Media Studies Project Update

In media studies this term, we have been working on individual or group projects of our choice. My group, Catrin, Siobhan and I, have been working on making Grey High's double page feature in the Grey Star that comes out in July. So far we have organized a couple photos and blurbs for the paper. We plan to show more student work and achievements.

Media Studies - Ajax the Kea Dog

In media studies today we learnt about different aspects of a film. We studied the short film Ajax the Kea Dog.
Go to this link to view it yourself: https://vimeo.com/229067450

Sound

The short film Ajax the Kea Dog, I believe the director uses a range of sound to grasp the attention of the audience. I think he uses a calm and classical underlying soundtrack over the duration of the film to give the overall film a friendly and welcoming effect. I think this adds to the wilderness aspect as a similar soundtrack is played during shows like bear grills. At the beginning of the film, we have a voiceover about Ajax and his story. I think that he did this to be relatable to his audience as dogs are well loved in our community. I also think this is why he made the story about Ajax instead of about finding keas. Throughout the short film, we get different sound effects including bird calls and the zip of the tent to add context to the scenes.  There is also a music change when he changes locations adding to the scene of mystery in the unknown location

Introducing Yourself in Mandarin

We have been learning how to introduce ourselves in Mandarin. We made a comic strip of two people introducing themselves. Here is mine.

(Hi! My name is Trish. Whats       (Hi Trish! My name is Alice.       (Goodbye Alice.)

          Your name?)                                   Goodbye Trish.)                                            

9MG English : Term One

This term, in English we spent most of it looking into and exploring the hero cycle. The hero cycle is the journey every hero faces to become a hero. There are 12 stages in the cycle. A few stages are: Status quo, departure, treasure and resolution. I enjoyed learning about this a lot. We made posters showing the stages. We also explored people and how they are hero's. I chose to do this on Walt Disney. We created an exhibit showcasing our hero.
This is my slideshow showing all the stages in the hero cycle.


At the start of every lesson we do something called a big question. The big question is an activity set up by our teacher Miss Evans. She will give us a question, topic, or anything really and we have 5 minutes to write 100 words about it. My favourite one we have done is where Miss Evans gave us 5 random words and we had to turn them into a story. The words were: Sponge-bob, Tuesday, ice cream, Music, & however. This is my story:
It was Tuesday night. I was craving a huge bowl of ice cream, however, my music was distracting me. I decided to turn on the t.v. My favourite childhood cartoon was playing, Spongebob. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking about ice cream. I was thinking about how Spongebob has changed my life. I flick off the t.v hastily, my mind filled with anger and sadness, knowing I will get addicted to it again. I shut my eyes and try to sleep. I sit there for what feels like forever, but my brain just wouldn’t shut off. Seconds led to minutes, minutes turned to hours. Eventually I give up trying. I flick the t.v back on and spend all night watching the Spongebob marathon.

At the end of every lesson we do something similar to the big question. It's called the success ticket. Each day we end the lesson by reflecting on our learning. We have a success criteria we refer to. It's not always about reflection, sometimes she asks for suggestions on games and other things.

In the past week we went on a year 9 day trip to Kumara. Before we left I wasn't really that keen on going, when I got their though I really enjoyed myself. We learnt so much about the history of this small town. We learnt about how the gold rush affected this, at that time, non-existent town. We also did a few team building games. We split off into groups with our mentor classes and travelled from activity to activity. My favourite thing we did was the London Dairy Rock bush walk. The rock was huge! It was quite a few tonnes. It was so cool and made me feel so small. A tiny fantail followed us around the walk. Overall I really enjoyed this trip and hope to do more things like this.

This term I have been quite successful. I have completed all my work too a high standard. I have further developed my literacy skills. I have also grown more use to high school and how we move about. Next term, I want to become more confident in my learning and continue to adapt to high school.

Are You Feeling Lucky? Logo.

Recently we have been learning about money. Miss J gave everyone a banqer account. Banqer is a bank simulation that gives people the feeling of owning a back account. To earn money we all made companies that perform different tasks. My main company is called Are You Feeling Lucky? it is a lotto company that gives people the chance to win big! We had to make logo's for our companies, this is my logo. I chose this design because these two dice represent the two dice that are rolled to get the winning numbers. The blue stands for trust and loyalty so you can trust Are You Feeling Lucky? to perform fairly. Next time I would make it neater.

My Rio Olympic Learning

We have been learning about the Rio Olympics. We have done some tasks about it. Here are mine.