Worst Countries Using Child Soldiers

1. Somalia

Child Soldiers in Somalia are quite common as this is the worst country. The children are not only used as combatants, but also as messengers, porters,cooks and spies. Some of the young girls are often bought and used as sex slaves. They are chosen to be soldiers as they are easy to influence and can be told what to do without much arguing and resistance.  A lot of children are recruited by the militant organization, al-Shabab and some kids actually choose to become a child soldier if there is a lack of education in the area they live in. 

2. Syria

The children in Syria are used/have been known to be used as human shields, suicide bombers, guards at checkpoints and as front line soldiers. 59% of the adults that were interviewed said that they knew a child or several children that were child slaves. People encourage the children to become soldiers due to the fact of poverty and the number of groups that  may be targeting their villages. 

3.DR Congo

Of all of the children that are soldiers, at least one third of them are young girls. The girls are sold as sex slaves, and are forced to be "wives" to older men. They face cruel acts of abuse daily. Children as young as 6 have been recruited although, children aged 8-16 make up over 60% of the soldiers in Congo. in 2003, 10% of the world's 300,000 child slaves were based/ came from the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Health So Far.

A few weeks ago, we started our year in Health. We originally had 3 lessons of P.E, but now we have moved to Health for two periods a week instead.We started off doing Whare tapa Wha, the four walls of Health. The first subject that we have been looking at is Wairua. Wairua is the Spiritual well being.

Since we did this last year, it's more of a recap then actually learning things. But I did learn a few new things. Miss Aitken started us off by getting us to make a "identity poster", on which we had to write things that we thought were related to our personality. A few of mine were sarcastic, family, sister, friends, soccer and more were written. We then had to choose 5 of the many words we wrote to be  the major ones that we thought.

(My poster. And yes, that's me in the middle)

DNA Extraction

Aim

To extract DNA from a kiwifruit

Method

1. Using a spatula, scoop 1/2 kiwifruit into a Ziploc bag. Add 25mls of water to the bag along with a decent pinch of salt.
2. Mush it into a thick soup. Pour over a cloth, into a funnel and then into a beaker.
3. Pour liquid into a a test tube, add a squirt of dishwashing liquid, swirl together and the leave to sit for five minutes
4. After allowing to sit, tilt the test tube at a 45° angle, and the slowly pour 10mls of ethanol down the side.
5. Let sit.

Results
It worked. The DNA of the kiwifruit floated up to the top and separated itself from the other stuff that we put in the test tube. The water helped us break up the kiwifruit, and the salt helped clump up the strands of DNA. Then the ethanol helped us see the actual strands of DNA. It smelt like lime soda, I don't understand why but it did and I'm very still confused about how a kiwifruit smelt like it was lime.

Creative Writing- Final Reflection

For the past few weeks, we have been working on Creative Writing in English. Since we have been doing a lot of things so far, I would have to say that this have been my favorite. I love to do things that make you use imagination and involve you creating things. Creative Writing lets you be as creative as you want and doesn't restrict you to things, unlike recounts and persuasive writing.

We did activities that showed us how to set up a backdrop, creating characters, narrative openings and how to set a setting. All of the above will help me a lot with my creative writing as you need all of the above to create a really good story. There were tasks that I liked a bit more than others of course.

I enjoyed the narrative opens as it helped me learn what to write and how to make that interesting; showing the reader whats happening and trying to get them really intrigued. I tried to make it sound as interesting as I could without over doing it, we also did another task called 'show don't tell' which comes in handy when you need to make things interesting.

Then, one of the last tasks, was to create a protagonist. I didn't not like the task, I just didn't like the questions that we were required to answer. "My Name is, I live in, In the Weekend I...". Those are a few of the questions that we needed to answer. For me, and the ways I like to work, it would have been easier

Child Slavery S.E.E.L paragraph

Why are children used in slavery? How are their human taken?

