On Monday lunchtime, we had a lady from the council come in with a smoothie blender bike. To get the smoothie, we needed to bring a banana and peddle on the bike. This bike was a special bike that was balanced on a stand and only had 1 wheel. The w heel spun a tiny plastic cylinder thing which spun the blade in the blender. It’s like a normal electric blender that you probably have, except it’s more eco-friendly because it uses human power! First, I donate my bananas. Then, I waited a long time for the bike ride. There were lots of people in front and behind me. My friend and I had our turn, and we encouraged each other to pedal faster by saying “Pedal like you’ve been to Canterburys.” If you don’t know, Canterburys is a competition against the best of the best of each zone in Canterbury. My friend and I both went to Canterburys for running, so I think we were peddling very fast when it was our turn. Finally, we got a medium sized cup of banana smoothie. I wished I had more because it tasted so good.

Would you rather have an electric blended smoothie but live in a poor life or work a little harder for the better of everyone?

Yesterday, as I came to school, everyone seemed to have morphed into a book character. There were people turned into Willy Wonka, Dog Man, I Spy, and lots morphed into Hermione Granger. It was like a favourite book characters dream come true. Novel after novel, the characters walked by. People judged who morphed into the best character, some winners got more books as prizes. The prizes had a selection of ideas of what to morph into next year, and some of the best morphed was Camilla Cream with the bad case of stripes, and Duffy. After the parade, people could morph back to comfy normal clothing, and my classmates, Rose and Makua, had once morphed into Camilla and Duffy today. For me, I morphed into Delia, Tom Gates’ cool but grumpy older teenage sister. I was grumpy the whole day.

Which character from what book would you morph into?

Yesterday, our school hosted a Market Day fundraiser for us Year 7 and 8. We were all buzzing and preparing for the start of the event at 2 o’clock, setting up stalls, games and foods. I was in charge of candy floss and the location was so windy on that day, the candy floss looked like flying clouds. One of the students had a big candy floss ready to eat but the wind blew the whole thing off, leaving her with a stick. We moved the candy floss station into the P.E. shed where it was less windy and people got their candy floss a lot faster. There was constantly a line waiting and watching the candy floss being made. At the end, our teacher tried to cut off our line short, but we delivered the candy floss to them all anyway. It was a fun, windy and sugary day.

Would you rather be making the candy floss or eating the candy floss?

Today at our school, we are celebrating Cultural day. To celebrate this, we are to choose a country and do some research on it. We are also to come wearing some clothing related to this country instead of our normal uniform. I thought of some of my clothes and did a lot of extra research to find what country the clothing was related to. I have a kaftan, which is a loose fitting dress, gifted by my 8th aunt that was apparently related to the Madagascar culture. We all had to complete a slideshow with a template created by our teachers which require compulsory research. Here is my work and some photos of my cultural Madagascar kaftan.

If I didn’t tell you that it was related to Madagascar’s culture, what culture would you think it was related to?

For last week’s reading, we were set Agency Activities. This means our teachers feed a bunch of work to choose from, all related to a topic. In the past 2 weeks, our topic on our Agency Activities was art. Because it was reading, one of the activities available was reading on my own for 30 minutes. This reading time has to be alone and for enjoyment. I chose to read on Epic, a digital reading platform. The book that I read was called “My Pet Slime Book 2” and it talks about a girl making slime that turned alive.

What types of books do you read for enjoyment?

In 3 weeks time at New Brighton Catholic School, we are having a Market Day! This day is to fund raise for our Year 8’s Wellington trip and their Leavers dinner. In order to profit enough for our precious Year 8’s, we were told to make posters and share the word. This market day is about selling old toys or anything unwanted. Someone pays $10 for a stall/table and now they are allowed to sell anything they want. All the money from the stuff they sold goes back to them, which means they also get profit. The school makes money by taking entry fees, and with more stuff to attract people, the more support we can get! Our task to advertise it to the world is to make posters so people know about it. This blog post is another way of advertising to the world, so that’s why we have to post it as well. On that day, I will be bring a candy floss machine and making candy floss for people. Instead of keeping the profit and buying the stall, I volunteer and donate the profit to the school. I hope to see you there. Here is my poster so more people can know about it.

If you were coming, what would be the most exciting thing you would be looking forward to?

To start this term’s writing, we are learning to show an increasing understanding of how to shape texts for different purposes and audiences. The task set by our teacher was giving speech to the animals on our teacher’s farm. We were given a photo to caption the animals with and the caption needed humour in it. Our target audience was our parents, and the humour had to be like an inside joke. I enjoyed this task and found it pretty easy. What I liked the most was the animals captured in that specific moment.

Which caption do you find the funniest?

Today, I finished the last activity of this year’s Spring Learning Journey on the last day of school holidays. This activity was activity 12 and was about making 4 math problems based on spring. It challenged me to think about including fractions, multiplication, addition and subtraction within the 4 problems. I based by math questions around the most seasonal thing from my helpful pets; eggs! Crack the eggs, solve the problems and tell me how easy and delicious the eggs were!

What did you do during this spring break?

On Friday the 26th of September, I went to Hagley Park to complete Spring Learning Journey activity 17 and to enjoy fresh air, some spring flowers and nature’s beauty. When walking there, I noticed lots of different things. I saw lush green leaves, pretty flowers, ducks and ducklings, and something not so nice, duck poo. I smelt the flowers, the pollen from the flowers that made me sneeze, and also not so plesent, duck poo. I heard the water ripples, the birds chirping, the wind blowing, some cars moving it’s tyres on the pebble carpark, and various ducks and drakes.

What are the most obvious things you sense in spring?

Today, I did activity 8 of the Spring Learning Journey. This activity was to make some music on Song Maker that reminds me of spring. I chose to recreate 5 little ducks on Song Maker because I have pet ducks that just started laying in spring. Then, using Screencast, I recorded my song because the task said so. Here is my recording and the original song.

What signs of spring is the most obvious to you?