Tag: Writing

Idiom

LI: To identify idioms and understand their figurative meaning.

For writing, we learned about what is an idiom, learning objectives, literal and figurative, the purpose of idioms and how to create an idiom. We were challenged to create an idiom by picking an object (animal, food or weather), an action (unusual, funny, something happening to the object) an example is, the monkey is slipping on the ice and giving it a meaning (decide what the idiom will mean and to make it different from literal words). One of the idioms we went through was cool as a cucumber which means very calm; not nervous. An idiom is a phrase or expression where the meaning isn;t obvious from the individual words. We enjoyed doing this because we are putting words together to make our own idiom. One interesting fact is that they are often specific and difficult to translate or know.

Procedural Writing

LI: To create a procedural text to tell someone how to do something using a sequence of steps, instructions or actions in a particular order.

For Inquiry we were learning about dinosaurus and their facts. We created our Ankylosaurus out of paper and supplies. To make our dinosaurus we need glue, ruler, black paper, normal paper, pencil, tape and scissors.  After we wrote our instructions/steps on how to create a Ankylosaurus for our classmates to try it out. Me and my partner used red paper as a practice round and black paper for the real one. I enjoyed doing this because we used our creative skills to make dinosaurus out of paper.

Why Maungrei sleeps – Pourquoi Story

Many hundreds of years ago in a country across the sea, there lived a volcano named Maungarei, the fire mountain. She had woken up from her dream, and she was activated to cause eruptions to happen since it was about her vision. As she took over with her anger, she started a rumble that was sending her to make the other volcanoes erupt. One of the volcanoes she sent erupted that caused 100 people to die. The problem that caused the eruption to happen was the gas coming out to ruin the buildings near her. Maungarei, the fire mountain, was angry because the people were walking on her maunga which made her temperature expand to make her explode.

Maungarei the fire mountain was a middle child in her small family. Her and the sister were so close, especially their brothers, they would always hang out until one day they left her all alone when she was asleep. After realising, the middle child is hard. It makes her feel cringed, annoyed and loud which causes the family to stay away from her. Maungarei, the fire mountain was solved from seeing her lovely family again, but there was one thing. Her parents came back with a newborn baby boy. They said they adopted him from the doctors for Maungarei to not be the middle child. Maungarei, the fire mountain, was confused and happy at the same time.

That made her think why would they adopt a new baby and bring it to me? Maungarei, the fire mountain, decided to go to sleep because if her heart got broken she would be able to erupt once again and lava would go all around the cities and buildings around her, that makes the gas flow high into the sky, passing the clouds, higher than the planes can go. And she didn’t want that to happen, so she tried calming herself down with the baby brother until One night he started crying. Maungarei was stressed out because she didn’t know what to do, so she decided to move around, crushing down all buildings to return the baby brother back to its local place. She started to feel like she needed to rest, so she collapsed in front of a city and stayed there until her parents arrived back. A clever animal was climbing on her maunga, comforting her as it thought it was painful. Maungarei and the clever animal started a conversation. Maungarei assumed 

“Hello my name is Maungarei, the fire mountain. What is your name?”. The clever animal responded back with

“That is a cool name! My name is the clever warriors”. 

The clever warriors asked 

“Why are you in this spot? Aren’t you supposed to be there?”.

 Maungarei, the fire mountain, replied with 

“I’m here because I was looking for my family and where to return the baby”.

Maungari, the fire mountain, went back to sleep. You’re wondering who taught Maungarei how to sleep? Years ago when she was born, her mother and father decided to teach her some skills as she grew older and older, the first thing they taught was how to fall asleep and to not erupt, her mother and father tried explaining it to her and moved her around. They have been practising this for a long time until she finally found out how to. One day, her behavior changed into not worrying at all and to instead be happy and carry on her journeys because when she first met that clever animal (The clever warriors) she remembered him saying 

“Don’t look back at the past, think about the future and don’t doubt yourself”.

