Mihi Whakatau

A Mihi Whakatau is a kind of formal greeting. It introduces oneself to visitors as well as welcoming visitors.

The mihi whakatau begins with stating where everyone is currently situated. In the case of the example below, the speaker is situated where the nearest mountain (maunga) is Maungarei and the nearest river (awa) is Tamaki. The local people (iwi) that historically own the land where the school is, are called Ngati Paoa.

After stating the current location, the speaker introduces themselves by saying how they are to be addressed, where their ancestry is from and how they came to be here. The example shows that the speaker's family name is Wong. Mr Wong's ancestry is from Guangdong in China, but his family came to live in Auckland (Tāmaki Makaurau).

Lastly the mihi whakatau formally welcomes visitors to the current location.

Mihi whakatau are a formal greeting that can be used when a full pōwhiri is not necessary or too long for the circumstance.

Writing | Film Creation

Mr Wong's writing groups applied their knowledge of screenplays, scripts and storyboards to finish filming their movies. The previous week, everyone from Mr Wong's writing groups split into their groups to choose one movie to film.

Two of Mr Wong's writing groups had completed filming and were onto editing. The remaining of his writing groups began filming the footage of their movies and then started editing.

The requirements of the movies were that it had to be more than 30 seconds long and less than two minutes short. The movies had to be filmed in the most effiecent way possible to save time, and the sooner that each group finished their movies, the sooner they could be presented.

Mr Wong's writing groups enjoyed filming and editing their footage and finalising their movies.

LI write a short story that can be made into a film.

LI: to convert a story into a screenplay (script) and storyboard.

LI: to film a screenplay.

Writing | Kapa Haka Performance

On Monday, Panmure Bridge School all went to the hall to experience a kapa haka performance, which was presented by a small kapa haka group.

The kapa haka group performed an entrance ceremony by blowing into a horn and introducing themselves in Maori. Then, the visitors performed their haka.

Once they finished their haka, they informed us about three different Maori tools; the poi, the taiaha and the ti rakau.

In return, Panmure Bridge School's kapa haka group (boys) performed a haka to thank them for performing for us.

Panmure Bridge School enjoyed watching this performance and learning about different Maori tools. This was a great opportunity to learn more about the Maori culture.

LI: to experience and learn kapa haka.

Writing | Storyboard

This week, Mr Wong's writing groups have been focusing on storyboards. They know that storyboards are short but very detailed descriptions of a scene. Storyboards also include very detailed illustrations of the scene.

First, they read through their narrative and broke it down into a minimum of four scenes. They had to draw detailed illustrations to visually show their story. They left space underneath the illustrations for their descriptions of the scenes.

Mr Wong's writing groups enjoyed illustrating and describing the scenes of their narrative and learning the usage and purpose of storyboads.

LI: to create a storyboard from a narrative.

Mr Wong's Writing | Narrative

This week, Mr Wong's writing groups have gone through their written narratives and changed different pieces of them using the feedback given by Mr Wong.

They talked about the changes that could be made to the narratives that they wrote, such as the ideas, the problem, the structure of the narrative (TOPES), the formatting, speech, events and more. They applied that advice and feedback to their narratives.

In their blogpost, they informed the reader what a narrative was and about the structure of a narrative (TOPES) and what each part of the structure is. They talked about why it is important to know how to balance speech and narration in a narrative. They also included information about how to plan a narrative, and why it is important to know this information.

They enjoyed learning about the different changes that could be made to a fictional story so that they could apply that knowledge to their narrative.

LI: to plan a narrative.

Narrative

This week, we made our narratives using our plan.

First, we looked at our plan that we made last week. By looking at our plans, we could figure out and remind ourselves of our ideas that we noted down.

After that, we took our bullet pointed ideas and made it into a narrative. We remembered the use of punctuation, structure, third person and past tense. We also remembered to keep the story an A4 size piece of paper at max.

By the end of this activity, LS1 should know how to write a narrative.

