Impact Reflection

This year for Impact I chose Sewing. Our purpose was to make capes for the local Central Kids Kindergarten, whose capes were too long and dragged on the ground.

We succeeded in our Impact because we had a goal to make 8 capes. We were so organised, we managed to make 10! We made lots of different capes with cool designs. I think the kindy children’s favourite cape was the dinosaur cape. Personally, I really liked the owl cape. We all really enjoyed making the capes, and that’s what I love about Impact; doing something you enjoy to help others!

The outcome we got was better than what we expected. We made plenty more capes to what we were expecting! We all had high expectations, and we definitely reached them. I love the capes, and so do the kindy kids.

If we were to do our Impact again, we would definitely have tried to find materials faster, and get started a little bit before we did. It took us a little while before we found our cause, and the capes took us a while to make.

I think that the capes are at a high quality and they should last for a while. They are well designed and sewn. I think that the kindy kids loved them and think they are perfect!

We have learnt a lot about sewing during the process of our Impact. I learnt how to operate a sewing machine, how to unpick stitches, and much more. All the knowledge helped us a lot!

The Kindy definitely loved our capes. They were a bit shy while we were there (presenting them), but apparently, as soon as we left, they went crazy playing with them!

I really enjoyed making an Impact this year, and I hope that next year I will get to do a topic like this!

Piano Performance

On Friday night I had a piano performance. I performed in front of about thirty people. I was really nervous because I was scared I'd make a mistake. We had to pick a number out of a hat. I got seven, so I had my turn seventh. I performed four songs; The Funny Snowman, Lavender's Blue, Thanksgiving Turkey, and The Bridge Of Avignon, which is my favourite. I really enjoyed performing, and soon realized that it wasn't too scary to perform. Here is a photo of me performing.

iDrive Term 4 Week 6

Today during iDrive, Holly, Freya, Kate and I played a teamwork game with a cup that had strings coming out all four sides. We put a whiteboard on top of a table and drew a course on it. We had to guide the cup through the course by pulling the strings. We each stood on one side of the table, each holding a string. We pulled our string to get it to go our way.
We found doing curves was quite hard. We discovered that we needed to have two people pulling at once to master it - and we had to get the timing right. After we mastered a course full of curves, we decided to add some obstacles. We used a pen as a sort of log that we had to push through, a whiteboard duster as something we had to jump over, and scissors as a sort of spinning gate.

We had to work together really well to make this work. We communicated and talked to each other, so we knew when to pull our strings.
We used the learning power Connecting because we had to talk and connect with each other to make it work. We also used Resilience. We all wanted to go really fast and get it finished, but we learnt if we went too fast, the cup would fall over. Another one we used was Creativity. We had to be creative and think of cool courses to make that would challenge our minds.
I really enjoyed iDrive this week!

Maths Review

I have enjoyed having my AWS book during maths. I feel that having it has been very beneficial to me because it covers every topic and has had many difficult questions that challenge me.
My favourite topic in maths is probably Statistics. I enjoy learning about all the types of graph, and it challenges me to think how I should display my data.
My MDR really helps me in my maths because it repeats a similar question every day until at the end of the week on Friday I should have it correct.

I am proud of this 3-D shape I drew on isometric paper. Here is a picture.

Something that has been hard for me to figure out this year has definitely been Statistics. Statistics has been really hard, mainly when it came to drawing graphs. I always forgot to remember one little detail, like the titles on the x and y axis, and the gaps or no gaps between bars. It was very confusing, but eventually I got it, and I even got a certificate for great Statistics Post test results!

Next year I would really like to learn a little bit about what Trigonometry is; I think it is something about sizes of angles in triangles, but I am not sure.

IXL has been very productive in my maths. I have learnt a lot of things on IXL, and I love how when you get an answer incorrect, it doesn't just carry on, it explains to you why you got it wrong, and how to answer the question.

I really enjoy maths, and I am lucky to have great teachers who teach me.

Group Day 2015

On 28th October 2015, I attended Group Day. Group Day was a lot harder to get a ribbon, at, and I came home with nothing.

