The Rose Festival

Last Wednesday Room 10 went to the Hamilton Gardens to judge the roses for the children's choice award.  On Monday Mr Paviour-Smith had come in to talk about the things we needed to look out for while we were judging these roses. Some of these examples were their scent, straight stem, shiny leaves and bright colors.


On the day we were given our marking sheet where we were to name our top 5 roses. We were also given a bit of a quiz where the answer to the question was those of one of the roses on display. This made you really have to stop and look at each individual rose bush and think about it's name. After we were finished judging we marked our answers to the quiz and we went and had a quick walk around the Hamilton Gardens visiting the Modernist garden and the char bargh garden.

Here is a Kizoa I made on the day. Thanks to Mrs Hogg and Evahn for taking these amazing photos on the day.

The following Friday 6 students including me went back to the gardens to enter some roses into the inter school rose competition. Mr Paviour-Smith show us how to display our roses in the vases. We are eagerly awaiting these results.

Joy riding

This is my PowToon on joyriding. I hope you learn something.

Blog Action Day 2015

Hi there,

I think that the issue of shark finning needs to be addressed.

What is shark finning?

Shark finning is the practice of removinf of shark fins after being caught. The 3% of the sharks body weight are the high valued shark fins and then the other 97% is the lower value of the body. Often the body of the shark still alive is thrown back into the ocean but without being able to swim or pass water through the gills dies a slow painful death of suffacation, bloodloss, or predatation from other species.

Why is it a problem?

It is a highly unstable fishery. Targeting any species, sex or size. There has even been testing to prove that the most protected shark species in the world the great whit has been shark finned.

What is being done?

There are many websites where you caan donate to or sing a petition against shark finning. But something that has recently been shown to me is Yao Ming former basketball star who has dropped sales in shark finning by up to 70%. Read this interesting article to find out more.

Sources of information:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/chinas-choice/2014/aug/08/sales-of-shark-fin-china-drop-70
http://www.sharksavers.org/en/education/sharks-are-in-trouble/finning-and-the-fin-trade/

Reflection on Exhibition

If you have read the post below this one you will know what I mean by Exhibition.

I thought overall exhibition became one of those projects that you just really didn't want to finish. But we did and I was really proud of how far our groups learning had come.
I think that our movie showed everyone the message but the facts were all the facts are at the end and I found most of the students walked away after the beginning and didn't stay for the rest of it.

We could have engaged the audience a bit more maybe by having a game as well as our movie.

I also think we could have pushed our can drive a bit further so we could of collected a few more cans.

This was a great learning experience for me and I hope I will continue to learn about child poverty in New Zealand and I hope that the statistics will start changing for the better soon.

Thank you to Mrs Hogg for these wonderful photos.

Child Poverty in NZ

Last term we had Exhibition there was about eight weeks leading up to the day and a lot of work and effort went into the final products. My group's topic was child poverty in NZ after researching we found that this was a huge problem in New Zealand so we decided to take two actions our first one was to collect cans from the school and then donate them to a school who needed help with supplying food for their children and the second one was to create awareness by showing the community our videos and pamphlets.

Here are some photos from the day:

Thank you to Mrs Hogg for these wonderful photos.

New Books

If you have read the post I wrote last term then you will know that I have been one of the ones chosen to be a blog librarian. Part of this means that we get to read some of the new books before they get put on the shelves and review them. Here are my first five reviews:

Thirteen days of Midnight
Leo Hunt

I found this book full of adventure, suspense and thrill. The last 4 chapters I couldn't even put my book down I was that hooked in. ( This book only has 13 chapters so the chapters are long!) I personally really liked it and I would recommend this book to anyone who likes thriller novels. This is a bit of an insight into the book. There is a boy named Luke and hi dad passes away so that would mean his son could inherit  million dollars but he had to sign something first that he had no idea what he was signing for. So he ends up with 8 murderous ghosts who come  million dollars but he needs to learn how to control these ghosts before Halloween when they will break from their binding and murder the whole town. Will he get this under control before it's too late...

If You were Me
Sam Hepburn

This book for me wasn't the best book I have read but it was still worth reading. This book was about a family who were refugees from a country and came to London to stay. A couple of weeks later police find the eldest son with a bomb in a workshop where he is injured. They said that that is why he came to London in the first place and it turned everyone against him. Aliya his younger sister knows that he would never do such a thing so she risks her life to try and uncover the truth...

