Our Amazing Oceans

 Hi readers!

Before we went into lockdown, we were learning about our oceans and pollution. Now that we have gone into lockdown, our teachers have given us many different tasks about our oceans. One of them being to create a presentation on why we should care for our oceans.

I used canva to create my presentation. It answers three main questions. What do our oceans do for us, what is happening to our oceans, and how how we can save our oceans. 

Here is my presentation!

Our Ocean by Riley Gray

What do you do think? How can you help save our oceans? Do you do any activities in the ocean?

Until Next time!

Creative colouring!

 Hi readers!

Because we have gone back into lockdown (much to my disgust), we have had to start our online learning once again. I don't mind online learning, and I tend to get my work done much faster without the distraction of my friends or the noise, but the reason I'm not enjoying lockdown is all the activities I'm missing out on and that I don't get to see my friends. I'm going to take this lockdown as an opportunity to take a break from the amount of after school activities I'm doing and instead focusing a bit more on my school work.

For Friday's work, instead of doing more literacy or numeracy, we do some set work from the summer learning journey. I choose to do one called art colouring book. I went onto a site and choose a famous artwork. I then coloured it in the same way as the original (or tried my best to) then once I had finished I changed a few things too add my own pop of colour.

Here is the original.

And here is mine:

I only changed the colour of the background (too make things pop) and a couple of the flowers for some colour. How do you feel about lockdown? Which art work do you like better?

Until next time!

Amazing Aladdin Production

 Hi readers!

We have finally finished our school production. After 12 weeks of practice, lunchtimes, mornings, even weekends. We had to learn dances, lines, remember to "stay at the front of the stage". I played one of the princesses, jasmines friends. We had to have our hair and makeup done, and my hair took quite a while because of how long it is, but it looked nice in the finish. 

They took some photos of the performance, so here are some of them.

I performed for 1 night and 1 afternoon. 

Have you ever been to a school production before? Have you been in one before? Have you watched Aladdin before?

Until next time!

Mystical Matariki Kites

 Hi readers!

Happy Matariki everyone! 

On the 2 July, we celebrated the Māori New Year, a time to consider the year ahead. The days are starting to lengthen and spring will soon be here, we just need to get through this cold winter first! 

Matariki and the Pleiades star cluster, have got many stories attached to them. We looked at two; one about how Ranginui and Papatuanuku were separated by Tāne Mahuta, and how Tāwhirimatea was so angry he ripped out his eyes and threw thunderbolts to the sky, creating the cluster, and another story about 7 sisters making kites, and them going to the sky. Ururangi’s kite was different from the rest, it was rainbow coloured. We have mixed these two stories to create the design of our kites.

My kite has Tawhirimatea and the wind represented with the clouds. I then coloured it in as a rainbow.

What stories have you heard about Matariki?

S.T.E.A.M Paper Table!

Hi readers!

This week we were given a task to make a 15cm tall table made from only newspaper and tape. It had to be able to hold at least one book. Our team decided to make 5 legs, put 4 of each corner, and then 1 in the middle. On the top, we put 2 pieces of newspaper. 

Our table managed to hold one book, and after putting the 2nd book on, it snapped and fell, after that, the table could barely stand on its own. This is the slide we made about the experiment.

There it is.

Have you ever made a table out of newspapers? How would you have done it?  

Until next time!

My Matariki Artwork

Hi readers!

For this term, we have been working on Matariki stars and the Maori new year! For our artwork, we did foam printmaking. It looked really difficult at the start buts it's actually really easy! First, you have to draw your plan on a scrap piece of paper, we had to draw the Matariki stars as swirls at the top and mountains down the bottom. It was also important that you did in reverse, so that when you print it, and it gets flipped, the stars in the right place.

Next you were given a piece of A4 foam. You had to get a ball point pen and draw what you had drawn on your plan onto the piece of foam, you had to make sure you put a bit of dent in so that the lines would show up in the finished print. Then you rolled out some ink and started rolling it onto you piece of foam, making sure it covered everything, and using multiple colours. Once it was all rolled on, you put a piece of A3 paper on top and use a clean, dry roller to transfer the ink onto the paper. 

This is what mine turned out like

We were allowed to make a couple prints with different colours, I made 4 different prints. When my prints dry, I'm going to make a frame out of paper to stick around the edge. I think that if I did it again I would put more ink on so there are no white specks, and use some different colours.

Have you done printmaking before? What do you know about the matariki stars?

Until next time!

 

Production Story Board!

 Hi readers!

The school production is moving along fast, we only have about 8 weeks left and we are starting to learn dances. I'm only in one dance at the moment so when I've been watching the other dances, I've been making a storyboard based on one of the scenes I'm in.

There it is.

The character that says my line is in the blonde one. After this scene, I sing a song.

Have you been in a production before? If you have, what was it and who did you play?

Until next time!