Word Of The Week: Excruciating

Definitions:

• Intensely painful.
• Very embarrassing, awkward, or tedious.

Type Of Word:

Adjective

Use it in a sentence:

I landed my round off perfectly. Or so I thought. My ankle rolled, and I heard a terrifying crunch. I looked down at my ankle to see it completely bent around the wrong way. Bones and flesh were sticking out everywhere. The pain was absolutely excruciating. I passed out, hitting my head on the way down. I woke to my head throbbing. I was lying down on a hospital bed. The excruciating pain in my foot was still there. I sat up to take a look at it. But I found that my foot was gone.

Drawing:

Synonym:

Painful

Antonym:

Relaxing

ePro8 Challenge

On Friday, Hayley, Fraser, Murphy and I participated in the ePro8 Challenge. The ePro8 Challenge is a challenge about engineering, and technology challenges. The “e” stands for Engineering, the “Pro” stands for Problem Solving, and the “8” stands for Innovate. Our team was called The NPS Aces.

There were four different activities to choose from. We could make a robotic guard dog; a laser tracking system; a theme park ride; or a bridge. Our thinking was that bridges are simple, we can build a bridge, so that’s what we decided to build.

We got started straight away, and we knew what we were going to build. There was a bit of a miscommunication between us though, and some of us were unsure of where we were getting with it. We were thinking about scrapping the bridge, but we decided to keep going with it. We were forty minutes into the competition, and we were in last place with no points. Everybody else had plenty of points, and we were really behind. We were getting a bit stressed out.

After we finally got our bridge structure done, we pressed our buzzer. Everybody had a song for their buzzer, and ours turned out to be “Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows”. It was really funny! The judge said our structure was good, and gave us the points for it. We were now in third place! The next step for us was to put a road on top of our bridge. There was quite a bit of trial and error with this, but we figured it out eventually. We got the points for that, and we were in second! The next step was to build a car that could drive across our bridge. Our car kept falling apart, and eventually the wheel itself broke, so we had to get a new wheel. Eventually our car worked, and it went across the bridge. We were in first place!

The next and final challenge for the bridge was to make a traffic light that would turn on when a car hopped on the bridge, and then turn off again when it reaches the end. We had a lot of trial and error, but we actually found it quite easy after we figured out what to do.

We were still in first place by quite a bit. We had completed all of the bridge activities, so we moved on to the laser tracking system. The first part we got done was the laser itself, which was more points. We had to make it focus and unfocus on things. Then we put the laser on a hinge and made it focus on other things. Our time was almost up so we decided to ditch the laser, because we didn’t think we could do anything else with it.

We had about ten minutes to go, so we thought we would try to start the amusement park ride. Because we didn’t have much time left, we tried to get away with doing it not very well. That didn’t work, so we just tried to build it in the time we had left. We didn’t manage to finish that particular task, but we were overwhelmed that we had won! We were super proud of ourselves, and especially proud that we had made the semi-finals.

I think the ePro8 Challenge was a great experience for me, and my team and I all really enjoyed it, and we are super excited for the semi-finals!

Languages Milestone

This week I achieved my Languages Milestone. I am really proud of my efforts. On Duolingo, I am 40% fluent.
 
I also wrote a postcard in French.
Bonjour, mon nom est Elaina. J'ai douze ans. Dans ma famille, j'ai un frère, une soeur et ma mère et mon père. J'aime vraiment nager et jouer au netball. Mon colorant préféré est jaune. Ma matière préférée à l'école est la mathématique. J'aime manger des chips chauds, et j'aime aussi les sushis. J'habite en Nouvelle-Zélande. J'aimerais vraiment visiter la France, en particulier Paris. J'aime vraiment apprendre à parler français.

De Elaina

This is what it translates to in English:

Hi, my name is Elaina. I am twelve years old. In my family, I have a brother, a sister, and my Mum and Dad. I really enjoy swimming and playing netball. My favourite colour is yellow. My favourite subject at school is Maths. I like to eat hot chips, and I also like sushi. I live in New Zealand. I would really love to visit France, particularly Paris. I am really enjoying learning to speak French.

From Elaina

Here is my postcard:

I am super proud to have achieved both my Languages Milestone and my My Shelfie Milestone, and the next milestone I hope to achieve is my My Future Milestone.

Weekly Reflection Term 2 Week 7

 Positives:

• We almost won our netball game! The score was 8-7.
• Our cheerleading team got our music and song sorted!
• I achieved about 5 of my literacy goals!

Negatives:

• I had a great week
• this week - I can’t think of any negatives!

What I learnt:

• I learnt how to complete the book bash role Director’s Cut.

Word Of The Week: Matariki

Word List	What I think the words mean	Revised definition
constellation	A constellation is a group of stars that looks like a certain shape.	a group of stars forming a recognizable pattern that is traditionally named after its apparent form or identified with a mythological figure.
navigation	Finding your way - for example: using a map to navigate.	the process or activity of accurately ascertaining one's position and planning and following a route.
voyage	A journey, usually by sea.	a long journey involving travel by sea or in space.
waka	A waka is a canoe.	a traditional Maori canoe.
harvest	Collecting food/produce from crops.	the process or period of gathering in crops.
whenua	Whenua is land.	land.

Definitions:

Matariki is the Māori name for the cluster of stars also known as the Pleiades. It rises in mid-winter – late May or early June. For many Māori, it heralds the start of a new year. Matariki literally means the 'eyes of god' (mata ariki) or 'little eyes' (mata riki).

Type Of Word: Noun

Use it in a sentence:

We all stared up at the beauty of the seven sisters. They shimmered softly in the light of the moon. We all remembered the story of Matariki, of how the seven sisters each threw one of their eyes into the sky. We thought of this story, and imagined those bright shining eyes staring down at us.

Drawing:

Synonyms:

Constellation

Antonym:

None

Weekly Reflection Term 2 Week 6

Positives:

• My team and I won our heat at the ePro8 challenge, and we made it into the semis!
• I had a conference for all my Manga High tasks, and I figured them all out, after a lot of perseverance.

Negatives:

• This week I only ended up having 2 days at school because of the ePro8 challenge, Queen’s Birthday, and I had a cold. This didn’t leave me with much time to complete my learning.

What I learnt:

• At the ePro8 Challenge, I learnt lots about problem solving, and I also learnt more about building structures and electronics. It was a great learning experience for me.

Word Of The Week: Catastrophe

Definitions:

1. an event causing great and usually sudden damage or suffering; a disaster.
2. something very unfortunate or unsuccessful.
3. the denouement of a drama, especially a classical tragedy.

Type Of Word:

Noun

Use It In A Sentence:

On Wednesday, I saw my mother dancing on the deck. It was a complete catastrophe! She tried to pirouette, but she just knocked things over, including herself. She even fell off the deck!

Drawing:

Synonym:

Disaster

Antonym:

Salvation

Book Bash Role: Predictor

Weekly Reflection Term 2 Week 5

Weekly Reflection Term 2 Week 5

Positives:

• I am starting to get some of my Maths goals underway!
• I made a really cool dog whistle at tech!

Negatives:

• I found some of my Manga High tasks a bit challenging, but I figured it out.

What I learnt:

• I learnt how to use the drilling machine at tech!