LI: To write a narrative.

Writing | Narrative

This week, we were learning how to create a plan for a narrative.

First, we reminded ourselves of the structure of a narrative (TOPES). TOPES stand for title, orientation, problem, events and solution. In the orientation, you need to answer: who?, when?, where?, and what?. The problem needs to talk about something that goes wrong. The solution is the last things that the characters do to solve the problem. A solution can either fail or succeed.

After that, we watched two short films and tried to identify the structure of the movie. Both of the movie's structure lasted for a very different amount of time.

Lastly, we brainstormed an idea to write a narrative about. We could only make the story one A4 page. The film had to be 30s minimum and 2m maximum.

By the end of this activity, Mr Wong's writing groups should have a good understanding of how to plan a narrative.

LI: To write a short story that can be made into a short film.

Writing | Recount | Daily Routine

For writing, we wrote a recount about a daily routine. We did this because we wanted to find out what is important to us so that we could understand which political party we wanted to vote for.

First, we planned out our recount. We noted down the four main parts of the day which are: before school, at school, after school and after dinner. We also noted down the things we would do in those time periods.

After planning, we started to write the recount. We used our plan to get ideas about what to write.

When we finished writing down our events, we wrote the ending. The ending had our personal reflections and what we want to do the next day.

At the end of this activity, we should have had an understanding of what we find important and how to plan a recount.

LI: To write a daily routine recount.

Narrative Rewrite

For writing, we have learnt about narrative rewrites.

First, we talked about our ideas on what narrative rewrites are. We know that a narrative rewrite uses ideas from another story to write a new text that fits with the original storyline.

Next, we thought of a character from 'The Gruffalo' to replace for the narrative rewrite. The animal we replaced the character with had to flow with the rest of the storyline. 

For example, if we chose to replace the mouse with a giraffe, the story wouldn't make sense because the animals would not prey on a giraffe.

After that, we chose a scene or small part from the story to rewrite with our chosen character. We used the guiding questions 'who would the animals meet?', 'what would the animals say?' and 'what is the Gruffalo's favorite food including them?'.

We enjoyed this activity and found it fun to rewrite a part of the Gruffalo story. The purpose of this activity is to know the different parts to rewriting a narrative.

LI: to rewrite a narrative.

Class Writing | Setting Description

This activity is based around understanding how to describe the looks, the smells, the feels and the sounds of a setting.

First, we wrote down adjectives for all four settings in the gruffalo story. We wrote down adjectives that described how the setting looked, smelled, feeled and sounded.

Then, we wrote down a full setting description for only one of the settings. We wrote full sentences that describe all the areas of the setting. We also included figurative language

We enjoyed this activity and found writing the setting descriptions fun to do. Describing what a setting feels like, smells like, sounds like, and looks like can help the reader understand more of the place.

LI: to write a setting description.

Mr Wong's Writing | Hyperboles & Personification

Mr Wong's writing groups learned about more figurative language, hyperboles and personification.

This was an individual task.

Mr Wong's writing groups understands that personification is giving an inaminate object a human trait. We also understand that hyperboles are exaggerations.

On the slide, there were four images. Mr Wong's writing groups found two different personification to describe two images, and two different hyperboles to describe two other images.

 Mr Wong's writing groups used lists, sites, and more to find hyperboles and personification.

The focus of this activity was to understand the use of hyperboles and personification.

Mr Wong's writing groups found this activity enjoyable and easy. One thing we could work on is understanding the different figurative language types and using them correctly.

LI: to use hyperboles and personification to narrate events.

Mr Ogilvie's Writing | Narrative

Mr Ogilvie's writing task was to create a character description on whoever Mr Ogilvie's groups chose.

Mr Ogivlie's groups used a template to get an idea of what things to cover in the character discription. They covered the appearance, personality, and experiences.

The appearance is how they look. The personality is how they are, how they act, how they behave and their communication. The experiences are where they live, their secrets and their hobbies.

