Totora whanau camp.

Last week Totara whanau went to Camp Weka. We stayed there for two nights and three days. We did activities like backpack making and the FeAr FaCtOr... I'll explain that later........ But anyway, lets see some pictures of the backpack making.

There is me coming to show off my backpack!!!

As you can see, I did terribly.

Me again - lets see someone else's!

This ones good! Why's she dancing?

We had lots of different designs, some like baskets,

Some unfinished, like my groups.

I found it challenging, probably one of the most challenging things that I did at camp.

This activity was called the FeAr FaCtOr... What happens in this game is that you blindfold yourself and the leader gives you food that they say is really, really gross like they might say its and ALIVE and might SQUIRM on the way down your THROAT. Eh, Mrs.H? :-(!!! It was gross. But I was really keen on it. I remember that I did the first one, (Mrs. H described it as a insect, it was a olive!!!) Mrs. H saw I was really keen, and I had to skip three because she had one saved for me. The three I had to skip were pig pee, (which was sprite,yum!), Cow poo, (which was chocolate icing, even more yum!!!) And blood with blood clots... (Coconut milk.) But then I could have a go. Mrs.H said this one was a worm. An alive worm. And it might squirm on the way down and might crawl back up. It was a pickle. I'm being nicer then the teachers were. I told you straight away, well I should get some credit for that, shouldn't I?!?!

Trying it out...

They held and wiggled it above our hand, it really felt like it was alive! I remember that when she was wiggling it above my hand I grabbed it, but it slid out of my grasp. That gave me enough clues to guess that it was a pickle. That pickle was a pickle for about five seconds of my life. (Heh... heh heh... bad joke. :-/) ANYWAY... BACK TO WHAT HAPPENED!!! I also did all the rest. There was one that was a sandy, dried starfish, (a fig), there was also a fresh sea animal with all the guts and stuff still inside, (a chinese fruit called a lychee, I think...) and another insect, (I forgot what the insect was).

Celebrating!!!

This might be better than the others... even though its alive...

Or not!!!! Btw its a pickle.

Theres me!!!!!

Me again! And Faith, Zach, and Balin.

Every one around the fire.

The other activity I remember doing was making toastey pies!!! In mine I had spaghetti and cheese. It just tasted like spaghetti, but you could catch the cheese if you concentrated. We cooked it in the fire on a thing that... Its hard to explain so I hope you see it in the pics. 

In order from Left to right, Alex, Lachlan, Michael and Camden enjoying their toastey sandwiches.  

Bye!!!

Writing

In totora whanau we have been writing a story based on a message in a bottle, a secret trapdoor, or a suspicious egg. I wrote my story on a message in a bottle. In the message in a bottle group we had to be the person writing the message, describe what you feel as a marooned pirate, tell the reader what happened, and how you are surviving. We did the writing in two big chunks. (Each chunk is not only one paragraph)... One chunk was the answer to "what's happening now?" And the other was the answer to "how did you get here?" If you wanted to you could make a little twist that nobody sees coming, and that's what I did.

I hope you liked my story! Bye!!!

My presentation

I really enjoyed making this presentation because I can share my knowledge to parkvale school and much, much more!!! Because I really, really, REALLY like skateboarding (as you can tell)... Working on something that involves it is really fun and exciting. I learnt that making a presentation is really easy, and something that was challenging to me was how to decide what all the slides were going to be on, but at the end, I learnt a lot more about skateboarding than I did before the slide started.

Pogo Passion Blog

pogo sticks

Pogo sticks are fun and springy toys that people can jump on. Not like a trampoline though!

pogo sticks jump with you. 

Some people can do tricks like grinding and flipping.They have REALLY springy pogo sticks. 

Some times they are used for transportation. Its really hard to bounce forward though. A grind uses the bottom of the things that you stand on. You can  do a still grind too.  You jump up onto a corner, balance there, and then jump off. Some basics are that you might jump into the air, and take one or two hands or feet off, and then quickly put them back again before you hit the ground. Another one is that you could push the top or bottom of the pogo stick forwards and to the the sides. sometimes you can combine the two together. Like taking a hand off and pushing the pogo stick to the side. But remember, these tricks can only be done well on the REALLY springy pogo sticks. The pros make up there own tricks. Like jumping off a wall, back flipping off, while pushing the bottom of the pogo stick forward. The trick I recommend to try first is one where you go up into the air, and quickly turn it so the handles are pointing away and into you. Try to land on the ground same as normal. The new trick of 2014 is jumping off walls.

The hardest thing to decide is where to do it. But don't worry! The answer is right here! You can basically do it anywhere, if it's a nice dry day. If it isn't, you will end up like this.

not good.
I'm sorry I wasn't any help there!

In a city there are lots of places you can do it. There are lots of poles and staircases that you can do it on. There are lots of vines that you can bounce onto, swing around on then catch another pogo stick.

He is grinding. You see how he's using the bottom of the things that you stand on? This a message for beginners: DO NOT TRY AT HOME!!!

Another one NOT TO DO AT HOME it one I call THE SCREWDRIVER!!! 

If you can do it,........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Then good for you. 

bye!

The Bermuda triangle -. Term 3 Week 10.

