Hi Hannah
You have had a busy last term at Enrich!  You participated in all aspects of our science talent development and made contributions to our group discussions.  You worked well with Hannah H, and challenged yourself to add more to your scientific report when discussing the results we obtained.  You have grown in confidence this year and made the most of the workshops and independent picks that were on offer.  It was great to see you take on the role as last speaker in our last group debate.  You summed up your group's point of view and spoke with confidence.  Well done Hannah.
Katie.

Reflection of 2011

This is the last blog that I'm going to do for the year.
This year has been so fun and I've enjoyed it so, so much.

Where in the world

Today I did my where in the world. This weeks one was where in the world are Darryn and Alana.
I thought that this was the easiest where in the world that I have done this year because I got all the questions done as quick as that.
Here is my finished product.........

Habits of mind

Today I did a workshop with Sandy about the HOM (habits of mind) It was funny because most of the habits of mind have an action. My favourite HOM and action would definitely have to be the persisting, the action is putting your hands together and leaving them there. Meaning stick to it.

Last week

Last week I went to a Physics workshop with Katie. We had to do an experiment where we had to drop a normal egg, an egg in a small, medium and large parachute, (all hard boiled of course).  But before we started we had to hypothesize whether the normal egg or eggs in the parachutes would fall the fastest and the slowest. We used a stopwatch to time each egg as it fell.  At the end of each eggs fall we had to fill out a sheet with the time and condition of the egg.
After we had dropped all of the eggs we had to write if our hypothesis was correct or not.

My hypothesis was that the biggest parachute would make the egg fall faster. But I was actually wrong because it fell the slowest.
Here are the results........
Control Small Medium Large
Times. 1.53s 1.70s. 1.69s 1.34s
Condition of the egg: Cracked. Cracked not cracked Not cracked

2 stars and a wish

My 2 stars for this term would be...

* I learnt how to film, edit and produce a documentary.
* I made a new friend called Hannah.

My wish would be...

* For next term that I could do something outdoors and to do with chinchillas for my Talent Development.

Documentary

Today for our documentary group we were researching a new animal.
I decided to do  my research about the Tuatara.
Already I have got quite a lot of information and hope to get a whole lot more.

My two most favourite things that I found out about tuatara today is that...
Tuatara means 'spiny back' in maori.
The tuatara has been living on the planet for around 220 million years.

Co-operitive Game

Today Darryn organised our co-operitive game.  We had to pick a buddy, (I was with Christina) and get inside the hula hoop and hit the balloon. Then we had to run up the path using our right hands to hold up the hoop and our left hands to hit the balloon. The rules were NO double tapping and NO dropping the ballon or the hoop. This was a really fun activity even though our team didn't win.

The Library

Today for our talent development my Grandad took us down to the library to research our birds. I was trying to find out information about Takahe. I got two books and I am going back down sometime this week so that I can get out the other book that I want. I also found videos of Takahe to use for our documentary.

Steve-O Stag

This week for the 'Where in the world' we had to find out where the crooks had taken Steve-O Stag before he was last seen at Rugby Park.  This is always was one of my favourite activities of the  day.
What I learnt from doing this task is..............
about the tube lines in the Knightsbridge station.
Here is my completed product.

Bruce.C.Gull

Today I did a task called 'Where in the world.' Today we had to try and find where the crooks have taken Bruce.C.Gull. This one was a lot easier than last weeks because I knew how to do it properly. I learnt that the Vietnamese national dish is pho which is a rice noodle dish.

Hi Hannah,

I loved watching your enthusiasm for your documentary today, as you worked out all of the things you are going to need to learn in order to produce an outstanding documentary.  You are on the right track with organising which experts you will need to work with in order to create your film.  Keep it up!

Alana

Documentary Planning

Today in our documentary talent development we had to plan what subject we were going to do our documentary on, but it had to be about Southland. Our group chose to do ours on the animal life in Southland that is different to anywhere else in New Zealand. Then we planned what we needed to learn before we started with our documentary.  The next thing we did was make a list people we could ring and places we could go to find things out about our topic. I am soon going to ring the Queens Park Wildlife Centre to make an appointment hopefully for us to go down there next week.

Henry the Tuatara

Today I did a task called Henry the Tuatara.
For this Hannah H and I were trying to figure out the clues to catch the person who had stolen Henry from the museum.  This was a very fun task and great for practicing my geography skills.
If you want to see what we had to do for this task I have attached my keynote to my blog.

Teacher comment

Hannah you have embraced the challenges that you come across at Enrich each week, with a positive attitude, and very high expectations of yourself.  It has been a pleasure to watch you persist with tasks that you find challenging, to then see you ‘click’ with the task and take real enjoyment from it...like chess! It has also been great to see you establish a variety of friendships with students of mixed ages.

Alana

2 stars and a wish

It's the last day of term 2 and I've really enjoyed my term. My two stars would have to be doing my Science Talent Development and making new friends. My wish would have to be that in the speed thinking challenge that Hannah M and I hadn't blown because our card tower blew over just before the timer went off.