In Leading I probably got about fifth or sixth, but I can't be sure. Taffy was very sleepy, and she kept stopping.

In Rearing, I got fifth. I know this is definite because they put five people in the middle of the ring and I was one of them. But then afterwards I was sent out without a ribbon.

In Dairy Type, I had no idea what I got. I might have gotten about fifth or sixth, but I don't know for sure.

Even though I didn't get very far in Group Day, I still had a great time and I hope to do it again next year.

iDrive Term 4 Week 4

Today we had iDrive and Sophie, Ashling, Stella, Charlotte and I made a play. We called it Bad Teachers. It was about some teachers who were really bad at teaching. Stella and I were the teachers. Charlotte and Ashling were students, and when we called the roll, they had two people to answer to. The roll went like this:
This Person (Charlotte)
That Person (Ashling)
That Random Guy Over There (Charlotte)
Ashling (Ashling)

When Ashling's name was called she didn't say anything, just said "Well I guess Ashling isn't here...", and then we said "ASHLING GET BACK IN THAT SEAT RIGHT NOW!!!!"
We went over the ABC's and Ashling said A for Annoying, B for Broken Bones, C for Cuckoo, and D for Destroy. The teachers sent her to the pricipal's (Sophie's) office. Sophie came along to see what the teachers were teaching. She said it was all to easy and whacked me in the face with the ABC poster. Ashling laughed; she ended up getting suspended which she said "Yay" about, so we decided to put her in boarding school. She didn't like that. Then afterwards we showed a little bit of Ashling's life in boarding school. It ended when we gave all the students a piece of paper to write a word that began with the letter D on it. Ashling wrote "Destroy" and when she handed it in I ripped it up.
THEN IT ENDED!!

We had to use the learning power Connecting because we had to connect with each other to make the play work. We had to communicate and talk to each other so we didn't fight about what would happen in the play. We also had to use Being Me because we all got to be ourselves and nobody's ideas got left out. Another one we used was Creativity. We had to be really creative to make our play enjoyable to watch for others.
When we performed our play, we were really nervous and a little bit scared about showing what we had done in front of the whole class. We had to be Resilient and face our fear.

Next time I do Role Play, I will be a lot braver, and not so nervous like I was today.

I really enjoyed iDrive this week, and I can't wait to do it again next week!

Here is a photo of us practicing our play:

Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes night is an old English event celebrated each year on the night of November 5th with bonfires, and fireworks.

The origin of Guy Fawkes goes back to 1605 when twelve men tried to blow up Britain's House Of Parliament. This event became known as the "Gunpowder Plot", and included Mr. Guy Fawkes, who was known as one of Britain's most notorious traitors.

Under the rule of James 1st, the English Catholics had been persecuted for many years. The twelve men who were involved in the Gunpowder Plot believed that blowing up the Houses Of Parliament would kill the King, and hopefully even the Prince Of Wales, and the members of the Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics.
To carry out their plan, the men hid thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in a cellar just below the House Of Lords.
But as the group worked on the plan, it became obvious that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack.

One of the twelve sent an anonymous letter to his friend who worked in Parliament warning him to stay away from it on November 5th.
The warning letter reached the king, and his forces made plans to stop the traitors. Guy Fawkes, who was in the cellar when the authorities stormed in, was caught and sent to trial.
To show the public that such treachery could not be accepted, he sentenced Guy Fawkes to the most horrendous form of execution available: that being hung, drawn and quartered.

To ensure the message to the public was remembered, it became the tradition for a sermon to be delivered in Parliament every year on the anniversary of this date. This became known as the "Gunpowder Plot Sermon". To go along with it, there was also a poem created to make sure that each new generation would remember the Gunpowder Plot and the nasty end that awaits traitors. This poem is called "Remember Remember The Fifth Of November.

Remember, remember the fifth of November

The gunpowder treason and plot

I see no reason why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot

Guy Fawkes Guy, ’twas his intent

To blow up king and parliament

Three score barrels were laid below

To prove old England’s overthrow.

By God’s mercy he was catched

With a dark lantern and lighted match.

