Storylines Festival: Authors

Juliette MacIver

Juliette MacIver is a author from Wellington, New Zealand who is a mother of four and a children's book author. Julliette writes children's picture books, but does not illustrate. When I researched Juliette properly, I noticed that she wrote the books, Marmaduke Duck and the Marmalade Jam, Marmaduke Duck and the Bernadette Bear and Marmaduke Duck on the Wide Blue Seas, the books that automatically pop into my mind when I think of picture books. 

Catherine Mayo

Catherine Mayo was born and living in Auckland. Cath studied at Auckland University studying history and philosophy. She was born in Catholic Maternity Hospital in Auckland and was named after St Catherine. Her writing inspration was from Barbara Leonie Picard's retelling of The Odyssey. 

Paula Green

Paula Green lives in West Auckland with her partner, artist Michael Hight, her two daughters and their pets, three cats and two springer spaniels. She regularly visits schools from year 0-13 through the New Zealand Book Council. She also privately runs NZ Poetry Box which is a blog for students, parents and teachers from year 0-8. When she is not writing, she loves walking, biking, swimming, boogie boarding, reading, cookng, watching movies, listening to music and visiting new places.

Jill MacGregor

Jill MacGregor was born in Dunedin but currently lives in Kapiti Coast, home of Kapiti ice-creams. She spent two years teaching in Tonga and since then, she travelled around the Pacific experiencing the village life. Most of her school journals about the Pacific are based on her travels and experiences. 

After my experience last year, I think that the Storylines Festival will be interesting, funny and full of information.  I am looking forward to all the authors but the person I am looking forward to the most is Jill MacGregor. I would like to hear of her times in the islands and of her books that she wrote about the islands. Also Catherine Mayo, I would like to hear her. After research I found she is really into ancient Greece. 

Ki-O-Rahi Research Writing

Ki-O-Rahi is a traditional Maori game that is popular all over New Zealand and is also known in other countries, mainly Europe, France. The game was created in The Legend of Rahi and Patupaiarehe where Rahi’s wife, Patupaiarehe was abducted and taken far away. Rahi had to find her and when he did, Rahi’s tribe and the tribe that abducted Patupaiarehe created Ki-O-Rahi to play instead of going to war.  The game is still going and there are tournaments for adults and children.

There are seven players on each team. There are two types of Ki-O-Rahi, there is the tackle and the non-tackle. Professional adults play tackle in competitions but normally children just play non-tackle with tags. The game is played on a circular field with no outs, the purpose of the game is to hit the te tupu and to defend it by blocking the other team from hitting it with the ball. There are no positions, but there are rules, no more than five people can enter the circle around the te tupu.

If you didn’t know, there is a legend behind this game, it is a story from back in the olden days. The words used in Ki-O Rahi are connected to the story. The story is about Patupairehe stealing Rahi’s wife Tiarakurapakiwai, then Rahi trys to save her. As soon as Rahi rescued his wife, they decided to make peace and they made up the game Ki-O-Rahi. Pou represents the 7 stars of Matariki. Te Tupu represents the rock where Rahi was trapped, Ara represents the pathway of silver ferns.

Weekly Quiz Article - Robin Williams

Robin Williams was an actor, film producer and comedian loved by millions. He was born on 21 July 1951 and sadly died recently on August 11 2014. He starred in many films, my favourites being R.V and Good Morning Vietnam. The stand up comedian was 63 years of age when he died and he was married to his third wife, Susan Schneider. Susan and Robin meet in 2009 while Robin was recovering from his heart surgery and married in 2011.

Williams had three children.  Two of them, Zelda and Cody were to Robin's second wife, Marsha Garces and the oldest Zachary Williams was son to Robin's first wife, Valerie Velardi.  The whole world was very sad at his death but also celebrated his happy and funny life.

Astria Countdown to Impact Week 2 Day 1

This morning, we started the Astria Countdown to Impact Game that we started last week Monday at Extension again. We started again because last week's version had bugs attached so they got rid of the bugs so we could actually finish the game. I was glad to start again because after a few practices, I finally understood the game properly. It was really good but some parts, I found confusing and didn't realize what the better thing to do was until I had completed it, incorrectly.

After only one session, I have almost completed it. If you read my older post from last week Monday, you will see the objective of the game and some more details about it, here is some main points of the game. You are chosen to be the Alpha Leader and have to save the planet, Astria from a Asteroid that is getting closer and closer to the planet. There are three solutions to saving the planet and you have to discover different information and figure out what solution is the most credible and which solution is the right one that will save Astria and everyone in it from annihilation. Once you have researched everything, you present yourself and your information to the city council, but I only have 99 days to start with and they get lower and lower the longer you take. At the end of today I have only 39 days left.

Today, I got up to the part where I have already been to the council and they have agreed with me that the solution that I picked was the right one. They gave me some money to finish upgrading the spaceship so Aoen, my helper can help me fire it toward the Asteroid. I was upgrading my spaceship when everything started to fail, I couldn't click on anything only the back button. It seemed like a sign to put it away and leave for the next day, even though I had only been on for 30 minutes. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to finish it and save Astria and finish the awesome game INGAME created.

Algebra Week 4 Possum Poles

Possum Poles

1.  

a) Click Here to view the tables

b) Tables

c) Tables

2.

a) Tables

b) Priya

c) 7 minutes. He will get to 20m at 7min because Priya climbs another 7m and lands at 21m.

Kahurangi Kapa Haka/Dance Group Performance

Earlier this week, some performers came from a company in Hastings, Wellington called Kahurangi Maori Dance Group came to our school to perform for us. The Company specialises in Kapa Haka and they travel all over the world, performing and teaching people about the Maori Culture. There were five people who came, Jordan, Lucky, Aroha, Hera and Zoe.

Our class went in the middle block with all the other intermediate classes and some other Yr 5 classes. The show started with Zoe talking about the Maori beginning before the rest of them came out, danced and sang with their powerful voices. Not only did they have great formation and actions, their facial expressions really did top off the dance. There were smiles, pukana and side glances from all of the dancers, which was really good.

After the first dance, they all introduced themselves and talked about Taonga and what a Taonga is to them. Then they went down the line, telling us what a Taonga is to them. Jordan started off with, “A Taonga to me would be….. Food!” and Lucky ended with, “A Taonga to be would have to be this necklace,” and held up a greenstone from around his neck.

I enjoyed the show but that wasn’t all, all of the Senior Kapa Haka students got to workshop with the Kahurangi people where we learnt I simple song with the poi, how to stand properly and we even had a go at Titi Torea which are the double short sticks. Even though, we were pretty good, it was nothing compared to their precision and accuracy during the performance.

The show and workshop were great and I enjoyed both of them. I think the thing that made it GREAT was their jokes, they were awesome performers and they were also very humorous. The main comedian was Aroha and after the introduction, he talked the most, he introduced most things and explained Maori tradition. I hope the group could maybe come back some time and teach us more about the Maori culture and their traditions.

Diving Writing

She climbed up the ladder to the platform before looking down, the water was so still, it was like glass. Looking at the crowd, they were all so still watching her as she turned around. Her feet were on the edge of the springboard. She took a deep breath in, and out. The diver leaped into the air to make her fall longer before falling towards the blue water. Twisting and somersaulting, she finally emerged into the water with precision.