How to write a great story

Today a famous author came to talk to us about how to write a great story.  Peter Millet has written amazing stories including BOY ZERO and JOHNNY DANGER!

1.  He talked to us about how a story must be INTERESTING.
2.  A story must have one STAR (HUMAN CHARACTER) that we care about and leads us through the story (like Luke Skywalker).  Choose a simple character and make them INTERESTING
3.  A good story draws the reader inside the story (like you are actually there!).
4.  Take something ordinary and make it extraordinary (like going on a boat ride with gran, a hole appears in the boat, and there are sharks around the boat).  Or
5.  Have an extra bonus feature (like a treasure chest on the boat) which is a twist in the story plot.
6.  Have a good nasty problem!  The main character is in trouble!  How would I solve this!
7.  A good story has SURPRISE solutions.

We then has to plan our LUNCH WITH GRANNY story.

Design

This term we are learning about design.  Later in the term we will be building and designing our own animal enclosures, but first we had to learn all about what design actually means.

Design is drawing and planning something before you make it.  So we had a go ourselves!

First we designed our bridges on a small piece of paper.  Then we used our designs to build them using lego and hexagon blocks.

By Caleb, Bella, Nathan, Miho, Eden, Elliyah and Room 16

Building our bridges

A design and bridge

Here is another design and bridge

Here is a design on the paper and the finished bridge

Teach me Tuesday

Last Tuesday Chelsea taught us about Diabetes and Ian taught us about Karate.  Its been fun teaching others and learning from other people in our class.  Below is Room 16 practicing our Karate with Sensei Ian teaching us how to block.

Room 16 Reports!

This term we have been learning how to write reports.  First we researched some information about animals and took notes.  Then we wrote our first copy of our report and edited it.  Last of all, we published our reports on google docs.  Please come to our class and see our amazing animal reports and pictures.  

By Olivia, Emma, Josh, Ian and Room 16

Room 16 performs Uptown Funk!

This week Room 16 made a band to perform uptown funk.  First we tried out the different instruments like the drums and cymbals.  Then we choose an instrument to perform Uptown Funk as a band.   By the end of the lesson we performed the whole song together as a band.  It was an amazing musical day and we felt like rock stars.

By Scarlett, Timothy, Nishil, Miho, Bella and Room 16

UHPS Cross Country

This Wednesday we had our school cross country running race.  We all ran as fast as speeding lasers and we were sweating like monkeys!  It was a fine sunny day and we all had lots of energy.  It was tough but we had lots of fun. 

Congratulations to Zach (2nd in 8yo boys), Scarlett (1st in 7yo girls), Oliver (1st in 7yo boys)

We all tried our best to achieve our own personal goals.  Josh was particularly happy with his best ever cross country result.

Well done everyone in Room 16!!!!!

By Josh, Chelsea, Tom, Rachel, Ian, Jake, Timothy and Miho.

Teach Me Tuesday

Today was our first teach me Tuesday.  Teach me Tuesday is when each person in the class gets to teach the rest of the class about something they enjoy doing or are great at.  It might be a hobby, sport or something they know a lot about.  This Tuesday Olivia taught us some hip hop dance moves.  Check out the pictures of Room 16 grooving!!!