LI: To write a character description.

Metaphors

From this activity, Mr Wong's writing groups learned about more figurative language and metaphors.

The groups used lists of metaphors and found the most suitable and commonly used metaphors to describe an aspect of a situation in the images.

Each group struggled with finding the correct metaphors, but was able find some of the correct metaphors in the end.

The focus of this activity was to understand the use of metaphors.

LI: to describe things by metaphor.

Figurative Language

Mr Ogilvie's writing groups were learning about the five different figurative languages.

They first learnt about the five different languages. They were: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification and understatement. 

A simile is a comparision between two things using 'like' or 'as...as'. A metaphor is a comparision between two things without using 'like' or 'as...as'. A hyperbole is an exaggerated statement that shows effection. A personification is to give an object or idea a human trait. An understatement is an expression that doesn't have a lot of strength.  

They then made a Google Presentation with the definitions of them and with an example.

LI: To learn about the five different types of figurative languages.

Simile

For Mr Wong's writing task, we learnt about similes. We learnt that similes are a comparision between two things using 'as...as' or 'like'. 

We found out that whenever similes use adjectives, they use 'as...as'. For example: The lady was as fast as a racecar. However, whenever similes use verbs, they use 'like'. For example: The lady danced like a crazy party animal.

We then came up with similes for four different photos. We came up with similes for both adjectives and verbs. One of the simile was: The frog and the lily pads are as green as a leprechauns hat.

This activity helped us identify what a simile is and how to use a simile.

LI: To describe things by simile.

Procedural Writing

We were focusing on procedural writing. We know that procedural writing tells how to do or make something using steps.

First, we looked at identifying the structure and language features used in a procedure.

We know that the structure of a procedure is TEMPS. The language features used in a procedure is third person, present simple and specific verbs.

We were able to write a procedure on one of three topics: how to make a sandwhich, how to get to Pt. England from PBS and how to play octopus.

We followed the steps to make a procedure.

The steps were: break up the task into steps that can be explained by one verb, choose the precise verb for each step, create or choose an appropriate image/photo for each step, create a list of materials or tools needed, and write the procedure.

LI: to write a set of instructions.

Verb Tenses

There are three tenses that identify the different things that tell about an action. There are twelve types of tenses.

There are three things that tell about an action, they are: time, continuance and completion. 

Time includes past, present and future. Past is something that has already happened. Present is something that is happening at the time of speaking. Future is something that has not happened yet.


 There are two types of continuance: simple and continuous. Simple is a specific thing and continuous is still going on.

Perfect is a completed action. It is not the same as past, although, an action can be done in the past but it may not be completed.

The twelve tenses are: past simple, present simple, future simple, past continuous, present continuous, future continuous, past perfect, present perfect, future perfect, past perfect continuous, present perfect continuous and future perfect continuous.

By identifying the different tenses, this helps us understand when an action has been done.

LI: to learn about verb tenses.

Verbs

This task for writing was about verbs. Verbs are words that describe actions.

There are three different types of verbs that we identified. They are: physical verbs, mental verbs and state of being verbs.

We wrote as many verbs as we could think of on the Google Sheet.

After writing the verbs we checked the words we wrote just in case they were not verbs or they were spelled wrong.

LI: To learn about verbs.

Homophones

The task for writing was about homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same, have different meanings and are spelt differently.

First, we used a Google Sheet which included 10 homophones. Then we chose three homophones and used them to create an infographic.

In the infographic we wrote down the meaning of the homophones and inserted a picture to go with it.

LI: To investigate homophones.

Plurals | Describing Objects

The task for writing was about plurals. Plurals are more than one thing. They have rules and exceptions.

We were describing objects with plurals. There were twelve pictures that we each described. Our description included an adjective and a noun that could be plural.

There was a no-no list which included words that we couldn't use (because they were boring or simple). Some of the list included: long, good, little, man, woman, insect and etc.

LI: To describe objects using specific and interesting nouns and adjectives.