Hi Pyper

It has been great having you as part of our science talent development group for this term. You asked questions when you were unsure of anything, which was great! It is so important to clarify anything for your own understanding. You took a lot of notes, without being asked! It was great to see you transferring your knowledge into your own words - again, this is great for your own understanding. You have gained confidence in your ability to speak in front of others - debating has been a great example of this. Well done Pyper on a fantastic term!

Katie

Last day of Enrich:-(

Today is my last day ever of Enrich because I am year 6! :-(

For a start we did debating with Katie. Our topic was Society should/shouldn't be able to ban junk food from schools. My team was against banning it. Katie added up all the points after we had done our arguments and it was a tie, we had 9 points each.

After that we had morning tea and then had a game of leader board chess, it was our last time to move up for 2011. I played Olivia and won. Then because we still had 15 minutes left I played Maddie and won. After that we did a end of year reflection here it is.

Last Day Of SCIENCE:-(

Today for the last day of science we had a bit of fun!!!!!!

First of all we made sherbet. To start off we had all the ingredients which were; baking soda, icing sugar, raro, citrus acid and tartaric acid then Katie made us try all 5. My favourite 2 were icing sugar and raro because they were sweet and sour. Then every time Katie added a new ingredient we had to try it. It was really yummy!!! Then we made Hokey Pokey. Mmmm!!!

First we put 10 tablespoons of sugar and 4 tablespoons of golden syrup in a pot and stirred it until it melted and then added 2 teaspoons of baking soda. After that we poured it into a cake tin and let it set in the freezer. At morning tea time we had about 4 bits of Hokey Pokey each and Katie gave us a little bit of Sherbet.

Habits Of Mind

Today I did the Habits of Mind workshop with Natalie who is relieving for Alana. We learnt about the 4 habits of mind, Remaining open to continuous learning, Gathering data through all senses, Striving for accuracy and Thinking interdependently not independently.

Remaining open to continuous learning is when you have humility and pride when admitting you don't know something.

Gathering data through senses is when you pay attention to the world around you; gather data through taste, smell, hearing, sight and touch.

Striving for accuracy is when you try your best and set high standards.

And Thinking interdependently is where you work together in teams.

After we learnt about the 4 Habits of mind then we got into groups of three. In my group there was Brittany, Ruby and myself. After that we had to choose a Habit of mind (we chose Thinking interdependently) and you had to choose if you wanted to write a story, a poem or a play. We did a play. Our play was about us in a group and we had to think of what to paint the school fence like. I came out with girly ideas and then a really good idea that we all agreed on. We all agreed that we could divide the fence into three sections and paint it however we wanted.

Science

Today in science we were playing with liquids, solids and gasses. We did three experiments. The first one we had a solid which was ice, and turned it it into liquid which was water and the gas

which was steam. The second experiment was called melting moments-a. We had different types of ice-cubes. One was a raro ice cube, one was covered in sugar and the other one was plain.

We timed how long it would take and which one would melt the fastest. Every 3 minutes we would record the data and see which one was melting the fastest.We did this over a period of 12 minutes. We figured out that the plain ice-cube melted the fastest because it didn't have any particles. The third experiment was called melting moments-b and it was practically the same.But we used salt instead of raro and the salt melted the fastest.

First day back

Today is the first day back of term 4 and the Tuesday enrich students are lucky enough to be at enrich today. For a start the story writers and documentary people had to choose a new talent development. The two choices were science and maths. I decided to choose science. Today we explored using a light sensor. First you plug it in to the little black box on the science trolley. Then you cover the light sensor with your finger so it doesn't pick any light up other than the light you are shining it at. We were using the light sensor to graph if light on a lamp, a remote, a candle and a dinoscope is constant or it it flickers. We predicted then tested. My prediction was that the lamp and the dinoscope were constant and the other 2 flickered. When we tested it the results were that the lamp was constant and the other 3 flickered. Next week we are starting with our liquids gasses and solids I am really excited.

Reflection on term 3

This is my reflection on term 3 using 2 stars and a wish:

My two stars are:

-I have done really well with story writing to get it completed.

-I liked reading Matilda and listening to Roald Dahls writing.

My wish is:

-To do well in the MADE awards with my story.

