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.

Book Club

This week for our Book Club we had our shared lunch for finishing The Year My Life Broke. 

The book Scarlet Ibis is very good. We just read chapter three which was mainly about the zoo. The character Red really seemed to like the Africa section, so I did an investigation of Africa. Here is the investigation. 

Topic: Africa

Africa is the second largest and second most populated country in the world. It’s size is 30.2 million kilometres. It has 1.1 MILLION people in it. This is as of 2013. Africa’s population takes up 15% of the world. 50% of Africans are over the age of 19. Africa is a continent made up of 54 countries. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea.

Here is an image of the book cover.

My Book Club

This term my Book Club, the Meltdowns, are reading a book called Scarlet Ibis. It is a really cool book about birds and safety. I really have been enjoying this book, although it took me a while before I understood it. Here is my summary for the first chapter:

Scarlet and her brother Red would like to sail the Caroni Swamp in Trinidad. “We’ll wait for the sun to sink, turning the mountains of the Northern Range deep blue.” They will watch the Scarlet Ibis settle into the trees.

Mrs Gideon, aka “The Penguin” is the social worker who comes to spy on them. They have to make everything “safe” otherwise this will be used against them.
I have also done my Travel Tracer for the second chapter.

Where today’s action begins: Red wakes Scarlet up at 6:15 a.m. because the baby bird they have been keeping has hatched. Red seems concerned about the bird’s safety but Scarlet assures him that it will be fine.	Page where it was described: 11-12
Where key events happen: Mrs Gideon comes and looks at Scarlet’s school reports, where she saw that she was a smart girl. Scarlet has beaten the Penguin - this time, at least.	Page where it was described: 17-18
Where today’s events end: Sita’s Mum gives Scarlet and her family some banana cake. She is concerned about Scarlet’s family.	Page where it was described: