Last Day of Enrich Forever!

HI EVERYBODY!

Today is the last day for me at Enrich forever! The year has been great and I will miss coming here. So, this means this post is my last ever entry! I'm going to do a PMI on the Enrich year. 

P=Postives
The positive things about this year are:
I really enjoyed Passion Time because it really helped me develop my skills a whole lot further. I also really liked the Wilson games because they were so much fun and really interesting. I enjoyed working on computers as well because I'm very interested in them. 

M=Minuses
The challenging and the not so great things about this year are:
The computers sometimes got really annoying because they wouldn't load!!! I also didn't like the fact that we couldn't finish off our Environmental Project because we weren't actually allowed to set the possum traps in Seaward bush in the first place. 

I=Interesting Things
The interesting things about this year are:
The eye dissection was very gross, but very interesting! Also the Affective Domain was interesting and learning about the habits of mind. It was really interesting learning more about computers and technology like that. 

As you can see I have had a pretty great year coming here and it's a shame it has to come to and end. 

Farewell! 

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Ciao!

I have done an Animal Rights P4C today with Katie. I definitely wanted to go to this workshop the minute I heard about it because I really love animals and I believe that they should have all the same rights as a human. First of all Katie read us a short story about a boy who was treating his dog really badly because it wouldn't jump through a hoop of fire! That's really cruel. I really enjoyed listening to the story because it showed me how animals are really treated. After that we discussed what humans need to survive and no, not all the luxury stuff that we 'need' if that's what you're thinking, but what we need to survive. Such as

• Food 
• Water
• Oxygen 
• Shelter
• Warmth

Then we had to think of the things that dogs need to survive. I found that what they needed was pretty much exactly the same things as what humans need. Katie then played us a wee snippet of the movie 'Babe'. We then had to think of the good things that was happening to the animals, like they weren't in cages they were running around freely. Then we had to think of the cruel things that was happening. That was the part I didn't enjoy so much.

I really enjoyed this workshop and I have one more thing to say...

I LOVE ANIMALS!!!!

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Hola Amigos!

One of the things I did at Enrich today was the Ridiculous Key workshop with Katie. What we did, was Katie said a ridiculous statement, like the whole world had the same timezone, and then we had to come up with the benefits of this statement. This is some of the things I thought were good about...

Whole world had the same timezone

• If you go overseas you wouldn't get jet lag. 
• If you wanted to call someone overseas you wouldn't have to figure out what time they'd be awake, because it would be the same time over there as it was here. 
• If you wanted to go to Australia for a holiday and you wanted to plan what you would do at what time, you wouldn't have to figure out what the time would be. 

Only had to go to school once a week

• You would pretty much get a never ending holiday if the day you went school was a public holiday. 
• It wouldn't cost as much to go to school.
• We'd get to do lots more things with art supplies because usually the teacher would have a certain amount of art supplies and they'd have to make that last over a whole year. If they only had to make it last over say 40 days then that would mean we get to do a lot more stuff. 
• The electricity bills wouldn't be as high.
• We would get more sleep because we could sleep in most mornings. 
• We could get more friends over. 

There was a no shoe policy

• You wouldn't have to buy shoes or socks.
• You wouldn't have to buy products like 'Gran's Remedy' to keep our feet from smelling!
• It would be good for all the manicure and pedicure places because if people's feet were on display, they'd want them to look nice and pampered up, so they'd go to those sorts of places.

I found this workshop really interesting and a lot of fun! 

 

S.C.A.M.P.E.R

Hi everybody! Today I did a S.C.A.M.P.E.R workshop. I have told you about what this is in my past posts.

Substitute

Combine

Adapt

Mega/Mini

Put to other uses

Eliminate

Reverse

We had to think about how we could improve Invercargill environment and town using these 7 things. Sarah and I thought that we could S.C.A.M.P.E.R Wachner Place. We didn't have to use all 7 letters. Just the ones that we thought could make an improvement. This is what we thought:

Substitute graffiti for fun pics for your family to look at.

Combine a tree house with a tree.

Adapt it to a picnic place by putting some picnic tables in as it's right next to Hell's Pizza.
Adapt it to a play area by putting in a swing set.

Minimise the stage to make it more kid friendly.
Magnify the gardens.