The Storm
Virginia Bergin

This is a great book for anyone interested in a sad and just a bit depressing fantasy. I really enjoyed the book it kept me turning the pages. Th book is set after an apocalypse. Rain is the deadly killer that caused the apocalypse and once you have survived that the old rules don't seem to matter so much. This book tells the story of Ruby Morris who hates rain.

How to Fly with Broken Wings
Jane Elson

This book has a beautiful message to it . At times it is sad and others fun but it brings a lot of joy. This book I found moving and for those of you who haven't read the book A Room Full of Chocolate by the same author you should. Any way back to this book. Willem Edward Smith is twelve years old and is on a mission. He wants to make friends but with most of the kids his own age in gangs he finds it hard.

Pinocchio by Pinocchio
Michael Morpurgo

This book has a message to it about doing the right thing. I didn't really enjoy this book as much as the other two because I got so frustrated with Pinocchio for always doing the wrong thing. Pinocchio is more than just wood and strings so it's about time he tells you his story.

Thank you Happy Reading,
Danielle :)

Fiji

I just got back from 10 days in Fiji and I thought I could share some of my adventure with you. This first post will be all about what we did and then I will do a few more expanding on my highlights with photos and videos.

So here is everything we did:

Friday 28th August:
We arrived n Nadi, Fiji at 7:00pm and took a taxi to port Denerau where my dad's parents had a boat they steamed over from NZ that they were staying on; we would stay on their boat for the next 10 days. We had pizza for dinner and then went to bed.

Saturday 29th August:

We woke up at port Denerau and after breakfast we trolled (fished) to Vomo and saw a  turtle skimming across the water. When we got to Vomo we snorkelled  and we saw lots of zebra fish but my favourite fish was probably the little electric blue fish. Amy, Hannah and I jumped off the top of the boat which is about 4 metres high. We put the lures back out and set off for manta ray bay also known as drawaqu island. On the way their Amy caught a Queenfish. We arrived at drawaqu island . We went snorkelling on the reef and spotted goats on the island. We ate Amy's small fish as a snack and then we had dinner. Dad and Patrick decided to put a line down afterwards and they caught a barracuda that we kept and tree others which we released. We played a game of zilch and then went to bed.

Sunday 30th August (Nan's Birthday):

We woke up at Manta Ray Bay. We went to the Manta Ray passage in the dinghy and we were lucky enough to snorkel with 12 manta rays there were really big ones and then there were some babies. some had long tails while others had none. Some of them had little fish cleansing them and some were doing flips in the water. We went snorkelling at another reef and then we set off for Blue Lagoon. We arrived in Blue Lagoon after 2 1/2 hours and we ate Nan's birthday cake for afternoon tea we then went ashore to give a Fijian some fish, a jacket and some medicine. We finished the day with some dinner and then sleep.

Monday 31st August:

We woke up at Blue Lagoon. We went and said hello to another boat and then went ashore for a walk along the beach. We then went snorkelling and took some bread for the fish. The fish loved it and there were fish everywhere. We saw a lion fish and there were lots of zebra fish . We even saw two snapper fighting for food out of each others mouths! We then jumped off the top of the boat and I dived off. We set of for Yasawa-rara. When we arrived we took some reading glasses, fish and a few magazines. We gave some fish  to the chief and some glasses to the villagers in return we got 3 drinking coconuts. Asnaili insisted to thank us by holding a dinner the next night this would mean we would have to take him fishing in the morning to catch some fish. We had a last swim had dinner and coconut juice and went to sleep.

Tuesday 1st September:

We woke up at Yasasawa-rara. Dad went to get Asnaili ( the chief ) on the dinghy and brought him and his fishing lines back to thee boat. While we were out fishing we caught 6 Walu one of those of which I caught. We gave 3 of these fish to Asnaili along with the heads of the 3 fish which we would have he fillets of. Some of this fish would be used for dinner. We took Asnaili home and then headed off for a ride to champagne beach in the dinghy. Amy and I swam in the waves and then we went for a snorkel. We went back to the boat to get ready to go ashore to prepare the lovo which is like an earth oven. So we went ashore and helped with the lovo. They put rooster ( which the chief had caught the other night and prepared for us to eat), cassava ( a root vegetable ) and pumpkin into he lovo. The food went on to hot rocks and was covered in flax and then we covered that up with banana leaves and sacks and then sand on top of that. We then looked at the village's garden and then we went for a walk along the beach. We then came back and helped uncover the lovo. We went to the boat and had a swim before going back to the island for dinner. We said grace and then ate a selection of yams, cassava, pumpkin, shell fish, raw fish, baked fish, Nan's coleslaw and rice salads. There was a yacht who also came for dinner. The visitors ate first and then the Fijians ate afterward this is their custom. It was a delicious dinner and afterward we went back to the boat and slept.

