Storyline Festival

Storylines Festival is this Thursday and both Extension groups will be attending. We are going to listen to four interesting authors and what books they wrote. Its Juliette Mclver, Catherine Mayo, Jill MacGregor and Paula Green and it will be held at Vodafone Events Centre in Manukau.

Juliette Mclver is a young lady that would always enjoy writing, but had never thought that she'd become one. She was hoping to write children's books at any age and then soon decided to be a writer. Juliette was raised in Wellington and went to Victoria Uni.

Cath Mayo was born Catholic maternity hospital in Auckland in the same room as another girl named Penelope. Her mum was a presbyterian but they named her Catherine because of the hospital she was raised in. She is also a one that writes chapter books.

Jill MacGregor was born in Dunedin and now lives in Kapiti coast. Jill writes pacific island nation stories for children. She writes short stories and they are picture books. Her new series of books is to encourage the young lives of little ones to understand there daily life in all islands.

Paula Green  is based in west Auckland and writes short stories but its chapter books. She is now in a hotel ready to start her storyline tour and yet she is enjoying it. She is also staying with the other three authors.

The one I am looking forward to see is Cath Mayo and would love to hear one of her books. I read a little bit of hers and found it very interesting.

Astria - Thursday

On Thursday we got to do our 4th session with the Astria game. My partner and I were almost done, we were on the part to going to the council and finishing the game off. Its was quite hard but just before the astroid hit the lab and completed it.

Its wasn't quite easy in the Council Lab but then we found out what to do. The man talked a lot but luckily we got through him. We also had to give the stories and it was sort of hard to remember but we till got through and done it.

The easiest bit was giving him the stories and the clues and then we got out an started another game. It was not as fun as the first time we did it because we already knew what to do. But my partner and I still enjoyed playing the game.

We also managed to complete everything the second time round. It was an amazing game and I do think it improved my learning/literacy. I feel confident that who ever plays this game will actually be good and will learn new words.

Explanation Writing

Iron - Term 3 Writing Sample

6 paragraphs

1 - Hook

2 - Mind

3 - Body

4 - Drugs

5 - Alcohol/Drugs

6 - Conclusion

Have you ever wondered why your mind and body is important? Well this is based on why taking care of your body and mind is very important to you. Its about how healthy you eat and what you have learnt for your whole life.

Taking care of your mind is about focusing on what your learning and doing what you're suppose to do. You have to feed it with what your have learnt and you can not take drugs. Its bad for yourself and all you have to do is listen.

To take care of the body all you got to do and play the right way, right place and with the right attitude (if you're still a child). Its all about keeping your body healthy and feeding it with the right food. This is all about taking drugs as well, it affects your body badly and can make you unconscious.

Drugs is what makes the mind stop you from focusing on what the teacher is saying. e.g if the teacher was to tell you to go do some writing and as soon as you run off you go and do maths. See what I mean? It also slows down what your mind is telling you.

Alcohol is a kind of drug and it can make mixed emotions and it will also affect anyone anywhere. Its just like a ripple in the water, it first starts off with affecting your family and friends and then it becomes bigger a bigger problem and affect the community/public.

There are all sorts of drugs and any one of them can affect any part of your body. It especially affects the inside of you which are the lungs and the heart so choose the right choice and keep in mind, if you ever take any sort of drug and I mean any sort, it can lead to death. Drugs don’t choose people, people choose drugs.

Astria Countdown to Impact - Wednesday

For today my partner and I have completed more things from the game of Astria. One of the most difficult parts for today's session was completing the percentages of our done areas. We had to go in every room and complete it up to 100%.

The easiest bit for today's session was finding the last clue and completing the Nuke and Sail lab room. We got all the clues from each room and we also got to complete two other tasks for the council. Now we have 25% to complete for our Astria game just before the asteroid hit us.

My partner and I managed to complete 100% from every room and 25% left for one for room. I also think that i'm not on track because we only have 42 more days to impact but we only need some more time to complete everything.

I will also remember to focus more on the game than listening to music. 

Astria Countdown to Impact - Monday

Today our Extension group b got the opportunity to be introduced to a new games named Astria. Its all about improving your literacy and learning new words. We had to find a partner at first and then begin the very fun game.