Holler boys, holler boys, let the bells ring

Holler boys, holler boys, God save the King

Calf Club 2015

On 21st October 2015, I attended Calf Club with my cute jersey calf Taffy. She is really cute and tiny.
The first event of the day was Obstacle Course. The judge got the way of how you did obstacle course wrong - he said you were meant to go around the peg, but you weren't meant to. It was only revealed that he judged it like that after I had my turn, which made me really disappointed. I would have done really well if it weren't for that, because for once, Taffy led. I received a ribbon for merit.

The second event was leading. Taffy led perfectly, and was put up to first place. Unfortunately, they were using progressive leading, and I finished at fifth.

After leading was the mad rush to get your calf clean and ready for rearing. When it was finally time for rearing, I got second.

Next was dairy type. There is nothing you can do to win this, just hope that you calf will be a good milker! I finished at second for this as well.

I was really pleased with my day and how it went.

iDrive PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting)

My plus for iDrive is the opportunity to do or make something collaboratively. You can make a piece of art, make up a play, or even build something. What I love is that nothing is limited, and no matter what there is always something fun to do, and an endless amount of people you can work with.

One of my favourite activities so far is Creative Playground. You can build lots of different things; obstacle courses, or even make a show. Once, I made a circus with some friends, and that was really fun. We all had our own acts, and then we cooperated so we could merge our acts together and make one big circus!

I also enjoy Cards, because you can learn lots of new games from other people. My personal favourite is most likely

I like how after we finish iDrive, we get a time to present what we have made to the class, so they can give us feedback, and they can also get ideas from what we have done. It’s so cool how our ideas can add to other ideas; sort of like making a tree of ideas.

My minus is that eventually, we might run out of things to do in iDrive, and we might go back to doing the same old things every week. But other than that, iDrive is the highlight of my week!

What I found interesting was the fact that we are always true to ourselves during iDrive time. They don’t have a really cool idea in a play and then think “Hang on, it might be really embarrassing to do this in front of fifty people, I’m not doing it any more,” they actually keep on going, even if people are going to laugh at them, they still make a difference by staying themselves, and not thinking about what other people will think.

Without iDrive my Thursdays would be pretty dull. I love how iDrive is unlimited; there is absolutely nothing you can’t do, and nobody thinks twice

I really enjoy iDrive, and I hope I will still be able to do it for the rest of my time in Whetu.

Labour Day

Labour Day is a day to remember the struggle for an eight hour working day. New Zealand workers were some of the first in the world to gain this right when in 1840, Samuel Parnell won an eight hour day in Wellington.

Labour Day was first celebrated in New Zealand on 28th of October 1890, when thousands of trade union members and supporters attended parades in the main centers. Government employees got the day off to attend the parades and many businesses closed for at least part of the day.

The date, 28 October was the first anniversary of the Maritime Council, a company of transport and mining unions. The new union was destroyed and put out of business in the trans-Tasman Maritime Strike; but despite this, Labour Day was a huge success. In Wellington, the highlight was a visit from the elderly Parnell, who died just a few weeks later.

These parades also had a political purpose. Although some workers in industries enjoyed the eight hour working day, it was not their legal entitlement. Other workers, like restaurant and shop employees still worked longer hours. Several also went through unpleasant and dangerous working conditions.
Unionists wanted the government to make it an eight hour working day for all workers, but they were reluctant to change the business community.

What the government did do was make Labour Day a holiday. The Labour Day Act of 1899 started a compulsory holiday on the second Wednesday in October. The holiday was "Mondayised" in 1910, and since then Labour Day has been held on the fourth Monday in October.

Parades were held on Labour Day, and there were many floats; but some floats just advertised businesses, and weren't showing what Labour Day was all about.
Soon, to most New Zealanders, Labour Day was just another holiday.

iDrive Term 4 Week 1

Today we had iDrive. I did Creative Playground with Ashling, Olivia, Sophie, Emma, Lara, and Kate S. We decided to make a circus!
Ashling was the host. She introduced all the acts. She made each sentence hilarious. My favourite was: "Ladies, and gentlemen, children and unicorns"
Sophie and Olivia were the clowns. They had a really hilarious performance.
I was the acrobat. I had two barrels and I was doing random tricks and jumps on them.
Emma, Lara and Kate S were the tightrope walkers. They had a really cool performance; I loved how Lara was small enough to fit between Emma's legs!
Sophie and Olivia also did a puppet show. It was a bit nonsense, but still funny.

