Farewell 2012

My first year at Tawa Intermediate has been amazing. We have done so many cool things this year. At the start of the year we did animating for room 15's assembly. In term one we had to dress up in pink for athletics. I didn't get in to anything this year. For cross-country we had to train every day for about a month, it was really annoying. Over all it was a great year.

My highlights for this year was Camp, Sustainability Movies and Mosaics. Camp was awesome because there were a lot of opportunities to do amazing things. Making the sustainability movie was the best because I love making movies and here was my chance to shine. My Movie got into a competition and it also got into the top 40. The Mosaics were really fun because we got to smash tiles, place them, glue them and then grout them together.

This year I had a couple of low lights this year was speeches and cross-country. The reason why speeches is one of my low lights is because I don't like speaking in public. Cross-country is one my my low lights because I don't like running and we also had to train all the time.

This year has gone really fast but every second seemed like a minute. I can't wait for next year but also don't want this year to end. Next year I want to be a Student Council and I want to be in Focus Photography Club because I like taking photos of things that look cool. Next year is a new year and I can't wait!

Take Off...

"Beep, beep," that was my alarm, waking me up. I was going to Australia! It was three in the morning and  I was excited. I had never left the North Island until that morning. This was it.

We got up and found out suitcases. While my dad was putting them in the car, my sisters and I were getting dressed. We had to wear something warm but underneath we had to have a T-shirt and shorts, for when we get hot. My mum, my dad, Josy, Daisy and myself, jumped into the car and we were off. In the car, we had pillows to lean on, so we could go to sleep on the way to the airport. Every time we passed a tree, Daisy, my little sister, would say goodbye to the tree. I was asleep when my mum told us that we were here.

Dad parked the car and we all hoped out. I got my suitcase and we all went to the van. We had to get in a van to get to the airport. The van had just left when we got there, so we had to wait in the office. It was nice and warm in the office and it had a TV. The TV wasn't that good because the TV was fuzzy. About ten minutes later the van arrived. Our suitcases went in the back and we all hopped in. We were a bit squashed because there was a big, baby car seat right in the middle and no one was sitting in it.

We got to the airport and checked in. It was about four in the morning and we were hungry so mum went to go and get us some breakfast. We had two muffins and three scones. We had to go though security next.

We walked down a corridor and turned left. We had to empty pockets and walk though a doorway. A security woman check our passports let us though. We had to walk though another corridor and turn left and then right. I looked out and saw a whole lot of seats. About half an hour went by. Then we had to show our passports and tickets again. The last corridor we walked though was the one leading up to the plane. We had to show our tickets one last time before hopping on the plane. We sat in our seats and my mum said to me, "This is it."

Sea World

On the second day of our trip, we went to Sea World.We met up with my mum's friend and my mum's sister's friend. First, we went to a sea lion show. The sea lions show was a story with a couple of sea lions. The story was about a greedy lady, who sells fish. But she is taking all the fish so a detective, a policeman and a sea lion tries to stop her. It was quite funny and the sea lion was really good.

Next, we went to the dolphin the show. This show wasn't a story, it was one where they talked about saving the dolphins. While the rescuers were talking, the dolphins were doing jumps and flips. Near the end of the show, the two trainers were standing on two dolphins each. Then the dolphins went underwater, but the trainers didn't, then they jumped up are they all went flying. It was hard to take photos because my camera was a bit slow but here is the best one.

After the dolphins did they final flips, we went to see some Polar Bears. There was this cute Polar Bear just sitting there eating a piece of meat. After a while he decided to go for a swim. He kept on doing the same thing over and over again. He would sit at the surface then dive under and pop up at the other end. To get to the start, he would fall on it's back and swim back. When he popped up, he would get his big, white paws and wipe his eyes. It was cute because he wasn't trained to do that. He was almost human.

My cousin, Josh, wanted to look at the sharks. We walked along a path and ended up underwater. We were in this room that had a big glass window. We could see all the different sharks and fish. It was amazing that the fish were swimming with the sharks and survived. There were about ten medium sized sharks and one big shark. Just as we were leaving, the big shark came up to the window and kept banging it's head on the window. It did that until a man, who was underwater, pushed his nose away.

