My Thoughts and Feelings

These are my thoughts and feelings about the memorial that is at Pt England School. The memorial was created to commemorate the soldiers who fought for us in WW1. 

Polyfest Trip

The Yr 7 & 8 had the privilege to travel to the ASB Polyfest. Polyfest is where schools from all over Aoteroa perform in 7 stages with 7 different cultures. There is Samoan, Tongan, Niuen, Cook Island, Maori, Diversity and the Speech stage. It is a four day long festival starting on Thursday going right through to Sunday. Pt England has never been on a school trip to Polyfest so we were very excited. We were going to be doing educational activities for most of the day before going in our parent groups to visit some of the stages.

For the first activity we went to Globug where we learnt about saving power in our homes. They gave all the students a timer that we could use when we are in the shower. The timer was set to 4 minutes so that water can be saved. Next we tested how fast we could hit a tennis ball down a long tube. The highest score so far was 117. I only got 73 but it was still fun. After a couple more activities we had lunch before going off in our parent groups to visit the stages.

I was in my Dad's group with some other class mates, our group didn't really visit many stages so we were just walking around looking at the different stalls and advertisers. At 2.30 everyone met back near the entry/exit before we loaded the buses. It was a fun trip and a great way to spend the day before winter comes. Hopefully the Yr 7 & 8 can have more fun trips like this in the future.

Mrs Tele'as Birthday

This morning, the 16th of March was Mrs Tele’a’s birthday. Team 5 sang Happy Birthday to her when she arrived from a meeting but something else was about to happen. Everyone was already sent off to their classes to start work. Students were spread out in the street and in their classes when suddenly, loud music started.

Some of the boys started jumped and cheering, “Choo Hoo!!!” Mrs Tele’a came in and started to perform in the middle of the circle with the boys. Students from every class started to come in and soon, it was a circle with people Samoan dancing in the middle. Miss Peato came out and lay down on the ground, Mrs Tele’a put her foot on her back and started to dance. Mrs Tele’a was wearing a green puletasi with a leaf print on it. She pulled it up to show her Malu, a Samoan tattoo for females.

It was really cool to share a part of her birthday with her. She is an amazing teacher and Team 5 wouldn’t be the same without her! We all hope she has a great day and a great year!

Happy Birthday Mrs Tele’a!

Visual Mihi

This is my visual mihi. It shows one of my hobbies, a bit about my belief and my culture. As you can see, I am really into listening to music, it is one of my favorite things to do. My father is Samoan and my mother is NZ/European which is why, I have drawn the New Zealand flag and the Samoan flag. The last picture shows a cross because my family and I are Christian. We believe that Jesus Christ is our savior and he saved us. I hope you enjoy my visual mihi and maybe you learnt something about me!

Video Conference with Hawaii

The Yr 7 & 8 extension had the privilege of video conferencing with two other schools in Hawaii. Our first school was Nanakuli Elementary School where all the students are instructed in the Hawaiian language. The second school was Kea'au Elementary and it is located on the island of Hawaii. For every school, there was a presentation about the school to share to the other two.

Pt England was the first to share and we decided to create a Google presentation to explain a bit about our school and our country, Aotearoa. After the presentation was shown, there was time for questions from Nanakuli school. Mrs Lagitupu talked a bit about Manaiakalani and where the word originated from before we had some time to talk about our chromebooks. Even though they use digital technology for learning, they are not able to take it home with them, so their work finishes when they leave the classroom.

Next, it was Nanakuli ES' turn to present, they chose to make a movie instead of a presentation. The movie had someone talking in the background while it showed footage of the school. Their school goes from Kindergarten up to grade 6, during the movie we got to see the kindergarten class and the grade 2-3 classroom. Most of the student's first language is English but they are taught Hawaiian so that the language is not forgotten.

Last to present was Kea'au ES and like us, they created a presentation with information about their school. Kea'au ES has 870 students that attend and it ranges from kindergarten to grade 5. The students that we video conferenced with were 5th graders and they had turns are explaining what was on the presentation. One thing that was really interesting is, in their area, there is a lava flow through where they live. They get lava updates daily to say where it has been and where it is going next. Some students in that class have had to move from their home to somewhere else because there had been pieces of lava out on their lawn. It is very dangerous.

One of the main reasons why we called is because the Hokulea two sided waka is sailing to Pt England shore on the 24th March. The Hokulea is from Hawaii and they are trying to prove to the world that using traditional ways to navigate. They have no GPS or modern technology, just the stars and the sea swells. The waka is coming in the Pt England Beach where all the students (2,500 Kids) from the schools in Manaiakalani cluster will come and welcome them in by a waiata, haka and presentation.

Explorers of the Sunrise

This is a presentation about an article that my reading group read. It shows my answers to the vocabulary questions and the article questions. 

Miss Peato's Birthday Surprise

We had just finished our morning Waiata and everyone expected Mr Wiseman to put his guitar away but he just kept on strumming. Miss Peato who was trying to announce the morning notices, looked very confused. Mr Wiseman just kept going and it was a different tune to the Waiata so we knew he wasn’t trying to see our normal song again. Miss Peato was very very confused along with the rest of us. Suddenly Mr Wiseman went behind Miss Peato and kicked the door to the green room.

Out came Miss Clark, Mrs Moala and Mrs Tele’a all singing, “Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday Miss Peato! Happy Birthday to you!” Miss Peato suddenly realized what was happening and a massive smile spread upon her face. All the teachers had laes and Mrs Tele’a gave one to Miss Peato while she blew out the candles on the cake Miss Clark was holding.

After Miss Peato blew out the candle, everyone clapped. Most of us didn’t even know that it was her birthday so it was a surprise to many people. Miss Peato carried on with her notices and we started the day. All the staff had some food for morning tea and the Yr 7 & 8 teachers ate the cake at lunchtime.

Writing Test: Trip to Tairua

Anniversary Weekend, my family didn’t really celebrate it, maybe one year we might have gone to the park but really, it was just another weekend in January. This year, we wanted to actually do something because my Mum had the weekend off work and it was the last weekend we had of holidays. Initially, we had planned to climb up Rangitoto Island, that was until my Mum got a message from our friends who live in a small town called Tairua.

My Mum and Dad had known these people for nearly 20 years. They used to live in Samoa together when my older sister and brother were born. My oldest brother was best friends with their oldest girl when they were babies but since then, they moved to a place called Brunei which is in another country and we only saw them briefly about five years ago.

So everyone agreed that we should go down and spend the weekend with our friends. (Even though we couldn’t really remember anything about them) We packed the car and headed down on Friday around about 3.30pm. In our eight seater car, I was in the middle seat in the middle row. I had pillows around my head, baskets of food in between my legs and just about everything else on my lap, I was SQUISHED!! It was like that for the whole two and a half hours that it took us to get from Auckland to Tairua.

As we entered into the small town, we saw a sign that said, “Welcome to Tairua!” as we drove past the school that one of our friends worked at. My stomach had so many butterflies flying around because I was so excited!! I had never been to Tairua but by the look of all the beaches, it looked FANTASTIC! We drew closer to their house and I saw the smoke rising from the burning hot barbecue that was cooking our yummy dinner.

We were welcomed by their whole family and to be honest, I didn’t recognize any of them! It had been so long and I couldn’t remember any of them and they couldn’t remember any of us either. At first it was a bit awkward because it felt like we were about to stay in some stranger’s house for two nights, but by dinner time, we were all talking like best friends. It was like some sort of click that we had because my two sisters agreed that we could tell our new/old friends anything and they would straight away know exactly what we were talking about.

That night after dinner, we decided to go and check out one of the beaches and leave the Mums and the youngest ones at home. The beach was very very long, it had a five entries and each were about 10 minute drive away from each other. We went to the first entry which was the right side of the beach and saw how beautiful the beach was. It had perfect waves, not too big and not too small and the sand was like flour.

After a bit of searching, I noticed that by the large cliff to the right of us, there were stairs. I asked their Dad, “Where do those stairs go to?” He replied with a smile, “It goes up the hill, do you want to go?” I nodded my head so we all head off up the stairs. At first, it was a nice little walk but it soon turned into, “Where do these stairs end!?” By the time we got to the top, it was getting dark but their Dad Chris said, “Let’s go this way because it is easier that way to get back to the car.” So off we went walking along this road that went around a mountain.

By the time we got to the car, it was pitch black and were using the very few street lights to navigate. But our night didn’t end there, we got home and played a game called Head’s Up! for another hour! We didn’t get to sleep till midnight and the parents stayed up till I don’t know when talking and talking and talking. I was so tired I drifted off to sleep in my sleeping bag nicely.

On Saturday, we went to a really cool place called Frog Rock. It was a little river which had a huge rock that people could jump off. We went there after the Saturday market and stayed there for 2 hours before heading to one of the beaches. The beach that we went to was called, “Sailors Grave” and it has enormous waves that could tip even my 6.2ft brother over. It was really fun but by the end, my hair was everywhere from all the waves pushing me over. That night, we had fun cricket game which was won by the boys and we played another round of Head’s Up but we did get to sleep before midnight.