We showed the learning power Connecting, because we had to collaborate and work together really well so we knew who was doing what. We had to be able to decide who was going to be what, and who needed what pieces for their act.
We used Aroha because when somebody hurt themselves doing their act we helped each other up and made sure we were okay.
I really enjoyed making this clown performance and I would definitely do it again.


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My Great Grandmother's 100th Birthday

My Great Grandmother's 100th Birthday

On Saturday the 3rd of October, my great grandmother turned one hundred.
I think that one hundred is a really great age to achieve because that means you have been around for a century! You can watch generation upon generation; and witness the world changing around you. It would be a great thrill for someone to have the opportunity to see the world gain new possibilities; and turn possibilities into reality.

My great grandmother received cards from people like John Key, Governor General, The Queen, Hillary Barry, Peter Dunne, and Scott Simpson. Another great reason to live so long!

The party was awesome. There were many of my relatives that I didn't know; but they all introduced themselves to me. Nearly everybody commented on how tall I was getting; I replied that I was wearing heels! :)
There were family trees hung up on the walls and I enjoyed looking at them. They had at least ten generations on them. I saw how far my family goes back and I was amazed.

During most of the party my cousin chased and pestered me. She acted like my shadow; always following me. She was really excited to see me - this really showed because of the way she chased me around the party; it was almost as if she were magnetized to me. My shadow was so irritating, I just had to find a way to get rid of her. I decided to pretend to play hide and seek with her. I counted, and made it seem like I couldn't find her.

My great grandmother was very confused; because of her age, she didn't know who many of us were. Many people asked her the same question: How old are you today? She almost always said "100", so she can't have lost her memory that badly!
She was very tired, and slept through most of the party.

Sadly, just over a week after the party, my great grandmother died.
I like to think about how lucky my great grandmother was to live up to such an outstanding age: 100!

Art Reflection Term 3

End Of Term Reflection Term 3

Learning In The Making Conference

On Friday we had the Learning In The Making Conference. This is a day where each student is able to choose four workshops to attend. These workshops are a range of things like Cooking, Craft, or Sport.
The day starts off with a guest speaker. The guest speaker for the seniors this year spoke about cyber safety. His name was Andrew Cowie. He told us about how some countries blocked websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. He also talked about how we need to use our technology wisely. He showed us a cartoon picture of a person drowning, while everybody else filmed it on their phones. Nobody tried to help him.
After the guest speaker, we went straight to our first workshops; mine was Shell Collage. We had a large piece of white cardboard, and four pieces of smaller cardboard - two black and two orange. We stuck them randomly around the piece of white cardboard. Then we had shells, stones, and plastic gems. We stuck them on each square, creating a picture, or just a random array of shells.

My next workshop was most likely my favourite. It was Flax Weaving. This workshop really intrigued me because it was something really new, and I felt I was good at it. I really enjoyed it because I just felt I could do it all day and create anything I wanted. In the workshop we learnt how to make a flax flower. Making a flax flower is very straight forward and fast. I have made a bunch of flowers and put them in a jar.

Next I did Maths Challenge. We were given a worksheet with an array of problems. We had to do them all in the time frame of about 40 minutes. We started with the timestable challenge. There were 60 questions and I got them all right. My group, the Advanced level group was given five minutes to complete these questions. Hayley and I both got them all right so we tied for the prize.
The next and final workshop I went to was making lemon honey. I enjoyed this a lot because lemon honey tastes REALLY good. To make it we needed lemons, sugar, and eggs. We each got a jar of honey to take home with us!
After the long day of workshops, we finally got to go home. I hope to do this next year with even more cool workshops!

iDrive Reflection Week 8

This week we had iDrive. Hayley and I have been working on a piece of art that says "Whetu". It also has lots of mathematical signs, numbers, the word "learn" etc. We used vivids. We had to be very creative. We put patterns in every letter. We had to be very careful not to use the same pattern twice, not use the same colour too much, and we had to stick to our theme, which was colourful! 