When we were walking back to the rides, we passed a water tank, that a lot of people were putting their hands into. I thought that the people were patting dolphins but they we patting sting-rays. The tank was split into two parts. The smaller part had the little sting-rays and it had a sign that said, "Don't touch the head of the tail, only the sides". In the deeper end, the were huge sting-rays that were harder to touch because they kept on turning different directions. I stuck my hand in because I wanted to come home and tell everyone that I touched I sting-ray. When a sting-ray came by I reached out but a soon a I touched it, I pull it straight out. I did that because it was so slimy that it shocked me.

There were only two rides there, there was the Sea Viper and the Jet Rescue. I didn't go on the Sea Viper because it was closed when I got there. I went on the Jet Rescue instead. The Jet Rescue was I ride when you on jet skies and you go really fast. When it started I shut my eyes but after the first turn I open them.When we turn, it looked like we were vertical. As soon as you start it takes a picture of you, it was closing time so it didn't take any photos.
I wish we could go back again.

Our Hotel

Yesterday, I came back from Australia. We stayed in a hotel, in Surfers Paradise. The hotel is called The Equinox Sun Resort, it's right across the road from the beach and has a swimming pool. The Equinox is not a tall hotel because it is only thirteen floors high, most hotels on the Gold Coast are thirty floors high. We were on the twelfth floor so we had a great view of the beach, the pool and the tennis courts. 



  My cousins came to Australia too but we stayed for eight nights and they only stayed for four nights.We went to the pool twice a day because the temperature was up to 30ºC. On the second to last day, it was raining a lot. So dad suggested that we all get into our togs and go down to the spa. When we got down there the rain stopped and so we just played in the pool.

 






At night the pool lights turn on because the pool closes at 9:30 and it is dark then. The lights are blue and they make shadows on the pool walls, when you swim at night. At night, when you look out at the city, there are a lot of bright lights. I like looking out at the city when the sun is setting. All the street lights  and building lights makes Surfers Paradise look busy. Standing on the balcony at night made me feel like I was in a movie. But I did miss New Zealand.

Water Beds

A couple of days ago, I was wondering what a water bed is. Is it a bed that goes underwater? Is it a type of bed that a fish sleeps in? I found out that a water bed is a mattress filled with water.
My mum showed me a funny video about water beds. In Germany there is a tv show that pulls pranks on people. One of their pranks was in a bed shop and they did...

Click here to find out.

Outlook for Someday Reflections

Finally it is done, in the post up to Auckland.  In room 13, Ms T showed us a poster about a movie competition called The Outlook for Someday. The Outlook for Someday competition is a movie competition for young New Zealanders (under 24), to make a short movie about sustainability. So I went into a group with Renee, Be, Arielle and Lily. We did ours on Water Pollution. We did a news report, Be was the news reporter. She crossed over to Renee, Renee was a fish and she interviewed Arielle and Lily and they were fish too. When Renee finished, Be said that there was another report by herself and Lily(Lily was a reporter). Be said that was the end of the report. Here is our movie.

Something that I learnt from this project that I did not know before was…
* Information: When we were researching, Be found a website that tells you all about Pollution. We clicked on Water Pollution and there was a list of how long it takes for things to degrade. I didn't know that glass takes so long to degrade, that no one knows how long it takes.
* Process: When I was editing our movie, I needed to green screen so Ms T showed me how to green screen. So I learnt how to green screen. I showed a lot of people how to green screen after that.

The part of this project that was most challenging for me was…
The most challenging part of making the movie was finding the right colours for our fish because we had to green screen them. At the start we painted them yellow but then we found out that yellow is too close to green and so we had see threw fish.

The part of this project I found most rewarding was…
The most rewarding part was when Ms T put all the forms and the DVD of our movie in an envelop because then I knew it was all done, all the hard work had paid off.

The thing I need to improve on the most is…
I need to improve on thinking about what might happen when I do something, like when I painted the fish yellow and I didn't think about the green screen.

The thing I found that I am really good at is…
I think I'm good at editing movies because I helped two other groups edit their movies.

If I had to do another Outlook for Someday movie, the things I would do differently are:
Next time I will take time to make the fish better because they didn't fit their heads that well. You
could see the gaps between their heads and the fish heads.
I would also fix the sounds because they go loud and soft a bit.
I would make the editing a bit smoother. When the scenes change it is a bit jumpy.

