STEAM Club Narrative- Aug 26

Learners: Kim, Selestine, Sharon, Harry, Aditi, Hamish, Rudi, Louisa, Selene, Maanvi & Iman	Learning Coach:  D Wilkes	Date: 25-08-16
Learning Area:  Technology & Science NZC Achievement Objective: Level 2 Technological systems:  Understand that there are relationships between the inputs, controlled transformations, and outputs occurring within simple technological systems. Investigating in science  Extend their experiences and personal explanations of the natural world through exploration, play, asking questions, and discussing simple models.	Key Competency:    Thinking Relating to others Participating & Contributing Using language, symbols & text	4C:
Learning Observed: The learners were invited to use the www.buildwithchrome.com program to design a house but to do so creatively.  We began by logging into the website and signing in with their own google account.  Aditi and Hamish couldn’t sync their account initially but it worked when they published their design- yay! Then the learners used their imagination to design a house with the lego blocks.   This challenge was enjoyed by the learners immensely:   Selestine ‘this is #oresome!”   Louisa “I love STEAM club!”   Hamish ‘how do I add a window?’   Kim ‘I’ll show you, click here.’   Harry ‘I wish we could do this in learning time!’   Ms Wilkes ‘Why don’t you use it for your iExplore Harry?’ The learners were asked what this had to do with STEAM and this is what Aditi, Maanvi, Selene and Iman came up with:
Evidence of learning: Look at the #oresome fun the group had in this Photopeach SlideShow→ http://photopeach.com/album/142xx3p# The learners were making a lot of connections to their previous experiences with lego and designing .  The learners were very collaborative and helpful with each other and demonstrated a growth mindset mentality.  The learners were developing capabilities with prototyping, spatial awareness and visual representations.  Curiosities were evident in the Louisa’s rainbow house, Maanvi’s swimming pool home and Selestine’s various iterations! We talked about which kind of home would influence their design→ igloos, houseboats, teepees, tents, mansions, treehouses etc.  Selestine wanted to make them all!  Selene’s creation had a larger than life TV and Sharon built an entire village.  Harry, Kim and Hamish were the closest to a finished home but they were all able to publish and save it so they can work on it later if they choose.
STEAM- buildwithchrome on PhotoPeach
Next Learning Steps: Practice using www.buildwithchrome.com to create new designs See if they can re-create their design with actual lego Write a blog post about what they learned and how using www.buildwithchrome.com relates to STEAM learning areas

My Daily post

So today I am in love in the process of writing a letter  to my 11-year-old cousin she lives in Victoria it will be good to see her again I am also going to gymnastics today. So I am know posting from after gymnastics it was so much fun my muscles were screaming with pain but all was worth it I lost weight surprisingly I was not expecting that. Tomorrow after school and at school in the future I want to play in the NBA but don't tell anyone peace out

PS- If you are new to my blogger account you will have to wait until tomorrow to get the next post peace
   

My Quick write

STEAM Club gets Scratchy

Learners: Kim, Selestine, Sharon, Karis, Harry, Aditi	Learning Coach:  D Wilkes	Date: 12-08-16
Learning Area:  Technology & Maths NZC Achievement Objective:        Level 2-Technological systems:  Understand that there are relationships between the inputs, controlled transformations, and outputs occurring within simple technological systems. Number strategies:  Use simple additive strategies with whole numbers and fractions.	Key Competency:    Thinking Relating to others Participating & Contributing Using language, symbols & text	4C:
Learning Observed: The learners were invited to use the coding program Scratch to create a simple calculator.  We began by logging into the LH1 account and creating a Scratch pad.  Then the learners used some simple code to make the sprite (cat character) say hello.  After that they were presented with a more difficult challenge: This challenge highlighted the learners who were willing to persevere (Selestine & Karis & Kim) and those who required a lot more support.  It was great to see them explore the different types of code and realise that they needed to set up an ‘event’ for each instruction.  I would strongly encourage all of the learners to create their own account and try more of the challenges found here.
Evidence of learning: The learners were making a lot of connections to their previous experiences with coding, maths and the Scratch program.  Harry has been doing his iExplore learning adventure with Scratch and Makey Makey so he was very collaborative and helpful with the younger learners- helping them log in and create their first Scratch pad.  Harry is definitely developing his capabilities with coding in Scratch and at helping others.  Sharon, Selstine, Karis and Kim were having a lot of fun exploring their curiosities at making the cat sprite ‘meow’ and at creating musical instrument sounds.  Aditi enjoyed recording her own voice and making the program repeat her greeting.
Next Learning Steps: Practice using www.scratch.mit.edu to develop their coding capabilities Persevere with the maths challenge to see if they can make a simple calculation Come to STEAM club every week and blog about what they learned Try https://code.org/ for some self directed easy to follow coding tutorials