When Maungarei, the fire of the mountain started to sleep, the town and cities were far too quiet, people not walking on the maunga (thinking it would erupt once again). But as days went by the news came on saying that the Maungarei Mountain has been dormant which means it will not erupt. Everyone felt safe and happy when they heard those words come out of his mouths clearly and respectfully. The Maungarei Mountain was safe to go for a walk and everyone went for an exercise, started playing sports on its ground, people went shopping, went to the cities, playing outside which was sorted out peacefully because of the clever warrior. The next day, everyone was going out, touching the maunga with respect, feeling happy and saying respectful words to its grounding.  The world emerged from the shadow of the volcano with a renewed sense of hope and resilience. People were indeed over shared experiences, and there was a collective commitment to protect the environment and promote harmony with nature.  As the people around her are living peacefully, Maungarei the fire of the mountain remains to keep her eyes closed until she erupts once again. They should all remember that her heart is still alive and will continue to beat.

My Image I created using AI prompts :

For this writing task, we have been learning about Pourqoui stories. Pourqouri stories is a type of folktale that explains why something happens or exsists. For example: why are kangaroos tall? Kangaroos are tall because they have long and strong legs which are powerful. Sometimes pourquoi stories are belief of different types of cultures (include powerful words, past tense and dialouges).  We made a pourquoi story about why maungarei sleeps, and then we got to have some fun after we completed it and made an image on Adobe express. For Adobe Express we used it for generating a image using prompts that explains about maungarei sleeping/resting as in a volcano, when we do our prompts it will appear with lots of images. I wrote in my prompts “A angry fire mountain called Maungarei with it’s eyes and mouths closed”. I tried using powerful and understanding words in my prompts because I usually get a image of just a volcano exploding or a normal volcano.

Tangiwai Disaster

LI: Use your smart searching skills to find 3 interesting facts about the Tangiwai disaster.

For reading we learned about the Tangiwai disaster. We watched a video that explained the tangiwai railway bridge disaster. We made notes with vocab (words we don’t know) and questions to know. One of the things we learned about was open and close questions. Open questions are saying the answer but adding more details and closed questions is a simple yes or no. For our document, we read through the story and answered the questions using our own words/comment tool to share our opinions/ideas. Group 2 made a google video, we took turns sharing six facts about what happened in the past (Tragedy disaster). We used our smart searching skills and explained what happened in a short sentence in our own words. An example of this is “The disaster occurred on Christmas Eve, with many passengers travelling home to be with families, adding to the tragedy of the event”. We enjoyed learning about volcanoes.

Diary WW1

LI: To retell an event in history through the fictional eyes of someone who was there.

For this activity, we’ve been looking at a text that took place in ANZAC (World War 1) on the 25th of April 1915. We watched a video about their life or what it looked like in the trenches also about Hami Grace’s diary that was read from one of the soilders who participated in the war. Learning about this helped us write our own diary together as a reading group. We used Google Videos to record our own self reading the diary entries we created and tell them about I enjoyed using this as it allowed me to learn about what happened during world war 1. Something I found interesting about this task was when watching the video, I realised how tight the trenches were for all soilders to fit in.

Photo Story

LI: To understand the concept of visual storytelling.

For this activity, we went on a walk down to the Tamak Awa in Point England to learn about Samuel Marsden. We created a collage with around 9 to 10 pictures of the river and the activity we did, the pictures I have included was when we were walking to the river and back to the school, pictures of the park and a group photo. Something I enjoyed when walking was when we get to see what the Tamaki Awa looks like now then when Samuel Marsden saw before.

Pepeha

LI: To let others know who I am so they can make connections to me and my place in the world.

For this activity, we were challenge to write and record our pepeha to introduce ourselves in Te Reo Maori and English. I found this very interesting because I got to know more about my whanau. 

Papyrus AI Writing

Today we used papyrus AI to help us write a Narrative writing about Red Riding Hood and Snow White combined together. A generative AI is creating something, and to predict (guess) patterns and words. I also learned about the LLM which stands for Large Language Model. We used summaries and retell them in our own words. I really liked the way it replies faster, and how it tells you what you need to add to make it improve by the AI giving feedback.

Bonds of magic and courage.

Once upon a time, in a village near big forests and wide meadows, there were two girls named Snow White and Red Riding Hood. Snow White was known to play tricks and sometimes seemed a little distant from the others. She acted this way to protect herself. Red Riding Hood, however, was always kind and ready to help anyone who needed it.