We have been persevering through this piece of art for about four weeks. It has been very difficult because with all that colouring, our arms get very tired! We have had a few fights about colours and patterns, and we have to learn how to compromise. We have learnt that we can't just speed straight through it and we have to concentrate. We thought this piece of art would only take two weeks, but we were very wrong. We think it might take about another two weeks. 

We have been using a lot of our learning powers; we have used Resilience, Creativity, and Being Me. 

We have used Resilience because we have been persevering this task for a very long time and we still haven't given up. 

We have used Creativity because we have been very creative with colours, and patterns. We have "let our minds wander" as to our theme, and what we would make the poster about, and what it would have on it.

We have used Being Me because we both had very different ideas of patterns, and colours. We compromised and made something we both agreed on.

I hope we finish our piece of art soon and make it the best it can be. 

Princess Diana

Diana, Princess Of Wales, was the first wife of Prince Charles. She was born on 1st July, 1961, and died in a terrible car accident located in Paris, on the date 31st August 1997.

Diana, full name Diana Spencer, was born into a family with royal ancestry. She was the fourth child of John Spencer, and Frances Shand Kydd. She was raised in Park House, which is located on the Queen's Sandringham estate. She was schooled in both England and Switzerland.

She married in 1981 to The Prince of Wales. Her wedding was held at St Paul's Cathedral. The wedding was broadcasted on television and received over 750 million viewers.
Whilst married, she received many titles; Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, and Countess of Chester.
Diana had two sons during her marriage, William and Harry, who were coming second and third in the line of the British throne.

Princess Diana was called "The People's Princess". She was called this because she insisted to be treated like anyone else who was not royal. She insisted for them not to call her "Princess" all the time. She helped in many causes, charities, and used her royal status to bring awareness to many issues. By helping the world so much, she truly earned the title of the people's princess.

                                                       

What makes the ocean blue even when the water is clear?

 Most people think that the ocean is blue because it is reflecting the blue sky. But this is not true.

The ocean is blue because of the way it absorbs sunlight.

When sunlight hits the ocean, the water strongly absorbs red, violet, and ultraviolet lights. The remaining light that we see is made up of the colour blue. 

However, the ocean may become other colours, including red and green, if light bounces off objects floating near the surface of the water, like algae.

Just how blue the water is depends on how much of it there is to absorb the light. Like if you had water in a glass, it would be clear because there aren't enough water molecules to really absorb the light.

This fact is clear if you look at unedited underwater photos that weren't taken with a camera flash or another fake light source - even the most vibrant of tropical fish look blue.

Music Video

For the past three weeks, my music video group and I have been producing a music video. We had to choose a song with a good message, and we chose the song "Pricetag" by Jessie J. This has a great message; it shows that it's not all about the money. We decided that we would have the theme of all free things in Ngatea, like the playground, the library, and the netball courts. Here's our video!

Hauraki Plains Cross Country

On Monday the 17th of August I competed in Hauraki Plains Cross Country at Spence Farm. It was very hard as my age group had to run halfway up the hill. It's very steep and we all nearly lost our shoes! I came 11th. This is the exact same placing I received last year. Next year I hope to make it into Thames Valley. My goal for this year was to try to make it into the top ten but I didn't manage that. Maybe next year!

iDrive Reflection Week 4

This week for iDrive Hayley and I did craft. We are making a sign that says "WHETU" and it has lots of learning signs, like equal signs, addition signs, etc.
Hayley and I had to co-operate and persevere to begin making our signs, because if we didn't work together, then we'd end up fighting and it would become a big problem. So to avoid that we planned before we started working. Hayley and I think we will be finished next week, and next week we will need to work really hard. Here is a picture!

