The Zoo

It was a beautiful Wednesday morning, as I walked through the Hamilton Zoo gates.  The trees were blowing in the soft cold breeze. It was like I had  walked into a place of beautiful nature.
Step by step, by step, we arrived at the meerkat enclosure. I looked through the tinted windows to see the cute little meerkats. There was one hiding in the brown hollow log. One sat on the top of the big grey rocks, and the rest were scattering around on the dusty ground. The meerkats had three colors on their bodies grey, white and black. We had spent quite a long period  of time at the meerkats' enclosure when we decided to move on to the next fun and exciting animal.

“The next animal!” I said in an excited voice- the giraffes. I walked up right beside the giraffes and leaned on the light brown wooden fence. I looked up to their orange, yellow and light brown bodies and they were so tall. It felt like I was only one or two feet tall and the giraffes were 300 feet tall or even maybe 400. I stared and stared at the giraffes for 5 or 6 minutes. 
“Can we go now?” asked Jahnyva. 
“No, no and no,” I said, until I finally gave in and said “Fine!” but I wasn't happy. By far, the giraffe was my favourite animal.

It was a fun and exciting day but I still wish that we had stayed at the giraffe enclosure for longer.

The Baby Tiger

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when Taylor and Nathan went to Sun Side Zoo.

They had been walking around the zoo for quite a long period of time and saw lots of different animals like monkeys, cheetahs, birds and giraffes, but their favourite animal was the baby tiger.

“Mum, Dad, can we go to the baby tiger cage, please?” said Taylor and Nathan in a begging voice.

“ Fine,” Mum and Dad said in annoyed voices.

They ran as fast as they could across the wooden bridge and over the wooden boards. 
When they were about 2 or 3 metres away from the baby tiger cage, they  could see a big red sign saying that one of the baby tigers had escaped. They both went into panic mode.

“Look!” said Nathan.

They both looked at the big green bush and saw it shake. Two little eyes peered out of the bush then a little orange tail wagged from side to side, poking out of the bush. Taylor and Nathan immediately knew that it was the baby tiger that had escaped. Nathan immediately called the zoo keeper who was in charge of the baby tiger cage. The zoo keeper came rushing through the doors and over to the baby tiger. He put it back in its cage.

My Fun, Frightening Experience

It was a cold frosty afternoon. I was on the mountain that was covered with soft flakey pieces of snow.

I blinked. Suddenly I felt little pieces of snow fall upon my eyelashes.

I hopped on my red, hard sled and went down the soft, white snow. I was going down the mountain at full speed. I was so happy and nervous at the same time.

It was a great fun and frightful experience. I cant wait for next time.

200 Metre Sprint

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon. The sky was light blue and the sun was blazing down at St Paul's School. 

The 200 metre sprint. I was so excited. The cold breeze at the back of me kept me calm relaxed.

I knew that I had some fast girls racing me but I really wanted to beat Charlotte, Quinn and Emily B

The buzzer went. I knew that this was the time. I was so nervous.  'On your marks. Get set. Go'. 

I ran as fast as I could.  It felt like I was running for my life.  Before I knew it I was half way. I knew I wanted this so badly. 

I had just pasted the silver gold post and realised that I was in front. Emily B was still on my right and she was close. I heard everyone cheering for me. I was only about 40 metres away until I was past the finish line.

I won !!! I was so happy.

It was such an awesome day. I can't wait until next year when I get to do it all over again.

My Try

It was a windy Wednesday afternoon, I was at the touch ground in nawton, were I was getting ready to play my game of touch. I had the butterflies in my stomach and they were fluttering around so much because I was so nervous. ‘I want to score a try’ I said to myself over and over again.

The whistle blew. It felt like I was superwoman. I was running against the rushing wind in front of me. The ball got passed to me for the first time. I ran as fast as I could. I stepped side to side against my enemy and got into huge gap. Everybody was cheering me on.

Sadly I got touched by my evil opponent, but sooner then later the ball got passed to me from out wide.

The ball spinned in the air, and got closer and closer. It came down to the last 3 seconds. I counted ‘1 2 3 it’s time’. I put my hands out wide. It felt like everybody stopped moving and stared at me.

‘I caught it’ I said to myself ‘I really caught it, I can’t believe I caught it’. I ran and didn’t even look where I was going after that, but then I caught a glimpse out of my right eye and saw that their was still one more enemy I had to defeat. I thought to myself ‘I have to run’.

It came down to the speed. My enemy wasn’t really close to me but I had this strange feeling that she was the fastest on the field. I ran and and ran. I was only about ten more little steps until I was at the try line. Slowly the steps went down 9 5 3 I dived on the try line. I scored a try!!!!Yay. I knew I could do it.

It was a really fun night and I am so excited for next wednesday when I get to do it all over again.

Food For Dinner

There is one kind of food that I think we should have each day of the week and that is sushi and I am going to tell you why.  

One of my reasons to have sushi every night is that it is fun to make.With sushi you can make all kinds of different things with it. You can make sushi sandwiches, sushi rolls and lots of other things. You can also make a huge mess and that is the funniest part.

My second reason to have sushi every night is that you can put anything inside the sushi.You can have salmon in the sushi if you want or chicken and if you don’t like either salmon and chicken you can go to a sushi shop down town and see what they make. Once you find something you like then you can put it in your own sushi.

Now my third reason to have sushi once a day in one week is that it is quick to clean up. You can just grab a cloth, or a rag if you prefer and with one quick wipe across the bench it’s gone in a blink of an eye.

Now you can see why I want sushi every night for dinner now. If you are reading this, you give it a go and I am definitly sure you will like it.  

The Commonwealth Games

Line Dancing

A Family Story

Madeline's Family Story from Pam Thomson on Vimeo.

Family Tree

Matariki

Kite

The Red Panda

Skye and Storm

One day, near Christmas, a mum and a dad with to kids suprised them with a gift they were not going to forget. While the kids were at school the parents brought two cute black and brownish puppies, called Skpe and Storm. A few minutes before the kids got home the parents put the puppies in a box wrapped in red wrappping paper. The kids walked through the door and looked at the red box sitting in the middle of the  soft, white carpet. Thereeyes were wide open. The kids sat by the carpet and opened the box gently. Their sitting in the middle of the box was Storm and Skpe sitting there. The two kids were overjoyed, and cried out tears of joy. There was love and happiness and love all around the room.

El Grego's Magic Show

Last week, Friday, my school and I went El Grego’s Magic Show in the school hall. The point of the Magic Show was teaching us about anti-bullying. My favourite trick was the magic wand.

First, El Gregoe picked someone from the audience. That was Hunter-Rose. Hunter-Rose walked up the wooden, brownish, stairs onto the stage and stood by El-Grego. She looked very nervously at the kids sitting on the ground. The students’ eyes were wide open in waiting for what El Grego was going to do.

“I am going to make a bird appear in this brown wooden box,”

he said. He asked Hunter Rose if she could just wave a black and white striped wand over the box.  

“Yes, please,” she said.

El Grego showed us that the box was empty.You could see that the kids were not impressed yet.

El Grego said to his wife, Sue, “May you get me a wand, my dear?”

“Yes, my dear,” said Sue.

Hunter Rose held the black and white wand in the palm of her  hand and waved it over the box. She said these exact words, “It better work, it better work, it better work.”

El Grego opened the box and no bird.

The kids faces just went dull.

“Let’s try it with a bigger wand,” El Grego said.

Sue brought out a huge wand. It was bigger than Hunter Rose. She held the wand on her shoulder and said, “It better work, it better work, it better work.”

“This better work,” El Grego said in a gentle voice.

One, two, three, he opened the box. A bird appeared.

El Grego took the bird out.

“What!” I said. It is a fake bird. The crowd laughed. 
I left early to go to a funeral but then he pulled out a real bird.

The experience was really cool and fun. I can’t wait for next year.

Bullying

I was once bullied
I don't like it
She called me names
I was so afraid
I tried to ignore
But nothing happened
I wish she'd disappear
It was just so unfair
I wanted to tell someone
But she'd bully even more
What could I do?
She called me a pathetic whore
I tried to fit in with their group
But it got way out of hand
She shoved, pushed, punched and hit
What could I do?
She'd just kick
Somehow her mum found out
I was never bullied again
I've learnt my lesson
If someone bullies you
Tell someone and it will never happen again

Easter

On Easter Friday, my family and I celebrated my beautiful baby cousin Melanie’s 1st  birthday party, at Horotiu School.

I jumped out of my lovely white cosy bed, quickly put my denim shorts and my cross tshirt on and I started to make pretty pink sparkly cupcakes.

I suddenly heard a loud knock at the blue wooden door. I opened it and Aunty Dee Dee walked in onto the tiled floor. I was going with her to the cool party. My mum said that I would have to stop at Jahnyva’s because she was coming to the party too. Jahnyva was letting us use Lapatte, her soft adorable bunny. Laplatte had black and white fur. We were using him because it was an Easter themed birthday party.

Once we got to Horotiu, we went into the hall. Amanee, Jahnyva and I played a game of basketball with an orange and black striped ball. The basketball felt quite hard and firm. Also, there was a soft bouncy ball, not as hard as the basketball.  After a while, a face painter turned up. I got a  pink bunny with some silver glitter. Amarnee and Jahnyva got  that too. Everyone started to show up, but the birthday girl wasn’t there yet. A car showed up. Melarn arrived. She was so pretty. Everyone cuddled her. No one wanted to let go of her. We were all having so much fun. Dee Dee said, “It doesn’t stop here.”

1, 2, 3, a bouncy castle showed up. There were two bouncy castles, one for the little kids which was red, yellow, and blue. Jahnyva, Amarnee and I got into trouble because we were on the little bouncy castle. We only went on it because we didn’t know that it was for little kids. The big bouncy castle was colourful. Kalen, my cousin, wanted to do a bouncy castle and Jahnyva said, “Why not?”

This was how the trick went: there were gaps in the sides of the bouncy castle. We went through the sides and, when he said, “I will bring them back,” we climbed back through. We wanted to stay on the bouncy castle longer but it was (kai food ) time.  We were in the middle of eating when it was time for the big kids’ treasure hunt. 
We had to go to the senior playground and find five Easter Eggs. Once we had found the Easter Eggs,  Dee Dee and my uncle Marin gave us clues. My clue was, The Easter Bunny gets sick of climbing up the stairs. I ran as fast as I could. I thought my legs were going to die with the amount of running I did. I found my Easter bag. It had a lot of little tin foiled wrapped, colourful little Easter Eggs in it. My favourite was my big Easter Egg. It was wrapped in red tin foil. I went back into the hall but it was quite late so Jahnyva and I went home.

The Solomon Islands

Holy Thursday Liturgy

Holy Thursday Liturgy

It was now the time of Passover. Jesus’ followers came to Him and said, “We will go and prepare everything for the Passover Feast. Where do you want to eat the feast?” Jesus answered, “Go into the city. A man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. He will go into a house. Tell the owner of the house, “The teacher wants you to prepare the room for the Passover meal.” So the followers left and went into the city and prepared the Passover Feast.

In the evening, Jesus went to that house with the twelve. While they were eating, Jesus took the bread and gave God thanks and praise. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: “Take this, all of you, and eat it; this is my body which will be given up for you.”





  
When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave God thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said: “Take this, all of you, and drink from it; this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.”

After some time, Jesus got up from the table and went to a different part of the room.  He put a large towel around him, making himself look like a servant.  After that, he poured water into a large bowl and began to wash the disciples' feet.  He then dried them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.

When Jesus had finished washing all of the disciples’ feet, he returned to the table.  "Do you understand what I have done for you?"  Jesus asked them.
Jesus is like a King - but even greater than a king, He's the King of Kings!  By washing the disciples’ feet, He was doing something that only a servant would do.
This is an example of how you should treat others.  You don't have to actually wash other people's feet, but do kind things to others and act like a servant for Jesus.

Silhouette Art

Live Simply Day

Today Is Live Simply Day. We Live a Live Simply Day so that we can stand in solidarity with the people in our world.  To live simply means to go without anything that isn't needed for us to survive, such as technology, and electrical devices like a toaster, a car, bikes and scooters. To live simply also means to go without sweets, such as lollies, chocolate, and chocolate chip cookies and have only fruit and rice like the poor people in our world. To live very simply is to not have any books to read. Books cost money so the poor people can't afford to buy any so why should we be able to? We are very lucky.

Waka Racing

Today, we walked to the riverbank to watch the Regatta waka races.

When we got to the riverbank, we sat down to watch the races. The water was sparkling and the crowd on the other side of the river was shading under tent tops. Some crews were getting into the waka to go up-river for their races.

Harrigan’s crew was racing next. We were cheering for the crew as they were rowing past on the sparkly water. Every student on  the bank was saying, “Let’s go Saint Paul’s. Let’s go.”

The teachers on the bank were jumping up and down like crazy. The crew looked tired from all the hard work that they were doing. As they were paddling really really hard, we got closer to the finish line. We took a little lead in front of the other schools. We all clapped as they crossed the finish line 1st. “WE WON! WE WON!” I said. After all that drama, we walked back to school.