Getting Ready for Aussie

In the holidays, my Family and I are going to Australia for a holiday. At the end of the last day of term, we are going to start getting ready. We will organise what suitcases we are going to take. The warmest it is here is the coldest it there so I will have to buy some clothes. I have been saving up some money but one New Zealand dollar is eighty cents Australian, hopefully things are cheaper in Australia. My cousins are coming too. They live in Auckland and I don't get to see them that much. I will take lots of pictures over there so I can put them on my blog.

Ki O Rahi

Room 13 have been learning a new game. It's called Ki O Rahi. Ki O Rahi is a game that was played since World War 1. Ki O Rahi was created as a peaceful way of sorting out arguments. When Ki O Rahi had been banned, rugby was introduce. During World War 2, Ki O Rahi was played again. The Maori showed other countries how to play, like Italy and France. In 2005 it was introduced to over 31000 schools in America.The first international matches were held between New Zealand and France in 2010.

Tom from Wellington City Council, taught us how to play Ki O Rahi. For Ki O Rahi, you play on a circle field, so someone mowed a big circle with little circles inside, on our field. This is what the field looks like:

The Kioma start with the ball. Someone from the Kioma team, stands in the Te Marama and throws the ball to another Kioma player, in the Pawero. The people in the Pawero throw it out to a player in the Te Ao zone. The Kioma team are trying to hit as many Pou as the can. One touch of the Pou equals one point but they can't get the points until they score a try. To score a try they need to run through the Te Roto zone and put the ball in the Te Kahaarait line. Once a try is scored, the ball starts back in the Te Marama zone and the Kioma try and get another try.
The Taniwha team, try and get the ball off the Kioma. Once they have the ball, they run up to the Te Kahaarait line and throw the ball at the Tupu. The two Kioma people in the Pawero try and stop the ball from hitting the Tupu. Once the Taniwha hit the Tupu, they try and get the ball again, and try and hit the Tupu again and again. The Te Ara zone is a zone that no one can walk on, the only time someone can walk on it, is when someone in the Te Ao zone wants to swap with someone in the Pawero.
 In this video that I made, the Green team are the Taniwha and the yellow team are the Kioma. It is a video of some of Room 13 playing and it has some voice overs of me explaining what it the aim of the game is. You should listen because it has good background music. If you Click Here it will take you to a website that has the Ki O Rahi legend and a Glossary. Here is the video about playing Ki O Rahi:

Do you like One Direction

For Statistics, in Room 13, I had to do a Tally Chart. The Question was:

Do You Like One Direction?

Yes: 11 People like One Direction.
No: 16 People don't like One Direction.

I thought more people would like One Direction because One Direction are really famous. I don't like One Direction but it is ok because everyone has their own opinion. Do you like One Direction? Please write your answer in the comment box.

Animation

At school, I make a lot of Animations, one of them is on Room 13's blog. I showed it to my younger sister(Josy) and she was inspired. At home we made an Animation of a cake getting eaten. Here it is:

 

Made By:

Josy(my younger sister)

Me(Ruby) 

and my Tiger Cake

Tiger Cake

Three Blobs

My little sister(Daisy) and my dad were watching TV and they saw a Cooking Show. On the Cooking Show, the person was making Tiger Cake. A Tiger Cake is a cake that has stripes on the inside. You need to make a normal cake but when it is already to cook, you need to split it in half. With one half you need to make it chocolate and the other half still stays the same. You put one mixture into a piping bag and put the other into another piping bag. Put a blob of one mixture in the middle of a cake tin. Grab the other piping bag and put a blob on top of the other blob. Keep doing the same until you run out of mixture. Once you put a blob on top of another it pushes the mixture out, like this:

Eighteen Blobs

Inside

After half an hour the cake was ready. It was golden with brown circles. We cut into it and it was uneven. It was brown with a little bit of yellow stripes. So if it is uneven make sure it is more yellow the brown. Here is the finished cake:

The Finished Thing

Dodge-ball Semi Finals and finals

We stood up, got ready and the whistle blew. Room 13 were playing dodge-ball against room 14. Dodge-balls were flying everywhere and I got out. After a while there was only Zac left and he was playing against about half of room 14. So you can guess who won but that is O.K because that means we are thrid equal with room fifteen. Room 15 were playing against room 10 and room 10 won. So that means room 14 and room 10 were fighting for first. Nearly the whole school were watching and cheering. Room 13 and room 15 were cheering "POUAKAI...POUAKAI!" At the end I saw a dodge-ball fly from room 14's side of the room and it hit the last player from room 10. Room 14 had won! Well done room 14. Maybe next year we will come first.

