SPEND YOUR MONEY WISELY 💵

SPEND YOUR MONEY WISELY - SUSTAINABILITY MOVIE EXT 2K19

Last term for extension we were looking at sustainability. Our movies were suppose to be entered for the Outlook for Someday movie competition, but unfortunately we were jam packed with many events and never really got to enter. We still got a chance to finish it last term but I didn't get around to posting it on my blog. Here it is! Together with my group Chastyti, Paikea, Makayla, Naomi and to other stars who weren't in our group but we asked to join Skye and Bethan. We wanted to look for a way to help people spend their money wisely because these days, everyone is on the trend looking for the latest and spending their own money without looking at what they really need. 

This movie talks about a poor person who encounters a very wealthy female. The wealthy female isn't really the best at buying things and doesn't know how to spend her money properly. The poor person asks kindly asks the female for some money but they don't bother, instead the flex their latest designer clothes. A week later the poor person continues asking and she ends up getting a lotto ticket from a stranger. She proceeds to try her luck and ends up winning a huge amount of cash. Meanwhile, the wealthy female ends up struggling with financial issues and ended up getting evicted out of her house, she became poor. The same people end up meeting each other, but this time they've switched places. Instead of being mean, the lady that used to be poor negotiates with the lady and they end up both learning a important message. Spend your money wisely!

OUR ACTORS:
Skye - Rich/Poor Person
Bethan - Poor/Rich Person
Chastyti - Lotto Cashier
Naomi - Bank Employee/Stranger
Amelia - Bank Employee/Stranger

🔬 Looking at cheek cells! 🦠

Even though this term our theme is Life's a Stage, Room 4 will still be continuing on our genomics learning topic from last term because we didn't get a chance to cover all of the information about genomics due to our busy schedule. This is why, Room 4 got a chance to look at cheek cells. To help look at the cheek cells properly, we used a few microscopes to help us give our observation more description. We had to go into groups and I was with Bethan and Paikea. 

As always, we sat on the mat and followed instructional video on how to look at a cheek cell. The man who was instructing the video was very specific in what we were doing. What we needed:

-Microscope
-Slide
-Popsical Stick
-Sodium Chloride
-Methylene blue (stain) 

The man in the video said we had to rub the popsical stick gently, but at the same time try to get all those little bits - we were looking for all those dead cells. We didn't have enough slides so only one person from our group had to do it, Bethan Volunteered while I was disgusted by the fact that we had to do it. 

Mrs Stone handed out the slides to each group and we were strictly forbidden to not smear our all over it and hold it by the corners. If we were to smear our hands all over, then we wouldn't be looking at our cheek cells, but our germs and hands. Bethan took the popsical and rubbed it all around one side of her cheek. She went in there! After that, Bethan rubbed the popsical remains onto the slide. I was soooo disgusted.

I then added the sodium chloride which made no change, but when Paikea added the Methylnene Blue it made a quick change. This was to help us look more into the cell in depth. After that we waited for it to dry because we didn't have any covers to look at the cell without it drying.

Once we came back, we all scattered the microscopes we had around the room and carefully examined and observed what we saw. We had different objectives that helped us look closer into the cheek cell. Mrs Stone also gave us paper and we had to actually draw what we see and write an explanation below. Here's mine:

🤷 What Makes An Effective Leader? 📝

WALT: Identify and use features of explanation writing.

What makes an effective leader?

Leader, also known in other words the captain or the chief. The leader is someone who leads, directs a group or organisation. In my opinion, I think that the role of a leader is very important and it’s a role that you should be effective in. But how do you become an effective leader? Explore with me these three points on what makes an effective leader!

Being dependable is a very important sequence of being an effective leader. The majority of being dependable is expecting the unexpected. Expecting the unexpected includes thinking quick on your feet. This means, if you are told to explain something to other people, you should be able to improvise quick on your feet and ready for anything coming your way. This is hard work and it takes time for you to get use to it, but it definitely showcases how much of an effective leader you are.

