Rainbow's End 🎫

Yesterday the year eights went to Rainbow's End for Y8 graduation, we were given other choices like paintball but decided to stick with Rainbow's End and I'd say we chose the right thing. 

Our first ride was the stratosfear, at first it wasn't that bad until we were upside down and starting swinging faster and faster. On the fear fall Limiteti, Kotipi and I were in the middle of praying when "BOOM" it dropped....We screamed our lungs off and acted like nothing happened when we got off. I was excited to go on the invader but my plan for that ride got cancelled since it wasn't open. The two most enjoyable rides we went on probably have to be the scorpion karts and power surge, power surge kept twisting and turning while scorpion karts had me feeling like I was the best driver in the world. 🏎️

Overall it was a great day and I'm ready for our last trip on Friday before I leave for college. 😁

New Teacher !!!

Recently our teacher went on leave for the rest of the year, so we were given another to substitute in his place. She has taught quite a few times here at our school, but hasn't been permanent since last year before she had an accident. This is her!

Mrs. Mitchell (our new teacher) has helped us to work on the areas we are struggling in and reflect to see what we can do better, she is funny at times and will reward us once in a while when we work hard. 

Sign Language Week

This week we are celebrating sign language. This event was initially supposed to be around the beginning of May but changed so that it would be scheduled around the same time America would celebrate in their country. This week helps to spread awareness for all the deaf people in our country, also it's promoting the language. 

NZSL is one of the three official languages we have in New Zealand. More than 2,000 kiwi's around the country use sign language daily to communicate with a deaf family member or friend.

Harbour Bridge Incident

 On Friday an incident with a truck happened on the harbour bridge. The roadwork people closed two lanes from both sides so now it's not running as normal, it will take about 4 weeks minimum to get the bridge back to normal and running smoothly once again.When the accident occurred two trucks crashed side and blocked the lanes, one driver jumped out and went into somebody else's car. 

The NZTA has recommended that people who usually cross the harbour bridge rather work from home if possible so that not everyone is stuck and qued up. Luckily no one was hurt..

Week #3 Of Tech

This week I made my vision of a cross come to life. From planning, to cutting, to creating the actual piece, I was slowly becoming closer to the end. In only the time of 3 weeks I was almost finished with my pewter pendent.

I had to draw my design onto a small piece of wood and use a professional woodcutter to cut the mold out. I could do it perfectly so Mr Grundy had to clean up some of the sides. I was using my hand to guide the wood piece but it was hard to focus because my hands were moving and I was worried.

Once I finally got my pewter metal out the mold I had to file the edges and make them as smooth as I can, next week I'll start sanding and hopefully if I'm quick enough I can make another one.

Turbo Touch

This afternoon Room 1 & 7 had another turbo touch lesson. Coach Chris first went over the rules just incase we forgot about them during lockdown. We then split into three teams and headed straight into our game football touch.

In football touch you have to try and tap the opposing team with the ball, except if you do have the ball you can't move. The game really made us focus on working together and thinking smart. How could we touch them? How do I not get touched?

I was definitely puffed out after going up against the green team because everybody in their team only went after me. At first I was doing good until I got tired and just let them touch me. It felt like a full on workout just running around.

Artificial Reef Being Made

Currently there is an artificial reef being made in the Marlborough Sounds. The Marlborough Sounds is at the northern end of our South Island, most of it basically is just sea valleys. According to Maori mythology they claim the sounds you can hear are the waka's that sunk of Aoraki.


This week they had to remove quite a lot of mussel shells from the shores. Their idea for this reef is to help save the marine life as well as become multi-millionaires. 

10 Years Since Christchurch Earthquake

It has been 10 years since the earthquake in Christchurch happened. A decade ago on the 4th of September an earthquake with a 7.1 magnitude hit in a town called Darfield. The shaking of the earthquake was so strong that the whole of the South Island managed to feel it. 

An earthquake happens when the tectonic plates of the earth's crust crash into one another. The earth's crust is the last layer, when the crust moves it becomes fractured. 

Delaying Elections

It has been discussed that the elections have been rescheduled 4 weeks back. This decision was made because Jacinda's attention is  dealing with COVID-19.

This has only been announced because people kept questioning her about the elections and she needed to clear it up. She didn't make this choice herself but talked to all the other parties, everyone else  agreed that it should be pushed back so when people vote they can safely.

Lockdown #2

Having to go back into lockdown for the second time this year isn't really fun, but I fully understand that it's for our safety. As a country if we would like to go back to when we were clear of the disease disappeared, you should get tested if you show any symptoms of corona and immediately quarantine yourself. 