My Top 10 Glee Songs

I like glee and I like there music. Here are my top 10 favorite songs:
10:The Boy is Mine
9: We are Young
8: Its Not Right But Its O.K 
7: What Doesn't Kill Makes You Stronger
6: Rumor Has It / Someone Like You
5: Smooth Criminal
4: Shake It Out
3: Dinosaur
2: Loser Like Me
1: Hit Me With Best / One Way or Another
 If you click on the names it will take you to You Tube. I hope you like the songs like I do.

Olympic Medals

The London Olympics Sign

London Olympics

The Olympic Rings

Have you ever wondered about how many Olympic Medals all the countries have gotten these games? I went on the London Olympic website and found a chart that tells you what the tally is. Click Here to see the website. Maybe we will be the country with the most medals. Have a look at these pictures I found.

My Pet Lion

adopt your own virtual pet!

Win, Win, Win

On Friday the 29th of July, Room 13 had another game of dodge-ball against Room 3. We lined up, got ready, bent down, and then... the whistle blew. We ran! Smash, smash, dodge-balls flew everywhere! I dodged, jumped, ducked and ran to get away from the dodge-balls. In the end we won! The players the were still in had to line-up so the Sports Committee could count how many people were left. Yea, yea, yea we WON!!

 On Thursday the 2nd of August, Room 13 played a game of dodge against room 8.  It was the best game we have had in the dodge-ball inter-class competition.  About half way through, I got out.  Like the last two games... We Won!! We did our three cheers, shook hands, walked back to class and celebrated! We made to the quarter finals! I can't wait until we play another game.

More Fairy Doors

The other day, my family went for a walk to find more Fairy Doors. We went behind the boat sheds, across a small field and over a bridge. On the bridge there is another Fairy Door. It's a brown door with a yellow frame and it has a brown square in the middle. Here is the photo:

The next one we found was by a park. It is on the back of a fence. It is light blue and has a cute little handle. It also has a thing that looks like a mouth.The photo:

When we got home my dad got some old firewood from under the house. With the wood he made a little fairy door for my youngest sister, Daisy. I took a picture of it with a Pukeko beside it:

The Fairy Door Man has a website click here to see it.

Gold!!!

If you have been watching the Olympics you might know that we just got our first gold medal. We got it in rowing.It was amazing, at the start we were coming sixth and it looked like we weren't even get bronze. Then a bit later we were going for bronze. We pasted Croatia and Italy and we were going for gold! Yay we won! Gold gold gold! I can't wait till we get another gold.

First Day of School

I walked down to the car and hoped in. My mum tells me to take my bag off my back. We go down a hill, up a hill and down another hill. When we get there, I see two big white buildings with red roofs. I t was my first day of school. We walked up to my classroom, I reached out to open the door, I opened it, looked inside and.... black. I woke up, it was a dream.


Today is my first day of school and I knew it wasn't a dream. I ate my breakfast, got dressed and ran to the car. When we got to school there were kids playing outside and I asked my dad if I could join them. He said " After we meet your teacher." My teacher's name is Mrs Jones and she is really nice.


Arter school, my mum asked me what did I do at school today. I told her that we sang the alphabet and wrote our names on a big piece of paper, to put on our books. I can't wait to go to school tomorrow because I'm a big girl now.

Small to Big

Do you want to know about the stuff we can't see or how big things really are? My mum showed me this awesome website that teaches you about a lot of stuff that you might not know about.Click Here to see the website.

