10 Pumpkin Facts!! Must Read!!

What much do you know about pumpkins?? Well here are 10 facts about Pumpkins that you didn't know about :)

• Did you know that pumpkin are scientifically fruits since they contain seeds but when cooked, they're referred to as vegetables?
• Pumpkin comes from the Greek word "Pepon" meaning "Large Melon"
• Over 1 billion pounds of pumpkins are produced in the US every year
• The world's heaviest pumpkin weighed over 2,600 pounds!
• Each pumpkin has about 500 seeds
• There are more than 45 different varieties of pumpkins
• Pumpkins are 90% water which makes them a low-calorie food
• National Pumpkin Day is celebrated every October 26
• The pumpkin is a member of the cucurbit family, which are gourds, such as cucumbers, watermelon, and more
• The oldest seeds of pumpkins were found in Mexico around 7000 BC

Which of these facts do you already know??

Why Jacinda Ardern is a great leader

Jacinda Ardern

New Zealand's Prime Minister

She is known for her leadership, her success came from her unique connection with people; her ability to talk and connect in an honest way to people. She communicates to people quickly and immediately, giving New Zealanders as much information as she could.

She has been praised recently by the Australians of how she handled the pandemic virus. She's leading as an example of how a true leader really is.  She has shown what a true leader looks like, she has demonstrated care, action, empathy, love and unity. A true leader earns respect from her/his by treating them with respect. She's honest with her opinions, she has the ability to show care in an appropriate manner.

A true leader need to communicate effectively to their team, they also need to take time to listen and observe. A leader should have a voice, being able to speak their mind and make decisions based on the facts and relevant information.

A leader take responsibilities for their own action, for their team and business, this includes celebrating your success but also acknowledging mistakes.  

A leader leads with love, having an enthusiastic and motivated leader lift people's spirits up, a leader sees the good in a situation, and they are able to work with it. 

Those are examples of good leadership and Jacinda has met those criteria. 

I, one day want to be like her, I want to be a great leader to everyone, I want to lead as an example of a great leader, I want to be an inspiration to people, I want to be able to give hope to people, not fear.

Coffee Whip Cream?? 😍🤔

Today, my mum and I tried out a recipe that she found on Facebook. It's called "Coffee Whip Cream" 

Very simple recipe, good with any type of desserts and very easy to make. You can find the ingredients at your home.

Ingredients: 

Ground Coffee

Brown or White Sugar

Hot Water

Bowl

Whisk or an electric mixer

Put 2 tablespoons of ground coffee and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a bowl. If you want your whip cream on the sweeter side, put 3 tablespoons of sugar. 

Then put 2 tablespoons of hot water, mix it with a spoon until the solid ingredients had been dissolved. Then mix it with a whisk or an electric mixer until it's fluffy and smooth.

My mum put hers on top of milk with ice, I put mine as a topping of my icecream with milk. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it. 

But here are examples:

You must save Jumanji and call out its name!!!

My parents and I watched "Jumanji: The Next Level" the other day and it was so good. Honestly, I wouldn't compare it with "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" both movies were good in their own way. They both teach you moral lessons, the first movie,"Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" teaches you about friendship, making friends with people and working as a team, the characters had their own personalities, it was very nice to see different personalities in one movie. One was nerdy, one was a jock, one was the sassy girl, one was the loner. It was so good to see how the characters developed after the first movie.

Let's talk about the first movie, the four were just incredible actors, their acting in the movie was so good. Jack Black can act different personalities since they were stuck on the game (I don't want to spoil for people who haven't watched it yet)  and they became the characters in the game, Jack Black's acting was I would say, spectacular. I was very surprised, he portrayed Bethany so well. Kevin Hart, ah yes, he never disappoints, he and Dwayne were the best duo I've ever seen. Karen Gillan was hilarious as well, her character is far different from her self in the real world but she managed to be the actual character. 

In the game, they had their own strengths and weaknesses. This is the line that Nigel always says "Return the jewel and lift the curse. If you wish to leave the game, you must save Jumanji and call out its name" I've memorised as soon as the NPC (Non-Player Character) "Nigel" said it the second time.

Like what Nigel line says, the players have to return the jewel and once they have returned it or once they have got the jewel they have to call out Jumanji to lift the curse. The genres are adventure, a mix of romance, and friendship.