The Hot Air Balloon Ride

Today my school and I had a hot air balloon ride on our school field. Kruz, Laekin, Havana and I were waiting in line to have a ride on the big red, orange and yellow hot air balloon. The line was going very slowly. As we were waiting, I saw a penguin. It was a teddy. Slowly the balloon was coming down with the other children. I felt anxious because we thought it would hit me. Once the kids hit the ground, the penguin went under the basket and got squashed. It was my turn. My heart was beating. My body was shaking. I put my foot on the step that was on the balloon’[s basket and I jumped in and looked at everyone through the gap. The man was very kind to me when he felt me shaking. He pushed on the button then flame and fire came out of the flamer. I looked out the space and onto the ground. Suddenly I started to see the balloon hover above the ground. I was freaking out at the start. Once we were up as high as we could, I looked down and the other kids looked like little ants. Laekin was freaking out too. I didn’t want to go down but I had to. I felt a big thump when it hit the ground. I jumped out said thank you and walked away.

St Patrick's Day

My Shell

I think my shell looks like the fin of a gurnard. I think that because it has lines on it. They might be the bone lines. 
My shell is smooth and soft. that is why I think it is a gurnard fin. 
I think it is a rock crab because of the brown and black marks on it. I think it is 28 years old because it has 28 lines on it. 
Before Mrs Russell picked up the shell, I've got a funny feeling that it was part of a crayfish bone - an Australian crayfish bone, not a New Zealand crayfish. All the Australian crayfish always have a circulish bone.

Swimming Sports

Yesterday, our school had our swimming sports at the Ngaruawahia Town Pools.

It was time for the 9 year old girls’ freestyle race. Mr K told all of the girls to hop into the freezing cold pool. It was sparkling so much, it made me want to hop in as fast as I could. When I got into the water. I was shaking.

“On your marks, get set, go!!!” Mr K blew his whistle very loudly just like a lion’s roar.

I kicked my legs as fast as I could and started doing a circular rotation. It was so hectic, because my heart was beating and it felt crazy in my stomach. I could see, with my goggles, that I was in the lead, only by a little bit. It was even with me and Emily G but I touched the wall just before EmilyG. I WON YAY!!!!

Ash Wednesday

Honey Bees

Introduction

Honey bees are small insects. They make delicious honey with different kinds of flowers.

What Do They Look Like?   
Honey bees have 3 body parts, - head, thorax and an abdomen. Honey bees are golden bees with black stripes. They have six legs and four wings, also have two compound eyes, a have a pair of antennas on their heads and have pollen baskets on their legs.

Where Do They Live?

Honey bees can live in beehives, on a bee farm but, with places like Antarctica, there are no flowers. It is also way too cold for bees to survive in that kind of weather. If there are no flowers in the world, bees wouldn't be alive because there wouldn’t be anything to pollinate.  

Giving Birth

The queen bee lays over 2000 eggs a day. The queen mates with the drones to make eggs. The queen bee lays an egg in the wax honey comb then it will eventually turn into larva. When they have gone through that stage, they will either turn into a drone adult bee or a worker.

How Long Do Honey Bees Live?

The queen bee lives for about a few years. With a worker  or a drone, it is 2 months.  

What Do They Do?

Worker bees are hard workers. They must visit about 1000 flowers to fill their bee stomachs with nectar. Bees actually have two stomachs, their regula stomachs and their honey stomachs. When their honey stomachs are full, they will go back to the hive and, with another worker that is at the hive, the bees will put their long tube tongues in each other’s mouths. The bee who is in the hive will chew the nectar for about half an hour. It will become like a liquid. The bees will put the nectar into an empty hexagon then cover it with wax. The nectar will go thicker and thicker. In about a few days, the beekeeper will come and collect it.

How Do They Communicate With Each Other?

When a bee finds a flower with lots of pollen and nectar, it will do a waggle dance. Just like waggle to the left, waggle to the right, for  excellent a  direction when the workers are in flight.

 

Symbols of the Holy Spirit

When Jesus was baptised by his cousin in the river, this reminds me of the Holy Spirit. Water cleans us and the Holy Spirit cleans us by taking away the original sin.       You can see more symbols of the Holy Spirit that our class drew on our class blog at stproom4.blogspot.co.nz

Swimming

Madeline Front Crawl from Pam Thomson on Vimeo.
If you want to see what else we did, visit our class blog at stproom4.blogspot.co.nz