To add on, Being a role model is a main key that makes you an effective leader. A role model is someone who creates a positive effect that people acknowledge and put into practice. Meaning, doing the right thing is almost compulsory because you never know who’s watching! If you create a positive effect it reflects on you, your role and your peers. Mistakes can also be part of being a leader, but it's good! Because you learn from them and you can share your lessons with your peers. 

Lastly, a passionate person, someone who enjoys what their doing and spreads an optimistic vibe certainly makes an effective leader. Imagine if you were the opposite of a passionate leader. “Oh, being a leader is boring!” or “Oi, this sucks I wish I never did this.” If these things spread around your surroundings, it will put people down and look at being a leader from a low perspective. Whereas, if always be a passionate leader you will receive great response and become an inspiration.

An effective leader can be identified in many ways and definitions. Personally, I believe that being dependable, always a role model and being very passionate can strongly define an effective leader. Don’t agree with me? Try it, you will be awesome!

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Task Description: Were back at school and it's our final term of the year! We have tests coming up early next week, therefore we are focusing on our main topic which is Explanation Writing - Explaining a point. In Room 2 Literacy we decided to do an explanation writing on What makes an effective leader. As always, we sat on the mat and discussed the topic and shared our ideas. Its a very easy one because amongst the class are a few school wide leaders. To extend our learning we looked at a few videos about what makes an effective leader and the explanation writing layout. I hope you picked up something from this piece of writing of writing, and remember if you have any feedback just comment below :) Thanks, Amelia.

🇰🇷 🎶 The History of K-Pop 🇰🇷 🎶

If you've seen my previous blog post then it talks about our new topic this term, Life's a Stage! In team 5 our main focus is performing arts which is mostly drama & dance. We are learning about the different styles of music and dances from around the world and where they mainly originated from, basically the background of the dance/song and all about it. To learn about this we will be shifting around the classes in our block. We started off in our home class where out teacher has prepared a style of music for us. In Room 4 we learnt about K-Pop!

EXO ACCEPTING AN AWARD
IMAGE ATTRIBUTION

K-pop means "Korean Popular Music", and it plays a huge part in the music industry which makes it known all over the world. Inside the K-Pop culture we have K-Pop groups which consists of 'Idols' as they call them or members. Groups like BTS, Blackpink, iKON, Twice, Red Velvet, GOT7, NCT 127, Straykids, TXT, Astro, Everglow, F(x) (R.I.P SULLI), SuperM, EXO, Pentagon, Ateez and a tons more of K-Pop groups are known everywhere across and around the globe. 

To start off our K-pop learning session we watched an K-pop music video. This music video was DDU-DU DDU-DU created by the famous group BLACKPINK. Our task was to observe the music video and process those thoughts in our heads. The dance made some of us pop some moves during the song it was so up-beat! Mrs Stone stopped the song and let us share our thoughts and observations about the video. A lot of us spoke about how modern it looked like and how even though we couldn't understand the culture the vibe and visuals it was giving off gave us some idea about the song.

BLACKPINK ALSO ACCEPTING AN AWARD
IMAGE ATTRIBUTION

Mrs Stone continued to share with us some facts about K-pop. Some facts surprised some of the students like how K-pop wasn't actually an original type of music from South-Korea, instead it was inspired by American music which was shared to Korea. Korea then decided to mix it in with their traditional music. Then, K-pop was born! We also looked at the Kim Sisters, they performed a american folk song and wore an very old fashion attire which many of us pointed out.

We also went on to learn that years ago Korea had very strict dictators, meaning that these dictators banned this type of music. The reason for this is probably that they wanted to keep the traditional Korean music alive. Around the 80's, the music started to come back alive, but their was a limit to the kind of topics they would sing about. One of those topics that weren't to be sung about was kissing! They were not allowed to mention this topic in there song in anyway. Crazy right!

BTS LOVE YOURSELF CONCERT
IMAGE ATTRIBUTION

Now we look at the present, the Korean music and culture has changed drastically. No more strict rules and the current presidents in Korea actually enjoy this type of music because its an enormous way of promoting their country to the world. I myself enjoy this type of music along with a few of my friends. There are many cons of K-pop as there are many scandals within the K-pop community however, I hope that this will change overtime and we can all have a positive perspective of the K-pop music industry.