Characters: 

Dwayne Johnson as "Dr. Smolder Bravstone" - Spencer

Karen Gillan as "Ruby Roundhouse" - Martha

Kevin Hart as "Fraklin Finbar" - Fridge

Jack Black as "Professor Shelly Oberon" - Bethany

The second movie is a bit different, Spencer was a bit different now since he and Martha broke up

He now lives in New York and has a job there. He went back to his mother's place for vacation. He decided to play the game again even though their squad had a pact, to never play the game again. He tried to fix the DVD in order to go back in the game again.  But it was unexpected, the game doesn't really work well since they're destroyed it and it's still not in a great condition. Spencer became a different character instead of getting Dr Bravestone. I'll spare the details because I don't want to spoil. So the whole squad was now in the game along with Spencer's grandpa and his friend "Milo" because they got sucked in the game as well. 

Like I said, the game was not in great condition so they were all not playing the characters they were supposed to be.

The second movies were good in its own way, I laughed a lot but not like the first movie. It was great to see character developments.

I would rate both movies a 10/10, It was great, you learn a lot of lessons from it, both movies gives you a lot of emotions and it was nice to see actors you would never think work together in a movie, 

Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, Jack Black = Perfect Combination

What is the purpose of having the CARR values?

In working from home, one of the things I could do a blogpost about is our carr values at school. You have to make a poster about the awareness of the carr values.

So what is the "CARR Values?" and its purpose?
Carr values are the values we follow, we do, in order to have a wonderful community, learning, knowledge, to have better wellbeing, to improve the economic growth, to improve our health and education. These values determine how we're going to think, act and feel in the future, it will affect our future education and our everyday lives. It will affect people to those around us. It helps us to make decisions in the future.

These values don't just apply to our school, it applies to when we're an outside school, we carry these values everywhere we go.

What does it stand for?
The "C" stands for "Commitment" being committed to your work, being committed to learning, taking responsibilities for your own actions.
"A" stands for "Achievement" setting a goal for yourself, achieving awards.
The first "R" stands for "Resilience" not giving up on something you want to accomplish, having a positive mindset "I can't do it yet!".
The second "R" stands for "Respect" respecting others, the environment and yourself, being kind.

This is the poster that I've made
I've done a lot of doodles around it to make it colourful and interesting.

What animal is black and white and eats bamboo?

Pandas - Ailuropoda melanoleuca (Scientific name)

Pandas, they're adored around the world, with it's black and white fur, interesting diet and cute characteristics, who wouldn't love a panda?
With movies featuring pandas such as, of course, a well-known movie, Kung Fu Panda.

Photo link 

So why are pandas fur black and white?

Photo by Ricky Patel from UCDAVIS

It's possible that they got their colour as the result of their poor diet of bamboo since they get small nutrition and calories - and the inability to digest a wider range of plants. This means that pandas can never store enough fat during winter. 

The purpose of the white part of its body; face, neck, belly, and rump, is to hide from predators, both in the snow and in the shadows. The large black circle around its eyes are for helping pandas to recognise each other. The black ears that the panda has may help to signal predators for aggression. 

Where do pandas live? What do they eat?

Pandas mainly live in temperate forests high in the mountains of southwest China, it's a place where they can survive by their own, away from human predators; hunting. It's also where they get their food from which is bamboo. They must eat around 26 to 84 pounds of bamboo every day, depending on the bamboo they're eating.

How many pandas are there in the world?

There are a total of 1,864 in 2014, but as of in 2019, there were 2,000 in China in their native habitat according to the zoo. They changed from endangered to vulnerable. 

How many types of pandas are there?

There are three types of pandas, one is a big panda and has black and white fur which is the Ailuropoda melanoleuca. 

The other one is small, brown and fawn Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis. 

Another one is called red panda a native mammal in the Himalayas and south-west China Ailurus fulgens

Weight: Majority of pandas weights around 220 - 330 pounds

The life cycle of panda

Newborn

• Giant pandas are born tiny, it weighs about 100g or 4 ounces.
• The mother panda cradles her tiny cub in a paw and doesn't leave the den for several days after giving birth.
• The cubs will soon develop grey furs which will become coarser, the furs then become black and white in a month.

Cubhood

• The cubs would start eating bamboos around six months, they would be fully weaned in between 8 to 9 months
• Cubs easily die in the wild because they're small and defenceless, therefore they have to eat in their den for four hours a day
• Pandas weigh about 45kg at one year

Living independently 

• Panda cubs grow quickly, they stay with their mama cub for one and a half to two years
• They would be fully grown by now, weighing up to 150kg 

Maturity

• Giant pandas are able to breed at four to six years old (females at four and males are six) 
• Female pandas normally bear one cub every 2 or 3 years from 4 to 18 years old.
• Female live their partners after mating and rear their cubs alone
• Female pandas are only fertile once for two to three days a year

Reproduction

• Giant panda gestation is 3 to 5 months 
• Cubs are usually born in late summer in hidden hollow trees or natural dens, where branches, dry grass and etc are made into nests
• Normally giant pandas give birth to a single cub. Even if a female has two cubs, she would normally choose to take care of one and abandon the other

(Due to the low birth rate and vulnerability of cubs, pandas are on the verge of extinction)

Sources: 

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/giant-panda

https://www.livescience.com/58206-why-pandas-are-black-and-white.html

https://time.com/4693913/pandas-black-white-study/

https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/why-pandas-are-black-and-white/

https://www.chinahighlights.com/giant-panda/life-cycle.htm

Feel free to ask questions :)

Can You Guess Who???

