Creative Writing - Holiday

Boats on the brightly blue coloured ocean. Rocky mountains covered in green as the sky shone in frozen blue. Never seen water so blue, glistening as the boats linger. I wander around the mountains, fresh air blowing, my hair elegantly flowing, I could paint a whole picture with the breathtaking view. 

I'm now enjoying my holiday after the stressful term of school, right now is the first day of my holiday. I think the place that I am in, is the place I wanted to be. Due to being stressed, I wanted to look around the heavenly place to have peace. Forgetting everything for a moment and relaxing. Finally, I can have alone time, just me and this wonderful place.

I saw something from afar that stole my attention, it was a figure, its clothes were all black, it was just standing there. The wind blew really strong causing my eyes to squint, when I opened my eyes, it was gone. I rubbed my eyes thinking that it's probably nothing. I had goosebumps, I shivered, maybe I was just hallucinating. 

I saw a black cloth flew landing on the water, I looked back at where the figure was standing, there was an old plant. I looked back at the cloth, then it hit me, it was a cloth covering the old plant, making it look like it was a figure. The figure or should I say the black cloth, disappeared because the wind blew really strong causing it to fly and land on the water. I sighed in relief, it was all just a misunderstanding.

____________________

That's the end of my creative writing, thank you for reading.

SLJ - Day 4 Activity 1: Leading the Charge

If I were hired as a principal for a week, I'd make a lot of changes. I want to be the principal in primary school. As a principal, we need to focus on their learning that's why in a young age, we need to engage them into learning academics, learn about strategies and general knowledge.
We'll teach them Maths, Science, English, Reading, Writing, Music, Arts, P.E.

Image: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/the-amazing-world-of-gumball/images/31164749/title/principal-brown-photo

I would add an extra activity every Monday after school for 2 hours, the children can have a choice of going to this particular activity. The activity I'd like to add is survival skills, they need to learn how to survive in such a young age and they can take those skills for them to us in the future and it'd be really handy.

During lunchtimes, we will have free lunch to give to everyone, for the foods, it'll be healthy foods from different countries because it'd be nice for them to eat foods from different countries and to add to that healthy ones, they need to balance their diet to keep their body healthy and strong.

Image: https://followshows.com/show/The-Amazing-World-of-Gumball/episode/S06E12

Every morning, they need to run laps around the field because that's what we used to do back in my primary. After that, we'll give them fruits.

This is also an extra activity but on Fridays only and it is swimming lessons, it'll be running for 2 hours, we'll teach them swimming skills and the basics.

For EOTC week, it'd be nice to do swimming, going to a museum, going to a theme park, etc.

I'd take the staffs to the spa fortnightly.

Teach the kids how to plant vegetables and fruits in the garden.

Each class will have a class pet, bunny, dogs, cats fish, turtles, etc.

Those are a few things I'd want to do if I was a principal, thank you for reading. If those were to happen, we'd need a lot of money but I do hope that there are schools like that out there, if there was a school, I'd definitely want to go there and I'd probably go to school every day.

SLJ - Day 1 Activity 1: New Zealand Royalty

Lorde

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorde

Subject I want to learn at school

Survival skills

I've seen a lot of movies where the protagonist survives the wild, tv shows, ads, etc. watching those movies makes me want to learn and think deeper how to survive out there in the wild.
I want to learn first aid, build a fire and shelter, how to make food without using modern cookwares but using traditional ones. How to hunt animals for food, how to have a mental attitude, how to make a spear for hunting, I already know how to clean water, water filtering and naturalist.
I can't really think of any careers that require surviving skills, I guess in the military or a teacher. You can teach a lot of kids about surviving skills and inspire them to be like you. You don't know, you might get an opportunity to be in the news, or break the world record for the "Longest survivor in the wild" or something.

CIP - Christmas

Cookies - Cooking Tech

Today in cooking tech, we made chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients:

• Butter (cut into small cubes)
• Plain white sugar
• Vanilla essence 
• Condensed milk 
• Flour (had been sifted)
• Baking powder (our rising agent)
• Chocolate Chips 

It smelled buttery, the texture on the outside was crispy but when you bite into it, it's soft, it's sweet, the chocolate chip complemented the cookie really well. The shape is thick because of the baking powder. 

Where I would go on a holiday?

If I were to go on a holiday, I would go to Japan, I know I'm a fan of BTS and if you're a BTS fan you'd wanna go to South Korea. Well, I want to go to Japan, my dad used to work in Japan for three years and he would always send me stuffed toys from Japan, snacks, etc. It's a place I've always wanted to go since I was a kid, back in the Philippines animes were really popular in my childhood days, I would watch "Doraemon", "Sailor Moon", "Detective Conan" etc. I think it's popular until now. 

I want to go there because I want to learn about the culture, the language and wear a "Kimono" which is traditional clothing in Japan. Of course, food! I love eating Japanese food, here in New Zealand, there are Japanese cuisines, but I want to eat food in the actual country and food that I've never tried before. I want to learn about the legends and myths as well since I love thriller stuff. I'd want to go with my family and friends so they can also enjoy their holiday and have an experience with what it's like in Japan.

This photo made me hungry :(

Badminton Competition 🏸

This is a blogpost about the Badminton Competition I was in last Monday and Tuesday. In those two days, we had to get to school really early because we had to leave at 8:30. We versed different year 7 and 8's schools. After we get there we had to get our shoes checked if they had a "non-marking" sole, or a gum soled shoes since it's a high-quality badminton centre. The competition was held in

"Zhu Badminton Centre". 

Some of us had their own badminton racket and the rest borrowed from the school. I found it really challenging because the opponents were really skilled, well trained and really good. On Monday, I don't think I did well, I don't think that did my 100% best, I was really nervous because I didn't know how the other schools play. 

Each of us had turns umpiring the game, there was this tall chair for umpiring. The next day, I woke up and my body was aching. It's normal since it was a sport and we had to move a lot and we competed for the whole day. I guess I kind of like having a rest from school. 

Tuesday, I gave my 100% best, I thought that I needed to work harder, for me, my team and school. I realised that that wasn't good enough, I realised that I can play better than I did on Monday, and I did. Tuesday was our last day as well, they also gave out prizes, the girl's team placed 1st, the boy's team had a draw and the mixed, team I was in, got 3rd place. I was satisfied with the score my team got but it'd be better if we place 1st. 

Cooking Tech - Pizza

Today, we made pizza in Cooking Tech, I used the Tomato Herb base for my pizza. For the ingredients, I used tomato sauce, cheddar cheese, pineapples, capsicum, salami, and mushroom. First thing I put was the tomato sauce and then the cheese (already grated, I put a lot because I like cheesy pizza), salami that were cut into six small pieces, already cut capsicum and mushroom. We fan-baked it in 180 degrees, we baked it for around 7-10 minutes. We let it cool for a minute before digging in, we had a choice if we want to put barbecue sauce. After eating we washed the dishes, cleaned the table and made a blog post about what we did today and this is my blog post. I'm pretty satisfied with how my pizza looked like and I think that my group did a good job.

Hurumanu - P.E

Today for P.E, we did an activity where you make a game using the equipments that were given to you in your group. The equipments that were given to us were hula hoop, cones, tennis racket, tennis ball and a netball stand.

The game was like netball but with a twist, instead of having just one netball stand on each opposite side, there were two, one behind the other, if we manage to shoot on the hoop behind the other one, we'd earn 3 points but if we shoot on the near one, on the front, we'd earn 1 point. You have to share your game with another group and vice versa.

I think what went well was that we were able to communicate with the other team, we got on our game in time and that the other team was able to understand the game, how to play it, the rules, and how to earn points.

What I think we could improve on is probably making the game, I find it really difficult because it's hard to explain the game I had in mind to my team and I don't think they will be able to understand the game. We had trouble making a game because we had heaps of equipment to use. But in the end, we were able to make a game and we all agreed to play it, we also made rules and boundaries. 

I think that it'd be better if we used less equipment because in the end we just used two of those equipments and we had trouble thinking of a game we could make using those equipments.

Hurumanu - PE - Dodgeball

Today's the last day of our P.E Hurumanu, we played an activity that was really fun, we played dodgeball with a twist, when you're out, instead of standing on the floor, you stand on a bench and try to catch balls that are getting thrown at you. 