It truly is sad to see lives being taken away because of the Coronavirus, so the best thing we can do is keep social distancing and always wash your hands! Stay safe and make sure to protect yourself :)

Volleyball 2020!!!

Yesterday some students went and represented our school in volleyball. Our tournament was held inside the Barfoot & Thompson Stadium at Selwyn College. The fact that we won more games than we lost without having any reserves, I'm proud of the year 7 & and 8's.

Our volleyball team manager was Sebastian's mum. She would help us during our break to practice on what needed to get better and always encourage us. I really enjoy playing volley because I get to use different skills and I forget about the things I'm worried about.

Grow Green

Recently we went back to tech, instead of working with sugar this time our experiment had to do with plants specifically leaves. We talked about the structure of a leaf, the ones we are able to eat and how they grow. 

For our experiment we each used different leaves we could find outside our classroom and then boiled them in a tube of alcohol to see the colour drain out! From one tiny leaf there was definitely a lot more pigment than I would have expected. Some of us even got the chance to find out the meaning of words like photosynthesis!

Working With Sugar

For this weeks lesson we were working with sugar, talking about the different types and getting the chance to experiment with some coke.

Apparently, we are only supposed to be consuming 5 to 6 grams of sugar but instead we decide to have more sugar and end up having about 96 grams per day. Too much sugar can give you type 2 diabetes! Type two diabetes is when you have to get insulin shots to keep your blood sugar normal. Type one is when it comes from your genes. 

During the experiment we boiled the coke in a beaker, around 15 minutes after the coke evaporated we could see the amount of sugar that we have in one cup of coke.

Alert System For White Island

A senior studying at the University of Auckland is one of some scientists who came up with this new alert system. This system was designed for White Island's volcano, only because in the last decade it has erupted numerous times and has caused major damages. About 16 hours before the volcano erupts a signal will be sent to warn everybody. Now scientists are looking to get the same system installed in Ruapehu and Tongariro.

Personally I think that installing a system to notify you when an eruption will happen is really helpful, because in that period of time citizens have hours to leave the grounds and get to a safe destination.

Bones & Skeletons x2

This week we were labeling parts of a skeleton and sketching. We had to cut out each part, glue it in our book to look exactly like the human skeleton and label using either the scientific name or common name. Before we got around to gluing the teacher had to check and see if the bones were in the right place.

After completing the first task our next instruction was to sketch one of the bones Mrs Sharma let us borrow. I was quite nervous because Mrs Sharma said that some of the bones were real but didn't tell us know which ones. Personally I'm not the best drawer so I went with the classic easy dog bone.

Bones & Skeletons

Last week in science our topic was bones and skeletons. As well as watching clips and finding out information we got to look at a fake skeleton and see all of the different bones.

I recently just found out that the longest bone is in our leg and the smallest is inside our ear. The fact that bones are actually alive and decrease as we grow makes me feel quite uncomfortable. Other than that bones are helpful because they hold our body up and make us not look sluggish.

Ruapotaka's Birthday

Last Friday we celebrated Ruapotaka's 66th birthday. Ruapotaka's birthday is actually on Sunday but we chose to celebrate on Friday. Our principal decided that since everybody couldn't cut the cake together, the oldest and youngest student should do it.

The cake was delicious, a chocolate cake covered in blue icing and sprinkles just sounds incredible. The cake was blue to match our school!!

Making A Circuit X2

For our 5th topic we were making a bit more advanced circuit. This time we were using a voltmeter and a switch to see how high the energy was. It was quite confusing at first because we had so many wires so honestly I just improvised. Getting the switch and voltmeter to work was definitely the hardest part to get right. I had to rearrange wires this way and that way for it to finally work. 

Everybody then had to draw a diagram of their circuit with the amount of wires they used, personally mine looked decent. 

War In Waihi

My reading group Apples read an article called "War in Waihi". The article was about the Martha Mine and the bad things that happened. 

The workers suggested since they couldn't work they wanted to go on strike, they were tired of not getting enough money. Months and months went until the new government decided to take action. Some people of the town agreed, the men work hard yet they barely get paid enough. 

Around September 1912 the war slowly started to begin, over sixty strikers were taken to prison and police would always be looking around on the streets. Then on a random day a group with police starting shooting and some men got hurt. 

Saving Energy 🔌

This week's topic was about saving energy, we had to list things and places that use quite a lot of energy. Our list included phones, malls, the airport and the hospital too. For our experiment we had to make a bulb light up using two wires, a battery and a bulb circuit. I learnt that for the bulb to light up you have to put the positive wire with the negative. 