For our task in ESOL, we have to think of an animal or someone famous and we have to write down the description of that certain animal or person. We have to use nouns and adjectives; in order to describe what the look like and their personality.

1. He's Korean
2. Has a kind heart
3. He's passionate about dancing and singing
4. He's in a famous band
5. He's friendly

Answer???

Any Thoughts on My Theme Park??😌🥳

Since we are working from home, there are activities we can choose from to work on and make a blogpost about. I chose the "Design a Theme Park", to design a theme park, you need to come up with a theme and the name of your theme park. You need to come up with a location where you want your theme park to be and a reason why, you have to decide food outlets and why you have chosen them. 

You have to create a price board, the entry costs and other additional costs. You have to decide on attractions and rides. You have to draw the map of your theme park, including the parking lot. 

This is the slide that I've finished working on. It includes the rides, attractions, location, name, food outlets, price board, and map.

I have created a promotional advertising video to attract customers to my theme park

Potato Nuggets? 😲

Today, I made a snack, it's a very basic snack with simple ingredients. And I called it "Potato Nuggets"

Ingredients
1 potato
Salt
Pepper
Flour
Oil

Step 1
Boil the potato on a pot with salted water until it's soft

Step 2 
Mash it a little bit, it should still be in large pieces

Step 3
Crack an egg and mix it with the potatoes

Step 4
Put 2 tablespoons of flour

Step 5
Add a teaspoon of salt and a pinch of pepper

Step 6 
Measure the size of your nugget mixture on a spoon and fry it on a hot pan

Tip: Make sure to put a paper towel on your plate so it soaks up the oil since this dish is fried :)

This is what mine looked like

1347 Europe - Hurumanu

For social studies, we had to read a text in 2nd person about life in medieval days. There were activities we had to about what we just read.

I included the photos if you're curious...

I'm sharing the drawing I've done regarding this topic

In one of the activities, we have to draw the area we lived in, in 1347 Europe, including our house and strips of the land, we have to give our drawing a title as well.

This is my drawing..

There were two activities where you have to draw, one was about our house in 1347, the second one is about what cleric looked like back then. A "cleric" is a religious official, a member of the clergy, it is usually a priest or a holy warrior 

This is my drawing...

Hurumanu - How to stay mentally healthy?

Today, my friend Rieya and I worked together on a health activity. There's a slide of topics we can pick on about health. We chose "Staying Mentally Healthy", and in that slide, there were topics about staying mentally healthy, we picked stress since we are already familiar with it. The first thing we did was we put all our answers; what we have found out after we researched and after that, we put it on a google slideshow for our final presentation.

I would love to have your feedback so that I can work on my next step :)

What do you think about the money I've created? - BST

As you all probably may know, all schools in New Zealand is in lockdown due to coronavirus but we still have work to do. For business studies, we have to make our own money and it has to have the 8 characteristics of a good currency.

• Generally accepted
• Durable
• Divisible
• Stable
• Transportable
• Scarce
• Easily recognisable
• Difficult to counterfeit

This money is made out of polymer, they do not decompose in water which makes this banknote durable, strong, transportable and long-lasting.
There are serial numbers which make this money difficult to counterfeit.
It will be generally accepted because it's stated that it's legal tender and the amount of money.
5 $10 makes $50 so that makes it divisible.
It's easily recognisable because there's not much going on in this banknote the designs are very simple, I've drawn the prime minister of New Zealand, the bird Riroriro, and a place in New Zealand, Queenstown.

BST - Money

Tody's lesson in Business Enterprise, we looked at the value of money and the types of money that were used before notes were invented. 

What is the currency? 
Currency is money a system of money in any form, it is used by the people in one's nation to exchange for goods or services.


Where was it used and who used it? 
The first Western culture who made money was the Lydians. Cultures around the world developed the use of their own commodity money. 


What do you think are some advantages of this money?

• Money gives you power
• Money is one of the reason how you can pursue your dreams
• Money is the reason why we have food to eat
• Money gives you security

What do you think are some disadvantages?