Put to other uses by making it a picnic place for your family to enjoy.

Eliminate the concrete and add some grass in.

We didn't think we could reverse anything.

I had great fun doing this and I hope we can make these ideas into reality.

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Hello everyone! It's great to be back at Enrich. We had a really interesting Affective Domain session. It was about an American 12 year old girl who is extremely gifted and has the vocabulary of an adult! Her name was Adora Svitak. We watched a clip on her on YouTube. Adora was talking about kids who stop pursuing their dream just because they think they can't accomplish it because they're kids. She was saying that the children are the next generation of the world and are the future. children have bold, creative ideas. For instance, if a child wants to make a glass sculpture, they'll just say "I wanna make that. That'd be cool!" Where as an adult would probably say "Oh no, that's too hard and it costs to much money. You're too young to do that anyway." Adora thought that what the adult says isn't right. Children can accomplish anything if they work at pursuing their dream. Here's a great example, Adora published her first book when she was 6!! This is because her parents were encouraging, and rang up a lot of children' s publisher companies who said 'No, we don't work with children." Adora thought it was a bit silly that a children's book publishing company didn't work with children! Finally, one company had trust in this little 6 year old girl, and agreed to publish her book. It was called 'Flying Fingers,' and had over 1000, sales worldwide. So you see, if you work hard, you can accomplish anything! Even if you are a child.

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Kia Ora everybody! 

Today at Enrich we  did a technology challenge. It was based on MacGuyver. We split into groups of three. The technology challenge was about MacGuyver getting stuck in wet cement. He saw a chisel and hammer 2 and a half meters away. Each group had to design and make a contraption that would help MacGuyver get to the hammer and chisel. We weren't allowed to move our feet from a small marked square. This is because we were stuck in cement. If the person who was using the contraption moved their feet their team would be disqualified. 

The equipment that we were given to work with was:
3 full sheets of newspaper
3m of 15mm wide sticky tape
3.5m of string
4 paperclips
1 plastic shopping bag
 In my group was Ella, Sarah and I. We rolled up two pieces of paper and crossed them over to make an x sort of shape. then we taped them together and tied them up with some string to make it nice and firm. Then we tied string onto one end of the cross so we had something to hold onto. Our plan was to throw the contraption out holding the string and that hopefully the cross would be able to catch onto the chisel and hammer and we would be able to reel it in. Unfortunately not everything went as planned, although we were very close to getting the hammer and chisel! 

I really enjoy doing technology challenges and this might be the best one yet...

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Hi there everybody!

Today is the last day of Enrich for term 3 2012! Luckily, it's been a really good last day! I started the day off with a game of chess. I played against Ella, but we didn't finish our game. After that we did our Key Competency assesments about our contributing and participating in P4C and debating, and our thinking skills. Then we had a break and some morning tea YUM!!!! Passion Time was also a highlight. Ella and I made a really yummy chocolate cake. We sprinkled it with icing sugar and put marshmallows on it. It looks DEVINE!!! 

The Wilson game we played today was great fun. It was called Bullseye. We got divided into 4 teams of 7 or 8. We had to try and throw the toys and beanbags into the hoops. There was 4 hoops. If you got something into the closest hop, you got 3 points, the second hoop, 6 points, the third hoop, 9 points, and the farthest hoop, 12 points. Our team won overall. 

I can't wait to come back to Enrich next term!

Another Day at Enrich!

Kia Ora everyone!

Today we looked at a video on air pollution. It showed us pictures of the top ten most polluted cities in the world. Did you know that the most polluted city in the world is Ahvaz, which is in Iran. It has 329 micrograms of pollution in the air per cubic meter. That's very unhealthy!!!!! Then we looked at the top ten unpolluted cities in the world. There was lots of European cities on there and a few cities in Canada. Guess what though, the least polluted city in the world is.....................WELLINGTON IN NEW ZEALAND!!!!!!!!!! It has the nickname Windy Wellington for a reason! It is very windy there so it blows all the polluted air away. Now we don't have to worry about breathing in that horrible polluted air. 

After lunch we are going to do Passion Time. Sarah, Ella and I are making cakes, fudge, muffins, and cookies to sell at a bake sale. We will donate the money that we make to the World Vision charity. We want to help! Of course, we need to make a reasonable amount of money to donate. 