Working as a Team

Level 1 Below the Level	Level 2 Working Towards the Level	Level 3 Working at the Level	Level 4 Exceeding the Level
I have a negative influence on the team.  The teacher has reminded me to get involved. I get into arguments, and sometimes use nasty words. I sometimes cheat.	I sometimes make a contribution to the team goal.  I sometimes need the teacher or my team mates to remind me to join in or try harder.   I try to use positive words and actions to encourage my team, but I find it hard.	I always make a contribution to the team goal. I include myself in the team activity, and I include others.  I sometimes use positive words and actions to encourage my team.	I am a leader in making a contribution to the team goal.  I make sure I include everyone in what’s going on.  I am always encouraging, and my positive words and actions lift my team’s performance.

x

Blog Reflection 

The team game we played was: Dodgeball 

For this activity, I rate myself (circle one) 1 2 3 4

Why I gave myself this rating

I gave myself this rating because I think that I did really well in this activity, I participated and put myself out there to play. I never give up, I tried and hit the opposite team’s players, I kept trying and I put my 100% energy and effort in the game.

What was something that was challenging about today’s activity? (in relation to teamwork)

The challenging part was when you’re out and trying to catch the ball that you’re team’s throwing at you because the opposite team was trying to stop the ball from getting thrown at us so we won’t be able to get out. Sometimes it’s really difficult to catch the ball because it’s too high or low. Throwing the ball at the opposite team was difficult because they were really good at dodging.

How did I overcome this challenge?

One thing that I did to overcome this challenge was trying my best to catch the ball that’s being thrown at me. I also tried to ai my shot when throwing the ball at the opposite team

Hurumanu - Music - Types of Guitars

A special guest came to Music class to show us different types of guitars and to tell us about his experiences with guitars. He even performed in front of our class which is 7/8 AL and the Wahanau class.

He played "Can't help falling in love with you" by Elvis Presley. He also showed us videos of how the guitars sound like and played like.

We had to make a DLO about what we've learnt today, we also got to pick what guitars we're making a presentation about. I chose the acoustic guitar, electric guitar and a Spanish guitar.

Get to know me!

My life is divided into twos, as a person and student. Kumusta, I'm Skyler and this is a blog post about me. 

I really like studying, education is my number one priority right now, I study hard and will continue to do so to get better knowledge so I can use it in the future. Speaking of studying, I have a lot of subjects I really like, my top 1 is maths, I really like maths because it puts me in my prickly zone, it's challenging but once you get to know how to do it, it'll be a piece of cake. 

I, myself think that I'm an achiever, I like to achieve a lot of stuff.  I like getting awards because all my hard work has paid off. Getting awards makes me feel good about myself because knowing that I worked really hard for it and getting that achievement is the best thing. 

I don't think I'm a sporty person I play badminton and I really love hockey. I've been playing hockey for winter sports since primary school. 

I really love art, it's actually my hobby, I do art weither it'd be in school or at home. 

Singing is one of my other hobbies, I sing a lot, in the shower, while washing dishes doing chores, at school. Sometimes I sing in my head, I know, weird right?

Cooking is also my hobby, I cook most of my lunch I bring to school. During the holidays I cook my breakfast and lunch. I cook for my parents as well, I always watch my parents cook and help them, they would sometimes teach me how to cook a certain dish.

As a person, I'm like any other teenager but I guess you could say crazier. I'm a big fan of BTS (A Korean boy band), I spend most of my time watching their videos on YouTube. I wish to go to their concert one day before they disband. It saddens me to think that they'll disband, they're my favourite boyband, they helped me a lot, they gave me confidence, they taught me how to love myself through their songs. They make me happy and I will forever support them and I love them so much.

I love listening to music, any type of music but I like Pop, K-pop and R&B the most. Listening to music makes me calm and relaxed. I listen to a type of music based on my mood. 

This is "Boy with Luv" by BTS

this is one of their songs this year, their album is called "Persona" 

This song is called "Indigo" by Niki

This song is called "Mama's Hand" by Queen Naija

I like playing games especially any fighting or shooting game, my favourite game is PUBG because it's an exciting game, it's a shooting game and during my free time, I play PUBG with my friends.