Cross Country

On Monday I participated in Cross Country at South Farms. The distance of my race was roughly just over two kilometers. I came seventh, and I am pretty sure I got into Hauraki Plains. I got the exact same placing last year, and got into Hauraki Plains. I remember that Hauraki Plains was very hard, so during the next week I am going to have to train very hard. My favourite part of the race was probably going through the creek and splashing myself because it got very warm. Here are some photos of me running the muddy race.

iDrive

Today my class did iDrive. There are many options of activity; like play dough, role play, sandpit, and cards. iDrive is about learning to collaborate and have fun with others. It's also about perseverance, and problem solving.
This week I did Creative Playground. Hayley and I built an obstacle course. To complete our obstacle course we have to climb on top of a barrel, then walk across a beam. Then we climbed across two more barrels, and then walked across another beam. Then we walked across a bridge like ladder, and climbed on top of a rolling thing that you can stand on. Then we rolled ourselves to the barrel on the other end. There were many problems we had to solve, like when something was too heavy for us to lift. We solved this by using some of the other equipment to move the bigger things.
Here are some photos.

My Term 2 Art

Last term for our art we did lino prints. We each chose a topic, and I chose houses. Here is the process of this art project.

First of all we had a look at houses on Google Images for ideas. This is the picture that my art was based on.  

After we chose our photo, we drew our house design on a piece of newsprint. When we had done that, we transferred it onto a piece of good paper. Once we had done that, we got a piece of lino, and placed our good drawing on it. then we rubbed a 6B pencil over the paper, and when we took off the paper, the drawing had been transferred onto the lino. We then went over the lines to make them more clear. 

Then we got to the hardest part - carving. We carved all our lines, which took a long time, and required many plasters. I cut myself once, but not badly. After the long achievement of carving, we got up to the intricate process of inking. To do this, we rolled ink over our piece of lino, and then pressed it into a piece of paper. We did this twice, on two separate pieces of paper. Afterwards, I chose my favourite one and then picked my next colour. I did this three times, until I had four different colours on my print.

                                               Here is the finished product:

My Trip To Taupo

It took nearly three hours to arrive at Taupo. On the way to our hotel room my family and I stopped off at the Huka Prawn Park. I caught two prawns, my Dad caught one, my Mum caught one and my brother caught two. My brother and Dad went and got the prawns cooked so we could eat them. Meanwhile, my sister and I went and found some foot baths. The water was really hot and it ran through the seat which made it really comfortable and warm.
The prawns tasted really smooth and sweet. My Dad and I were the only ones that liked them.
We went through what was called "Shawn's Walk" (it was called Shawn's Walk because the prawn park's mascot is "Shawn The Prawn") which had some very easy obstacle courses, that mainly consisted of walking across something that wobbles. There were also three buckets connected to pulleys in the water. You put the bucket in the water, waited for it to sink, and then pulled to try to get it up. There were three buckets, each different in size, called Baby Bear (being the smallest), Mother Bear, and Father Bear. I could pull up Mother Bear and Baby Bear, but not Father bear, probably because it weighed 120 kilograms. Then there were see-saw like things that you stood on, and they were connected to buckets that were placed beneath water pipes, and the water pipes open when you pulled the lever. There were holes in the buckets, so that when water started coming out of one hole, then it would reveal to you your weight. When the see-saw pulled you up, you will know it has reached your weight.
There was also a place called "The Gauntlet" which was where there were lots of buckets above, full of water. Each one had their time to tip and drop on you. You had to jump across rocks that were in a pool. I figured out the pattern and made through, and so did my Dad. But my brother wasn't so lucky. He panicked and ended up just running in the water, instead of on the rocks.
After the prawn park, we went to our hotel room. It was upstairs, and it had two bedrooms. Unfortunately for me I had to share a room with my brother and sister. :(

