Category: Hanga | Create

Today, a group of children went to the Eastern Zones for swimming at Jellie Park. We arrived in our cars and met together inside the facility. Then we had to wait for the aqua aerobics to finish before we can go to the space we use for our Zones swimming. We got bored of waiting on the other side, and we thought dancing with them was a good idea. My classmate Reid who went to Zones with me, started it off. Then Lucas, another classmate who went to Zones, joined Reid. Then I joined them, and so on until we, as in everyone who went to Zones with me from my school, were dancing along the front with the aqua aerobics instructor. The elderlies who were doing the aqua aerobics seemed to smile and enjoyed us dancing with them. This was our warm up exercise before the races start. It was really fun rather than being bored.

The aqua aerobics finished and so did our warm up. Other zones qualifiers schools started coming in, and I found a lot of my friends among them. Finally, the races started, initially only the year 5 and 6 races. So the intermediates had to wait a lot longer. Our first race, as in the intermediates, was the Butterfly open, which I came first and qualified for Canterburys. Straight after was the IM (Individual Medley) without a breath. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise there was no break at all, and just as I got out of the pool, people already dived into the water, doing the IM. I was looking forward to do it, but I missed it because it was impossible for me to do it straight after the butterfly. Luckily, Reid came first in IM, so qualified for Canterburys. Another lucky thing was my school took over butterfly for Canterburys in the eastern zone because my classmate, Stella, who supposed to come first, came second and qualified for Canterburys with me. She wasn’t very happy because she probably misheard about NOT to touch the wall with only one hand instead of two because that would be a DQ (Disqualify). Sadly, she did the opposite so she came second.

I came fourth in the next two races, freestyle, or front crawl, and backstroke. Top three in these two styles and breaststroke could go to Canterburys, so I didn’t get in for freestyle and backstroke. Next, I got in for breaststroke, coming second just an arm touch away from my friend, from another school, who came first. It was a close race and very fun competing with my old, kindy friend. At the end, we said goodbye to each other, and people who went to zones from my school were treated with an ice cream or like something cold for our hard work. Thank you to the parents who came and supported us, and thank you to Joh who treated us to celebrate us representing our school. We went back to school and had some chilling time in class. Below are photos of our school team and the butterfly crew.

Picture 1, School team. Picture 2, School team. Picture 3, Swimmer from another school, Stella, and me.

What kind of warm up would you like to do before a race?

For Religious Education quite a few weeks ago, we made an “acts of kindness” grid. We had to make a 5 by 4 grid and fill the 20 squares with different acts of kindness. We were given an example that was aimed at adults, so we had to make one our own, aimed at ourselves, or people around of the same age. This is my 20 acts of kindness, made on Canva.

Which act would you choose to do and why would you do it?

In Cybersmart, we have been learning how to use keyboard shortcuts to make some things easier, like copying and pasting. We made animations for this cybersmart lesson, using the shortcuts like Ctrl + D (duplicating), Ctrl + C (copying) and Ctrl + V (pasting). For my animation, I did the story on a duck swimming in a pond. It comes out of the water to do something stinky, and waddles back into the water. A fly that came out of nowhere goes to the smelly pile 💩 and then buzzes annoyingly around the duck’s head. The duck gets too annoyed, so the fly is taken to the processer, and soon, it was be another pile 💩. It didn’t take me too long, and I actually quite enjoyed it. This is my 2 character, 25 slides animation.

Which is your favourite part of my animation, and what is the reason behind it?

In Religious Education this term, we have been learning about kindness. One of the projects we had to do is to make a slideshow on Jesus being a model showing good values through the bible. We were meant to do 5 bible scriptures to prove that he modeled kindness from the bible, but I ended up doing only 3 because I was too slow. I used Canva to create my design and the finished product looks like this.

On Monday to Wednesday, the year 7 and 8 went to Hanmer Springs for camp. The trip to Hanmer Springs was really long. It only took about 1 hour and 46 minutes, but it felt like 2 to 6 hours.

On the first day of camp, after we arrived in our cars, we sorted our cabins and had a long walk in the hills to see the waterfall. The walk was pretty good. We first went to the Dog Stream then headed for the waterfall. Unfortunately, one of our class teachers apparently went the long way and most students got too tired. The group went too slow which made the walk overtime so we turned back half way before reaching our destination. We got back to the campsite to get ready for the Hot Pools. The Hot Pools were amazing. It was nice, relaxing, and fun. There were 4 hydroslides in total, some smaller, some scarier than others. l loved them all. My least favourite one was the scariest hydroslide, with this enormous big downward steep slide which then goes back up and down again in big steps before coming to the end of the ride. However it was awesome screaming all the way. After the Hot Pools, we got changed and went back to the campsite. That was the time we had dinner and, supposedly, dessert but that best part somehow vanished. It was sad for all of us children, especially for me, because I loved dessert. I thought we were going to have chocolate moose, which should be absolutely delicious, but we had none.