Children are used in labor as they dont have to be paid to do the work that is needed. Doing this takes away their freedom and their right to an education.In the Human Rights document, it states that we have a right to education. For children that are forced into work and to do labor, the right to have an education, is taken away. When put into slavery, the children won't be able to go to school as they will most likely be put really far away or won't have time as they work for most of the day. With this happening, the basic Human Rights that they deserve to have, and they don't have a say in their lives whatsoever. 

English #1- Starting Creative Writing

HWhat makes a good opening to a narrative?

The words that are used and how the author has chosen to word it. Some stories will start off with a good opening which makes you want to continue reading the story, and makes you want to know what else has happened/happening.

In the book "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, she starts the book off with I shouldn't have come to this party. It makes you feel that something bad has happened or is going to happen. That you need to read on to see what happens. And once you do, you won't be able to put the book down.

My favorite opening line and why

We got given a list of opening lines from famous books, and we then had to pick our favorite from 50. I chose the opening line from Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.

I was born in the city of Bombay...once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date; I was born in Doctor Narlikars Nursing Home on August 15th 1947. The time matters too.

Its the way it's written, and they it was worded. Makes me want to go buy the book and just read it at once. It makes you ask the question: Why does the date matter? What happened? It sounds good just from the first paragraph, and I'm going to have to read it.

Child Slavery- Ten Worst Countries

Brain-Dead Teen. A Critical Literacy task.

1. What makes this video convincing?
2. Who published this video?
3. How are teenagers portrayed in this clip?
4. Why has the director cast them this way?
5. In whose interest is this text?
6. Who is real in this text?
7. What social realities does this video portray?

1. The way that they have used green screens for places like the doctors office and the way that the talked. The doctor use language that you expected him to talk and the parents packing away the clothes made you feel like it was real.

2. The Onion. They are a media company that and a newspaper agency. They publish stories for international, national and local news stations. The Onion publish news stories that are 'satirical'. Satirical means sarcastic, mocking another persons weaknesses and critical. 

3. They are portrayed as someone who uses a phone too much and that we are always using technology that is causing our brain cells to die. I think that they are stereotyping all of us into a certain category and that they are trying to make adults believe that we are only capable of texting and being on our phones. 

4.To get a message across to people, and for humour. Depicting the girl as a typical stereotype of this generation of teens. And the doctor they cast made us think that it was actually real. The director got people to be protesters, which also added more depth. 

5.People who have teens in their families, mainly the parents of these teens. Teacher could also have an interest in the text as it could be used for teaching purposes. 

6.The media people, the presenters. But other than the presenters, no of the other people that have been portrayed in this text are real and it did seem real. 

7. That people stereotype teens into categories. It aslo shows how that, most teens are addicted to their phones and to social media. 

Home Ec- What to work on.

We will need to prep the flour, baking powder, salt first as we have to mix all the dry ingredients. The we will have to prep the wet ingredients after as the wet ingredients are next to make.

The cheese, ham, herbs and milk can be prepped towards the end as they are the pieces that are going to be going in.

Note: We will be grating the butter in just to save time and it is easier than chunking it. We also will be using a brown board to cut the ham

Teamwork
We have to work as a team. All of us have to do the same amount of wor and none of us are allowed to cruise. This mean we can't let the others in our group do all the work while the other members just sit idly.

Working in a group means that we all have to do our fair share or else it wouldn't be fair.

Breakfast Muffins!!!

On Friday 22 , we made scrumptious breakfast muffins.

Things I enjoyed.

My group. I loved working with my group members- it consisted of Brianna, Presayus, Miji and myself. I found that it is way easier to work in a group of 4 than in a group of 2. The tasks were easier to complete with more members.

Things I didn't enjoy.

I have no problems. The group was good, the food worked out okay and we have finished about 10 minutes before the end of the lesson.

Things that we need to work on.

Making sure that everyone in the group is contributing and getting the same amount of work done as another member of the group.

A few notes...

We- meaning me - forgot to put salt and pepper into the mixture. Even with the missing seasonings, they still tasted good and nice to taste.