Today, I completed the task on the Autumn Learning Journey about Autumn and music. What do you get when you cross the season of Fall and Song Maker? This task, where I made a song that reminded me of Autumn!

The first idea of Autumn that sprinted to my mind was the start of the movie Frozen II, where Anna and Olaf sings a song in an Autumn scene. A word that was part of the song is Autumn and Olaf held a leaf for most of the song. I tried recreating part of the song on Song Maker as my song that reminded me of Autumn. Give filling your house of Autumn with your custom music!  musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/

What is your favourite seasonal song from a movie?

Today, I celebrated Autumn with a tasty style. One of the tasks in the Autumn Learning Journey is to spoil my parent with some good food with an Autumn theme. I made some 煎豆沙湯圆 (jeen dou sha tong yuen) or Pan-fried Sweet Red Bean Cream Paste Glutinous Rice Dumpling Balls for my dad as breakfast.

To begin, I prepared the red bean paste yesterday. First, I put the red beans into the rice cooker with some water. I turned on the rice cooker and waited for that to cook. Once the red beans were finished cooking in the rice cooker, I sieved them so that I only had the finest cream paste. It was a lot of work compressing that through the sieve. I smoothed it out in a container and placed it in the fridge.

Next, in the morning, I took out the chilled paste and made the glutinous rice dough. To make this dough, I used glutinous rice flour and drinking water. Then, after making this dough, I rolled it out into portions. I turned the portions into balls and one by one flattened them to add the filling. When I finished the filling, I closed it up and rolled it back into balls to fry. I enjoyed making my baby ones.

After I fried then and finished cooking them, I placed it on a plate and handed it to my dad who was still in bed. I spoilt him by letting him stay in bed and eat his breakfast with me. The feedback on my cooking was delicious!

What Autumn themed treat would you love to be spoilt with and how would you like to be spoilt?

Today is officially the first day of the Autumn term break, with the Autumn Learning Journey back for fun! Again, like most other seasonal learning journeys, there are 20 cool activities to kill boredom. To start off my boredom busting, I chose to do something relatively easy.

This task was to create a poppy on Piskel, a platform for pixel art. Have a go looking at the site! piskelapp.com
I made a few versions of a poppy on it. First, I made a poppy with five petals, but I realised that poppies only have four! I made another one using Google images as an inspiration and a reminder of what poppies looked like. Then I made one more after seeing a Minecraft poppy pop up. These are my poppies.

Poppy 1:

Poppy 2 – ANZAC Poppy:

Poppy 3 – Minecraft Poppy:

How do you like to create your poppies?

During weeks 6 & 7 at school this term, we went down to QEII for our annual school swimming lessons. We go down for a 25 minute lesson each day, and learn about the different styles of swimming, safety rules, and so much more. The first thing we got taught when we arrive each day is a safety message involving water.

Then, on the first day, we got tested on our skill to be split into three groups. All we have to to for the test is to swim freestyle. The instructors put me in the advanced group. The instructor my group got was a cool kid once from our school.

For the first week of lessons, we did a lot of swimming. We started off doing one lap at a time, soon developing into two laps at a time. I went first, finishing near the end and slightly out of breath with lots of fun. Although I finished my laps early, I enjoyed chasing the tail.

Lots of the laps were freestyle, the most common and fastest stroke of all. This gave me the opportunity to speed up and practice for Zones swimming sports. Apart from freestyle, we also did a lot of backstroke and breaststroke. I got given quite a few butterfly laps while the others could choose between butterfly or something easier.

Towards the end of the lessons, we did some sculling and treading water for a bit of time. We did some survival backstroke as well. I liked it, but I would prefer having a bit more competition and challenge.

The last 3 days of swimming were the inflatable boat and the emergency equipment. One group got to go onto the boat and the other had to save people with the emergency equipment. We swapped over the next day.

I had to miss a day of the school lessons to go all the way to Jellie Park. I competed Zones for swimming, representing my school that day. I didn’t do too well, but at least I got to see all my friends from other schools and I got through to Canterbury Swimming Sports, where I compete amongst all the best swimmers in schools all across Canterbury.

The final day was swimming in pajamas. It was just like every other year, but I tried hacking the system this year by swimming underwater for the whole path recreating the river flow current against me. Unfortunately, I got caught and I had to redo it multiple time, but I still held my breath each and everytime. It was a fun and lovely, relaxing final experience.

Where is your favourite swimming facility?

On Tuesday the 24th of March, the intermediates of our school got to choose to take a day surfing. To begin, for those of us who didn’t know how to surf, we would have to learn the basics. Then we would practice on the sand with what we just learnt to be sure we knew how to surf properly and safely. Lastly, we would have our fun on the waves, get back into our uniform, and head back to school.

First, we got ourselves ready by changing into our swimsuit and swimming gear. Some people like me brought wetsuits to wear. For the people who didn’t bring a wetsuit, they had to wear loan wetsuits that were short sleeved. Then we headed on to recall safety when in the sea.

After some skills and safety measurements on the shore, we got into the water and started riding the waves. It was pretty cool standing up and feeling the wind. As the waves crashed, I sped towards the shore and caught some pretty good waves. That day I had a very fun (and painful) experience.