Next we played a game of Spotlight but it was pretty boring. Since we skipped dessert I had some lamb racks which my mum brought to me as a substitute. Eating lamb racks was more fun than playing Spotlight. We had to give in our lunchboxes during the day and, for most people, it was a choice of eating everything inside it fast or hand it in unfinished. My solution was to give it to my mum who had rented a cabin nearby. Afterwards we brushed our teeth and went to bed. In my cabin my bunkmates were having a party. Fortunately the teacher then came to tell us that we had to go to sleep and we did after a while. I tried to sleep but because some bunkmates were so excited after having lollies, which they found out of nowhere. They were not supposed to have lollies, but I think they missed dessert so much they couldn’t resist having some. Unfortunately, as a result of their dessert-substitute sugarhigh, I couldn’t sleep until about midnight. Two good things were 1) I had a shower before bed because I was really grubby by then and 2) I had a miniature electric fan to cool me off as it was really hot at the start of that night. That type of heat was from the rain coming but hasn’t started yet. Sad thing was that the rain came the very next day.

On the second day we had breakfast but a power cut came at seven o’clock a.m. sharp. There was only cold cereal which I didn’t really like and so I ended up only eating ricies. Then we had this activity called orienteering in the rain. It was very annoying because it was wet and also I found it a bit boring. One thing I didn’t like most was the fact you had to look up to the target signs, which made you all wet and I hated that. We were not allowed to remove the orienteering signs we found or throw them into the bushes but someone else did. If we were allowed, it might have been more fun, and I think everyone would be fighting for who gets to throw it. I also dislike this orienteering but maybe someone else enjoyed it.

Afterwards, we came back by car back to the campsite. I travelled in Dad’s car, which was nice and warm, and was accompanied by Makua, Mitchell and William in the back. Following closely, we went mountain biking or tree climbing depending on which class we were in. I am in Room 10 so I did mountain biking first with the rest of my class. Room 9 did tree climbing first while we were mountain biking. I really enjoyed mountain biking but it was challenging when people were in front of me going annoyingly slow. I ended up being really muddy but at least it was fun going uphill and downhill. Going downhill was my favourite part even though I was really scared at the start. The instructor was very nice and encouraging so I trusted her and followed her instruction. Therefore, I allowed a large chunk of space in front of me and luckily did not crash into anyone. It was definitely way much better than orienteering, even though it was still raining and the bike ride was much muddier. Finally, we got to rest in the lounge and enjoyed the warm fire. My shoes were wet and the bottom of the fireplace protector rack was already full, so I used the shoelaces to tie them to the top of the rack.

After the rest, we had to prepare a talent quest. We had to sort out what we were doing, who was in which group with and practice for the show. In my group, there were Lucas, Theo, Makua, Liam, William, Aemo and me. We did a play and it was about naughty students and silly teachers. Our real teachers had said we could make fun of the teachers but not other classmates. Our play was about how nice was the principal, giving out “lollipops” to students, and how bad were the teachers, sending students to the principal’s office.

The performance of the play was like this: We, naughty students, got imaginary lollipops from the principal (played by Makua). Makua also played a naughty kid, along with Liam, William, Theo and me. Theo and I were naughty kids who got sent to the principal’s office at the start and we got free imaginary lollipops as well as being released. The teachers (Lucas and Aemo)  got mad at the principal, asking them why the naughty students (Theo and I) got free “lollipops” and were released. The principal was very funny, responding with “They never came here” referring to the naughty students. One of the naughty students (me) somehow appeared and interrupted, when the teacher (Aemo) asked about the “lollipops”, by going “Ooh, can I have one?” Then the principal said “Sure” and gave the student a “lollipop”. The question was never actually answered. It got all chaotic, and we wriggled away like it was a dream. It wasn’t the end. The dream… came to reality. The end.

Sometime before the performance, we just chill and sleep, or play different board games, or do the sculpture walk. I chose the sculpture walk. It was kind of like orienteering, but hunting for something much bigger, the sculptures. It was the same weather as before but I enjoyed the walk because it is more interesting. The sculptures are mostly made of wood and carved with the finest of details, like the eyes with lids and mouth with lips. I got my mum to take a whole lot of pictures of me so I can remember the fun times of this camp. For me, it is pretty rare to get to see and touch sculptures. They are really cool and I was most interested in how they were attached to the trees, as if climbing them. The answer is they used screws and metal junctions.