Sunday was our last day at Tairua and we spent the morning jumping off the Tairua bridge. The water was really cold and my cut my foot on oyster shells while I was trying to swim back to shore. We had a nice lunch with barbecue leftovers and I discovered something. My Mum and Raewyn (Their Mum) actually went to school together and were best friends! So my mum and their mum have known each other for a lot longer than I thought.

After lunch, it was time to say goodbye to our new/old friends. It was really sad and I really wished that we could have stayed longer. I loved hanging out with them and checking out all the different beaches. I couldn’t believe how many swimming sites than they knew of in such a small town. I really enjoyed my time in Tairua and I can’t wait for the next time we go down.

The End

Diary Entries for Explores of the Sun

Day one: Imagine you are a crew member, leaving your shore for the first day of the voyage.  what you would have done that day and what you were looking forward to.

Day 1

Our last items of food and water are packed onto the waka and I am just about to start packing my supplies. I have already got the essentials, clothes for warm and cold conditions, first aid kit plus some food and water to add on to our community supplies.  I have a list of other things that I need but first things first, I need to find a bag. Ah there it is, ok flare, check! Fishing rods, check! Bible, check! Plates, check! Cutlery, check! Ok, looks like I will be out of here, sooner than I thought!

We just left Aotearoa and there were a lot of tears as we were saying goodbye and especially when we were sailing away. Well, we don’t really know when we will be coming back, because it may take us years to find Rapanui or it might take us days, who knows? But what we do know is that it is not going to be easy and being away from our family is going to make it even harder.

Even though I am quite nervous about the voyage, I am also very excited. Our whole plan is to follow the path of our Polynesian ancestors from long ago to travel on a waka using traditional navigating tools to get to Rapanui (Easter Island) It will be great to experience what my extraordinary ancestors accomplished long ago to find our beloved countries which we now call home. It will be a time to test our skills and knowledge of the ocean world.  

Day thirty:

You have been on the waka for 30 days now...what may you be feeling now?  

What are you now looking forward to?

Wow! This is 12th time I’ve been sick, the constant rocking and swaying of the waka is like riding on a endless roller coaster. The waves of the ocean have also been quite large the past few days which is making the waka slam against the waves. My stomach seems to be twisting and turning as much as the ocean is.

Other than the seasickness, our travels have been alright. Our head navigator has been tracking the islands well, mainly using the stars and the sea swells, although there was a really bad storm that occurred a few days ago.  The storm made it quite hard to navigate so we pulled the sails down to stop the waka from breaking. Until the storm finished, we all just tried to stay warm and dry, but it wasn’t that easy. The storm lasted a few hours before we could put the sails back up and continue our voyage.

Once the rain stopped, I did notice that the days were getting warmer and the sea spray wasn’t as cold. So we were able to dry all our wet clothes and materials that were wet and damp after the storm. We do expect to stop at an island called Tubuai in about 10 days to have some rest on land before we carry on with our journey to Rapanui.

Class 2 Maths Graphs Presentation

This is a presentation that is full of the graphs that I made with the information from Class 2 Maths Students. I hope you enjoy it and learn something.

My Holiday Highlights

My Highlights:

Going to Tairua

My Birthday

Boxing Day

My Writing about my birthday:

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to Ana, Happy Birthday to you!” My siblings all came into my room with a tray of bacon, eggs and hash browns. Even though I had already been up, I hopped back into bed when I smelt the bacon cooking. We had planned to go to Jump with my friends then have an Amazing Race along the waterfront from Mission Bay to Bastion Point. Everyone was coming at 1pm so I decided to tidy up my room a bit, even though it was my birthday.

1pm came and I was on the road waiting for my best friend Josephine and my cousins. My cousins came first followed shortly by Josephine. We went inside and watched tv, talked and waited till we could go to Jump. Since it was the middle of the holidays, me and Josephine had a lot to talk about. We talked for about an hour before we set out to Jump. It was about a ½ hour drive till we got to jump and when we got there, I was so excited, I couldn’t stop smiling. Josephine and I had never been to jump but my cousins, Levi and Jordan had so they knew what to expect.

We jumped for 1 hour and we spent most of the time playing dodgeball. Jordan and Levi were always the last in and after a while, we decided to try the sponge pit. First I swang on the rope then fell in, then I jumped in from the platform. After our hour finished, we all got slushies which was really  great because it was soooo HOT!!

We had a barbecue dinner and after dinner, my best friend Hope came!! I was sooooo excited because I didn’t think that she would come. I ran up to her and gave her a huge hug. Since Hope was a year 8 in 2014, she would go to another school so I would hardly see her anymore. I was so happy, I was still buzzing when we left for the Amazing Race.

