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

Hurumanu - P.E - Ki O Rahi DLO

For the past few weeks in Hurumanu, P.E, we've been switching into playing Ki O Rahi and making a D.L.O presentation about it, such as, the history, rules, the field layout, how its played, what it is, pieces of equipment, roles, positions, how to score, etc.

This is the presentation I made about Ki O Rahi. There are questions you need to answer and needs to be put in your presentation...

• The legend that is retold through Ki O Rahi (what story does the game tell?) 

• The history of how the game has developed (when, where and by whom it has it been played throughout the history of Aotearoa?) 
• Ki O Rahi today (where is is played? Who competes in it?)
• Field lay out (you could draw a diagram for this) 
• Equipment
• Teams, roles, and how each team scores 
• Rules and tikanga
• Maori vocabulary that relates to the game, and what it means 

The Visit of Ella West

Yesterday, the 9th of September, Ella West finally came to our school. The year 7 and 8's went to the auditorium to meet and welcome Ella West to our school. 

Ella West talked about a lot of stuff. We also asked her questions relating to her books and her life. She told us about her first book "Thieves", her book series, and how the cover of the books were bad. 

She got inspired by a documentary she watched about a disorder, XP (xeroderma pigmentosum), a real life disorder. That's how Viola's character was created, in the story, Viola has XP. XP disorder is when you get skin cancer when your skin gets hit by the UV rays but is okay when it's fluorescent.

The awards she's won 

• Louis Johnson/Creative New Zealand Bursary for New Writers 2006.
• University of Otago College of Education Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence 2010
• Winner, LIANZA Children's Book Awards 2015 (Young Adult Fiction) for Night Vision
• Winner, YA Children's Choice Award, 2015 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults for Night Vision

Unfortunately, she couldn't get to New Zealand's top booksellers because her book was published in Australia even though her book was set in New Zealand. 

She told us about her mum thinking that she's all the mum in the stories of her books and also the dad.

One of the students in our class asked her if she had a backup career, her answer was a "Journalist", she works at Southland Times forming magazines. 


A student asked her if being an author was her dream, she said it was her dream, she loved reading and writing. 


Facts about her: Her first book was published 39

She's currently writing a book called "Sound of My Heart", it's about a girl running and she can her heart beating fast. Ella didn't really tell us much about the book. But she said it'll take two years for it to be published.

She told us about writing about a thousand words per day and she tries to reach her goal, writing fifty-thousand in her books. Rainfall has fifty-thousand words and Night Vision has forty-thousand words. 

Another fact: Ella West isn't her real name, it's Karen Trebilcock
She talked about having two lives, Ella West, as an author, Karen Trebilcock, as a mum.

Her book, Night Vision was translated to Italian, called, "L'arte ingannevole gufo", the gufo means owl, since there's an owl in the story.

She talked about how she got her inspiration writing Night Vision, it was when she watched a 60 minutes documentary on kids with the XP disorder and she started thinking What could happen if a kid only goes out at night?


She talked about the dog in her book "Night Vision", "Jim" was her dog in realy life. Jim was her very first farm dog and she said that her dog has two different coloured eyes,
one was blue while the other one is brown - Heterochromia. 

She also talked about watching movies, like Star Wars and Harry Potter, how the lives of the main characters have changed, for example, Luke Skywalker, he used to be a farm boy and now he's a guy who saved the galaxy/universe. Harry Potter, he was just an average-ordinary boy and then he fought Lord Voldermort and as well as the main character in Narnia. She got ideas from those movies to write her books.

Our reading group, Kakapo, the group reading Night Vision, had alone time with Ella and we discussed the ending of Night Vision, she told us the explanations of why she ended it that way.

Maori - Poutini and Waitaiki

Yesterday, in Maori, our teacher told us the story of "Poutini and Waitaiki". The characters were Poutini (that taniwha, the god) Waitaiki, the wife, and tamaahua, the husband. He asked us to choose which character we want to be in the story and rewrite it as the character's point of view/perspective. 

I wrote this yesterday and finished it. This is how I think Waitaiki would've reacted

-Suddenly, my vision went black...

I can hear my heart pounding, my eyes still shut, hearing a familiar sound, I slowly opened my eyes, my breathing became heavy.

Scared and confused, I looked around me, I felt the cold breeze hit my skin, I shivered as I slowly got up. 

The scenery in front of me caused my eyes to gleam, it was beautiful, I closed my eyes as I focused on the sound of waves crashing.

It was a melody to my ears. I then opened my eyes, slowly making my way to the water. Seeing my reflection, I look like a hot mess, I had nothing on, my long hair was covering my whole body. 

Tears flowing down my cheeks as I remembered I had a family to go back to. I looked around the unfamiliar surrounding, where am I? I thought.

I was terrified, my family needs me.

“Waitaki! Watch out!” A familiar voice called my name, I quickly turned around only to be met by a big light coming at me, I screamed, scared for my life. I looked at my hand, it was slowly turning into a dark green stone.

It was over…

My life’s over...

This is the picture of what it looks like...

Hurumanu - Music - Music through the Decades

Last week, we were asked to make a slideshow presentation of different kinds of music over/through the decades.

I made a mistake on my first one, I only focused on individual musicians/bands but then I had enough time to make another one and I finished it within 40 minutes.

I know most of the singers and songs as well since I like listening to '80s and '90s songs because my parents listen to '80s and '90's songs at home. 

This is the first one that I made, the one which I focused on individuals musicians/bands/artist

This is the second one that I did and I'm really happy with how it turned out and happy that I finished it on time.

CIP - It's Cool To Be Kind- Visit to the Elderly Daycare

Last week on Wednesday, a couple of students volunteered (including me) to go to the Elderly Daycare, where you talk to the elders, share some things that you did, ask them about their day. Just basically having a conversation with the elders.

Last week, I talked to grannies that I talked the last time I went there. They told me about their day and what they did for the past few weeks. I feel calm around elder people because when I see them, I remember my grandparents and great-grandparent, it makes me wonder how they're doing back in my hometown.

Talking to elders are so different when talking to other teenagers like me, some teenagers talk about social media, their crushes, girl-dramas, sport. With elders, on the other hand, they talked about so much stuff that hardly teenagers does. I can understand since there's a huge age gap and the generation and society is different now from way back then. I had a lot of fun talking to the elders and it's really nice to talk with them about stuff. I would want to go back but I have a lot of catching up to do so maybe I'll go next time

Hurumanu - Music - The Visit of a Musician

Period 4 in Music, a musician, Ryan Neville - visited us and told us about his life as a musician and parts of the instruments he brought with him. He showed us how to play the instruments and told us facts about it.

I've listed down the stuff I've learnt from him, facts, and about him.