Once we completed our experiment we watched a clip  about how we can decrease our use of energy, in the video it talked about how heat rise from global warming can destroy earth and people should carpool to use less energy! 

As we know Thomas Edison was the first person to create a light bulb, but over the years people have made other less energy using versions like the LED. The LED uses 85% less energy and can last 15 years or longer!!
 

Creative Minds

Most of us kiwi's are able to DIY a lot of random items and transform them into beautiful things. I mean like we did come up with pavlova and some other incredible ideas!! I don't know how but we are just good at coming up with solutions in bad situations, kiwi kids have a huge imagination.

A 15 year old boy named Stanley made his own mountain bike course because biking is what he loves to do and he always has fun doing it. Since he couldn't really go out during lockdown he decided he would make his own personal course. Overall it's small and simple but looks fun to try out, this is what Stanley created!!

Volleyball !!

Today we had our first lesson for volleyball, our coach's name was Elena. Our  focus was on setting the ball. When you hear about setting in volley it sounds easy but honestly it's not. You have to have you hands and fingers in the right placement and try push the ball high into the air without using your palms. 

After we did some drills and warm ups we split into teams and started playing king of the court. During king of the court you just play normal volleyball and see who wins, then the winners verse each other and whoever wins become the king of the court!! For our first match playing king of the court my team won, but I showed sportsmanship by saying good game and not rubbing it in everyone's faces.

Earthworms

Our focus for our class yesterday was to do with earthworms. We discussed what the worms do for our garden and how they give nutrients. Mrs Sharma then gave us about 4-5 worms to look at, we had to write about how they behaved outside of the dirt and measure their size.

Before we took a look at the earthworms we watched a video and had to write down at least 5 new words we learnt. In the video there was a girl named Emma, she said that finding earthworms were her passion. A life hack she gave was, if you mix mustard powder and water then put it in the soil the earthworms's skin gets irritated and they rise to the surface.

Water Crisis

Since it's been raining quite a lot this week most people in New Zealand think they'll be allowed to use their garden hoses very soon, the problem is they still don't realize that we are on a water shortage. We are thankful that rain has started pouring down but it's not enough to cover all the lakes and rivers.

Right now the lakes are less than 50% full. They should be around 90 percent full near the start of November before summer begins. If rain doesn't fall more often we could be looking at a dry spring. That means all the flowers and things that usually blossom in spring probably won't this year because they could die from dryness.

PLASTIC !!

Our first topic for science was plastic, we discussed what single use, recycling and reusable plastic was. Single plastic is when you can only use it once, recycling is taking something and making another thing out of it and reusable plastic is just being able to store things in it continuously.

Each of us received our own science project book, in our books we write down things from our class and have to make sure we keep it up to date. Making sure we don't lose it is also important because it is our responsibility! Mrs. Sharma made us watch a video about plastic and how it's travelling to our waters, some people even learnt a new word - Biodegradable. Biodegradable is a type of plastic that can be decomposed meaning it can break down into the soil and gives it nutrients.

Back At School !!

Coming back to school in the middle of the term feels quite different. Having to wake up early has been difficult since I'm still not used to the routine. Usually I would have extra time to get in a few more minutes of sleep, but now I actually have to wake up on time!

Being at school is weird now, only because there isn't that many students around. My class so far has 4-5 people everyday. To top it off we have separate areas to play in, so I can't really talk to my other friends from the other intermediate class. I'm not used to being here at school, probably in a week or two it'll begin to feel normal again. Other than that school is fine, we still work hard, get things done and it's actually relaxing to find out you completed most of your work. Time really does fly by when you are focused!!

Science 🔮

Today we had our first lesson of science for tech basically an introduction, unfortunately we couldn't do it in person but at least we still got to have a class. We talked about 3 different areas of science (chemistry, biology & physics). Our teacher Mrs. Sharma made us watch a video about a lady named Alex Dempsey, she is a coral reef ecologist. An ecologist is someone who studies about the environment as well as people and animals!🐬

I am looking forward to being in science for the next few weeks, to learn something new and try out experiments and things like that. Mrs. Sharma is a good teacher so I'm positive I'll enjoy learning in science class!! I can't wait to start experimenting with a bunch of random things.😁

Yummy Nachos !!

Since we are still inside our houses my siblings and I decided to make something together, we made nachos. We just had to give a list for our mum to get the things that were missing. It took her sometime but it was all worth it.

After everything was prepared we had to resemble and put the cheese on, next time I suggest we should leave the chips on the side so it doesn't get soggy. Overall, it was delightful and honestly not that difficult to make!