Amazing Race was really cool and Levi and I won! It started at the Mission Bay fountain, then to the beach and after that we had to run along the waterfront towards the Yacht club. At each of the places there were challenges. I was pretty tired while we were running and to make it worse, we had to run all the way to Bastion Point! At Bastion Point, we had to do a puzzle, eat raw noodles out of a fizzy drink, stuff our mouths with marshmallows and say, “Fluffy Bunnies!” it has to be clear so our judge (My little sister) could hear it before we could roll down the hill to our pit stop. Levi and I were the first there so we got a packet of Party Mix.

After the Amazing Race we went home to watch a movie. The boys went home because the girls were sleeping over. We watched Step Up 5 but Hope fell asleep during the movie. After everyone else went to sleep, Josephine drew on Hope’s face. When Hope woke up in the morning she looked in the mirror and since Josephine was still asleep, Hope drew on her face. It was so funny because when Josephine woke up, she didn’t even know and she was just talking normally.

Soon they had to leave, I was sad because I didn’t know if I would ever see Hope again and I was sad because I had to wait another 2 weeks till school started and I had to wait till then to see Josephine. It was one of the best birthdays that I have had and I spent it with the best people. :-)

My New Blog Profile

Talofa Lava,

My name is Ana and I am a 12 year old student at Pt England School. My teacher is Mrs Tele’a and I am in Room 3. This year is my last year at PES and I have been selected as one of the eight Yr 8 prefects. My favorite subject at school is inquiry because I love researching about things that I didn't know about before.

I am the middle child with one older brother and sister and two younger sisters. In my spare time, I like hanging out at the beach and staying up late talking and laughing with friends and family. I also love listening to music and playing sports during the winter and summer seasons. My family and I attend Tamaki Community Church and have been since before I can remember. I hope you enjoy my blog and maybe learn something new. :-)

Term 1 Empathy Animation

This is my Empathy Animation from Term 1. I must have saved it in the wrong place so here it is. I hope you enjoy it:-)

Fiafia Night 2014

Senior hip hop fia fia from Team 5 PES on Vimeo.

Wednesday night was a great and special night……. It was the 2014 Fiafia! I was in the Senior Hip-hop group which was pretty cool, especially since most of my friends were in it as well. As soon as I entered the school gates, even before I could see anyone, I could smell the nice food and hear all of the loud laughter of happy kids. I kept walking with the senses getting stronger and stronger until I could see everything, it was packed! I ran to where my friends were started walking around all of the stalls not buying anything, but just looking.

Everyone had to stay outside till 6pm when the doors opened and everyone was able to go inside their changing rooms and get dressed and ready for the night. Most of the groups had cultural costumes which took a while to get into but our group just wore their normal clothes to dance in, so we had an hour to just chill before the big night. During that hour, we watched the beginning of the movie, Are We There Yet?

When we heard the call out saying that everyone had to go to the stage now, we turned off the movie, lined up and started walking down the hallway, out the Library and finally to the mat we were going to sit on. The Senior Hip-hop was sitting near the front infact, there was only one group in front of us and they were the junior Kapa Haka group. Our teachers were Miss King and Ms Paget, but the person who actually made up the dance was a Yr 8 student, Mele.

Our performance was after the Bollywood Salsa and before the junior Tongan girls. We were actually one of the first ones, we were 4th to go up on stage. When we walked up onto the stage everyone was black because the light was all on us not them. Even though, when we done there, it was loud and we could hear everyone cheering, when we were up there we could hear anyone, it was like it was just the music making noise. I think that we did well and had a good night.

I also had my two sister’s performing so that was pretty cool. My youngest sister was in the junior Samoan group and I think that they did really well and my younger sister was in the Pacific Contemporary group which was really cool, they all were in long red dresses and all the kinds of different pacific dances. My favourite two groups was the Senior Samoan group and the Yr 4-6 Hip-hop group. I liked them because they were different to all the others and exciting to watch.

This Fiafia was my last one because it is only every two years and I am a Yr 7 so the next one will be when I am at college, I will still come but I just won’t be performing. I really enjoyed this Fiafia and I think that everyone did really well!

Week 8 Question 2 - 34 x 16 & 544 x 12

This is a video showing how to solve questions. I hope you enjoy it and maybe learn something from it!

Week 8 Educreations Question 3.27 - 2.9

This is another short film showing how to solve a different question, 3.27 - 2.9. It is answered showing two different strategies. I hope you enjoy it and I get it right!

