We are the champions...

On Saturday I had my hockey final with my team Te Kiri Juniors. We were facing St. Josephs Stratford in the final and hoping to win. We had already beaten them twice this season but it all came down to this. I play left wing. In the first 5 minutes we scored and that was all the goals there was. Luckily we had amazing defence that stopped them from equalising. Our team own the game 1-0 and we were really proud how we had performed this season. I was very happy to play for that team as it was my last time playing in the primary grade. Next year I will play for Stratford. Here is the photo of our team with our trophies:

Left to right

Back row: Josh Trowbridge, Sol Brosnan, Liam Kidd (goalie), Luke Hiene, Lara Deans.
Middle Row: Issac Hancock, Jayden Forsyth, Richie Hughson- How, Jorja Symes(My sister, Me, Ciara, Renee Elliot.
Front: Kobie Hey, Tom.

Holes: Story summary

Recently I have been reading the book Holes by Louis Sachar. It is a great book that is very interesting. Here is a blurb of the story:

Stanley Yelnats isn't too surprised to find himself at Camp Green Lake, digging holes in the dried up lake bed, day after scorching day. After all, his family has a history of bad luck. 

The boys at Camp Green Lake must dig one hole each day, five feet deep and five feet across. But what are they digging for? Why did Green Lake dry up? And what do onions and lizards have to do with it all? The answers lie in Stanley's own past...

I highly recommend this book it is very  cool. It is probably best suited for older kids. I hope you get to read it: 

Florentine Slice

Here is the recipe I made with my friend (Lexi):

Ingredients
200g dark chocolate, chopped
2 cups cornflakes
1/2 cup sultanas, roasted unsalted peanuts, glace cherries
1/4 cup currants
1Tbsp chopped mixed peel
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a 18x28cm shallow tin with foil then spray a non stick spray over the foil.
2. Put the chocolate in a bowl over boiling water and melt, spread evenly over lined tin and refrigerate for 15 minutes or until set.
3. Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl until all ingredients are well mixed with the condensed milk. pour on top of the set chocolate and bake for 12 minutes or until lightly golden.
4. cool, then refrigerate for 15 minutes to set the chocolate before cutting into 24 squares.

Food Technology

As most of you know we have a program called DPE (Design, Production and Education) at my school and this year food tech was introduced. The teacher Mrs Kinaston teachs us some cool recipes for us to make. They are delicious! Here is a video that Mr Bloor made of us cooking some amazing food:

Elsie Locke Writing Competition

Every year there is an Elsie Locke writing competition for year 7 and 8's all around New Zealand. Thousand enter every year. This year the topic was to write a narrative about people and protest and taking a stand on something. Here is my entry:

Droplets of rain began to fall onto my etiolated cheeks. I sat shivering as the frigid cold air sunk into my skin. The only warmth I possessed was my father's strong arms cradling me tightly.The polished grey concrete hardly supported my aching back, while the thin cotton blanket flew off our bare legs with a powerful gust of wind. A faint fluorescent street light glowed above us. Life has lost its meaning. Salty tears met the sides of my lips as I gazed at the Sky tower in the distance of central Auckland and at the millions of lights scattered underneath it.

A glimmer of anger welled up inside of me as I saw people walk past without a hint of interest in us. They were probably going home. Home.“Andrew” Dad whispered to me silently “I got a job today. It isn't much but it is enough. I can't look after you in the day anymore so I need someone else to look after you. I've enrolled you at school”.

The thick iron gates closed behind me as I walked across the silent courtyard. On the corner of my eye I saw a maroon station wagon drive past just as I entered.I knew my best clothes hardly passed these people's standards. They are all better than me. It will be an achievement if I can survive the first day. As I walked into Room 4 for the first time, 32 prying eyes peered at me, taking in my ripped clothes and scarred face with one judgmental gaze. They all quickly looked away.

The day dragged on slowly, each minute getting slower than the next. My interest had long gone. As the bell went for the end of the day, My teacher Mrs. Mathews caught me just as I was exiting out the door.“ Andrew, you haven't been listening to a word I have said all day. Is everything alright?” I nodded slowly and kept on walking. I scuffed my feet along the pavement, as the rocks crushed loudly underfoot. Cars sped past quickly and old smiling faces met the kids in my class. No one was waiting for me.

Turning a corner onto an unfamiliar street, I heard a maroon station wagon slowing down just behind me and then immediately speeding up again. I've seen that car before. That was weird. I quickly forgot about it and brought my thoughts back to spending another night on unforgiving concrete.

The school looked even more dreary than I remembered the day before as I wandered into my empty classroom. I heard light footsteps behind me just as I was sitting at my desk. The fan at the back of the room sent a cool breeze up my back. Someone approached me as some petite, bony fingers touched my shoulder soothingly. “Andrew, I know something’s wrong. I’ve seen you walk along the street but never going into a house. It is fine if you don’t want to tell me but it might help” My teachers familiar voice was a smooth as silk. I told her everything. “I only have my dad as family. The people with enough money can buy a house. We can’t.” Mrs Mathews looked at me gravely. Here pale brown eyes were filled with sympathy. “What if you could have a house?”

I ran towards the crimson sun as it fell behind the peak of Mt Eden. It reminded me of tomorrow. Tomorrow where I might have a home. A life. Life hasn’t lost its meaning.