💻 Quick Write: Immersion Assembly 💻

Quick Write: Immersion Assembly

It’s back to school whanau! You know what that means…..Immersion Assembly! Immersion Assembly is a time where all the students of Point England meet in the school hall, where all the teachers and staff prepare an item or mtv to present our school topic! I walked into the hall, eager to see what was instore for us. I see the huge screen with the words Life’s a Stage! While we were getting ready to be seated, I could hear the music playing in the background. Various songs played which were remixed by Mr Jacobsen were smoothly blasting across the hall. Once we were all settled, we let the show begin!

Mr Burt was at the front doing his normal greeting. Since it’s Niuean Language Weeking Mr Burt yelled out loud FAKALOFA LAHI ATU PT ENGLAND! We all replied back, giggling at his amusing costume. It consisted of a messy wig coloured blue, red and white. Funky! He wore a skirt that I found pretty weird, and a bright t-shirt to top it off. He went on to explain how many cultural dances can explain different stories. Mr Burt was blurbing out words of excitement when Mr Jacobsen cut him off. “Mr Burt! Can I tell my story?!”, he said with eagerness. Mr Burt replied with a yes and the first item was underway!

Mr Jacobsen held the mic up and spoke with enthusiasm. “Well you guys know this story...🎶There once was a little boy, who lived in Eketahuna.🎶 Mr Burt was acting out all the words of the classic, original Pt England song - Is it Kind. Mr Jacobsen and Mr Burt both entertained us with that one verse. We chuckled at the site of the two crazy men. Mr Jacobsen proceeded to sing the second verse. 🎶Delilah was a little girl, she lived in Eketahuna. She likes to ride her motorbike- 🎶 VRROOM! A sudden noise of an engine cranking scattered across the hall. We all draw our attention to the back where the noise came from. HAHAHAHAHAH! The whole school bursts out in laughter at the site of Mr Sommerville. VRROOM! VRROOM! He was wearing a fuzzy blond wig which just made us all lose it.

Mrs Tele’a also made some short appearances when it came to the line. 🎶 Taught to them by their moooootttthhheeerrrr. 🎶 Once it came to the chorus the whole school sang the song. This was my favourite item because I found it amusing and hilarious. What a great item!

🐠 Kau Fangota: Gleaners of the Sea 🌊 ll A Tongan Perspective of Tradition

Cultural Perspectives of Tradition:
During the holidays I have been watching a lot of documentaries. I was very intrigued and amazed by the traditional work of many different cultures. Therefore, I decided to make an blog-post on one of those documentaries. For the next couple of days I might be able to create blog-posts on the different cultural perspectives on tradition. Today I will be sharing an documentary from my culture. I chose to start with my own because it's one I am mainly familiar with and I can understand well. I hope you enjoy this blog-post and learn something like I have :) 

THIS IS NOT MY VIDEO I DO NOT OWN IT
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT - TONGAN PRACTICES

As you can see, this is only part 1 of this video but, it shares a good amount of information and I will be covering only a few parts. The term finemotu'a (female) fangota or a tangata (male) fangota is a fisher woman/man who harvests or collects seafood and seafood plants. Fangota is something they do everyday. This traditional technique is mainly directed towards the woman which is learnt and passed down from grandmothers to mothers to daughters and coming generations. The Seafoods and Seafood plants are used for both food and medicine for the people of Tonga. Even though their are many striving people who own decent places and a good amount of money there are many people who don't have those things and are based in poor homes.

Matelita Tupou (a finemotu'a fangota) is one of those people who don't live those wealthy lifestyles. She is married to a man who's previous wife had seven children as well as his current wife who also has 7 children - 14 overall. Matelita's family are so poor they don't have the basic money to even buy foods from the store. This is why her and her children go out to the ocean eat, bring and feed to everyone the provided food from the ocean. When they go out to the ocean they bring woven baskets from green flax to gather the seafood and seafood plants. 

Vai Tupou is also a finemotu'a fangota who lives together with Matelita. She is also married but has a total of ten kids whom she takes care of and feeds. Besides the fact that they live a poor lifestyle and enviroment, all her children are well and not sick and no one is laying in a hospital bed because of the healthy seafood they eat and freshly grab from the ocean. 