Garageband completed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today Ruby and I have worked really hard on trying to finish our garageband and we have. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have added titles, credits, voices and jingles to it. Today was the last day to finish it unless we came in after school today, tomorrow or Thursday because they are getting sent away on Friday!!! Ruby and I are very nervous and have worked really hard to get it completed.

We think it looks great and hope we do well.

Here it is:

Hi Pyper.

You worked so well with Ruby today during our entire day of writing talent development! It was great to see you both persevere in fine-tuning your podcast. You have added a lot more detail to your illustrations, which has helped to bring your story to life even more! I am looking forward to the finished product next week! Keep up the hard work.

Katie.

Story Writing Update

Today Ruby and I decided we were going to use Ruby's Garageband instead of mine because it was clearer and went for longer. Some of our pictures were too blurry so we had to change most of them. Katie said that we either need to have it all cartoon or all real, so we decided to go with all cartoon. We have put some of our scenes on Keynote so that we could alpha-key out any backgrounds we don't want and add more detail to the backgrounds. We think that we are going really well and will have it finished in time for entering the MADE awards next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Garageband

Today Ruby and I have started doing our garagebands for our story. We are doing 1 each and then we will decide which one to enter into the MADE awards.

So far mine goes for 1minute and 5 seconds and Ruby's goes for 45 seconds.

Our story is called The Brave Royal Twins. It is about two twin princesses who's mother dies then the king remarries a witch. The witch kills the king and then tries to take over the land so the town runs off starts a new village. The twins call the new village Candy Land then they marry 2 prince twins.

Story writing week 5

Today in story writing we began with a chapter of Matilda by Roald Dahl then started to edit our stories.After morning tea Katie taught us about garageband. She taught us the basics and then got on to the more complicated things like changing the voice and deleting. Then we got on to editing our stories again. Ruby and I have now finished editing unless we need to make changes after Katie has seen it.

Hi Pyper.

It was great to see your enthusiasm during our writing session today. Ruby and yourself were determined to get as much writing completed today. It was great to have the chance to sit down and discuss how to develop the plot of your story further. You are incorporating the narrative structure well within your writing. Great to see you on task throughout the whole session.

Katie.

Debating

Today I did the workshop Debating.There were 2 teams the affirmative team and the negative team. I was in the negative team along with Ruby, Olivia an000000 Brittany. Our team had to argue about why human kind is bad and the affirmative team had to argue about why human kid was good. I was the last speaker for my team and my opinion was: I think human kind is bad because they abuse animals and humans which is not very nice because some people get hurt and most of the time animals haven't done anything and humans are just abusing them because another human has made them mad. Alana was the judge and she decided which team won. She decided that the affirmative team should win.

Telent Development

This term instead of passion projects we are doing talent development. The choices for talent development were art, story writing and documentary making. For story writing and documentary making we are entering the MADE awards.I chose to do story writing. I am working with Ruby. We are working on writing narratives. In our narritives we have to have: status quo, initial problem, exposition, complication(s), crisis, turning point, denouement (pronounced day-nu-moan) and description of the new status quo.Ruby and I are writing a story about two twins who are princesses and their mother dies, their father remarries the ugliest woman in the world and he doesn't realize she is a wicked witch. The witch poisons the father with too much poison and he dies. The witch tries to take over the world but everyone from that town runs away. The town starts a new village but soon realize they didn't start it, the most handsome princes in the world did. The princes and princesses get married and live happily ever after.

Teacher comment

Pyper through the process of your project this past term, you have learnt a lot about managing time wisely, and being flexible within your project. You have shown a great attitude of resilience - when things didn’t go according to plan you were able to use your flexilbility to redirect things and complete the set task. I know that the books you collected will be gratefully recieved by the students in Christchurch!

Alana

2 Stars And A Wish

Today is the last day of term 2 so we are reflecting on the term using, 2 Stars And A Wish.

My 2 stars are:

*I have done well with my Must Do/Can Do sheet by completing everything except my I.C.T workshops.

*I enjoyed doing the Profiling workshops.

My wish is:

*To be a better chess player by playing people who are better than me so I can learn their ways to win.