New Zealand First Online Market 👍

Our country has officially opened the first online supermarket, this is all for the purpose of the coronavirus. The new online countdown opened in Penrose, Auckland.

Since everybody is in quarantine it is being estimated that there will be at least  7,500 orders a week just from our Auckland region. They will be employing 200 people and including 106 new jobs! The online countdown will be open 24/7, only because so many people need food during this lockdown.

This is a great opportunity for everyone because now people won't be in packed stores, which can spread the virus even faster.

Level 4 Lock down 😷 !!

Our country has now moved into the official lock down. We were all informed that we are transitioning into Level 4. This means YOU HAVE TO STAY HOME !! 

Staying home will just decrease the chance of the virus spreading. Physical contact with your family is allowed but if you are sick even with just a cough please try your best to stay away, especially from old people. This is only because it affects them more than it does to the younger ones.

Last night helicopters went around spraying disinfectant in the air. The disinfectant will help to slow down the process of it spreading. Make sure that if you do go outside for emergency reasons you stay 2 meters apart from people.

Crocodiles In New Zealand Zoo's

There is a rule that they will be allowing more crocodiles at the Zoo's all over Aotearoa.

Under this rule, crocodiles and their eggs will be imported from countries in Asia and the Pacific. Currently our country is only receiving crocodiles from Australia. They will be allowing a bigger range of their species too! 

The animals and eggs have to be raised captive first, meaning that they want the crocodiles  being kept in for a while. They are doing this just so it doesn't end up attacking the zookeepers. Just like humans, they will have to be held in isolation first for 30 days and be disease free before being imported to our country. 

Stuffed Egg 🍳

Today our dish was to make a stuffed egg. It was consisted of eggs, cucumber, tomato, lettuce and some unsweetened yoghurt. The eggs had to be made hard boiled and the yolk was used in the stuffing. We got the opportunity to add a garlic and herb or smokey barbeque spice.

I personally struggled when it came to peeling of the egg shells because I was afraid that I would mess up. When it came to the cucumber I was was quite confident because I am experienced with using a knife. The presentation looked spectacular but the taste wasn't as good as I expected.

British Flagstaff Cut Down 175 Years Ago

Last week people were celebrating 175 years since Hone Heke a Maori leader, cut down the flagpole at Kororareka. Back in 1845 was when two Ngapuhi chiefs Hone Heke and Te Ruki Kawiti came together and cut down the British flagstaff. This is what began the flagstaff war.

Hone Heke was very concerned about the British taking over and how they were controlling the Maori. The chairperson Deb Rewiri from Kororareka said that this was a chance for them to celebrate the legacy that Hone Heke and Te Ruki Kawiti lived.

Rewiri also said that the commemoration gave the people a chance to remember their tribes and not forget where they came from.

Pest Control Lesson

Today the intermediates had a pest control lesson with our guide from Hamlin's Hill, Frazer. Frazer came and helped us set up traps around our school to find what pests are around.

We also received bags full of different things like traps and chew cards, and all 26 of us and the two teachers were so lucky to get a footprint tunnel each. All the traps we were given by Frazer we decided to put behind our multipurpose room, it was decided to be put there because it is a place where nobody goes and leads to peoples homes underneath the gates.

My part to play when we were setting up the traps was to put a footprint tunnel down with the help of Pita and Winnie. Winnie put in the peanut butter that we know the smell will attract the pest.

Vegetarian Curry

Yesterday in food tech I made an Indian vegetarian curry. For me it wasn't the best thing because it made me feel a bit sick.

While making the curry we weren't completely satisfied of how it was looking, but then it started to form and look better bit by bit. Since Mrs Hamer, our food tech teacher didn't want to many kitchens running she made us work in a group of three. This meant some people from our school had to join a group with the St Pius X.

After creating our meal, we had to then start our evaluation sheet. An evaluation sheet basically helps  the teacher to know how you feel, and if you enjoyed the food. Each week we fill out two evaluations, if we don't finish it by our next tech class we have to finish it during our class to make sure we are up to date.

Predator Free !!

The government has made a new plan to get rid of predators that were introduced to our country. These are animals like stoats, possums and rats, they decided to do this because they are damaging the environment.

They have been calling for some type of strategy for their goal. Now what matters is that there is some funding behind the plan that can help them to achieve this. By 2050 they want to have gotten rid of all these harmful animals and pests, just so our country is safe and not being damaged.

For me, knowing the government came up this idea is such a big issue because I'm pretty sure it will make a big impact to our country.

Hamlin's Hill

Have you ever seen a hill near Sylvia Park and thought it was Mt Wellington? Well that is actually a hill, and to be exact Hamlin's Hill. That is where both the intermediate classes went to learn new ways we can trap pests and get rid of them.