Wednesday 2nd September:

Wake up at Yasawa-rara. We go to Korovu and troll for 4 hours to get there. We caught 5 fish on the way 2 shark mackerel, 2 mackerel tuna and 1 walu. We arrived at Korovu and had lunch. We went for a snorkel and then we went ashore. We walked over the hill here we caught lots of hermit crabs and had crab races with them. We walked back over the hill to have fresh fish sashimi and fresh fried fish for dinner.

Thursday 3rd September: ( Dad's Birthday )

Wake up at Korovu and go for a snorkel. We saw lots of crown of thorns starfish and a few fish. We set off for Waya island and on the way we stopped at manta ray passage for one last snorkel with the manta rays. We saw 5 some of them were doing flips and once again they were massive. We were back on our way to Waa island. Once we got to the island where we would be spending the night we went ashore to the school. A group of students showed us around the school. They were really cheerful and it looked like they were having fun. Once we had seen the school we went back to the boat to have dad's birthday cake that I made on the way there. Poppa was fixing John's boat when we got back so we gave him some fish for the funeral taking place the next day and some bags of clothes for the villagers he promised to give us some coconuts so Poppa went to get them later when he dropped off the fish. We ate dinner drank coconuts and went to bed.

Friday 4th September:

Wake up at Waya island and set off for Musket cove. We stop at the sand cay on the way and play in the waves. We have a snorkel and then have lunch. We are back on our way to musket cove. There is a space in the marina when we get to Musket cove so we anchor in the marina and then go ashore for a walk. We get ice creams and then we walk to plantation island to get our hair braided. Once we got our hair braided we went back to Musket and had a swim in the swimming pool. We went back to the boat and had dinner at the sand bar. We went back to the boat and played cards and went to bed.

Saturday 5th September:

We woke up at Musket Cove Marina and had a swim with our yacht neighbours and their 3 year old kids Jasmine and Zoe. We then went for a kayak around to plantation island and back again. We had lunch and then we hired a hobby cat and went sailing for 1 hour. After that we went for a swim in the Musket Cove pool and then we had ice creams for afternoon tea and then we went back to the boat. We watched a movie with Jasmine and Zoe, had dinner and then we went to bed.

Sunday 6th September: ( Fathers Day )

We woke up at Musket Cove and had a swim in the sea. Amy and Patrick found this really weird crab it camouflaged into the sand and then when you put it in water it squirted it out through it's mouth. It was raining that day but once it had passed we went for a walk to see if we could find the flat frogs and the crabs by the airstrip. We saw the crabs almost straight away but we had to walk quite far for the frogs. We eventually the flat frogs and after walking back to where we started from we decided that we would have an ice cream for morning tea. We walked back to the boat and got ready to leave Musket Cove to go to Smugglers cove where we would take a taxi to the airport. I made potato fritters for lunch on the way to our first stop the sand bar and once we got there we had them for lunch and then went snorkelling. This was one of the best snorkels I had had yet. There were lots of fish and there was one type of fish that kept biting my toes. After we had finished snorkelling we continued on our way to smugglers cove. When we arrived we went ashore in the dinghy to book the taxi ready for when we would need it later and went back to the boat. We had dinner and then packed everything up ready to go home. We all went ashore once more with our luggage and took the taxi to the airport. We cleared customs and flew home; our adventure over.

If there s anything particular you would like me to show pictures or videos of please comment in the comment section below.

Food Tech Academy

Hi there,

Over the past month a group of students from my class have been working on a video to be entered in the vegetarian society film contest. The category winners will be announced on the first of September and the overall winner on the first of October.

We created this film I hope you like it:

Library

Hi there,

I haven't really shared anything about the facilities of our school, so I will try and share 1 of these each week so the first one is of our library.

Here is a video:

I have also been chosen to be one of the school blog librarians the blog address is: http://berkleylibrary.blogspot.co.nz/

Science Fair

On Friday most of my class and some others from Berkley went to the  NIWA Waikato Science Fair. About 22 of us entered projects, including me and the others came to help us and have a look at the other boards. All of the contestants were interviewed and judged and then we had some fun walking around the gardens.

There are prizes up for grabs in hard cash so that would be cool to win but there is a lot of competition so that would be rather hard to do. So far there are 17 prize winners from Berkley but none of us knows what those winners get so it's a waiting game for them till Tomorrow night when prize giving takes place.

Here are some photos Brooke took from the gardens: