Playing Games At School?

Many schools around the world are letting their students play Minecraft at school. There are over 200 schools in the United Kingdom (UK) who are using the game to help their students.

Minecraft is set in a virtual world where players build with blocks of different materials.

At some schools the kids play the game then they write about their experience. Teachers using the game say “Minecraft can help the kids who don’t like reading and writing” but will New Zealand schools let their students play as well?

Being Trapped Underground

A dog was trapped underground for 18 hours.  The dog was found under the rubble of a home in Guatemala after a massive mudslide.  The dog has been named El Fortunado (The lucky one). They say that the dog’s barking finally attracted the rescue teams that were looking for people that survived the mudslide. The rescue teams heard a faint sound like tapping and thought that a person was trapped in the cellar and hitting a pipe to signal rescue. After a lot of digging the team actually realised that it was a dog barking.  The men managed to free the dog who showed thankfulness by jumping up in their arms and licking their faces. A vet examined El Fortunato and said the dog was suffering from dehydration and shock but would soon be better.

A New Invention

Angelo Casimiro-is a fifteen year old boy who has invented a new charging device for phones. These shoe chargers work when the wearer walks, jumps or runs

!It works when the wearer jumps, walks or runs. The pressure goes to a disc inside the shoes and it produces energy.  This type of energy can charge your phone or any other device using a  USB port. Angelo Casimiro says that “The aim of my invention was for people who are constantly on the go or who live in remote areas with no regular access to electricity”.

However the shoes need a lot of movement to completely charge most devices. It roughly needs 8 hours of running or walking to charge a lithium-ion battery and 2 hours of playing basketball to give the average cell phone about 10 minutes of charge. I think that Angelo is going to be very successful with his invention. It’s a neat idea.

Would You Join Them?

Lots of Brazilians are happy and excited about The Fifa World Cup but not all of them. Lots of them are angry and frustrated about The Fifa World Cup happening. People around the world are starting to ask ...

“Why are they protesting against The Fifa World Cup?”

Others are also asking ...

“Why aren’t the Brazilian people proud of The Fifa World Cup being held in their country?”

They are angry because they don’t like the   huge amount of government $$$ spent on these games. The Brazilian government has spent over ELEVEN BILLION DOLLARS on the World Cup. Many of the protesters believe this money should be going to the people of Brazil for more doctors, nurses, teachers and aid workers. The fighting between the protesters and police has been really bad. What would we do in NZ if it happened here?

Italy vs England

Throughout the week a lot of people were talking about The Fifa World Cup . Most people say that the ceremony was cool and it was. The only soccer game that I’ve watched so far was Italy playing against England. There were a lot of people in the stadium cheering on both teams and Italy won 2-1.  People are saying that there are a lot of flights going to Brazil because everyone wants to watch The Fifa World Cup live.

Learning More About Netball

As it was our first netball lesson we had to go to our coach. Our coaches name was Donna. First we had to get warmed up. To warm up we had to make our way to the fence.  We had to do it five times. The first time we had to just jog. The second time we had to skip our way there and back. Once everyone finished skipping their way to the fence and back we did sidestepping. The fourth warm up exercise was bum kick run and lastly the back and forth. Once we finished our warm up exercises we moved on to a challenge game. The challenge game was a mix of netball passing a dodge ball but you could only try to get their ankle.

Before we could play our challenge game we had to get into pairs. Once we all had got into pairs we had to get a ball. Donna told us all the things we needed to know to play the game and once everyone understood we were playing. We had to keep passing the ball to each other until our coach will blow the whistle or say FIRE. Once she said FIRE we had to try get our partners ankle. Sooner or later we had started to playing another game.

The next game we played was to practice shooting and also learning all the different passes you could do in netball. The equipment we used to play it were just a hoola hoop and a netball ball. Like the other games first we needed to get into three groups and learn how to play.  One person had to hold the hoola hoop in three different positions. The first positions they had to hold it was near the ground. The second one was holding it at the side of their  chest and lastly was above their heads. To get the ball one person had to be behind the person who was holding the hoola hoop. The rest of the team was trying to shoot the ball through the hoop.

The last two games were my favourite ones of all. My best game was when we had two balls and we had to get into a big circle and we could throw it to anyone. Most of the time I had two balls coming my way but it was fun.

Never Give Someone Your Password!

Ever since we joined Manaiakalani and were working on our school google accounts we all had the same access code but now, we are getting a new password for our school google accounts.  Getting a new one will be exciting because I don’t like being cyber bullied once and I won’t let it happen. Having my own password is great because then no one else can hack your page and destroy your stuff.  Of course that will only work if you don’t tell anyone your email account and obviously your password.  

D Day

D day is when the largest invasion of all time happened. It first started when the allied forces attacked Northern France (Europe). It first happened on June the 6th 1944. The allied forces landed on a beach called Normandy.

At The Unveiling

On Saturday my family and I had to wake up early in the morning to clean up the house because we had to go to an unveiling. It was my grand-uncle’s unveiling and we had to be there on time because my mum is really serious about her family. I didn’t really want to go because all my mum and her family will do is make us do jobs but I had to.

Even though the unveiling started at 1:00 we arrived at 11:30 and all we could do was stay in the car for 1 hour and 30 minutes doing nothing. I kept trying to go sleep but my sister’s kept fighting with each other.

Finally it was 1:00 and we could finally get out of the car. It finished after an hour and I could hardly walk anymore from all that standing. I finally saw the headstone. I couldn’t really read it because only some of the words were in english but my mum translated the words in english for me.

The headstone was white. Everyone started crying all of a sudden and it felt kind of awkward because us kids were the only ones not crying.

Learning About Hard Material

As it was our first day of going to Hard Material Tech at Tamaki College we had to learn a lot of stuff. Unfortunately we didn’t start creating anything because we were learning the steps first. Our new tech teacher is Mr Grundy. He explained the layout of his workshop, our tech room and made sure we understood all the rules. He showed us the different types of tools, machines and materials like sandpaper we will be using. We also had to fill in our worksheet from the Tamaki College website.

What We Need:

*A block of Pewter Alloy.

*MDF wood.

*Pencil.

*Printer.

*Computer or Netbook or a device that can go on google.

*Different types of needle files.

*Scroll Saw.

*Soup Spoon.

*A Gas Burner.

*Different sandpaper grits.

When we go back  to Tech we will create our own  pewter jewellery with a little presentation box to go with it. I can’t wait to finally start using all the tools and create my own necklace.