Look at this polluted air! That is in Ahvaz, Iran. In the daytime! There is a car that has to drive with it's lights on, just to see through the dirty air. 

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Bonjour!

Today the Seaward Bush group went back out to Seaward Bush with Alfredo to check out the traps and wax tags. Unfortunately, most of the wax on the wax tags had been chewed of by some very inquisitive dogs. Although we were very excited when we found a possum hanging in one of the traps we had set up last week! It was a male. We were so excited! Even though it was a bit scary, we all wanted to have a hold of it. Here is a picture of me holding the possum.

It was very interesting to see that some of the traps had no more bait in them but there was nothing caught. There was a trail of chewed up wax along the track. I reckon it was the same dog that was crazy for wax. Oh well, the highlight of the trip was definitely catching the possum!

I might be going back next week. If we do, I hope we catch another possum!

This morning at 9:15am, a group of us from Enrich went out bush walking at Seaward Bush. We met Tim there and his friend Alfredo. We went off into the bush to see what had happened to the wax tags and traps we put out the week before. Unfortunately, I wasn't there for the first week but I managed to catch up on all the information. 

There was a few wax tags with bite marks on them. A possum's bite marks are 4-5mm long. A rat's bite marks are about 2mm long. Tim also showed us how to put up possum traps. When we were carrying them we had to watch they didn't trap our hands! In each of the traps we put up there was a piece of apple. Tim assured us that no other pests like ferrets would want to get into the possum traps because they would rather eat meat. 

For each trap we found we recorded it in our notebook. We put R for rodent, P for possum or a 0 if there was nothing there. Even though we found that nothing had been caught in the box trap there was plenty of rat and possum bite marks to look at on the wax tags. Along the way we found some fresh possum pooh. That satisfied us that possums were definitely around somewhere. 

We were back from the trip by about 11:30. I had great fun today at Seaward bush! I can't wait to go back next week to check our traps.   

Environment Southland/Seaward Bush

Hola! 

We have gone further with our Environment projects today.  Two experts from Environment Southland called Tim and Julie came to visit us at Enrich.  They talked to us about all the pests running around Seaward Bush. They told us about different types of traps to catch different types of pests. He brought in some stuffed pests to show us. There were a weasel, 2 stoats 3possums a ferret and a rubber Tasmanian Devil. 

Next week we are going to go to Seaward bush to have an explore around and put up some wax tags to see what pests are there, by looking at the bite marks on the wax. I can't wait! 

Cartooning

I have had so much fun learning about cartooning! Katie took the Cartooning group and showed us some of Stu Duval's cartooning such as, S man, 9 man, 4 ma'am, 5-o the dog, and so many more! All of the cartoons that we saw were just numbers and letters jazzed up a bit to make a face! Here are the cartoons that I have drawn.

See if you can find the numbers and letters! Take a look at Stu Duval's website: www.studuval.co.nz.

Having fun with Murals

Bonjour everyone!

This morning at Enrich we looked at murals as one of our ideas for our Environmental project. We could work in either a group or as an individual. I chose to work as an individual. We had to design a mural on a piece of paper that had all the Southland icons on it. Such as:

The Water Tower

Sheep Farming

Takatimu Mountains 

Oreti Beach

A River

Bluff Sign

Deer

And many other things! 

The idea of a mural is to make it look natural. Like not perfectly ruled out but not silly. Everything overlaps into one big picture. I made my main icon the Takatimu mountains. I drew the Waihopai River flowing through them into Oreti Beach. Next to the beach I had a road and next to the road I had some sheep and next to the sheep I drew the Water Tower and behind the water tower I drew some bushes and a forest with a deer in them. It was so fun! I hope we get around to doing it again sometime. 

