Year: 2026

Letter to Grandma

LI : To vary our sentence lengths to create pace and impact.

Using our reading text  “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”  to use our sentance knowledge creatively and in context. Our challenge was to write a letter in the perspective of Bruno to his Grandmother, the purpose of the letter was to show how Bruno was in their new home in Out-with ( Auschwitz ) compared to the house in Berlin. We used two sentence structures which were simple and compound sentences. A simple sentence is one independant idea that is short, sharp and direct and can stand by itself, whilst a compound sentence is two ideas conjoined by a comma and then connector word from “FANBOYS” which is an acronym that stands for

For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet and So.

My partner and I used the two sentence structures and more easy vocabulary to sound more like Bruno because he is 9 years old. Something I enjoyed about this task was being able to use Gemini to help us see our mistakes in vocabulary and many other problems. Giving us feedback to improve our text.

 

Prime and Compsite numbers

LI: Understanding how to identify prime and compsite numbers.

For Maths group 2 has been learning how to identify prime and compsite numbers. Prime numbers are whole numbers greater than 1 that have exactly two factors, 1 and themselves. Composite numbers are whole numbers greater than 1 that have more than two factors, meaning they can be divided evenly by numbers other than 1 and themselves.

Lowest Common Multiples

Group 2 of LS2 have been learning and some revising on “Lowest Common Multiples” (LCM).

LCM consists of multiplication where you find the number in common between 2 numbers multiplication order. For an example you could use 4 and 7 up to 5 to find the LCM. You times both up to 5 and if there is the same number diagonal from eachother. (4, 8, 12, 16, 20.) and (7, 14, 21, 28, 35) in this case, there is no common multiple up to five. But if you know your four times tables if you add 2 on you can make it to 28, which the 7 times table has making it the answer.

Rounding

Group 2 in LS2 have been revising on round numbers up to the billions.

Rounding is a useful skill to estimate. In this blog, we will be teaching you how to round. You need to know place values were you can find our example in our earlier blogs. To round you need a base number, I’ll pick a random one. (482.119) if rounding and you see a question asking to round to the nearest tenth you need to realise that the “th” means that it is in the decimal, not the whole number. in this number rounding to the nearest tenth would be the 1 after the 9 in the decimal place. due to the number being higher than 4, we round up. which is rounding to the nearest tenth. which would be 20 in this case. This would change the number to 482.120. I hope that this blog has taught you how to round.

Place Value

For maths group two’s task was to learn how to solve place value problems and how we use place value in different area’s. Place value is the place of a digit in a number that tells us how much it is worth. For example if there was an equation that said what is 100 more than 4,628,297 the answer would be 4,628,397.

Highest Common Multiple

For this weeks maths, group 1 is learning how to identify the higest common factors. Highest common factors is basically the largest whole numbers that divides into two or more numbers without any remainders. Remember , factors are numbers that we can multiply together to get a number. For example : 6 x 8 = 48.

Tech at Tamaki College

For tech at tamaki college my group and I are making Maori patterns out of sriting and wood, like harakeke there were holes in the wood that we got given and used the string to weve in and out from. The algorithm we used for weveing were 3 down to start, 2 left, 2 down and repeat. We had the opurtunity to pick the first colour to start off with then chose another after we were done oen by one. We used the colours to tell our story of what it repersents like yellow for the sun, blue for the sky or sea and many more. Then we started to weve and it started to look like a pattern that tell a story. This was a fun activity and I enjoyed seeing my patterns come together and tell a story. I can’t wait to go back next friday and finsh my pattern.

Life In The Annex

LI:To write a description of life with the Frank family in the annex in 1942

LS2 read the story “Anne frank” and listened to her experience of how it was like between the war with Jewish and the Germany and how living in the annex felt like. Our challenge for reading was called the “2 minute challenge” where we wrote as many sentences as we could before the timer ends with the following words from the book. Mrs Anderson created a Gemini Gem to prompt us to think more deeply about what life would have been like in the annex, what we felt and why we felt that way, Ataahua and I enjoyed working with the Gemini Gem because of the suggestions and feedback they replied to us with.

 Life in the annex

As the bookshelf started to shudder it reminded me very quickly that just outside our precious place of safety, 1942 was a year of war. The German leader had decided that our culture, the one our beloved jewish people treasured so much, meant we had become their objects of persecution. Something that was relentless. Each night our annex was silent with only the sound of the clock outside chiming every 15 minutes. Each room felt so cramped with people, you could hear the heartbeats of those beside you who feared being discovered. We held our breaths, praying those wearing the German boots would give up the search. They were carrying out aggressively around our bookshelf. An evocative noise from outside of the house caught their attention. As their heavy footsteps faded down the steep stairs we heard a metallic click, finally we breathed sighs of relief that filled the cramped spaced room like a heavy weight lifting off our shoulders. Still knowing this occurance would be a continuous loop but we’re numb to the fear now.

Johnny Pohe and the Great Escape

LI: To make an informed opinion

Our task was to create a DLO that shows both perspectives of Johnny Pohe and the great escape. Johnny Pohe was the first Māori pilot in the RNZAF. Nicknamed ‘Lucky Johnny’,  he flew 22 missions and was involved in the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III. Our group considered whether or not the risks that Johnny Pohe took were the best choices. 

Something we found interesting was Jonhhy Pohe had a better chance of survival if he stayed in the German prision camp than escaping because hours after he escaped he was found and executed. 

 

Building our class culture

LI: To collaborate to create a piece of art

For this collaboration work , we worked in groups and had each part of our leader to draw. We drew it based off the picture we got. Our leader Sir Edmund Hillary was a was a famous explorer and mountain climber. He is well known to be the first person to climb up Mount Everest he has inspired me a lot.