Term 2 Week 8

Apparently we've been learning about the solar system. Amazing what these people do while I'm away. Also, the solar system is the big thing this term. Solar system art, solar system inquiry, solar system writing and solar system reading. Maybe not reading. That requires it's own paragraph! Yay!

Welcome to the paragraph entirely for reading! Rather posh. Anyway, the book we're reading is called "The green book." As far as I can see, it's not green. The basic story line so far is: Earth is dying. Bunch of government people allocate planets to groups of people to colonize. Did I mention these are groups of ordinary people? So, where was I, ah yes, the particular group this follows goes to a closer planet that hasn't been checked because nobody cares about them, and, surprise surprise, it goes wrong. There is no edible plant life and the grass is made of sharp glass! SHARP GLASS! WHAT THE HECK PLANET?! And that's where we're up to. Planet sounds nice doesn't it? Slightly solar systemy.

And for the one bit that has nothing to do with the solar system, speeches are coming around again. Again. Which is why my speech is going to be about speeches being a waste of time*. It's pretty good in my opinion, for a speech. Hooray.

My old penguin went on strike, so I had to get a new one. I like this one better. Made it myself instead of using a special letter. Penguin says bye.

*I worry about my sanity sometimes.

Creating a planner from success criteria

My Reflection

We were learning how to create a plan for a speech using the success criteria. I found this work tricky because I wasn't sure what type of plan to do. My next step is to plan my speech using this planner.

Grid value portrait

^ ^
That's a grid value portrait. Also, if you haven't noticed, I'm back! Anyway a, ehem, Grid value portrait, is a fancy way of saying picture made out of patterns. Originally made by the artist Chuck Close (who's dad died, mother got breast cancer, got a kidney infection, paints faces but can't distinguish one face from another (face blindness)*, was paralyzed but strapped a brush to his wrist and kept painting and is still alive.) you draw grid value portrait🐧 by drawing a grid on a piece of paper and a photo and⋆ copying one square at a time using small close together patterns for dark squares, large and far apart patterns for light squares and they look really cool.

*Can I even have brackets in a brackets? Limes.
🐧I will now call them pattern people. Nectarines.
⋆Double ands, I know. But what else was I supposed to do? Apples.

°Does the comma make sense? Lemons.

🐧

Penguin says bye.

Interesting fact: The penguin isn't an image. Its a special character. Go into insert in google docs, click on special characters and draw a penguin in the box. This'll come up if it thinks your drawing looks enough like a penguin.

T2 W5

So, when I got back from England, a lot of strange things had been invented while I was away. Firstly, we're now doing SDL in this classroom like last year. SDL stands for self-directed-learning which is a fancy teacher word for deciding what subject you want to do and when you want to do it.  And then there's the badly named "Terrific Tuesday" which is bad because A) Tuesday is terrific already and B) It make Tuesday not so terrific. I had to start saying "Merry first part of Tuesday" instead of "Merry Tuesday*".  I also happen to come back just before the 3 way conferences and the book fair week, so I missed out on those (If you didn't know, 3 way conferences are things where the parent comes in too see their child's work and talk to the teacher.). Plus Matariki. I hate Matariki. I mean, I like Matariki, but I don't like the stuff we 'learn' about it EVERY YEAR! AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ABOUT THE WATER CYCLE! AAAAAHHHH!

Penguin says bye, for now...

But if he catches you teaching the water cycle...

Look him in the eye and you'll know what he'll do...

*Note: A Thursday, Wednesday or Monday can be a Tuesday too. But Friday, Saturday and Sunday are slightly better than Tuesday. So they can stay the same.

Percentage of a number.