KT’s Blog

Inquiry Unit- Why is the world coming to Adelaide?
Here is the rap that my group and I produced:

Dimitri Stamidis from Santorini, Greece
came to Australia looking for a bit of peace.
Back then Greece wasnt a very safe place,
So he came to Australia because he thought that there was no descrimination about race.
He had to leave because of the war,
Because in Greece it was Turks galore.

He went to church every day,
to teach his kids the proper Greek way.
He had big plans for the future,
But for now he took every day as a new adventure.

He came via the Ellinis ship,
And because of the war he had an injured hip.
All he wanted to do was be a Greek restaurant owner,
But because of the foreign food people laughed and made him feel like a loner.

With no education there was nothing else he could do,
He had no house so he went and lived with his friend Sue.

He went to church every day,
to teach his kids the proper Greek way.
He had big plans for the future,
But for now he took every day as a new adventure.

Learning the English language was a struggle for Dimitri,
But keeping his Greek heritage was a guarantee.
A year later he married a Greek lady named Kitty,
They had 3 kids and lived in the city.
He applied for a dual citizenship,
Which meant he wasnt in Australia just for a trip.

He went to church every day,
to teach his kids the proper Greek way.
He had big plans for the future,
But for now he took every day as a new adventure.

At the moment I am reading a book from the series Jane Blonde. The Jane Blonde series have been written by an author called Jill Marshall who currently lives in New Zealand with her 10 year old duaghter and is very passionate about her writing.

The book that I am reading is called “Jane Blonde spies” trouble and it is a very funny and strange kind of story. Jane Blonde is the main character and she is a very sneaky spy who is always looking for some trouble. She is a very smart and intelligent young girl and is known for having every possible gadget that a spy would need. So far I have enjoyed reading the book because it has kept me entertained and wanting to know what will happen next in the story. It is very hard to judge what is going to happen next because the story continously changes throughout the chapters.

If you really enjoy reading adventorous books then I would recommend you to read the series of Jane Blonde because they are great books!

Impressionistic art uses colour, line and shape to express the artists thoughts, feelings and ideas. I found the task quite difficult because we were given a piece of paper and were expected to complete the drawing in a very short period of time. When I do art work, I usually take my time to draw my picture. I was running out of timeso in about 5 minutes I had quickly sketched a flower on my page with polka dots on it.

After lunch we went to the art room to paint our drawings. We had to come up with a name for our art piece and so I named mine ‘twirl’ because I had drawn swirly twirls coming out of the flower. I found that once I had started to put paint on my drawing it didnt look so good because the paint made it look messy. My painting contained pink and yellow polka dots with orange petals and black twirls. I think that the colours I chose let me down a bit because they didnt stand out as much as I thought they would. It was an interesting task but I didnt really enjoy it.

Two weeks ago we had just finished having our 2 week school holidays which now means heads down, concentrate and work. During the first two weeks of this term I have learnt lots, probably more then I have ever learnt in a two week period. Something new that the class and I have been introduced to by Ms. Paladino in the past week is Time zones. At first I basically had no idea about them but now I understand them and I know how to work with them. We learnt about how to create different time zones in different parts of the world and how to tell the time from one country to another. This is how it works and also what I have recently learnt, places to the east of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) need to add an hour for every 15 degrees that they move further away from the GMT and places to the west of the GMT just have to do the opposite which is subtract an hour for every 15 degrees they move. We were given a sheet about Time zones to complete. At first I was a bit confused but then once I got the hang of it I was fine.

In Literacy time we have been learning how to create proper detailed sentences by using noun groups. To make theses sentences at a high quality level, you need to include a Pointer, Quantifier and a Qualifier to create these sentences. It does help to use these instead of just writing boring sentences which arent detailed or at a high quality because it makes what we are writing much more interseting and fun to read. During class we were practising writing sentences which contained a  Pointer, Quantifier and a Qualifier and I foun it interesting to find out what other kinds of sentences poeple had come up with by using given words from our teacher.

I have really enjoyed doing art this week because it is very different to what we have been doing in the past. This type of art has a name for it starting with “P” but I am not quite sure how to spell it because I have forgotten what the word is. In this art you have to lightly sketch a scene, thing, animal, person or whatever comes to your mind and then with coloured texters you have to colour it in by using dots only. I found the task difficult because I am not the best drawer but when I dp draw it takes me a long time to finish it. I decided to draw a converse shoe. I don’t even like converse shoes but that was an idea I thought of. I have been working on it at home because it is very fun and enjoyable to make. When I finish my end product, I will take a photo of it and insert it into a post for you to see!

