Seven-Year-Old Anaya Ellick Proves "Disability Is Not Inability

To win a national award for handwriting, especially in this digital age, is an achievement in itself. But what makes Anaya Ellick’s accolade extra special is that the seven-year-old accomplished the feat despite having no hands. Even more amazing? The first-grader from Chesapeake, Virginia, who won the prestigious Nicholas Maxim Special Award for Excellence in Manuscript Penmanship, on April 11, does not use prosthetics.

While the impeccable handwriting may surprise the world, Tracy Cox, principal of Greenbrier Christian Academy where Anaya goes to school, is not. In fact, it was Cox who entered the 1st grader in the annual national handwriting competition organized by educational company Zaner-Bloser. Contest director Kathleen Wright said the judges, many of who are occupational therapists, were "just stunned" by the quality of Anaya's printing. The young girl who competed in the category for students with special needs had to outshine 50 contestants to win the award.

The award which comes with a Zaner-Bloser gift certificate for Greenbrier Christian Academy and $1,000 USD cash prize and trophy for Anaya, is named after Nicholas Maxim, a fifth grader from Readfield, Maine. In 2011, the young boy who is born without his lower arms, submitted a cursive entry so impressive that Zaner-Bloser decided to create a new category to honor physically challenged kids.

Anaya’s proud parents, Bianca Middleton and Gary Ellick say the young girl’s determination and desire to be independent became apparent when she was just an infant. Though Anaya was fitted with prosthetic arms for a short time, the young girl decided she was better off with her natural ones and discarded them.

This story was from Dogo News

My brainy Learning Goal

                                     
For this weeks goal is to organise myself to be ready to learn. I know when I need to take  a break from my learning. So for this week I am going to try to go to sleep early so I get enough energy for school, take enough brakes so I don't get stressed and to keep my brain working and to eat a variety vegetables so I learn better.

My Goal Reflection

For this weeks goal is to do the right learning in the right space for me doing this was very easy because I already did that. And the spaces I used was The art space, meeting space, collaborative space and quiet space.

Mothers Day High Tea

On Friday at our school we had a celebration for all the mothers, also known as Mothers day high tea.  For the high tea all the classes did something special like making the class look pretty or making fancy food etc.

For our class (Marama) we made the classroom look pretty and we made food and tea tables. We also made a photo booth where kids could take a picture with their mum or grandmother and then finally a quiz where you could win a box of chocolates.

For the High tea I invited my mum and grandmother, I  made them tea and coffee then we played snakes and ladders while doing the quiz. And guess what? We WON THE QUIZ YAY!!!!!!! Then we had a picture at the photo booth and went home

Learner Agency

Something I do well is celebrating my failures and successes. This makes an impact on people because it helps them not feel sad or annoyed or angry it shows you that, YAY I FAILED!! now I can learn from my mistake!

Something I need to focus on to be an agentic learner is to ask for help because I feel embarrassed that I don't know what to do because I'm scared of what people will think of me.

My Goal

My goal Reflection

      

For this week this is the goal for me and my class is working on

I can make positive choices that are right for my OWN learning

How I have been doing on my goal this week:

For this week making positive choices has been great because  I have been sitting by myself instead of my lunch friends and getting a lot more done. So far I have finished a few more pages ahead on my AWS, I have started to paint on my vision board and I am close to Finishing my IE. I made this choice because When I was sitting with my friends I didn't get much done but this week it has been amazing!!! =)

Easter Surprises

        

It was a bright and sunny day, The morning was cold with a sweet smell. I crawl out of bed and walk into the living room, my brother sits on the couch watching cartoons (as always) I walk in and sit down beside him staring into the T.V. After a few cartoons Louise comes in. She wears a fluffy white gown and her hair in a rough bun. She asks us if we had breakfast I felt alright because Tyne didn’t have breakfast but Tyne says yes I thought how? Then I remembered he woke up before me. Louise got in a little fuss and says you know you're supposed to have breakfast and blah blah blah you know what I mean, right.

When dad wakes up and comes in the living room I had my breakfast and was dressed when dad says we have to chop wood because it needed to be done. We used a machine to chop the wood for us, dad placed the wood in place then pulled a lever he kept chopping the wood until it was the right size when it was chopped and the right size I chucked it into the wheelbarrow then Tyne placed it into the shed. We had to do this for a few hours before our easter hunt. Then the time came and it was over YAY! We knew that Louise was setting out the easter hunt. We do believe in the easter bunny but dad says he shot it so Louise does it.

We had 12 questions each some were backwards some were words some were even numbers let's just say there were lots of different questions. For some of them we had to go outside and for some of them we had to stay inside. I would say most questions were in my bed. When we found our questions there were either a little DIY chicken or a mini easter egg. My last and final question was outside in my birdhouse where I found my large easter bunny. Saddly he had a whole in his head so he was in a plastic bag. Later on we made an easter hunt for Dad and louise, I had lou lou and gave her a white chocolate easter bunny.

My costume IE

For my IE my topic is Costumes and I am investigating about everything about costumes like what costumes in movie were like 100 years ago and is it costumes when you just wear clothes etc. What I am most excited about my IE is creating and sharing because I am creating a costume and a video through the process.

My news Lucky toddler gets trapped in a candy machine!?!