P.O.U.A.K.A.I

At Tawa Intermediate we have Inter-Class Competitions. If you don't know what and Inter-Class Competition is, it's when two classes play a game and the the class that wins gets some points and at the end of the Competition the class with the most points wins. For the Inter-Class Competition, the we are play at the moment is Dodge-Ball. I will tell you about rooms 13,14 and 15's (Pouakai Syndicate) games. Yesterday room 15 played their first game against room 16 and room 15 won. I wasn't there to watch their game but I've been told that when they won room 15 only had four players out.
 Today rooms 13 and 14 played their Dodge-Ball game. Room 14 played against room 7. I watched their game because my class (room 13) were waiting to play our game. Half way though room 14's game the people watching started a chant. It was "Go Room 14 Go" room 14 won and after a while it was our turn.
 We lined up, bent down and when the whistle blew we...RAN! I was about the seventh person to get out. We played against room 11 and won. We had 14 players still in, when we won. The whole Pouakai Syndicate won but we still have a few more games ahead. BRING IT ON!

Fairy Door Hunt

 There is this man that lives in Titahi-Bay and he make cute little Fairy Doors. He put the Fairy Doors all around Titahi-Bay so people can look at the or hunt for them. So my family and I went on a Fairy Door Hunt. Some of the Fairy Doors are hidden and some a really easy to see. I took a photo of all the Fairy Doors we could find, to show you.
 The first one we found was by the hairdressers by the Whitehouse Rd Shops. I think it was the first one he made because the Fairy Door is quite plain. Here is a photo:





The second Fairy Door we found was at Porirua Little Theatre. This one was a bit more colourful and had a window and a doorstep. I thought it was quite cute. Here is a photo of it:











At a Early Childhood Center called Browyns Place, was the next door. The Fairy Door is orange with a butterfly. Here is the photo:

 We went for a little drive to find the next one. It is on Whitireia and is on one of the posts at the look out. The Door is just plain orange but it still looks cute. The photo of it:








Down the road a bit, from the last one, there is another one. There is a cattle stop and there is a little bridge that people can use to climb over the cattle stop. By the bridge is the next Fairy Door but you can't see it from the road because it is hidden under some long bits of grass. The photo of it:





On Shelly-Bay Beach there are two more but we could only find one. The one we found was under a the dirt by a big rock. It's a blue circle. My mum calls is the Hobbit Door. A cute photo:

Back at Titahi-Bay Beach, there are two but one has been stolen so I couldn't take a photo of it. The one we found is at the north end of the beach and is and a post by an old cafe. The cafe was called Aunt Daisy's but it's close down now. Here is the last photo:




There is a website about the Fairy Doors click here to see the website. Maybe I could save up and buy a little Fairy Door to go in my room.

My Goal....

I decided that I'm not going to save up to buy a laptop. I'm going to save up to buy stuff in Aussie. Hopefully I can buy a mini koala or mini kangaroo. Maybe I could buy a laptop next year.

Dora the Explorer

When you were little, you might of watched Dora the Explore. Well my mum showed me this really funny viedo on You Tube.Click Here to see the video.

My Matariki Panel

If you wake up before dawn at the end of May or the start of June, you might see the Matariki stars. The Māori celebrate Matariki because it is the start of the Māori New Year. For Matariki Room 13 have been making Matariki Panels.
Most of Room 13 students got a piece of wood each that we had to divide into three parts. Each part has a different pattern and each pattern represents a different thing. The top pattern is about ‘New Growth’, the middle is about ‘You and your Family’. I like the last pattern because it is about ‘Matariki’.
 For ‘New Growth’ I made a flower out of ovals and koru. I made a flower because to me it is new life, new growth. The ovals are purple and the koru are black like the background.
In my family there are five people so I drew another flower, but this one has five petals. I painted the petals, light blue, dark blue, light purple, dark purple, and light green. I choose these colours because they are my favorite colours.
For ‘Matariki’ I did the seven stars. I painted my stars white. After the white had dried Ms T suggested that I put a black spiral on top of each star, as she thought it would look unique.
 After the paint had dried we touched up our panels so they looked nice. Some of my lines were wonky, but I fixed that. On my middle flower one of the petals looks like is floating and I couldn’t fix that, but it looks good anyway.
 On the night of the Matariki concert my Matariki panel was up on stage as a decoration. Now they are going all around the school, then they will be given back to us and we can take our Matariki panels home.