Claude Monet

Today is our first day back at Enrich! It's Term 3 already! I've had a really good day because I started off with some art. Lots of people wanted to do science a few wanted to do maths an quite a lot did art. For art we were working on impressionism paintings by Claude Monet. He's a very clever man who invented this type of painting. Back then paintings were very fine and detailed. Claude Monet painted freely and changed all that. A critic thought of it as more of an impression of something so that's how the name impressionism came to be. Many people worked with Claude Monet but soon stopped this and went back to the old style. Claude Monet worked further with this and became a very famous man. His most famous painting was of the water lillies in his garden. That is what we were painting. We looked at mixing colours and using different textures. One of the interesting things I found out is when painting an impressionism is that you only use a brush with a square tip. That makes it easier to make it look slightly messier and you can hold the brush different ways to get different looks and textures. This is a clip on how to paint like Claude Monet. Feel free to take a look. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ftb1mkN30g

Manipulated Images and Sharing Night

For Talent Development I had to decide which Manipulated Image I wanted to enter into the Made Awards. I have chosen a photo which is an image of me falling off a cliff. It was hard to get into the right position.


Also, there is Sharing Night tonight and we had to choose a few photos that we have done over the weeks to put on display. I had done many cool ones so it was hard to decide. We had a success criteria and for our Manipulated Image we had to meet everything that was on the list. Like it had to be alphad out properly and had to be original and not the same as somebody else's.
I really enjoy photography and can't wait to find out how I went in the MADE Awards!

Reflection on Term 2 and Key Competency

Hi there readers!


At Enrich today I filled in a Reflection of the term. This is my Reflection on Term 2. As you can see, I had 10 sentence starters to fill in. 


I also filled out a key competency assessment sheet. This was when we had to highlight where we thought we were at with blog posting. Either at the beginning, when you can independently post text and images on your blog and attempt to edit your mistakes on your post. Also there was the at, when you can do the same as the beginning section but you can also post a multi media file with assistance and make you post more colourful. Last of all, there is the above, when you can do all of this with nice colours and aesthetics and you can post a multi media file independently. 


There is the same criteria for managing your independent work time. Beginning, completing your work to a standard you are happy with. At, completing tasks within the timeline and to a satisfactory standard. Above, when you can complete your tasks within the timeline and to a high standard.


For the blog post section I put myself at the above stage but didn't highlight the multi media bit as I can't post a multi media file independently. That is something I need to work on for next term. For the managing self section I put myself at the above stage fully because I reckon I complete my work to a high standard and within the time line. 

Photography Talent Development

Today for Talent Development Photography we went onto this awesome photo website called Photo Funia. On this website you choose a photo of yourself that you have taken on Photo Booth then choose a theme or place where you want your photo to be. I put my photo on a huge billboard! I was famous. It was really cool! After we had done that we revisited green screening. My first green screen creation for this week was me crouching beside a bunch of flowers. The next one that I have started is going to be me falling of a cliff! Poor me. This is the photo of me from Photo Funia.

Kowhaiwhai Patterns

For a few days now I have been working on Kowhaiwhai patterns. Kowhaiwhai patterns is when you draw lots of different Maori patterns on a piece of paper then trace them onto a wooden plank with two other designs. So it ends up with three designs on one plank. Once you have traced it on then you paint the background. The only colours you are allowed to use are red, black and white. Next you paint the koru patterns.One of the most important things you must remember is to use a suitable size brush for certain patterns otherwise the paint will go out of the lines and it would look messy. I used a thinner brush for the smaller koru patterns. I really enjoy art so this was a really awesome experience for me. This is the Kowhaiwhai pattern I have created. As you can see, I have only used red black and white. 

Green Screening

Today the photography group learnt how to green screen! That is when you choose a background and then take a picture of yourself in front of the green screen. Then you copy and paste yourself onto the background you have chosen and then add any changes. Also, before you do this, you need to put your photo onto Keynote then alpha out the green. It's really fun!

My Trip To Queens Park

Today Katie took me and the Talent Development Photography group down to Queens Park. We took heaps of photos! Some people took over 1 hundred! There was lots of different things to see. Especially seeing all the ducks fighting. The ducks were actually really interesting but they didn't take a very good pictrure. The pictures of them turned out a bit messy. I have decided I love to take pictures of different sorts of flowers. They take an amazing picture and look really pretty. When we got back from Queens Park we imported our photos onto iPhoto and then chose our three best photos that had hardly been changed at all. These were my best ones.

Mind Mapping

Today I did mind mapping with Alana. Mind mapping is when you have a main idea in a little bubble and then you draw fat branch coming of it with lots of little ideas on little branches coming of the big branch. Each idea has a different colour. For example, we did one on school. Our first idea was students. We had to think of what a student's perspective of school was. All my ideas for students were in purple. Our next idea was teachers. We had to think of what a teacher's perspective of school was. These ideas were in blue. Our next idea was parents and what they thought of their children going to school. The colour I used for these ideas was green. Each idea had a little picture beside it. It was very fun!  