Our guide for our trip was Fraizer, he is a zookeeper from Auckland Zoo and we were honored to have had him help us! The scariest trap for me would be the A-24 pest trap, the A-24 has to contain peanut butter or bait that will attract the pest inside, so when they touch the bait something goes in their neck and causes them to die.

Everytime we walked and saw ribbons we had to remember pink was for pest and blue was for clues. Fraizer had a navigator and it helped us reach our destination at the top of the hill. From the hill we could see the Manukau Harbour out south down to Rangitoto Island.

New Zealand Confirms Coronavirus

It has now been confirmed that New Zealand has had its first victim to catch the Coronavirus.

Last week Friday, Jacinda Ardern our prime minister announced that someone in New Zealand caught the deadly disease. New Zealand has now become the 48th country in the world to catch the virus, the patient who caught the disease is in their 60's and recently just came back to New Zealand from Bali.

They arrived in Auckland on Wednesday and got home before the family called the Ministry of Health. The patient was being treated in Auckland Hospital but has now been released. They were put in a pressured room so that nobody else in the hospital would catch the virus.

Scrumptious Salad !!

Yesterday for tech we made some salad, but it was not the normal kind. We used noodles and chicken in our salad while the St Pius used tuna and rice.

My partner to make this week was Frank. I sliced the vegetables while Frank shredded the chicken, honestly I would have to say me and Frank work well together in Food Tech. The hardest part probably was trying to thinly slice the cucumber without almost cutting my finger off.



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Holden Retiring

New Zealand and Australia have made a decision that they will be retiring one of the most famous car brands, Holden. It was announced on February 17th by the owner that they will stop making the cars. General Motors said it will no longer be competing with the other brands.

For decades, Holden has been a very iconic car in New Zealand. Sadly, this means that the New Zealand Police will have no choice but to change the car brand. What makes it worse is that many people will be losing their jobs. 

Banana Pikelets With Berry Sauce

Yesterday for week 2 of tech we made Banana Pikelets with some berry sauce and ice cream. We were paired up with someone from St. Pius X so that we would learn to be more open to other people not in our school, my partner was Akesa and honestly we did good.

Our first pikelet burnt a bit but Mrs Hamers said "its normal for it to burn on the first try". As we kept on going it started looking more decent. Since we made a lot Akesa and I decided to give some to Mrs Hamers and she loved it!

In my opinion the pikelets weren't bad, but I just dislike bananas. Overall I would rate it a 8.5 out of 10.

Duffy Show !!

Today we had our first ever Duffy Show for 2020! It was performed by three people, CJ who played Bex's mum and the coggen, Josh who played Duffy, courier and Aaron the guy who sells the coggen and Falepa who played Bex.

The coggen story was about a hybrid animal that was part dog, part cat and part chicken. The hybrid animal was always disobedient and stressed out the owners Bex and her mum.

We sang the Duffy song before the show started and finished off with Madiysn our head prefect giving them a thank you on behalf of our school!

Fruit Cups !!

For the first lesson of food tech some of the year 7 and 8's made fruit cups.  In my group was Frank and Texas. All of us took turns and had a chance to cut the different fruits.

The fruit we had were blueberries, watermelon, grapes and kiwifruit with some yogurt, if you wanted you could add some apples. I decided to stack the fruit nicely for good presentation in my cup. It took some time but it inspired Texas and Frank to start over again and not rush the artwork. After adding the yogurt I put some extra blueberries on top, it looked spectacular

Kiwi Filmmaker Wins Oscar

Taika Waititi, a New Zealander has won an Oscar in film making, it was for one of his films called Jojo Rabbit. This award was handed out on the 92nd Academy awards. This annual event is held in Hollywood.

As the ceremony started Janelle Monae performed one of her numbers "Come Alive" that made the audience hype and dance in the aisles. Taika Waititi won his award at the start of the show, he gave a speech that was very heartwarming, thanking people like his mum and dedicating his award to kids around the world.

Flooding In South Islands

Quite a few days ago a flood started to rise in the South Island.  For three days straight rain kept pouring and pouring until the water got high. 

The Civil Defense notified the people to pack some bags just in case they need to evacuate all of a sudden. The people living down in Mataura and Gore have been told to evacuate their homes due to the flooding.

Mayor of Gore Tracy Hicks, said  "some of the houses that are closer to the river were getting sandbagged for protection". A sandbag basically is a bag filled with sand used to build walls to protect houses from a flood. Another thing she said was that there has never been a time where it has rained so bad like those three days, she says that because she's lived in Gore for quite a while.