What is Adaptation?

Adaptation is when something changes to survive in the environment. A tree in winter loses its leaves to survive in the winter. New Zealand creatures adapt to the environment to stay predator-free. Many New Zealand creatures have adapted, there are around 100 species of cicada and 39 species of Gecko. How do they adapt? Each animal has unique features that help them change.

The Tui

In 1770, the Europeans first encountered the tui on the North Coast during Captain Cook’s first voyage (Adventure). A Tui usually lays about 2-4 pink pale eggs. Tui’s eat nectar from flowers or native plants. The Maori believe that Tui’s can be the messengers of God and Goddesses. The Tui’s adaption is their curved beak that fits perfectly into nectar in native flowers.

The New Zealand Sea Lion

The New Zealand Sea Lion first appeared 120,000- 220,000 years ago by Georg Wilhelm Steller, a German Surgeon. The Maori name for the Sea Lion is Whakahao-Pakake. Sea Lions went extinct in the 19th century. Sea Lions are mammals and are endangered. The Sea Lions adaptation is that they see better underwater than out, it helps them to get their food underwater.

The Tuatara

The Tuatara is a really unique animal that has really unique features in its bodies. One of the unique features are that their bodies are colored to blend in with the ground floor. Their adaption is that their tails fall off when they get attacked.

The Gecko Gecko’s first appeared around the early days of the dinosaurs, Between 180 and 225 million years ago. One of their adaptions is that they have really sticky feet to climbs walls, ceilings and other stuff.

The Moa

The Moa is a flightless bird discovered by the Europeans. The person who discovered the first Moa is Richard Owen. Moa’s became extinct about 500 years ago. An animal that hunted the Moa’s were the Haast Eagles. Moa’s are about 3 metres (10 feet) tall.

The Haast Eagle

The Haast Eagle’s wingspan is about 3 metres long and its body length is about 1.4 metres. The Haast Eagle usually hunted the Moa. The Haast Eagle lived in the South Island and one of Stewart Island. The Haast Eagles’s scientific name is Hieraaetus Moorei. The Haast Eagle went extinct and went extinct because in the 13th century when humans arrived. The Humans hunted them and they couldn’t adapt and find a new prey.

 

Evaporation:

Evaporation is when the water on the ground gets heated by the sun and becomes a water vapour. After it becomes a water vapour it becomes light and goes up to the sky. Once it reaches the sky it starts to become cold. Evaporation is something like hot tea becoming cold, wet clothes drying in the sun and wet hair drying. The next one is condensation.

Condensation:

Condensation is when the water vapour reaches the clouds and becomes water droplets. The water cycle process is when the rain comes down and makes a collection or puddle of water. An example for condensation is a foggy window on a cold day. The next step is precipitation.

Precipitation:

Precipitation is water released  in the form of rain, freezing rain, sleet (frozen raindrops), snow or hail. Precipitation is formed when raindrops in clouds combine.. The next one is a collection.

Collection:

The collection is when water that falls from the clouds as rain, snow, hail or sleet collects in the ocean, rivers, lakes and streams. Most will infiltrate (soak into) the ground and will collect as underground water.

Yesterday our teacher told us to pick a New Zealand native animal and research about it and find more about it. This is my presentation about kiwi’s and some interesting facts about them.

This week Mr Bell told us to draw pictures of the 9 Matariki stars as a superhero then put them on a slideshow and show some interesting facts about that star and what it represents. I really enjoyed this learning activity because it helped me learn a lot about Matariki.

A few weeks ago our teacher showed us how to do ssw which stands for sustain silent writing. He first starts off by putting up an image on the screen and we have to write about that image with our imagination. A few days later I deicided to do one of my own. I finally found a picture and started writing about it. I really enjoy sustain silent writing because there is no wrong or right answer.

My Writng:

Yesterday My teacher (Mr Bell) set up a Ki o Ra hi tournament for us to play. I was really excited to play because Ki O Rahi is really fun and I enjoy playing the game. Ki O Ra hi is a game where there are two teams called Kioma and Taniwha. The Taniwha team has to try to hit the Tupu and pull the tags of the other team when they have the ball. The Kioma team has to try and get the ball and hit the pou’s and try to go in and score a point but if they go in they can’t go back out and they need to try. The Teams were Rata, Rimu, Totara and Kauri.

The first game was at 11:20 and that was right after morning tea. I felt a little bit nervous I was gonna fall and disappoint my team but all i needed to do was try my best because the people cheering in the crowd helped me get courage to play.

Soon I was able to get in and score but I passed the bridge and the score didn’t count. When My team was Taniwha and I was really happy so I could pull the tags because i sometimes find it easier for me to get the tags instead of running and touching the pou’s. My first game has just finished and I felt good about myself because I think i did okay in the game. My Next Game was at 12:20 but the time was a bit late and i ended up going at 12:40. I took a big drink of water and went to sit down and watch the other people play.

Soon after It was lunchtime and it was amazing, I played with Angel, Matalena, Ahrmani and Alyvia. When the bell rang it was time for another game to start. After the game happened my classmates and I got changed back into our uniform and cleaned the classroom. It was time to go home and I felt really exhausted but really happy at the end. I hope we can do another tournament soon!

 

For the past few days i have been trying to get my Prototec certificate and yesterday I was able to get it. It was a little bit hard because I was struggling with the first few questions but eventually I was able to answer them correctly. I am really proud of getting my certificate and hope to get on to stage 7 soon.

Last week we started  E-pro 8. E-pro 8 is an engineering process which comes with joiners, axles and other stuff. I was very excited to start because my classmates told me that it was very fun.

We first started to get our work books and had to enter a code on the site. My group partners were Angel, Vaha and Matalena and I was really happy with the people I got partnered with. We needed to give our group a name,  Then enter the name into the E-pro 8 classroom week website. Our name was the transformers.

After that we had a challenge to build a rectangle. After we built the rectangle, our next challenge was to build a hut and i didn’t really know how to do the roof so I asked my group for some help but I was really good at putting the nuts and bolts in. The criteria of the next task said the hut had to survive a flood (500mm flood). Our group decided to use 700mm long rods to make the hut taller and it nearly reached the ceiling.

Sadly, the next day we had to take it down. I really enjoyed making the base because i didn’t really struggle making it and it was super easy connecting the rods with the red joiners.

The next day our next build was a dump truck that could hold paper towels and Angel and i worked on the base while Vaha was thinking about how to make the chassis.

On Friday we had to pack it all up and I was kind of sad. I am very grateful to experience E-pro 8. I enjoyed doing E-pro 8 and I hope we get to do it again next year.

This week for my reading i have been studying about ANZAC day and finding out about a soldier called Charles Upham. He was a great soldier and got 2 Victoria Crosses and fought in world war 2. This is a bit of the work I’ve done:

 

  Today I made a reading log of a book i finished recently called “Making Friends”  I picked this book because it’s one of my favorite books. I like this book because it has a lot of descriptive words and really good pictures but when i first got it i thought it was not going to be a comic book.

 

My reading log: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SPHZFUc3U2v1bhVvB9acIBf3jSlJG080bF6wiHT-Mq4/edit