The lucky toddler Colen stone got trapped in a candy machine, I can tell what your thinking your probably thinking lucky, I wish I was him well... he was a bit to young and didn't know what candy was so he just sat in there. When his mother realised she got in a big panic and asked the owner of the arcade if he could get him out, the owner tried and failed then the owner asked the guy who owned the machine but he lost the keys the tried to open the machine convince him to crawl out but no. Soon the toddler started freaking out so his mum at leased convinced him to have two lolly pops. Later on the owner had an idea he decided to call a locksmith and luckily he just pried open the the glass to get the toddler out YAY!!

This story is from dogo news 

Weekly news rainbow bagels

BEHOLD THE RAINBOW BAGEL……. the rainbow bagel is the brainchild of the bagel store in Brooklyn, Owner of the bagel store Scot Rossilio has been making theses colorful bagels now for 20 years. Scot says he loves his job and it’s a passion of labour and art and it takes hard work to make the most beautiful bagel in the world. The dough is given a splash of neon color, then it's shaped into mounds, The mounds are flattened and layered, the dough is sliced… and EXPERTLY rolled. Then they add funfetti cream cheese made with real cake mix and then of course (obviously they add sprinkles) So that's it the rainbow bagels are done. hope you enjoyed my weekly news.

                   

(This story is from dogo news)

Head Boy and Head girl

At school on Wednesday Gus and Riley came to our school. Gus and Riley Were head boy and girl at H.P.C and they came to our school to talk about history of different people and to keep balance. They asked us questions of what sort of people people are. There was the Priest, Profit, Warrior and Merchant. We had to answer who would be who and out of those four and if we answered it right we got a chocolate fish!

Apple Tower team building

• How did you feel when working as part of a team?
• I found it difficult but fun at the same time.
• Is there anything you would do differently next time?
• No
• What did you find most difficult? Why did you find it difficult and how can you prevent it from happening again?
• I found it difficult working with six people at the same time
• Did anyone lead the task and was it important to nominate a leader?
• No, we all had a part and we do not need a leader
• How did you plan for the task? Did everyone share their ideas?
• No, we all had different ideas so we voted.
• Did everyone have a role in the team?
• yes

• Yes

My weekly news ocean rubbish bin invented!

My story is from Kiwi Kids news

Have you ever thought about or hated that people don't care about the sea and just  chuck their rubbish in the ocean well two surfers did and they did something about it. They made it because It was annoying for them while they surf but it also helps the marine life too! Because most of the marine animals are at risk because of littering in the sea. What the Bin does is that it has this sucking mahine inside it so it pull all the rubbish in the water in. The surfers also hope the bin can protect the sea because studies show that an average of 8 million tonnes of rubbish is thrown into the sea every year! I think this invention is amazing because It helps the environment and it helps marine life.

I wonder… will this machine help get rid of the 8 million tonnes or not? hmmmmmm.

Three Main words from this article is.......

Marine,littering and environment

My theme song

 For my theme song I had to chose a part of a song that represented me I chose this song because It tells you to be strong, creative and stand up for your self.

My multiple intelligences

        

This is my multiple intelligences results. I did a test about things I like and don’t like to do.

When I got my results I never knew how bad I was at music and my picture smarts. But what I did find out was that my Nature smarts was pretty high! But my best as you can see is that my people smarts is my best skill.

When I thought about about the test is true because I do NOT like working by myself but I like working with others. Because now I know what i'm good at and not so good at I can practise what I need to work on.

Welcome back 2016

This year I am going to try and do office duty and maybe rugby just for a little change, to shake things up.

At first when I was a Marama student I felt weird, scared but excited at the same time? I felt these feeling because last year I was a year six in a different class room and now I’m a year seven in a whole new classroom with new teachers and new students. It just feels weird but cool at the same time.

A goal for me this year would be to get better at my math and make even more friends because last year I was not the best at math and I want to make more friends because lots of my friends were year five’s and now i’m in a different classroom.

Last year I was really good at my reading and book club but this year I want to read even more because when I read a book it feels like im in a whole new world acting out as the people that I read in my book it just feels amazing! But my favourite books to read are the Paul gennings uncollected series.

My about me letter

Miss Williams                                                       

Teacher at NPS

Ngatea primary school

Dear Miss Williams

In this letter I am announcing things about me.

I have a Mum, Dad, Brother, Dad’s Girlfriend, Cat and me. I live in Paeroa  and Auckland and I go to Ngatea Primary School.

I like to play Video games like MInecraft, Spongebob’s big adventure, Lego indiana jones and so on and on. My favourite game would be minecraft because you can make anything you want no matter how big or small.

I like to do any art, any kind of art pastel , painting you name it and I can do it. I like doing art because you can just let your mind go wild and venture out and discover new things.

From Mischa

My second week as a year seven

My second year as a year seven has been great Down below you can see some of the learning I have done!

Word art
For word art we had to choose some words that describe you then add some colour and POW it's done! 

Jandal Art
I made jandals!! (out of paper paper = )

My holiday Highlight

  

My Christmas 2015

My brother as always was telling me what to do, he was telling me which present to open first he has saying open that one then that one and so on. What I got for Christmas was a baby g watch, a bracelet, an M&M mini fan, a new school bag and a stocking full of candy. MY brother was already half through his when I was just looking through mine! Then we had a big trifle that mum made and some potato salad, a big leg of ham, grape juice and some pavlova.

The End