The Bermuda triangle is a very suspicious and eerie place that stretches from Miami Florida, to porter Rico, to Bermuda island. There are some bone rattling stories out there about this section. Here are a few. There is a plane boat flying over the Bermuda triangle with five different pilots taking turns flying for one hour each. Soon, they meet a yellow haze in front of them. They go in one side and out the other. They are inside a yellow tornado! Suddenly, all the compasses and speedometers flicker and die with them in the air. They can't get out, so they are just flying round in circles. An hour passes. And another, and another. Once they switch pilots for the last time, the tornado fades away. The pilot turns to see what they were flying through, and see's nothing. Just clear sky. So, the question is, is this real, or is it a hoax? Most likely real, I say.

Jack Marsden-Mayer

Jack Marsden-Mayer

Jack Marsden-Mayer is a famous driftwood artist known all around the world for his amazing art with lots of little details made to stand out.

 He usually makes animals like eagles and emus. Sometimes he makes Dino's or dragons! He comes from Manchester and moved to New Zealand in 2008. Since then, he has been making driftwood sculptures, sometimes bigger than himself!

 He went to the Gordonstoun International school where he studied sculpture. Then he spent a lot of time travelling and ended up in New Zealand. At the moment he is living in a small village in the center of the north island in Raurimu part of the Ruapehu district.

 Currently he is working on a sculpture called "Forgotten world" in a prehistoric sculpture park at the Wades Landing Lodge. 

The sculpture will include a 5 by 7 meter fire breathing dragon with most of the New Zealand native animals.They will be in a park that has the most prehistoric plants planted there. 

Some of the hard wood driftwood that he uses are as old as the Taupo eruption. He joins them together with a galvanized tech roofing screws. Sometimes he makes the weight of  the body is too heavy for the legs, so he has to use a galvanized steel bar to help them to stand up.

If you want a sculpture, you have to look it up to see what kind of things he makes. Just type up "driftwood" in the search bar of google and go to images. You have to look after it too. You have to tighten the screws and oil the joints as required. You might find that the screws are wearing out, the screws have a rough life of about 20-25 years. (Depending on the condition). They will take different times to build depending on how big it is. Also, he might do some things wrong and it will take a longer time. It took him nearly 6 weeks to finish the Raurimu Rex! That is what Jack Marsden-Mayer does. 

The animal band play-how I (Liam), felt. Term 3 week 8.

The animal band item-how I felt...

We were in the classroom and we were doing our 2nd-last rehearsal. I was imagining that I was Liam, the king of basketball... And I was just about to score when... "HEE-HAW HEE-HAW BOW-WOW BOW-WOW MEEEOW,MEEEOW COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOO COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOOO!!!" I said "Oh my gosh its my turn!!!" (I just said that inside my head so nobody heard me). But then I said "Heeeeelp! Whats that terrible noise!?!?!?" (Now that I really said). After the rehearsal finished we took some photos of our costumes. I was a robber. My mask was a super stand-out kind of mask! It had a really pale skin colour so that just added to it. It had really big eye holes because it had two little foam eyes looking down at the HUGE nose (when I say huge I mean HUGE), and still needed space for the real eyes. But that just makes it look like I had four eyes. Anyway, I had a foam hat joined onto the mask, with a brim poking straight out. The shadow of it covered my eyes so it must have looked like the real eyes were the ones made out of foam. Also, it only covered half of my face so that meant that I could have done any expression with my mouth which was kind of weird. 

Here is a picture of my mask.

As you can see, it is crack up. So after the photos we all headed for the theater. We got in our places and we did another rehearsal. I was looking at the back of the stage to see if my mum would turn up nearly all the way to my part, but after a while I gave up. I listened to the play and saw it was nearly my part. Then, "HELP! Whats that terrible noise!?!?" After my part I looked again to see if my mum turned up... Aaaand, no she hadn't. After the last minute rehearsal was over, I checked again. And guess what, she was! (And so was my little sister), I waved and lifted my mask, and she waved back! So then I checked how many kids had turned up, and by now there was a lot. I was one of the three robbers to sit at the table, and I was sitting in the middle. This is what it looked like.

I am in the middle.       ^                          

 And out of all the masks mine was the funniest. So I was the one to stand out the most in the whole class. Now think of a number. Times it by three. Divide it by four. Now forget all about it and think of six-hundred people. That is a lot. And, that is how many people I stood out to. But that was alright, because in my old school in china I had to stand out to about four times as much (a third of the school), and when I had to stand out to all of the school sometimes doing a Christmas play. I was not nervous. This is kind of embarrassing but I had to wear  eye shadow in front of maybe a thousand people once!!! Then someone said through a microphone "Now Room 12 will do there item called "The Animal band"." And the play begun... With six hundred people staring at me, I could do nothing but imagine what I looked like. In my my mind I looked hilarious. So I tried not to but I just couldn't stop me smile! I must have look like a... a... a......................................... Cartoon character gone all wrong! But the thought of that just made me smile harder! I said to myself (in my head), "DO.NOT.LAUGH." But I couldn't so I tried harder and all I let out was a squeak "Meeep...." Then I felt all better. Then it came again. "Meep" Then I really felt better. So I waited.... And waited..... And waited................ Until it came up to my part. "HELP!!! Whats that terrible noise!?!?"  And then my part was all over. I was kind of feeling stage frighty. But then it ended, and after the play they put on now watch me whip, now watch me nae nae. 

^

Now watch me whip, now watch me nae nae, now watch me whip, whip, now watch me nae nae!!!