The next day we decided to have a look at the lake and the town. We found some binoculars that we put a $2 coin into, and then we could use them. The three mountains, Ruapehu, Narahui, and Tongarero looked really cool through the binoculars.
We went on a mini train and the driver did heaps of funny things. After the train ride we went on the playground. My favourite part of that is this thing that you sit on and then it starts violently spinning around. This usually makes me sick.
We then went to a place called Debretts. There were heaps of hot pools and hydroslides. All I really did was go down the hydroslides. There were two hydroslides called the "racing slides". One of them was blue and it went really fast. The other one was orange and when you went down it was pitch black and fast.
The other hydroslide was a really big uncovered one, with a small pool at the end.
After that we went to McDonalds to get a drink, and I got a strawberry thickshake, which tasted really good.
After McDonalds, my Dad, brother, sister and I went to play mini putt. My sister didn't play though. I lost unfortunately because I am terrible at mini putt.
After mini putt we all went back to the hotel room and rested for a couple of hours before we went to Cobb n Co for dinner. There were lots of different meal options, but out of them all, I chose nachos, because I really like Mexican food. The nachos tasted really good. I had a traffic light drink that tasted weird after all the colours mixed! For dessert I got pavlova, my favourite.
That night I went to bed really early, because I was very tired after a big day of hydrosliding.

The next day we were to go to the snow! It took an hour and a half to get to Mt Ruapehu from Taupo, but the wait was worthwhile! When we arrived at the snow we put on our gloves, sunglasses, hats, and sunscreen. We then took the shuttle bus down to the chairlift, which we took down to Happy Valley. We found a cool slope that we climbed up, and then tobogganed down for all of five hours. We built slides, and at the bottom of one of them was a smooth rock that we used as a jump. Here is a photo of me doing a DANGEROUS thing, going down on my stomach.

After the fun day of snow, we bought butter chicken, lamb korma, and naan bread for dinner. Then we went back to our hotel room to eat it. 

I went to bed early that night too! Such a big day.

The next day was the day we were to go home. But before we did, we decided to have a look at the Huka Falls. Here is a picture.

The Huka Falls are really amazing. The speed of the water makes it impossible to have any water vehicle in it.

After the Huka Falls, we went to Mind Junction. First of all we did a maze, which was really hard. My Dad, brother, sister and I had a race - boys versus girls. Unfortunately the boys won because my sister fell over. Here is a picture of the maze. It reminds me slightly of the maze we made at school. 

After the maze we did a shooting simulator, which was a playstation game with a gun that you shot targets with. Then we went off and did more mini putt which I came fourth in, beating my younger sister by just three points.

After Mind Junction we went to Burger King for lunch, where I ordered a double cheeseburger stunner, which had a double cheeseburger, chips, a drink, and an ice cream sundae.

Then we went home. HOME!!!!!!!!

iDrive

This week I did iDrive. Hayley and I did chalk graffiti and we wrote ICARE. Here are some photos:

End Of Term Reflection

This term I really enjoyed doing cloze, because it slowly gets harder and harder. I really enjoyed art, as it was lino carving, which I really enjoy since it is fun to do something different, and it is not very often that I am able to do something like that. I enjoyed PE as we were doing basketball which I enjoy playing, although I never play it often, so it was great to learn some more of the rules, and learn some new tips. I really liked doing my SRA since it has been challenging me a lot more this term than it used to. SRA helps me learn new words, and helps me comprehend what I am reading, which I struggle with sometimes. My crossword on the back of my cloze helps me heaps in my learning because it has some words on it that I don’t know the meanings of, so it is good to have this activity so I learn the meaning of these new words. Building the maze has also been a great experience for me as it was a cool experience to help create a puzzle, since I am more used to solving them. It was also cool writing an article for the Plains Profile, because the experience of writing an article for a newspaper that heaps of people read, is a lot different to writing a story that only a few people are every going to read.

Next term I am looking forward to doing Impact, I remember really enjoying that last year, as we were able to choose anything we wanted to for our Impact topic, and we weren’t just making an Impact to the school, some of us were making an Impact in other countries too; like my Reading and Making Books group. We were going to donate some books to children in Tanzania, but were short of time. I am also looking forward to Cross Country since I enjoy running on hills and through obstacles as it is a lot more fun compared to just running on a flat surface with no obstacles to cross. My favourite part when doing Cross Country is probably crossing the creek where I can wash all the mud off my feet while crossing! Next term is also the Marimba Festival that I will be participating in. We have to learn ten songs for it and so far we have only learnt around about one.