I really like reading books or online, I read Wattpad and I actually published two books there.

Hurumanu - P.E - Pancake Wars

My first blog on term 4, for P.E, we were introduced to a game that seniors in our school pay for physical education. It's called "Pancake Wars" the rules are pretty complicated but once you play it, it's pretty easy and you'll get the hang of it. 

This blogpost is about how we think we did if we did well or not. Each of us rated out selves and explained why we rate gave it that rating, what was challenging in the game and how we overcome the challenge. 

 Working as a Team

Level 1 Below the Level	Level 2 Working Towards the Level	Level 3 Working at the Level	Level 4 Exceeding the Level
I have a negative influence on the team.  The teacher has reminded me to get involved. I get into arguments, and sometimes use nasty words. I sometimes cheat.	I sometimes make a contribution to the team goal.  I sometimes need the teacher or my team mates to remind me to join in or try harder.   I try to use positive words and actions to encourage my team, but I find it hard.	I always make a contribution to the team goal. I include myself in the team activity, and I include others.  I sometimes use positive words and actions to encourage my team.	I am a leader in making a contribution to the team goal.  I make sure I include everyone in what’s going on.  I am always encouraging, and my positive words and actions lift my team’s performance.

Blog Reflection 

The team game we played was:  Pancake Wars 

For this activity, I rate myself (circle one) 1 2 3 4

I gave myself this rating because (describe something that happened that supports the rating you gave yourself).  

I think that I did pretty well playing Pancake Wars, especially with the contribution I did in my team. I also communicated with my team a lot like planning out how we’re going to bail out people in our team, as well as encouraging people. 

What was something that was challenging about today’s activity? (in relation to teamwork)

The part I think was challenging was, there were people guarding the jail, to be more specific, they’re guarding the people in our team, ready to tag the people who are going to bail our other teammates. Also, there are people who are trying to get in our area, trying to steal the pancakes so it’s really difficult to guard and bail people out at the same time.

How did I overcome this challenge?

I focused on one thing at a time. Other people in my team who are trying ot bail people out of jail and I planned a strategy we could use. Some of them will distract the people guarding while we try to bail the people out in jail and linked arms with them. Another strategy is when the people guarding are distracted or not looking, we sneak and quickly bail the people out.

I also watch out for the other team when they’re trying to get in our area and if they are in our area, we try to tag them. It’s not just being competitive, who gets the most pancakes, we have fun as well.

Orana Park

Yesterday, we went to Orana Park, my class, 7/8al, 7/8ds, and 7/8mt, we went there by riding two buses. A van that's used to send students back at school when they're not behaving properly.

The first thing we did when we got there was to eat our morning tea. After that, we were given stickers that had our name and a number on it. There were 4 groups in total, I was put in group 4. Our group, group 4, went to the kea. We saw 2 of them close up, we saw how they eat their food, how they fly and run. Our educator said that keas are going extinct due to climate change, the temperature is heating up. Causing kea's habitat, alpine, in the south island, snow to melt.

Next animal(s) went to visit was the geckos, frogs, crickets, tuatara and tortoise, sadly the tuatara and the tortoise weren't in their cages because it was cold and they were too young to be put in their cages yet.


Our educator then showed as three pests in New Zealand, the stoats, rats and ferrets. They were real animals that had their intestines taken out and was stuffed.

She showed us the comparison between a chicken and a kiwi egg, the chicken egg is a lot smaller than the kiwi egg. She also explained that when a baby chicken is in the chicken egg, they're weird looking like how an alien looks like but when a baby kiwi is in the egg, it already has feathers, that's why the egg is huge.

Lions were next, and then the tiger and the emu. Emus are as large as an ostrich and they look the same. The Tasmanian devil was the next, it ran around its cage and they looked like rats, it also had fangs.

After that, we were lining up, waiting for our turn, one by one, we fed the giraffes. Elizabeth, the instructor, explained the proper way to feed a giraffe, we needed to hold the leaves with two hands since a giraffes tongue is stronger than us. The giraffes were long and blue-ish purple with a hint of pink.