I am currently reading the book Super diaper baby by George Beard and Harold Hutchins. First we had to create a group of 3 or 4 and then this was our task- In your group you had to discuss which character in your book you would like as a friend and why? and also give some supporting reasons and clarifications.

Here is my reflection:

The only character that I could probably be friends with is the baby because he is an outgoing little baby who would entertain me with his super powers. Also because as soon as he was born, he could talk, which I found strange but funny. The little, young powerful baby with super powers is a new born baby but has the brain of a 3 or 4 year old. I would like to have the company of the Super Diaper Baby because he is very spontaneous. For example if I was in danger, Super diaper baby would be able to save me. The baby’s character in the story is very affectionous and brave.

This term in LA:21, we have been assigned a big task which is to make a PRP. A PRP stands for Personal Research Project. Our task is to choose a topic of our own choice and present it in any kind of a creative way to our class at the end of the term. For example you could present it as a power point, poster, movie/video or anything else that you could think of to present it as.The topic that I have decided to research about is ” The making of School of Rock” and I am going to present mine as a power point. The reason why I have chosen to research about that is because on the week end I was watching it so I thought that it would be an interseting topic to do mine on seeing as I couldn’t think of any other topics to do mine on. To find my information for this task I will be using the internet and the dvd to do my research. Once our presentations are finished it will be good to see everyone else present their projects to the class at the end of term.

On Wednesday the 24th of June, I had my parent, teacher, student interview at 4:50pm. On Monday and Tuesday was when I had the time to be prepared for my interview because I had to be the host of this interview by making the interview into an oral presentation to present infront of Ms. Paladino and my mum. The oral presentation had to be about a reflection of all of my learning this year so I decided to show my E- Port Folio because that is where I have reflected on most of my learning for this year. The presentation had to go for about 2 minutes, I started my presentation off by introducing my Eport Folio and why I chose to show it. Then I went through the Port Folio and talked about some of the slides and explained them to Ms. Paladino and mum. Once I had been through the Port Folio slides, I showed another short slide show that I had created. The slide show included some of my achievements and some things that I struggle with or are challenged by. I also showed some of my art work which I made and created. The art work that I showed was my tessellation and my abstract art. Once I had finished my oral presentation, Ms. Paladino, my mum and myself had a discussion about me and my learning. We discussed my report and then just talked about me in general. The interview went for about 10 to 15 minutes and I was happy how my interview went!

Today on the 23rd of June our class had our second visit from some athletes who have come in to teach us about how we should and can live a healthy lifestyle. The athletes vary each week but the athletes who came today were Wade Thompson, Moronia Gerrard, Jonathon Giles and Matt Thomas. During this lesson we had a discussion about smoking and what the consequences are if you do take up smoking. We also learnt about a variety of chemicals that 1 cigarette contains. A fact that I learnt from this lesson was that each individual cigarette contains up to 4,000 different chemicals. It was a short lesson however I gained a lot of knowledge from this lesson.

Quote: “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”  Mohandas. K Gandhi

My explanation:

This quote stood out to me because it is a simple, affective quote with a great message that stood out to me when I first read it. In my opinion I believe that leadership is about leading people and organising things such as sports days, carnivals and events. This quotes message is trying to tell us that leadership isn’t just about having the strength to be a leader, but its about being the one who gets along wth everyone as well as trying to be a good leader. This quote shows that strength isn’t the most important thing about leadership but getting along with others, accepting others and respecting others is the most important quality to have to be a leader. For example I am a sports day captain and during this past week I have been preparing and helping to organise the health hustle zinc for sports day. Together with all the other captains we have worked togethernto get along and as a team we headed towards success. So therefore to be a leader it requires you to be able to get along with others.

Our quote:

The only way to have a friend is to be one.      R.Emerson

My opinion:

I personally think that this weeks quote is trying to tell us a strong message about good friendship. So far, in my opinion I would say that this weeks quote has been the best quote that LA:21 have had, because it is a very short quote but it tells us a lot from these few words. My understanding of this quote is that if you want to have nice, caring friends then you have to be one yourself and you can’t just expect others to be nice if you are going to be nasty and the complete opposite of what you want others to be. So basically if you want to have friends, then you have to be a good one.