5 Minute Perfectionism Task

Today we all did a 5 minute perfectionism task. The reason for a five minute perfectionism task is so that you realize you don't have to be perfect and have strengths in every subject or sport. First we got int groups of 3 and then for five minutes we sorted out what we were going to do, the task was to do a short skit of little red riding hood. I was in a group with Olivia and Hannah.H.

For ours I was Little Red Riding hood, Olivia was Grandmother and the Mother and Hannah was the wolf. At the last minute Olivia and I changed roles so I was the Mother an the Grandmother and she was Little Red Riding Hood. They were all really funny and everyone had to participate.

Passion Project Poster

Today Olivia and I made a phone call to our principals and asked if we could put a box in the office and posters around the school to let people know about a book drive that is going to close on the 8th of July which is a Friday.
The books are going to be collected then sent to a school called Discovery 1 in Christchurch.

Gifted week

This week is gifted week. At enrich you will probably find someone who thinks alike, whereas at home school you might feel as if you think differently to everyone else because you are gifted. The thing about being gifted is that you go to enrich. At enrich subjects link with each other and you don't just do reading, writing, maths, spelling etc. You do most of your work on the computer or in our books. we also do workshops to help strengthen some of your abilities you aren't as high in like internet searching, chemistry, P4C (philosophy for children) and questioning plus lots of other workshops. There are lots of models of giftedness but we mainly learn about Renzulli's and Gagne's. Renzulli thinks that you have to have task commitment, above average ability and creativity. Gagne thinks that if you are gifted you are born gifted and its a chance , so do I but enrich only excepts people whom are gifted in school things and not who are gifted in sports, but then again you could be gifted in sports and school.

Chemistry

Today I did the chemistry workshop with Katie. We made casein and here is the recipe...

Ingredients:

2 Cups of full milk (dark blue top)

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 cup of vinegar

You will also need:

Medium sized pot

Wooden spoon

Measuring cup/spoon

Small dish

Sieve

Somthing to use as a mold to set your casein on

Paper towel

Instructions:

1.From the two cups of milk, measure out 2-3 tablespoons into a small dish. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and mix until there are no lumps.

2.Pour the remaining milk and the milk and baking soda into the pot.

3.Heat on a low-medium heat until the mixture starts to bubble, you don't want to boil it.

4.Turn the heat off.

5.Add 1/4 cup of vinegar and mix at the same time.(The mixture will start to bubble and thicken)

6.Drain the mixture through the sieve until you are left with the lumpy part only (casein).

7.Place te casein on your mold.(A yoghurt pottle lid is a good mold to use).

8.To remove excess moisture pat with paper towels.

9.Leave to set overnight or put in fridge for it to set quicker.

Casein is a dairy product that can be used for lots of things like a thickener or buttons. The buttons were used for soldiers so if they got hungry they could eat them. Casein is also edible but if you try it first it tastes like nothing then it tastes horrible, in my opinion you should not taste this horrible casein. This was an interaction because all the chemicals interacted with each other.

ICT Internet searching

Today I did a workshop called internet searching.We learnt about key words and how to use advanced search.Advanced search is when you type in words about your topic that you do want and when you type in words you don't want.You can also type in 3 keywords at the most as well as typing in the exact phrase you want. We use advanced search so we can limit the number of websites look at.

Photography

Last week I did a workshop called photography. We took about 15 photos and then we learnt how to edit them and upload them on iPhoto. I made a comic life of the process which was pushing the button half way to focus it before taking the photo, and how to do macro photos. Macro photos are super super close photos.

Maths and art tessellations

These are my tessellations that I made.

First of all we looked at some tessellations on the internet that Esher had made.Then we had to make a design and figure out what it was.After that we coloured it in to make it stand out so people could tell what it was. My favourite tessellation that I made was my carrot one because my mountain one just looks like brown triangles with a blue back ground where as my carrots actually look like carrots.

P4C

Today I did the workshop P4C. We discussed "should you be rewarded for your efforts at school?" We started talking about what efforts are and the different types of rewards. Half of us say we should get rewarded for our efforts but then we discussed no because some people just do the task to get the reward. I think no because people do it for the reward and they don't try their hardest they just do the task to get it done.

Questioning

Today I did a questioning workshop.

We learnt about open questions and closed questions.

Closed questions have short answers and they require surface thinking. Open questions have more info and digging deep into the thought process.