Shepherds Pie

For Cooking Spec Homework, we have to cook something and then it will get tested by Mr Skipworth, our cooking teacher. I will be cooking Shepherds Pie becuse it is a nice Pie that is healthy and it is easy to make. Brittany is my cooking partner and  is helping me make Shepherds Pie on Tuesday and I will be helping her make MudCake on Friday. Shepherds Pie has mince with veges on the bottom with potatoes, cornflakes and cheese on top. If you make it for cheese lovers you put mince, cheese, potatoes, cheese, cornflakes and then cheese on top.

Pouakai's Awesome Assembly

Today at 2:00pm everyone from Tawa Intermediate squshed into the school hall for Pouakai's Assembly. My class was in charge of the Assembly and our theme was T.I.S News. Be and Jorge were the hosts and they were really funny. I was in it but it wasn't a big part. I also did the editing for one of the short movies. I can't wait till we get to be in charge of another Assembly.

Gymnastics

Every Tuesday, after school, I go to gymnastics. The place where I go is called Big Air Gym. It has two tramps, two tumble tracks, two sets of bars, four ropes, five beams and a huge floor. I do badge testing, it is where you have to do a thing on the floor and then you'll get a bage and then it keeps going up and up and it get harder and harder. I'm on badge nine and I have to do a flip on the floor, a handstand on a high beam and jump from bar to bar. It will get even harder when I get to badge ten. I can't wait till I get badge ten.

Learning Afrikaans

In room 13 we have two girls from South Africa. Their names are Callista and Rochelle. This term they have been teaching room 13 how to speaks Afrikaans. The first few weeks we have been learning how to count and the basic greetings. I know how to count to 20, and how to say 'yes, no, thank-you, good, bad and please'. Hopefully we will learn how to say 'Welcome to my Blog'. I wonder what we will learn next term.

Personification

In room 13, we have been learning about personification so we can use it in our writing. Personification is when an object is doing something that a person can do. It is like "the trees danced in the wind" because a tree can't dance but a person can but you can imagine the trees dancing. Ms Tito gave us a piece of paper that had sentences on it that we had to turn into a personification. Here are some of the sentences:

The door opened.
The arrow moved across the page.
The leaf fell from the tree.

Here is what I turned them into:

The door slid open.
The arrow jumped across the page.
The leaf dived from the tree.

How I Broke My Thumb

At the start of 2011 I broke my thumb. I was up in Auckland at my grandma's house. My two little sisters and I were walking my grandma's neighbour's dogs, there were two dogs one called Cookie and one called Rollie. My youngest sister was walking Cookie but he was walking a bit to fast for her so she went to pass him to me but I didn't know see was going to pass him to me so she let go and her ran away. I ran after Cookie and dived for his lead and missed I jumped back up and rn again I went for another dive and got it. My thumb was sore so I went back up to the house to get some ice. A bit later my thumb was really sore so mum took me to the doctors to get a X-ray. My thumb was broken.

When I Grow Up

We all have dreams about what we want to be when we grow up. Some people want to be a teacher, a doctor or a celebrity but when I grow up I want to be a movie director. When Ms T showed me how to turn on a video camera and show me how to film, I knew I wanted to be in the filming business. About a mounth ago I decided that I wanted to be a movie director. To help me make this goal come true I have a little cartoon drawing of me sitting on a chair behind a camera. The drawing is hanging above my bed so I can see it every night. If you want your dream to come true you should draw a little drawing and hang it above your bed.

My Holiday

At the end of term three I will be going to Aussie! I can't wait because I have never been over seas before, I haven't even been to the South Island. My family will be going to most of the Theme Parks and I will take alot of photos and post them on my blog. I hope October comes quickly. Aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi!!!

Adrenaline Forest

A while ago I went to Adrenaline Forest. It is a place where you go and climb and swing and do cool stuff up in the trees. Don't worry it is safe because you have to where a harness and safety ropes. It costs $15 for  children (between 1.3m & 1.45m) ,$25 for Children (over 1.45m) and $38 for Adults. Here are some pics...

The 40hour Famine

On Friday at 8:00 most people started the 40hour Famine. I did the 40hour Famine but I started at 8:30 because I wanted to watch glee and finishes at 8:30. That means a finished the 40hour Famine at 12:30 and not 12:00. I went without Electronics and I nearly gave up but I didn't. I think my family was teasing me by watching TV all the time. I was going to do no eating but my mum said she doesn't want me to be tired, gurmpy AND hungry. Thank-you to my sponsors. I have about $140!!!

Ruby