• There are people who are willing to take one's life just so they can get money
• Money can lead to disagreements
• Money is sometimes the reasons why one's relationship is broken
• There are people who will get obsessed with money
• When people have heaps of money, they step on other people

Any interesting facts?

• Mints are the factories where the money is being made
• The first people who stamped the image of a living person on money was the Romans
• Coins were first minted around 2,500 years ago
• Credit cards were first used in the USA in 1920
• Over 170 different currencies are used around the world today

This is the site where I got the facts (check it out) https://www.seriousfacts.com/money-facts/

The History Timeline - Hurumanu

In today's lesson, we have to make a timeline about the history and we have to include 10 events we found interesting, that we chose from the book of "Epidemics Through Time". We needed to add our birthday or events in our personal lives, and also coronavirus in our timeline.

I made mine in "Visme" I recommend this site to everyone who often makes a lot of presentation whether it is at school or work or etc.

This is my timeline...

Business Studies - What is money? How much do you know about money?

Today, in this lesson, we learnt about money; What it is, what it's used for, how it works and how it is protected. We were shown a video regarding money after watching the video we had to do a task, there were two options of what we kind of presentation/activity we want to do money about.  We could either do a "T-chart" or a "MindMup", I chose MindMup since I'm familiar with it and I've used it before to make presentations and it's very easy to use (I recommend it to people who needs to do a brainstorming activity/task).  

I've learnt a lot of things today (regarding money) in Business Studies since we looked deeper about it, I/we understood what it really is; the purpose of it and why/how it's important to everyone. I've also learnt what was used to trade or exchange - which is the "Barter System" before money was invented.

~ This is the brainstorm that I've created using mindmup ~

Hurumanu - Mount Vesuvius

Today in Social Studies, since it's our last day of doing individual works we had to finish every topic we were doing the activities about after we finished the activities, we had to do another one.

I picked the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in this topic, we have to do a newspaper article about what happened.

Hurumanu - Rats/Mice

Now that I've finished the previous task I was doing,

I moved on to another topic to study on and I have finished it as well.

The topic was rats/mice, in this topic, we have to watch two videos and answer the questions regarding the video we just watched.

The videos I watched were interesting but disgusting at the same time. I know people have their own beliefs but it's very dangerous for them to interact with rats like that, they can get diseases and it can even lead to death.

Questions - Topic 1
Video - click

1. Where did this happen? 

It happened at a farm.

2. How did this happen?

Since mice are one of the most sexually active creatures on earth, they breed a lot.

3. How much offspring (Babies) can 2 mice parents make?

Two thousand mice in just a matter of month.

4. How much wheat did the mice eat?

Five hundred thousand tons of wheat.

5. How did they get rid of the mice and how many dead mice were there?

Scientists made an action, the largest poisoning program. They spread the poison in air and land risking poisoning animals and contaminating food chains. 

More than one hundred million corpses of mice were found.

Questions - Topic 2

Video - click

1. Where is this happening

Rat temple in Northern India.

2. Why is this happening?

Because worshippers believe in reincarnation, they believe that when a rat dies, they’re born as humans and if a human dies, they are born as rats.

3. What special treatment do the rats get?

• People feed them
• One family eats, sleeps and drinks with rats
• They live in a temple

Hurumanu - Chromatography Experiment

Keywords:

Chromatography

- Chroma means colour in Greek

- Graphy means a descriptive science

Pigments

- Pigments are substances/materials that give colours to objects or things

Aim: To separate the different pigments from ink using chromatography

Equipment:

• Felt tip pen
• Filter paper strips
• Test tube 
• Beaker
• Measuring cylinder
• Pencil

Hypothesis: 

I think that the colour on the paper will get smudge because of the water, the water moves the ink; it goes into any direction depending on where the water will go.

Method/Steps:

1. Draw a line 5cm from the bottom or measure it using two fingers.
2. Draw a coloured dot using a felt tip pen on where your fingers are.
3.  Measure out 10m of water and place it on a test tube/measure out 50ml of water on the breaker.
4.  Place the filter paper with the dot on it on the beaker fold it over to the side to make sure it holds on.
5.  Wait for 5 minutes to see the end result; to observe it.

Observation:

The colour became a little neon-ish, the coloured dot on the filter paper definitely smudges just as what I expected, the colour didn't change but two colours appeared on the paper, a lighter shade of pink and a light blue but is slightly visible. 

Conclusion:
My hypothesis was right, it did smudge but I didn't expect that there were going to be colours that are going to appear.

Discussion:
This experiment is about trying to separate pigments that make up the different felt pen colours


Why do pigments separate? 

