts
plan and practise body and fabric painting,
learn lyrics, practise singing and record their voices
story board action and acting
film many takes
match their audio to the film
cleverly edit the movie (this was Gloria's masterpiece)

What very clever, confident and connected learners!

Shot Put - A How To by Lisia

       
  I know most of you people reading this have tried shot put in your school athletics. If you want to improve your skills to take you from beginner to intermediate, then keep on reading.

The Glide

1. Lift the shot, and carry it in the palm of your throwing hand. Position the surface of your palm facing upward, toward the sky. Transport your throwing hand up toward your neck, hold the shot against your neck, next to your jawline.

2. Turn your forward foot toward the front of the circle. Begin to turn your hips in the same direction. Wait until the movement of your hips begins to pull on the side of your body, then begin turning your shoulders. Swing your free hand behind you as you turn to add momentum.

3. Then you face backwards, bending downwards with the shot still against your neck. Keep bending until your leg reaches a 90 degree angle. At last you spin around the putting circle at 180 degrees, then you let go.

Note: It is better if you you push really hard and not too slow, high or low.

Some Rules:
1. When you finish putting your shot then you must exit from the back of the circle, or you would be disqualified.

2. You can not step out of the putting circle and you can’t even put one toe on the stop board.
Stop board: The stop board is a 10 centimeter wide and high block, in front of the putting circle.

3. You only have 60 seconds (1 minute) to get to the putting circle and start.
These things will all get you disqualified.

If you have improved your shot put skills using my instructions then please tell me by leaving a comment. Hope you have enjoyed and learnt more about the shot put rules and the glide, just like I have.

Olympic Table Tennis

Here is my Olympic Table Tennis Movie that I animated in Hyperstudio.
Lisia

Medley Swimming Relay

One very interesting sport involved in the Olympics is the Medley Relay. Swimming and only swimming is involved. Four different sports for four different people, is what constitutes this exciting event.

They start off with backstroke because you can not dive in for it, it is then followed by breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle, in that order. The contestants each have to swim a 50 meter pool twice, which adds up to a total of 100 meters.

During the swimmers games, they wear a new brand of swimsuit called Jons. It is so slippery that you just glide through the and people say it is smoother than human skin. After wearing it 15 times, the swimsuit wears out.

A skill swimmers need is to be able to keep floating and to swim very fast. One way they can do this, is by training 6-9 hours 7 days a week, get enough water, food and exercise. They need to also be very strong, physically and mentally.  

I think this sport is a very interesting sport that should be able to be in the olympics for many many more years. 
Lisia

Van Gogh's Almond Bloom

I have attempted to paint Vincent's Almond Branches in Bloom.

Critique of Van Gogh's Sunflowers

This extremely valuable piece of art was painted by the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the year 1888. The size of his painting is at least 73 x 92 cm, it is called Sunflowers. Van Gogh used oil paint to draw this picture.

On this painting you could see big, fat, bold lines just popping out. Sometimes Gogh wouldn’t have enough money to afford food and paint so would starve for a week or more. 

 If you were ever to feel Vincent’s painting, all you will feel is lumps. This extremely famous artist would've used a lot of paint. That is how he got the brush stokes so thick. 

When I look at this painting it makes me feel joyful when I’m down in the dumps. The only thing I didn’t like is that it is a still painting, I prefer outdoor drawings. When you look closely at his paintings you will see that he picked half old flowers and half new flowers.

Vincent Van Gogh painted Sunflowers for a reason. Vincent bought a little yellow house and his friend Paul Gauguin was going to be his flatmate. Van Gogh painted at least 4 sunflower paintings to decorate his friends yellow room.

Well, this is the end of my writing so I bet you know heaps about Vincent Van Gogh.

Caterpillars by Lisia

I have been reading a story about caterpillars. Here are 4 drawing to show you a life cycle of a Caterpillar.

Summer Holidays

“It’s the holidays now, let’s go to the Beach.” In the holidays my Aunt and step Mum thought it was a great to take me, my three sisters and two cousins to the beach, everyone got really excited.Before we went to the beach we had to pack our swimming togs and food. We were ready to go to the beach.

When we got to the beach me, my sisters and my cousins ran in to the water and started swimming, the water was freezing cold but then it got warmer.

When we got back home everyone went straight to sleep.