Wacky Wig Wednesday

On Wednesday the 22nd of June our Student Council held Wacky Wig Wednesday to support the NZ kids cancer foundation. Kids at Auroa School got dressed up in either a wacky wig or styled their hair wacky. It was a great day and a lot of fun. Mr. Bloor has made another amazing video of the action:

Lake Rotakare Ridge walk

On the Queens Birthday weekend, my Dad, my sister Jorja and I went to Lake Rotakare Reserve. There are 2 treks to choose from and we did the ridge walk. The ridge walk is a big curcuit along the fence line of the reserve and you go very high over the lake level and you go to the highest point of the reserve. It was very exhausting but a lot of fun. We climbed lots of stairs and went along a lot of tracks and saw and heard some cool birds and insects. A stick insect even jumped on my dads leg! Overall it was a great walk and there was some amazing views!

Technological Inventions over the past 100 years

Technology has given us lots of things that we use for our everyday lives. People have invented lots of amazing technological creations such as the phone and the computer. A lot of can't live without them. Here is a presentation I made of the technological inventions that has been created over the past 100 years:

My New Blog!!!

I have made a new blog! This year I have made a passion blog. A passion blog is a blog where you focus on one subject and only post bout the subject. I have chosen to do my passion blog on Writing. I will be posting some of my stories and how to write different genres of writing. I have named it Madaline's Writing space! I will still be posting on this blog hopefully 2 times week. Here is the link to it if you would like to check it out!
My New blog!!!!!

Anzac Day

Today is the day New Zealand and Australia remember the men and woman who had fallen in World War 1. ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corps. So many people died in the war the families of those who died never saw their loved ones again, it must of been horrible. Last year I attended my first dawn service and it put it into perspective for me how serious and unfortunate those people who fought really were. It made me respect all of them for they sacrificed their lives to save the rest of us and gave the next generation a chance to live a normal life without war and destruction.   In New Zealand all over the country we hold dawn services and memorials to remember them. There are many cenotaphs over the country where we lay wreaths and play the last post which is a song that was originally played on a Bugel in the war. There are also a lot of World War 2 veterans that attend the memorials as they are the last veterans of the 2 world wars . Lest we forget.

ANZAC Biscuits

With Anzac day next Monday I thought it would be fittng to share the classic Anzac Biscuit recipe. It is a easy,simple recipe that I love. We also made them at school not long ago and I captured a time lapse of them cooking. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Edmonds Standard Grade Flour

1/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup coconut

3/4 cup rolled oats

50g butter

1 tablespoon golden syrup

1/2 teaspoon Edmonds Baking Soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Mix together flour, sugar, coconut and rolled oats.
3. Melt butter and golden syrup in pot.
4. Dissolve baking soda in the boiling water and add to butter and golden syrup.
5. Stir butter mixture into the dry ingredients.
6. Place level tablespoonfuls of mixture onto cold greased trays.
7. Bake about 15 minutes or until golden.

Makes 20.

I hope you have fun making them like I did. Here is some photos and time lapse of me making them:

 

Lake Rotakare Ranger for a day!!

On Wednesday the 13th of April a group of kids from my school including me went to the Lake Rotakare Reserve. Lake Rotakare is based in the south part of Taranaki and it is a beautiful lake. It also is a reserve which holds many endangered species of birds that are native to New Zealand. They have a big fence around the perimeter of the reserve to stop all the predators that may kill the birds such as possums, rats , stoats cats and many more. The birds are precious to the reserve because once they are extinct there are no more of that species ever again so they are trying to do anything they can to protect them. The reserve hold many birds such as Kiwis, Tuis, Fan Tails, Robins just to name a few and they have also recently introduced the Saddle Back that were extinct from Taranaki for over 100 years! One of the Teachers from our school, Mrs Derbyshire is currently doing a science programme in the reserve and asked if some of the kids from my school wanted to come and help her for the day and get their hands dirty. I was one of the lucky ones that got chosen and I was very excited to see what we were going to do.



For our first activity we were planting tracking tunnels. Tracking tunnels are little tunnels around the reserve in certain areas with little ink cards. The reason for the ink cards is to put food in the middle of them so when any animal or insect wants to eat the food they walk into the tunnel and they leave their foot prints so we know what is in the reserve. We split up into four groups and we went through a different part of the reserve each and put the ink cards in the tracking tunnels. We would write the name of the tracking tunnel, the date it was placed and then put the food in the middle of it and put it in the tunnel. My group were lucky enough to see the Saddle Back bird. It was amazing to see it and you could tell how it got its name because it had a red look like saddle shape on its back. There is a photo of the Saddle Back on the side of the post.  It was a lot of fun to do because we could cross streams, climb vines and slide down slopes just to get to them. It was a lot of fun and we hope the tracking tunnels we did show any evidence of animals being in them.



After we had lunch we went onto our next activity. Looking for the Peripatus. The Peripatus is a very rare species and there is not much known about them. There is about 30 unnamed species of the Peripatus and Mrs. Derbyshire has found only 2 in the reserve so the chances finding one was very slim. We split up into 2 groups and we each had a 4x4 area of bush with rotten logs and lots of foliage because that is the place they like to hide in. First we descrided the area around us and it was quite cold and humid so we put that down on a piece of paper. We lightly ripped away the old logs delicately to make sure we don't hurt any insects inside them. We looked for about an hour and had found lots of cool insects but no Peripatus. Our spirits began to dampen. Suddenly Brendan Fowler (Riley's Dad) ripped open a big log and we saw it. We had found one. I have a photo of it above. They looked very strange. They looked like a black slug with velvety skin and lots of little legs. Luckily I yelled out for him to stop because he thought it was only a black slug and was just going to chuck it away. We were so happy that we found one. They took it away to analysis it to see if we had found a new species. Overall it was a great day and I had so much fun and I hope I can do it again!

 My Sister Jorja putting the ink card into the tracking tunnel

A curious Robin checking out what we were up to during Peripatus hunting

All of the kids that took part. I'm 6th from the left!