It's because each pigment has a different solubility, which means some of them to move faster and further than others. And the darker the colours the more pigments there will be since it takes a lot of pigments to make one dark colour except primary colours.

Evaluation:

This experiment was successful, my hypothesis was right and it was very satisfying to watch the colours move and pigments to separate.
It would be nice if the paper we used was bigger.

Here are photos of our experiment, my buddy and I used different colours to observe the different pigments that were used to make these colours.

Hurumanu - Taha Hinengaro/Mental & Emotional Wellbeing - Stress

What causes stress?

• Work
• Finance
• School
• Being pressured
• Fear/Being in trouble
• Having to adjust to a new environment 
• Significant other
• School
• Overthinking
• Thoughts

What can stress physically do to the body?

You will have high blood pressure, you could get heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, abnormal heart rhythms, you get sicker easily. For mental health problems; you could get anxiety, depressions and personality disorders. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

How does stress affect the 4 areas of wellbeing? 

For physical wellbeing: 

• You often get headaches
• Chest pain and rapid heartbeat
• Low energy
• Diarrhoea, constipation, and nausea
• Aches, pains and tense muscles
• Insomnia
• Frequent cold and infections
• Dry mouth and having a difficult time swallowing
• Nervousness; shaking, ringing in the ear, cold or sweaty hands and feet
• Clenched jaw and grinding teeth

For mental wellbeing:

• You're easily agitated, frustrated, and moody (angry, sad, fearful)
• Overwhelmed
• Having a difficult time relaxing your mind
• Low self-esteem; worthless, loneliness, and depressed
• Avoiding others
• Difficult time focusing

For spiritual wellbeing: 

• Difficulty praying because there's too much in our mind (that's why we need to relax when doing this)
• Hard time meditating when our mind is all over the place

For social wellbeing:

• Avoiding people (we tend to shut people out, afraid we might hurt them or we don't want them to worry)
• Having fights about little things
• We hurt/bully people to make ourselves feel better about ourselves (online or not)
• We lie more than we think we do

_______________________________________

How can we overcome stress?

• Set a goal - a goal which can improve your health and the 4 dimensions of wellbeing
• Do the things that you love 
• Meditate - Meditation helps your brain relax and it stops your mind from going all over the place
• Exercise - You live happier, improve your ability to sleep
• Surround yourself with great people; people who can help you to be a better person, people who make you happy, who accepts you (real/genuine  people)
• Stop comparing yourself to others, always remind yourself that you're you, you have your own weirdness, things you are good at.
•  Learn to accept yourself because there's nothing greater in this world than self-love, before you love others, learn to love yourself first. 
• Forgive yourself -  Move forward, apologies to people you've hurt including yourself, if you make mistakes, that's okay, learn from it, that's life. Everyone has made mistakes at some point. Mistakes make us human, mistakes help us to be a better person, mistakes are how we grow as people. Don't focus on the end result, you should be proud yourself that you made it, give yourself credit for the amazing work you've done and all the accomplishments you've achieved "Don't let the fear of failure get in the way of doing something new" - Cristel Carrisi 
• Breathe - Calming down your breathing makes you more relax and it stables your mind. 

Creative Manufacturing - I.D tag

We've been making an I.D tag for a couple of days, to make a successful I.D tag, we would need to listen to Mr Rees (our creative manufacturing teacher) and follow the instructions carefully.

We made it steps by steps, we also measured it.

The first thing we need to do is; since we have a long aluminium, we needed to cut it ourselves in order to learn how to cut and measure. We measured the aluminium flat bar with a ruler, the length has to be 45mm and the width has to be 20mm. We drew a line using a scriber (because we have to file after, we needed to put an extra length to it so we cut about 46mm) we put the aluminium in the bench vice and cut it using a hawk saw. After we finished cutting, we filed it, I used sandpaper after filing (this is totally optional) to make the aluminium smoother. 

After that, we measured the aluminium using a metric gauge, there were two types of metric gauge a digital and a non-digital, in my opinion, the digital metric gauge is more accurate. After measuring, we have to fille the corners and I sandpapered it again. To make a hole, we needed and spring divider, we had to draw a line across the middle of the length, it had to be 10mm. Then we had to draw another line (8mm) of the width, it will look like a cross. Using a centre punch, we first had to put it in the middle of the cross we made and created a shallow hole with a hammer. We haven't finished the project yet, we will be finishing it next week.

Equipment

Aluminium 

Engineer Square

Ruler 

Bench Vice 

Soft Jaws (for the bench vice)

Spring Dividers

Engineers Blue

Centre Punch

Hammer

Scriber 

Hawk saw

File

Sandpaper

Digital Metric Gauge