Collaborating with Rococode on composing a song

Who are Rococode:
My uncle and auntie are a band called Rococode.  I emailed them before I left and asked them to help teach me how to write a song and they agreed to collaborate with me when we were in Canada. They have just finished a USA and Canada tour down the West Coast and were having a break before they played at a festival called HaidaGuai.

To write a song, Auntie Laura got me to do a lot of singing and piano playing - I made up the lyrics with her about our family trip.  We all came up with ideas that we did this summer. For the rap, we thought of words and kept working on rhyming until we had a rap that made sense.

We worked together every day all afternoon for 4 days.

Uncle Andrew did a lot of the editing while Laura did the recording.  I sang and played the piano chords that I made up. I know the parts of a song now (lyrics, piano, etiquette, hook, bridge, chorus, verse) and can now start to start editing on garage band. This is a link to the rough cut version: The Hunt .

My song is about my family in Canada and our vacation.  This is a photo of me and my sisters with Rococode in the couch wearing one of their tour t-shirts.

Spa Day with the Ladies

Spa Day with the Ladies

Every time we go to Canada, my mom and aunties and Nana go to the spa.  This time I got to go because I am the oldest cousin and I had been looking after the littlies and keeping myself busy reading and dong music and other things really well.

We went to a spa in the next town over called Winkler.  We went out to a tea house for lunch called Gingerwood lane and then to the Charity Faye Day Spa.

I got my nails done.  Most of my fingers (except for my middle finger) were all done like purple cheetah print and my middle fingers were done with dark dark purple with white and gold palm trees.

I enjoyed chatting with the ladies and how long my nails have lasted.

Swimming Lessons in Altona

Swimming in Alton was really really fun.  Everything was also very different- especially the names of the strokes and types of swimming tasks and learning techniques.  I was in Level 6 with a bunch of boys who were all older than me.

I also went to public swimming heaps - I went off the board, the water slide and swam my widths to go in the deep end.  Every time I went I had to get a new wrist band so I ended up with heaps of writs bands by the end of the trip.

Photo of wrist bands

These are my swimming lesson reports. I went everyday for 2 weeks.  I passed nearly the whole level and just need to work on elementary back stroke, front crawl, and back crawl.

When I got back to OrmPS, I also got this from our term 2 swimming - so it was nice to continue the swimming learning in Canada.  I swam 200m in lengths in NZ which is what is on this certificate.

Meeting my cousin eek

We have arrived at Victoria and it is so exiting to meet my cousin in person. We go down to the luggage area I see my older cousin Robin. It is so # Orsome. Me and her catch up on the truck back to her house. When we get there we are kindly greeted my Robin's dog Jet. When we get into the living room all the kids are crowding little glass cages. The smallest cage had crickets and the biggest cage held a cheatah lizard. Robin took it out of its cage and it was beautiful. My sister Sifiti was a little bit scared of it but when Jet walked in the room and came near Sifiti she lost it she screamed so loud jet had to go out side. We played some games and ate and befor we knew it the day was over. After supper came the big problem who would sleep where ? Satali wanted to sleep in the boller we had to let her come or else she would start to cry and then Robin would feel bad. In the end she went in to the boller as soon as the lights turned of Satali said Jet needs some light so we opened all the windows she finally said "Ok I am going to go inside '' so I slept with jet. In the morning I woke up and I read a book that Robin gave me at supper it was a good book. When robin woke up we went into her room and comforted jet then when everyone else woke up we ate and by then it was time to hop on a huge ferry and go to Vancouver.