Portrait art

 For the past few weeks we have been making portrait art. For this task we had to get a picture of ourselfs taken and then put it behind a laminat sheet, then outline the picture witha sharp pointed vivid or sharpie, sharpie is best. After that, take the picture out from under neath the laminating sheet and flip it over, and start mixing the paint colours to match your face. Then when you've done start painting you're face, neck and ears. Then make the colours of you're shirt, and paint that. Then make the colour of your hair, paint your hair, then make the colour of your eyes, then your lips, and finally,once ypur dry, put a sheet of coloured paper behind you and your done. I enjoyed painting my self and chosing the colour of my background. I found it difficult to mix the colours and make my face, and eyes. In the end the skin that I created eneded up looking a bit sun burnt. If you want make portrait art, be warned, some bit's are harder than others, espeically the skin. I ended up with the inside of my mouth blue, and part of my eyebrow blue as well, because the back ground that I had choose was blue, and buy the time I was done there had been bits that I had for gotten about. We were learning how to blend paint to match our skin, or our hair.

Is chocolate one of the best desserts ever?🍫

 Do you like chocolate? My speech is all about it! But my speech is not a happy speech about chocolate, its about the sad story of chocolate. When I read my speech in front of the class I got into the semi-finals and then the finals. My favourite part of writing my speech was doing the research and watching the video about the bitter side of chocolate. Do you even know what the bitter side of chocolate is? Read my speech and learn all about it. When I read my speech in front of the whole school, I got 3rd place. I hope you like it. And remeber, chocoate is not all that it's cut out to be. 

                                                                                                                                                                                       Is chocolate the best food ever?

Who likes chocolate? You probably do, but have you ever considered where it came from? I´m here to tell you the bitter side of chocolate, but first the sweet side.

Firstly, chocolate is delicious, it's sweet and perfect for dessert. It’s difficult to imagine that the chocolate chip cookie, one of the world’s most beloved sweet treats, was actually invented by accident in 1930 when Ruth Wakefield and her husband, Kenneth, were running the Toll House Inn on Route 18 near Whitman, Massachusetts. Mrs. Wakefield prepared all the food for the guests at the inn and had gained an enviable local reputation for her impressive range of desserts.

Secondly, here's the bitter side. The journey from cocoa bean to chocolate bar is rife with corruption, violence, and exploitation. People, many of them children, are being forced to do illegal work just so we can eat chocolate. Unfortunately if you know how it starts then it might not be  possible to enjoy chocolate. People are forced to be slaves because of it. 60 percent to 2 thirds of the world's cocoa beans come from west africa, mainly in two countries, Ghana and Ivory Coast. The people in Africa have to cut the cocoa pods off the cocoa trees without using machines, only machetes, which are a big knife. Cocoa pods have cocoa beans in them, which are mandatory if you want to make chocolate. Once the farmers have 30 - 35 tons of chocolate they take it to the port where the beans are shipped off to big chocolate companies that you've probably never heard of. 400 cocoa beans = 1 pound of chocolate. The cocoa farmers get less than 1 dollar a day or about 200 dollars a year which is about as much as adult workers can get here in a day. The big chocolate companies get a huge amount of money from the chocolate we eat. I think the farmers should get more of the money because they work every day, their children work every day, and they barely get 1 dollar.

Lastly, Ivory Coast has lost more than 85 percent of its forests because farmers destroy the native trees to grow the cocoa trees. Cocoa trees make about 30 pods a year, which is enough for 2 tons. Each pod contains about 40 seeds. If a farmer has the choice of protecting the rain forests or feeding their families then they don't have much of a choice at all. Sadly sometimes bad people come and kill the farmers if they know that they have money that they want. 

What I'm trying to tell you is that chocolate shouldn't make people slaves or destroy forests. I think we do need chocolate, but the farmers should have a choice if they want to work at the cocoa farms or not, and if they do then they should be paid a whole lot more. Thank you for listening to my speech and I hope you agree with me that chocolate shouldn´t cause slavery.

The Olympic games

Kia ora! This week for reading we were learning about the Olympic games because the Olympic games were happening in Tokyo, Japan. On the slides that I was creating I had to write facts about the Olympic games, the ancient Olympics, the opening ceremony, and the Olympic Mascots.Did you know that there is a Olympic Mascot and a Paralympic mascot? Paralympic means an Olympic game but for disabled people. Did you know that in the Ancient Olympics the men doing the Olympics ran naked because there clothes were to heavy to run in? Have you ever watched the Olympic games in real life or on TV before? Here is a link. Here's another link, and here's the last link. This last link takes you to Kiddle so you can learn about the Olympics. I enjoyed looking up facts and searching for imformation. I found it difficult to put the facts and research into my own words and I also found it difficult to chose some of the backgrounds because I couldn't find a background based on the theme of the slide so I setteled on tie diy backgrounds. Next time I would change some of my facts and the way I wrote them and also I would change some of my backgrounds.

Matariki on scratch

 This week and last week we have been learning about coding on scratch. Since its Matariki Mrs Torri - our cybersmart teacher - told we had to do it Matariki themed. She said we could make your your sprite and a star go for a journey and look for all the other stars of Matariki. On scratch my sprite was a astronaut dog called dot. I used space back grounds and voices that you can listen to.

I enjoyed coding my sprites and chosing my back grounds. I found it difficult to code and make them talk and change the back ground. Next time I would change some of my back grounds and my sprite. On my scratch game I haven't finished making and coding it yet so you will only get to see a little bit of my game.

Have you ever been on scratch? If you have then maybe you could make your own Matariki scratch game. If you haven't maybe you could ask your teacher if you and your class can go on it and create your own game.