After feeding the giraffes, we ate our lunch, we sat on the benches. I ate lunch with my friends, it was really funny because one friend of mine brought skittles and all my other friends and I were begging her to give us some, it was total chaos.

After eating lunch, we visited the unicorns, they weren't actually real unicorns, they were rhinos, since both rhinos and unicorns have horns.

We also saw water buffalos, African wild dogs - people mistook them for hyenas - we also saw cheetah, the fastest animal in the earth with a speed of 120 kilometres, the last animals we got to see spider monkeys and gorillas.

We didn't see all the animals but it was a fun experience.

Visit to the Music Suite

The other day, we went to the music suite/room, to play instruments from different instrument families, we also answered questions regarding each instruments we get to see. 

Each instrument was in different rooms. 

I first tried playing the keyboard, there was a music sheet that we can follow, Havana was the song. It was easy since there were letters on the keyboards symbolising the chords. 

I then moved on to the flutes and saxophone, the answer sheet asked what instruments they were.

I went to another room where the drum was, there were two types of them, an electric one and the normal ones. I went to the room where the ukulele was, the answer sheet asked how many strings a ukulele has and there were 4. 

I went to the room where the acoustic guitar and electric guitar were. There weren't many questions in the answer sheet. Some questions were about which instruments some instruments belong to. I'm not in any of the photos but I asked the people's in the photos if I can have permission.

I didn't get ot play all of them but I saw all of them and answered the answer sheets, I got 8 out of 8.

Composing A Song - Drug

The other day, we had an activity where we write our own songs, using different inspirations for it. We have to write 4 verses and a chorus.

This song is about people, not just teens, I know teens are mainly targeted by it. It's about social media, how it affects people's mindset, how bad it can cause them to have low self-esteem.
It affects how people act in everyday life, how and what they see themselves as.

The title is called "Drug", I named it "drug" because imagine this, it's your first time uploading a photo on social media, people start liking your post, they start following you, commenting on your post, as time goes by, every time you post on social media, you'll keep wanting more likes, it's addicting because likes, followers, and comments affect the way you think, if you don't get enough likes on your post, you'll think that people dislike you.

This is my song:

“Drug”

Poisonous, it burns your throat

Taste it, you’ll want more

It’s a drug, you’ll get addicted

Soon enough, you’re blinded 

By all the social media (social media)

It’s affecting people’s mind (people’s mind)

You’ll then start to listen to (to listen to) the voices of others

Every time you look in the mirror

yeah, you don’t like what you see

It’s eating society

You’ll start to doubt yourself, anxiety

Oh, stop hiding in your shell

Come out, come out, shine like a star that you are, you are

Appreciate and love yourself

Oh no one’s gonna help you but you

In this cruel world nothing’s permanent

Be confident about yourself,

‘bout your body, 

‘bout your face,

‘bout your ability to face the challenges

(Don’t get eaten) 

(It’ll do you no good)

I know it’s hard but I know you can do it

I know it’ll take a long time but it’s worth it

This song will make you realise that life isn't how many likes you get, followers you get and comment. It's about being content in what you have and that you don't need people to like you. You don't need to change just so people can like you. People that choose to stay with you even at your worst are real, remember "Choose the real"

Twenty Five Words

Monday, 23rd of September, today was the day where we move in the new building, it's a very different environment, it'll take a lot of time to get used with the space and how things work. Since we didn't have anything to do today, we didn't have any work to do, for period 3. We did an activity about poetry. We get to choose between the two, first option was the Twenty Five Words and the other one is about the Global issues.

I did the Twenty Five Words and finished it, it's where you make a poem using twenty-five words, no more or less, you have to use all the words. 

• Light
• Witch
• Feather
• Ice
• Blue
• Fly
• Fast
• Float
• Past
• Mountain
• River
• Sunshine
• Crusty
• Snow
• Fall
• Water
• Puddles
• Run
• White
• Stars
• Burn
• Bright
• Black
• Sky
• Beautiful

Twenty Five Words

Blue Sky

Mountain

Light White Snow Fall 

Float

Water Run Past River

Black Beautiful Witch Feather Fly Fast

Sunshine Burn 

Stars Bright

Crusty Ice Puddles