Way Back When...

Awesome Jokes!

Me and my friend Hayley created this video of jokes. Here is the link. Joke Video
Hope you enjoy!

History In The Month Of June - The Eruption Of Mt Tarawera - 10 June 1886

The eruption of Mt Tarawera lasted six hours and caused major destruction. Many villages were destroyed, and the hot springs, known as the Pink and White Terraces, were gone. About 120 people lost their lives to this eruption.

Eleven days before this terrible eruption happened, passengers travelling on a tourist boat reported that they had seen a phantom war canoe on Lake Tarawera. Tribal Elders believed that this was a spirit canoe, which was an omen of doom.
More signs were including surges in the lake's level.

In the earlier hours of the 10th of June, people woke up to earthquakes, lightning, fountains of molten rock, and columns of smoke and ash up to ten kilometers high. People as far away as Blenheim could hear the eruption. Some people thought it was an attack from a Russian warship which had recently visited Wellington.
Here is an image of the eruption.

Inspirational Quote

I made up this quote -

This quote has been made to show that when you give up, you have failed. But if you try your luck, then you have a chance of succeeding. I created this quote while I was doing Kidsedchat.

This quote inspires me because when I made it I thought that I was giving up on things too much, and to try my luck instead.

I really like making up quotes. I have one about goal setting. Here it is:

Choose your goal

Choose how you are going to achieve it

Achieve it

And be rewarded by triumph.

Art

This week I worked a lot on my art. This term we are doing lino prints. So far I am up to the rubbing, which is where I transfer my paper drawing onto my lino piece.
My art was based on a house that looks like this:

I also added a few little mushroom houses with patterned roofs. 

I really enjoy this art because it's quite challenging and the process is fascinating. 

Discovery Block

This week for Discovery Block I signed up for art. We were doing screen printing. Mrs Barker did not explain to us how to do this, we had to do it ourselves.  I found some very helpful videos on how to screen print. Here is one of them.

We will be screen printing onto paper. We have to make our own stencils which might be really hard. I am doing the same activity next week, where I hope it will be easier. I found lots of videos on how to screen print. Our groups main problem is that we cannot get the fabric tight enough.

Literacy Tasks

My classes main literacy tasks are Cloze, and SRA. This week, I got my Cloze and SRA completed on Monday. I got two wrong in my Cloze, but it was still marked off because there is no point in sending me back just to swap two words around. In my SRA I got it marked off first try. Here is what my SRA answer sheet looked like.

SRA

Name: Elaina

Title: Dingo

Colour: Blue Number: 10 Box: 3a

Comprehension:

1. C ✓

2. B✓

3. B✓

4. A✓

5. A✓

6. A

7. A✓

Vocabulary:

A

1. Quarry✓

2. Sheer✓

3. Corpse✓

4. Hurtle✓

5. Clinging

B

6. Wail✓

7. Gauging✓

8. Crouched ✓

9. Urged✓

10. Hauled✓

Word Study:

C

11. Check/up✓

12. Deer/skin✓

13. Pipe/line✓

14. Mail/box✓

15. Dish/Cloth✓

16. Drive/way✓

17. Pie/crust✓

18. Over/size✓

D

19. Screeched ✓

20. Scratched✓

21. Hissing✓

22. Noise

23. Tingle✓

24. Tickled✓

25. Rattled✓

What’s your story?

I would not have because I just couldn’t. I can’t really bring myself to kill.✓


This SRA was about a dingo and the father in the story was supposed to shoot it, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, because he thought it seemed unfair. The "What's your story?" part of the SRA is where you have to explain yourself due to something that happened in the story. This SRA's "What's your story?" asked me if I would've shot the dingo in the story and why. My answer was "I would not have because I just couldn't. I can't really bring myself to kill."

Every time we get 3 SRA's all correct in a row, we move up a level. I am nearly on the highest level of my box. Next week I hope to move up a level.