Once we entered the new game it was very difficult to find where to go and what to do. As soon as we read what we had to we entered a room and we also had to find some clues. Finding the clues was the most difficult part of today's session.

What we found very easy was answering the questions to finding the clues but, we also had to figure out some un-scrabbled words. We first got the clue 2 and 3 and then we found out what the words were. We had to complete the whole task until the asteroid will hit us and we have 59 days left.

For today's games we managed to complete 2 clues and 3 other things but we completed one room which was the Nuke Lab. The percentage of our area we manged to get done was 75%  and we got $8000 from the whole time we've played today.

My partner and I found it would be easy and we actually feel confident that we a re also on track to completing the whole game. Why? Because we just need to find a few more clues and things to keep us going.

Now that I sort of know more about what to do I will try and find the easiest parts to do first and then that hardest.

Life Education with Lynn and Harold

For the past 4 weeks our class (class 2) have had sessions with Lynn about Life Education. This year, we were learning about alcohol and how it affects the body and the brain. Our class also learnt what it did to people.

There were 6 people we had to learn about it and it was, Rita, Zeb, Jason, James, Amy and Malcom but, there is one person I want to talk about and that’s James. Hes a boy that started alcohol at 13 and he did it just to look cool, fit in, and because his friends did it.

He kept drinking until he was 25 and he became unconscious. James then died. This was because of the drugs he took. It was Pot (Marijuana) and other drugs/alcohol, but he got it from his friends and from a person he saw on the road.

What does drugs/alcohol do to your body? It can slow down the messages that your brain is sending to your body. e.g. If you were in a car and you see a person crossing the road, the message that the brain is giving you to stop slows down and you crash someone.

Drugs also can affect your family, friends and neighbors, its just like a ripple in the water. Most importantly it can affect the public, council and shopkeepers!

To Succeed

This is a task we had to complete for the week. We couldn't use the words "to succeed" so we had to explain it in a different way like, to achieved or to attain.

About Kendo

Kendo is a kind of Japanese martial art and it means the way of sword in english. There are also different martial arts similar to kendo, judo, kick boxing, karate, and taekwondo. Kendo is a typical sport that is made to build your inner strength, mental power, and also for self defence. Over 7.5 million people are practicing right now and are in a dojo. Showing respect is by taking off your shoes when you enter the dojo and gi is a type of kendo jacket you wear when you practice. Kiai is when you shout when you're about to hit your opponent. When you start kendo you're in the beginners level and the highest beginner level is 1st Kyu, but i wouldn’t want to do kendo because it looks hard and it also looks saw.

100th Commemoration of World War 1

Today is a special day that marks the 100th Commemoration of when World War 1 (WW1) started in 1914 August 4th. We had an assembly today and it was for this special day. All schools around Auckland had to raise their flag and then lower it half way down.

Our school also had to say words that all war people said. “Lest we forget” our whole school said. This meant that we always have to remember and never forget what our people did for us and why they did it.

There was also some of our teachers relatives that went and fought in the war for New Zealand. It was our principles grandfather that volunteered to fight and our office teacher (Mrs Flavell’s) grandfather that also volunteered.

In 1914 there was also something else that happened. There was a man and a woman (Franz Ferdinand and Sophie) driving around and another man came along and shot the man that was with the lady. It was known as “The shot that echoed around the world”.

Once that was all over there were countries that went on any sides. Some countries went on the side of the man that shot Franz Ferdinand and there were other countries that were on the side of the man that had the gun.

Now that I know what happened back then, I feel sad for all the people that died for us! “Lest we forget”!

Commonwealth - About Tonga

Tonga is an Island competing in the Commonwealth games. This Island is located in Oceania. Its pretty small, but there is a population of 105,745 people that live in it.

The capital city of Tonga is Nuku’Alofa. In Tonga they speak two languages and its Tongan and English. There are many different cultured people in there, but they know how to speak Tongan.

Touch is the most played sports in Tonga and its also popular. They also like to play rugby but its not as popular as touch. Basketball isn’t in the commonwealth but they also like to play it!

The colours on the flag of Tonga is red and white. Its similar to the red cross flag. Theres a little rectangle on the top left of the flag and its white. In that rectangle there is a red plus/cross in it.

In the Commonwealth games, Tonga joined in it until it was 1970 but it started in 1931. The games that Tonga are competing in is