Along with all the fun, it came with the pain while in the water. I had my toe crash with someone’s surfboard fin. I carried on surfing and bared the pain in the cold sea, but as soon as I got out the water, my toe got so painful and swollen that I could barely walk. That was the most painful experience on that day.

At the end of the lesson, I find myself enjoyed the surfing at the beach. Even with that painful bruise on my toe, I still had a lot of fun. If someone wanted to try it, I would definitely recommend them to giving it a go! Thanks to everyone that helped make this happen, especially our teacher Mr. Gray for taking us there and back.

This is a collage I made using all the photos that our fantastic Mr. Gray took.

Being at a school near the beach gives us lots of really cool seaside opportunities and activities, like surfing. What activities nearby would you like to have at your school?

On Monday the 16th of February, I went to camp in Glentui (Oxford) with my classmates. We started by driving to Oxford, stopping by Ashley Gorge. After morning tea under the Reynolds Heritage Pavilion, we started our rainy camp adventure in Glentui! Although it was sad having to cancel the fun activities due to the rain all camp, that is apart from Friday which was annoyingly sunny, it was still pretty fun. My favourite day was Tuesday, our second day of camp, filled with roasted marshmallows.

This day started with me arriving at the campsite again after my good night’s sleep in my cosy bed back in Christchurch. I was staying overnight tonight, which meant I brought my normal big suitcase and my small suitcase along with my school bag/daypack. I was tired, having been forced to wake up at about 5 or 6 in the morning in order to get to Glentui Meadows Camp on time. Luckily for me, I reached there just when they were having breakfast which gave me time to set up my bunk.

Soon, we got into groups of 9 or 10 and did lots of fun things, including getting our tongue purple-ish blue from eating so many blackberries in the field. We had rotations of survival skills, from safely deactivating bombs to making shelters for the injured. My group’s first task was to deactivate the bomb safely, but we had to gain the trust in order for the “bomb deactivation trust person/agent” to know whether we were responsible enough. We successfully completed all the challenges and finally, we got to be near the bombsite that was cordoned of. The last instruction was to bring the bomb out and safely deactivate the bomb, but only 1 person was allow to wear the full gear and touch the bomb. We nominated Bella to be fully bomb protected and helped her get the bomb out easier using rope. Next, the task was to cut the wire(s) as part of the deactivating process. At first, everyone agreed on cutting the red wire, and we were all encouraging Bella to cut the red wire. Bella was about to cut the red wire, but then the parents barged in, causing commotion and confusion. Finally, Bella tried to cut any wire but it was quite hard. We managed to disengage the bomb safely with flying can lid and some liquids, probably baking soda and vinegar.

Skipping ahead of time, we have a lovely fire burning, ready for roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. The best part is the outer crispy shell, crunchy and sweet. It taster so good, and it definitely was the best school camp ever at this school. It was a very cool experience.

What makes the perfect camp experience for you?

We have just had the first two weeks back at school! I personally don’t like school very much, so it is just boring as usual. I quite enjoyed the Waitangi day full of fun and not needing to wake up early. Something I am looking forward to is high school and leaving this current one as a year 8, and knowing which schools have accepted my applications. Something I learnt is healthy eating and how the human body treats unnecessary nutrients like fats during the first week of school in Life Education with Harold the Giraffe.

Today, I completed the last Summer Learning Journey task for this year. I feel very proud of myself because this is the first time ever, out of the 4 years I done it that I completed every single task this year. This is my badge board for the end of the Summer Learning Journey this year.

For this task, I used the photos from the Kick Start activity, and wrote facts about the bugs I found. I found some fun facts over the internet and put it in the template with the photos. These facts included each and every bug species I can find. I am sorry to say RIP to them in my chicken’s tummy. This is my mostly devoured work.

How do you feel when you achieve something you never done before?

Today, I completed yesterday’s second to last activity for the whole Summer Learning Journey this year regarding the Critter and Creatures theme. This task is about hunting for bugs around my property. I only found a few, but not much because most of them were in my pets’ bellies. I finally managed to find 6 bugs in total with 3 of which were alive and hand fed.

The rule was meant to be leaving the bugs alone because they might bite or sting. One of them was a shell which I left alone and followed the rule.  Another was a dead mosquito which was safe to touch, so I moved it to take a photo. The last I followed this rule was taking a photo of a spider in my bedroom. The 3 unfortunate critters and creatures were caught by me bared handed and hand fed to my very old white hen. She ate them all and found them delicious.

Here are the only bugs I found in my property.

What would you do if you capture them?

Today, I completely Thursday’s Step It Up activity with the Pekapeka or the New Zealand’s native bats. For this task, I learnt a little about the Pekapeka and their threat. After learning about mustelids and feral cats being the main predators, I had to design a predator free roosting box for the Pekapeka.

My designing includes a nice high pole under the box to blend in the environment, like tree. The predator guard is a upside down cone that made of extra slippery, anti-grip material so the mustelids and feral cats cannot climb straight up or from the side, and if they try to cling onto the guard, they will slip off and fall. The entrance is under the box but above the predator guard so the Pekapeka can climb naturally and safely into their nest. I also added some bats silhouettes as decoration, identification and some breathing holes. There is an inspection door for the bat keepers or DOC (Department of Conservation) researchers to check.

Here is my design on Canva.

If you are the predator, how will you outsmart this system?