Passion Time

At Enrich today we did our very first Passion Time. Passion Time runs from 11:00am to 12:30pm. I chose to do science experiments. Izzy, Briana and Anais did it with me. The first experiment we did was called corny goo. Its like oopleck. First of all we needed 2 tablespoons of corn flour and 1 tablespoon of water. Then we mixed it. Throughout the mixing process we added a wee bit more water. Soon enough it was quite thick and creamy. We tried to pick it up and it was all sticky! We decided to put it in the microwave for 5 seconds. That did nothing. It only made it warmer. Since it was quite runny we tried adding more cornflour. We were trying to find out that if you squeezed the gooey stuff in your hand it would turn solid because you are squeezing all of the water out. When we threw it up into the air it turned into something like cookie dough. This was because it was filling up with air and getting more solid. Unfortunately we didn't want it to turn into cookie dough, so we added more water. Then we wondered what would happen if we put it into the microwave for 15 seconds. It turned a dark yellow and looked like rotten jelly! It was really fun making it and I can't wait to make something else next time!  

WOW

Today Enrich went on a field trip down to the museum to look at the World of Wearable Arts designs. There was a room that you could go in where there was glow in the dark dresses and if you were wearing white you glowed as well. There was so many different designs and ideas! There was even one that was made entirely out of copper fans. I loved seeing all the different ideas there was. I am a designer myself and it was really inspirational seeing the outfits. Everybody had a different perspectives for each design. My favourite design was called Firebird. 

Reflection

This morning at Enrich we completed a reflection wheel. A reflection wheel is a wheel on a piece of paper with spaces to fill in. There is how you felt, what you wondered, what you tried,  what you learned and what you used. Here is the one I have done.

Affective and Photo Editing

Today Alana ran a workshop all about the positives about being gifted. We discussed all the positive things other people had written down. It turned out that most of us disagreed with other people's perspectives. 


With Talent Development we took our photos and started to edit and name them how exciting! We had to choose a theme for our photos. I chose nature as my theme. Then we sent our best photo to Katie for her to look at. I've had a busy but fun day today! This was my best photo. I call it 'Blush.'

Bio Poem

Here is my bio poem. A bio poem is a poem all about you. I includes things like your name, your family, where your from etc.

Teacher comment

Wow Anna what an amazing start to the year! Your time management and the quality of the work you produce are a real credit to you - it's great to see you making the most of your opportunities and setting such a great example for the new students. Keep up the good work.
Darryn

Photography

At Enrich this week I did photography with Katie. First we looked at all the camera techniques and all the views and ways to take pictures. There was worm's eye view, which is when you are looking up at something. There is mouse eye view which is when you lie down on the ground and take the picture looking straight ahead. There is also bird's eye view when you are looking down on something. One of the other ones that I liked was macro. This is when you change the settings on your camera to macro and then you can take a super close up of all the details of the object you are photographing. Kind of like a dinoscope but not as strong.

Debating

Today I did debating with Alana. We debated about two things. Animals should be kept in cages. I strongly disagree with this statement. Unfortunately I was put on the affirmative team which means you have to agree with the statement given. The negative team which means you disagree with the statement. We had to come up with five reasons about why this is true. This was HARD for me! The next thing we debated about was: The Christchurch Cathedral should be demolished and rebuilt. Once again I was on the affirmative team. This time we only had to come up with four reasons why this was true. I had real good fun debating and I can't wait to do more.

Dino Mania

Today I did one of our must dos! I did a dinoscope activity. We had to chose something to take a picture of. I chose to do my denim jeans. Then we took six pictures of this object and then put them into a comic life. Then we wrote in speech bubbles about each picture. Here is the one I did...

1st Blog Post

Hi! I'm back ready for a fresh new year. I have already met some new people returning and new. Today I did P4C. Our question was "Should you listen to other people's opinions?" I think that we should listen to other peoples opinions to get more knowledge about more things. Even if it's not something you like or something you are passionate about it's still good to know more. I can't wait for another exciting day at Enrich next week!