My Banning Cars from Paris Article

On the 17th March 2014 in Paris, France, a law was made banning cars with odd number plates on certain days and banning even cars on the other days. The government had a test run and it seemed to work so they made it an official law.

It was tested to try and stop air pollution in the city. Chemical PM10 caused all the smog in the air with dangerous levels. It was twice the recommended level of pollution, so the government knew that they had to do something. If cars with the wrong number plate drive on the wrong day, they will get fined a lot of money and probably won’t be able to drive the next day.

On 30th July 1979 in New Zealand, a similar scenario took place. The oil was made and came from the East and they thought that they weren’t making enough money by selling it. So they said to the West that they were going to have to pay the amount of money for more oil for less. The West didn’t have enough money to pay more so they started to have carless days, when no one could drive otherwise they would get fined. That went on till 1980 so for a whole year, they had days when everyone went carless.

That is sort of similar to the law in Paris, with the difference being, in New Zealand, there was only one day a week to choose to be car-less, but in France, it is going to be every second day they cannot drive their cars. I think that the new law is good and bad. It’s great that the air pollution is going down and there are less cars around, but if someone needed to get to the hospital or there was an emergency and they only had an even numbered car on a odd number day, they would get fined and wouldn’t be able to get there. Let’s hope it turns out well so that Paris can be a better, safer place for everyone for years to come.

Week 7 Maths Problem DLO

This is a short film showing how solve a maths problem from our weekly problems. I hope you enjoy it!

Show Not Tell Paragraphs

Activity 1 -
Try and writing a paragraph about the person's feelings.

Emily was angry -

“Laura, can I please, please, please come with you to the shops!” Shouted Emily. “No, Emily I have already told no” Replied Laura, she was starting to get annoying with her younger sister. With that, Emily ran out of the room, slammed the door on her way and shouted at her sister, “You are so mean!” She went into her room, with a bright red face. Emily stomped & clenched her fists and started throwing things at her bed and kicking it, muttering things under her breath. Laura went to her sister’s door, knocked and said, “Emily are you okay, please come out now.” Emily was still very angry so she shouted, “What do you think!” Laura was sad for her sister but that didn’t change.

Keri was nervous

Keri slowly walked into the netball court shaking. She saw the rest of the girls stretching and getting ready to trial. After she wrote her name down, she tried to act casual and do her best but she had goose bumps everywhere and she was really nervous, and had goosebumps all over her body.

Activity 2 -

Redo the Paragraph above (the bold one) with show not tell

Mary was excited because her older sister Jan was going to take her shopping at the mall to get a new dress.  Jan told Mary they would leave in a few minutes but Mary said she couldn't find her shoes.  Jan was getting impatient and Mary was worried that she would leave without her.

Mary was so excited she was jumping up and down in the lounge, “Come on Mary, we have got to go the mall closes soon!” Mary stopped jumping and went over to get her shoes, but she couldn’t find them. “Come on Mary!!” Shouted Jan, she was beeped the horn in the car and Mary could tell that she was getting impatient.  Mary was now running around the house looking, she was worried now.

It was the last minute of the finals match of the basketball competition. Tama was shooting 3 penalty shots but misses and his team loses. He feels like he has let the whole team down. When one of his team jokes about it sarcastically Tama over-reacts and loses it.

Everyone was cheering, “GO TAMA, YOU CAN DO IT!” He was sure to get it in, he shoots, he misses, he shoots again, misses! Last shot, he misses again! He was so disappointed in himself for letting the team down. He goes into the changing rooms afterwards and says sorry lots, “Yeah well, if Tama hadn’t gone for those penalty shots, we would have won the finals and been the Basketball Champion!” said one of the teammates sarcastically. Tama took it the wrong way and stormed out running away.

Book Review

Book Title: Little Pilgrims Progress	Author: Helen L Taylor
Reviewer: Ana Class 4	Grand total of books read this year: 2
Book Genre: Fiction Science fiction Drama Romance Mystery Horror Comedy Series Fantasy Other Adventure Non-Fiction Biographies/Autobiographies Historical Instructional Other (state)	Insert photo of book cover here:
Reading Level: Easy Medium Advanced	Rating: (Leave how many stars you rate it.) ✩ ✩✩✩✩✩
Review: It is about a boy named Christian and he is interested in a book that some visitors have given him. In their town, lots of visitors come and try to get all the children to go with them to the great, King's City where all things are good and the King is there and the King loves everyone. Christian is the only boy in his town who wants to go and even his Dad doesn't believe him so he goes on his own, also hoping to find his Mum who went away when he was young. It is a great book about a boy going through lots of things, but he never gives up because the King helps him through everything.