A common thing people from foreign countries do is import food from their country and give it to people who live in the islands (Samoa, Tonga, Fiji etc.) In Tonga we call it Talamu. Talamu is where we pack tons and tons of foreign food, put them in giant containers and ship them straight to Tonga. This is something complusry for us and it happens on occasions where families come for any matter to New Zealand or other foreign countries.

Vai Tupou stated that before this became a 'thing' for Tongans they were consuming very healthy and natural foods. These foods included limu a type of seaweed commonly picked during the fangota session. But now, people in Tonga are eating very unhealthy foods like chips, sweets, corned beef (a very common food tongans ship). This has lead to many illnesses in Tonga. Tonga is now in on of the top diabetic countries/islands in the world because of this matter. A disease fell on her island and her and her family survived it by eating the seafoods and seafood plants.

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Well this is all I am able to cover on this interesting topic. I can claim that these people are very healthier than us because (this is not all cases) the daily diet people in foreign countries consume are shocking. If you want to see part two of the video click this link. I agreed with Vai Tupou's statement because It was very true and its something my mother always talks about. What about you? I would love to hear your input about this topic. Please leave a comment to share and I will reply!

🌺🇹🇴 T O N G A N - L A N G U A G E - W E E K 🌺🇹🇴

FAKAKOLOA A AOTEAROA AKI AE TAUHI FONUA

A TONGAN PERSPECTIVE OF ENRICHING AOTEAROA, NEW ZEALAND
🌺🇹🇴 T O N G A N - L A N G U A G E - W E E K 🌺🇹🇴

Some of you may have been aware of this, but Tongan Language Week was a great era! For some overseas countries, here in New Zealand we like to celebrate different cultures. There are many different diverse cultures here in New Zealand and what we want to do to keep it alive by embracing it. For example, when it was Maori Language Week people went as far as Maori subtitling for sky TV's.It was very nice to see people embrace the language!

Back to Tongan Language Week, every time there is a Language Week the school organises a item(s) which we share to the whole school. A lot of kids who are full, half or quarter of that culture even if there not at all join the group in creating a performance. This is year, I was very proud to choreograph along with the help of Maree the girls tau'olunga dance. Tau'olunga is a traditional dance for tongan girls where the hands are the main movement like there telling a story.

We practised for four days every lunchtime at the wharefono. It was kind of hard teaching the dance and being a leader because you had to make sure that everyone was going the right way and doing the move correctly because some tongan dance moves can be complex (even for a tongan). But we all were still determined to finish learning the dance and to be able to present on Friday!

It was finally the day where we got to perform! I was really excited but at the same time nervous because of the surprising amount of people that were coming. As more and more people arrived, you can see the different types of Tongan attire they brought. Some wore a full tongan tau'olunga costume while other stuck to simple. What I wore was around the middle of that. I wore a green puletaha, taovala (tongan mat woven), a kafa and also a green hibiscus flower in my hair, then we were ready!

Everyone in the tongan group all sat at the back of the seniors. Everyone was looking at us eager to see what we have in store for them! I kept seeing people take quick glances at our costumes then back at the front, it was kind of funny! Then Mr Somerville announced it! It's time for the Tongan group!

First off, Tia and Shania our teacher aids/amazing helpers for the group dance made a little introduction. They also acknowledged a lot of people as well as me, Maree and Viliami (who taught the boys). Then it was our que we all hurried to the front ready for our performance. We also got to say little speeches. I messed up my speech a little at first, but then I calmed myself down and everything just flowed.

Then I could hear it our music playing. I danced and danced throughout the whole three minutes! I could see my mum at the corner of my eye along with the Pt England Kids Kindergarten who visited (my mum works there!). I was so happy to see her and I saw her pull up her phone and take a photo of me. I tried my best not to laugh but to maintain my face along the whole dance. WE WERE FINISHED! It was a really great time and when I got back to class I got a lot of smiles and "YOU DID SO GOOD!" after the performance. It just made me happy and I was so proud to represent my culture :)