One day, as the sun rose, people in the village talked about a strange problem. The gardens were drying up, and food was getting scarce. Red Riding Hood wanted to help. She walked through the busy market, asking people if they knew how to fix the problem.

As she walked, she thought about Snow White, who had a tough life after her mother died. Snow White’s stepmother, Stephanie, was mean and didn’t like Snow White because she was so pretty and talented. But Snow White stayed strong and smart, even when things were hard at home.

Red Riding Hood decided to ask Snow White for help. They met in the village square, and Red Riding Hood told her about the curse on the village. At first, Snow White wasn’t sure, but Red Riding Hood’s kind words made her want to help. She agreed to join Red Riding Hood and try to save the village.

In another part of the village, Red Riding Hood was worried because her grandma was sick. To cheer her up, Red Riding Hood picked flowers and baked biscuits, then walked through the forest to her grandma’s house with the basket of treats.

Meanwhile, Stephanie had a magical mirror that talked to her. Every day she asked, “Mirror, who is the prettiest of them all?” The mirror always said, “You are beautiful, but Snow White is even more beautiful.” This made Stephanie angry and jealous. She thought about how to make Snow White less beautiful.

Snow White was really scared because she thought the huntsman would get rid of her, as her stepmother wanted. But the kind huntsman had a good heart and let her run away to a new place where she could be safe.

When Stephanie realized Snow White was missing, she asked her magic mirror, “Where is Snow White?” The mirror showed her where Snow White had gone. Angry and determined, Stephanie disguised herself as an old woman and went to Snow White’s hiding place. She knocked on the door, pretending to be kind, and convinced Snow White to let her in.

Once inside, Stephanie revealed her true intentions. She tied Snow White with a rope until Snow White fainted, leaving her in danger.

Red Riding Hood, searching for her friend, came upon the house and sensed something was wrong. She hurried inside and found Snow White unconscious and tied up. Quickly, Red Riding Hood untied her, allowing Snow White to breathe again. As Snow White slowly came back to life, she thought to herself that she would never trust strangers at her door, even if they appeared to be harmless old women.

After their narrow escape, Snow White and Red Riding Hood knew they had to come up with a plan to protect themselves and end Stephanie’s wickedness. Together, they devised a plan to confront Stephanie and break the hold the magic mirror had over her.

They decided to take the mirror away from Stephanie, hoping it would free her from jealousy. With bravery in their hearts, they sneaked back into Stephanie’s home. Using clever tricks and teamwork, they managed to distract Stephanie and retrieve the mirror. 

Once the mirror was in their hands, Snow White and Red Riding Hood smashed it into pieces. As the shards scattered, Stephanie’s enchantment was broken, and with it, her obsession with beauty faded.

Stephanie, freed from the mirror’s influence, realized the harm she had caused and asked for forgiveness. Snow White, learning the power of kindness and forgiveness, decided to give her stepmother another chance.

With love and unity, the village’s gardens began to bloom again. Snow White and Red Riding Hood’s friendship grew stronger, proving that courage, trust, and a little bit of magic can overcome any darkness.

2 words and 2 minutes

Today we used the ‘2 words 2 minute’ challenge to write a simple story about the ancient olympics in under 2 minutes. When the timer was finish we started talking to the person next to us about the things we knew about the ancient olympics. We chose the words Greece and athletes to help us understand what we will be writing about. There was 3 rules they were, don’t stress just guess, write as fast as you can (don’t write as fast as the other person can), and the last one was make sure it makes sense.

When the timer was up we had 2 or 3 minutes to read it again and fix what didn’t make sense or fix the punctuation that was in the wrong place. We than had to check if we had a rehetorical question, simple sentence, complex sentence and others.

This activity was fun because it helped me write better and faster than the first round.

Persuasive Language Features

LI: to explore the language features of a persuasive text.

This week we have been learning about persuasive writing to help us be focus on our speech that will be happening soon. Persuasive writing is convincing the audience to agree with you or think like you. Me and my partner were looking closely at the language features used in a persuasive text. They were rhetorical question, repetition, emotive words, vivid language, call to action, acknowledge counterarguments, facts and statistics, questions, exaggeration, and group of three. I have chose to share the persuasive language feature of rhetorical question and repetition. I think authors use this language feature to make the audience feel interested to what you are telling them about.