Contacting an expert

Today for Talent Development we had to contact an expert, because I'm doing mine on big cats I chose to contact Orana Park Wildlife Center.  I had to write an email to them with questions about my animal adaptation. Straight after I had sent the email I got a reply that had  answers to all of my questions.  It said this...


Hi Hannah

Thank you for your email.

1. When you keep a cheetah somewhere in a cage how does it cope, because a cheetah likes to run around?

Our cheetah are provided with a large area to exercise but cheetah are like most cats and actually sleep for most of the day!

2. How does a cheetah keep its claws short?

Cheetah can only partially retract their claws so, like a dogs, they are constantly being worn down as they walk and run.

3.How often do you run a breeding programme for your lions?

We have just completed a breeding round for our Lions. As they are not bred for release we only breed to maintain their numbers so typically every 5 years or so.

4.Because most big cats are used to hunting for themselves how do they like to be fed meat by you instead of killing their own prey? What if any are the effects of this on the lions?

Because the lion exercise a bit less through not having to chase their prey we do feed them a little less than they might eat in the wild…but then they can also guarantee a frequent regular feed which doesn’t occur in the wild. They are not wild-bred so have never been taught how to hunt and would be very poor at it.

5. How often do lions need to eat ? Is it different in the wild to the park?

We feed lions every second day – in the wild they may only eat every 5-7 days!

6.What are the major impacts of daily human contact with the big cats? Do they ever become tame?

Our big cats never come into contact with their keepers so they do remain wild. They are less scared of people than wild lions but definitely NOT tame

Thanks

Chess this morning

This morning after doing my gifted blog post I played a game of chess against Madison M. Before this game I never really liked chess at all, but after having this game I really enjoy playing. We were playing with a chess clock which put more pressure on us and made it exciting. We both had so much fun we played another game.

Gifted week

This week it is gifted week. I think that if you are gifted you have different thinking techniques than other children and that you have a special talent that is different to most people. I also think that if you are gifted you are above average ability and that you take bigger risks.

Decision Time

Today in Talent Development with Darryn we were talking about what animal we would like to work on throughout the rest of the term. I chose to do mine around big cats and how they adapt to survive. 

After we had all chosen our animal we worked on our keynotes. On the first page we had to write down what we already knew about the animal we were doing. After I had done that I carried on doing my diagram of a cat.

Evolutions

Evolutions

Today I was learning about evolutions with Darryn for my Science Talent Development.

We were looking at how horses evolved from one thing to another to another to another.

After our discussion Darryn showed us fur from a wiesel, stoat and a ferret and we were comparing the different sizes as a group. He also showed us skulls of a hawk, blackbird, wild cat and a ferret.

Keynote workshop.

Today I did a Keynote workshop with Alana.We had to do the Keynote about ourselves.I learnt how to change the colour of the background and how to add effects. We also added pictures on and faded them so you could still see the writing. Click on the attached keynote to see what I have done.

Adaptions

Today we went to the museum, animals & aviary for our Talent development.  We are learning about adaptions that animals have made to help them survive. We found out that the male birds are always prettier because they are wanting to mate and the female birds are usually brown or black so that when they nest they are always camouflaged.

Talent Development Term 2

This term the new students of enrich are doing Talent Development and the others are doing Passion Projects. I still don't know which one of the three choices there are that I will choose to do. The choices are Art, Computer Robotics & Nature Science
Also this term at enrich we are welcoming our new teacher Katie.

Google Searching

Google Searching

This morning I did a Google searching workshop with Alana.
We learnt how to make what we were looking for specific by using 'and' between words. If I was looking for 'Still Life Art' I would type in 'still' and 'life' and 'art'.  We also learnt another way to look for a topic specifically and that is to put speech marks before and after the words. This makes it come up straight away.

COMIC LIFE

Today I did an ICT workshop using Comic Life with Alana. We were learning how to add in photos and how to change the colour of the speech bubbles and backgrounds.  I also learned that you can change the colours in the lettering by clicking on details and then on 'fill' and 'gradient'.
I could use Comic Life for making posters and sharing ideas.  I like comic life, it is fun to use.

Questioning Workshop

                                                                      QUESTIONING
Today I did a questioning workshop with Alana.  We learnt about what open and closed questions are.  During the session we had a postcard of different places around the world each and we had to ask five different open questions about our postcard.
Some of the questions I asked were Why was it built? and How did it become on a lean?.
Before that we played a game where someone had a word on their back. They  had to ask us closed questions where we could only answer yes or no to work out the word that was on their back.

ICT workshops today

Today we were doing workshops for our must do can do's sheets.

I did an emailing workshop with Sarah. When I was doing this I learnt how to attach things to my emails.
After that I did a blogging session with Alana.
This is my first time putting up a blog so it's really cool for me to do it.