With the performance so close to curfew, I asked the teacher when I could have a shower. She told me to wait till the next morning and have a shower then. That made me upset and I probably will always remember this. My mum waited right outside the hall impatiently and the other teacher allowed her to take me away right after my play. I then went to my parents cabin for a shower but there was not enough time to dry my hair before the curfew, so we went back to dry my hair in the lounge. I went to my cabin very late and I still had to retrieve my medications from the teacher. I found three of my bunkmates waiting for me. They were Kiara, Zara and Despina, and when I got in, Kiara asked me for tissues. My tissues were stuffed in a corgi butt. I passed the butt to her and said have a poop. They all giggled and that was a day gone.

On the final day, we had the same breakfast with additional steaming hot baked beans. I really appreciated the male parent helpers who made the beans before the power cut. We then started to pack up and I had to find the teacher to retrieve my medications again. 

We did our Ash Wednesday Liturgy at camp. When we were getting our blessing, we were supposed to line up in front of our class teacher. I was just standing there talking to my mum when the Room 9 student automatically lined up in front and behind me. So when the line moved forward, I followed the flow and got my blessing from the Room 9 teacher. He blessed me the same way as he blessed everyone else like Jesus did. Jesus said, “Let the children come to me.” He did not deny or force any child. At church, it would not matter if one was blessed by a teacher or the priest. However, my class teacher looked me up to ask me if I did the blessing. I told her the Room 9 teacher blessed me. She questioned again why I did not go into her line. My mum stepped up for me with, “Does it really matter? It’s just the same.” She was then speechless.

Next, for our class, we did tree climbing this morning. Tree climbing was pretty fun and I got up really fast, squeaking the buzzer a lot. We made fresh subway sandwiches for our lunch and loaded up our cars. We made a stop at Culverden for lunch then straight back to school to unload some of other people’s luggages before going home.

I found the most challenging part of camp was to get my showers and medications without being annoying to the teacher and my most favourite part of camp was mountain biking. Something I would do again would be mountain biking because it was my favourite. I made a photo collage of me at camp.

How would your dream best camp ever go?

For this step it up activity, I created an editble rainbow fish with chocolates. I had a lot of chocolates left over from last Christmas, so I decided to use them as part of the rainbow fish scales. First, I drew the rainbow fish on a piece of paper and coloured some parts of it in, then place the chocolates on the body of the fish to make it looked like the scales and fins.  You can probably guess how it will end as the scales and fins are made of chocolates… The rainbow fish will now share its shinny scales with me… YUMMY in my tummy. Here are my editable rainbow fishes, same paper but different scales.

First picture was showing the materials I used, second and third pictures were just showing the effect with different chocolates I used for its shinny scales.

Conclusion: I found the rainbow fish scales are very delicious, no matter which scales it shares.

Would you like a scale?

For this step it up activity, I created a shell museum using my uncle’s shells collection. I did it on Canva instead of Google Slides. I enjoyed doing this task but found it a bit challenging. My work is here.

Which shell is your favourite here? I personally like the marble cone shell. I just like its unique appearance and its ability.

For this kick start activity, I created the rainbow fish and showing it swimming after sharing its shinny scales. I first didn’t see and made it very shinny for all of its scales…..just got carry away with the sparkle scales which I just love them so much. Then I realised I should have the rainbow fish drawn after sharing its scales, so I removed some of the shiny scales and replaced it with just plain colour scales instead. Here is the rainbow fish I create. See if you can spot it, and how many of them are there.

Answer: shiny – 18, non-shiny – 7

Would you rather have fully shiny scales or fully non-shiny scales, if you are a fish?

For this kick start activity, I created a Narwhal poster to give people a greater understanding of Narwhals. I also created an animated Narwhal picture with some sort of magical background effect, but it is not what a real Narwhal look like. Here is my poster of Narwhals.

Would you rather have normal real Narwhals or Unicornified Narwhals living in the sea?

For this step it up activity, I made a photo collage on Canva. First, I watched and follow the instruction video, opening a blank canvas and creating the size 700 x 700 px. Second on the list was making a background by fishing out an African big marine 5 video. I chose my background video on the Cape Fur Seal. Next, I put a 4 x 4 grid ready for the pictures to insert in. Then to finish off to make the photo collage, I found the pictures of the big marine 5. I inserted 3 of each big marine 5 except the African Penguin I inserted 4 of them to make up the number for the 16th photo. This is my photo collage.

What is your big marine 5 animal?