Tuesday the 26th May

The Westlake Boys Choir known as the voicemale choir came to FHS today. This choir is conducted by Mr David squire. They preformed 3 pieces. The first piece they played was a Hungarian Solider song. This song was all about a young solider writing to his beloved wife. This solider was described to be angry. In this piece the trumpet was played and also the drum was played. I gave this song a 9/10. The next song they preformed was about Christmas but not a song like Rudolf the red nose reindeer that we knew it was a new song to me about the angles when they where looking at Jesus and their golden light shining down on him. This song to me sounded like a lullaby, it was beautiful. So I have given it also a 9/10. The final song they sung was a song that had been written by a previous member of the voicemale choir. This students name was Robbie Ellis. The song was about a Howler Monkey. This was a very full on song that gave me lots of information about those particular monkeys. I learnt that they live in Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Mexico. I gave this song a 10/10.

Later this year the voicemale choir are going to be preforming at the town hall, competing in a concert called The Big Sing. In this choir the song I enjoyed the most was the Howler Monkey song as it was about an animals and I love animals. Also it taught me many facts as stated above and finally it was very full on and it kept me interested. The thing about this choir that I loved was how they had different melodies. Some where high and some where low.

Overall this was a spectacular performance that I found super entertaining and interesting.

Des Hunt Visit

Tuesday 19th of May 2015  11:50

Well so far today has been incredible. We first talked to the amazing Des Hunt himself who told us about himself and his book "Cry of the taniwha." Then we did question and answer where we asked him questions about things and then he gives us an answer. Next we traveled to the hall where Des talked about how he writes his books by using chemistry, involving experiments and tests. Later today I am going to go with him and have one on one time with him. How about that!!!

Today I learnt that in writing to hook the reader so they actually finish the story was that you first have to have a hook (the bit at the start) then next comes the development (the part in the middle) and last but not least the climax (near the end). I also learnt that writing a book is not always easy as you have to figure out characters, where it is going tot be set and even after that you have to plan which usually take 1-2 weeks, then you have to write the introduction making sure you are hooking the reader in. This part according to Des is the hardest. Next you do the developing part of the story and at the same time you have to be adding in all of the details for e.g characters, the scene e.t.c. Finally you have the climax, the bit at the end which ends the story well by rounding it off. This writing process takes 7-8 weeks so you have to persevere to finish the book. Once you have done all of the above you have to reread it and rewrite the bits you do not like. Once all of this has been done you send it to the publishers who either sent you back a letter saying yes they will happily publish it or you get a letter that says in a nice way your book was horrible so no we are not going to publish it for you as we will not make much money from it. Overall this process takes 2-3 months. 

I have learnt so much so fast today. Big thanks to Des for his wisdom and fun times so far.

Monday the 18th - How was this day for me?..

Monday the 18th was a great day for me because I got to be independent. I got to have quite a range of different things to do at different times which for me was good and I found it a good change for once in a while was that we did not really have set times we had to do things for e.g block 1 reading e.t.c. I got lots of work done because it was a good learning environment. It was quiet when it needed to be and even when the volume went up it never got to the stage where I could not focus. I got these things done...

1. I finished my publishing of my explanation.
2. I finished my publishing of my story "Soccer star."
3. Did my one journal activity.
4. Continued for a bit with my free choice writing.
5. Finished as much as I could find of good maths games and put them on my doc which was then shared with the class and Mrs Robson.
6. Wrote an email about questions and things me and Elise disagreed on that was sent to Mr Marwick.

Overall I believe the sort of learning environment that we had today was amazing and the independence of today was awesome.

Endevour writers

My Poppa

When I was a little girl and even now my poppa tells me stories at night for my bedtime story but not just any stories, storie full of mystery, surprise and joy. These stories are all about a marshmallow that live in the moon. his name is Marshy. Here is one of them…

There once lived a marshmallow who’s name was Marshy. Marshy had 5 friends a fairy named Starlight, Blazer, Moon beam,  all lived together on the moon where every evening they would have dinner at the amazing retaront Mc Moons (in NZ we call it Mc Donalds) where they would have Moon Burgers and many more things like that. The special thing about the moon where they lived was that it was made of cheese. One day marshy and his moon friends decided that they would come down to earth to visit a little girl called Ella who lived in forest hill. They traveled in there moon buggey car. On there way they stopped by at Poppa Russels house as they had been told there was important news. Then they found out the news, it was Ella’s birthday so they rushed off to her house…

My poppa told many stories about Marshy and his moon friends for e.g one time they crashed on my road because on the moon they drove on the other side of the road...         

My poppas famous ability was talking like donald duck he used to crack me up. He even from the time he went to Disneyland he got a my sized donald duck. The thing that is the most funny about how he could talk like donald duck was when he would say this “ OW BOY, OW BOY, OW BOY” Another funny thing he would do was call himself a baboon and then he would say he had a red bum...

My poppa was also a great athlete when he was a boy he was one of the fastest in his school and ran many marathons.

A way he used to play around with me was whenever I said something to him which he did not agree with he would mock me but not in a way that was affencive. As I have very crocard teeth he would say well you have got as many rows of teth as a shark, I wold reply i have feelings you know, then he would say I know, I know.

That is all the funny and interesting things about my poppa.

Waterwise

Waterwise

Down the ramp we go,

push, push, push.

In a double kayak,

 Ella D and B are on a role,

paddling with the strength of an elephant,

left, right, left, right.

Storming in and through the weeds,

they go flying, splashing on the water as we go,

Splish, splosh, splash.

Cutting across the lake,

lkm whee have been paddling,

huff puff, huff puff.

Wind picking up and brushing on my face,

paddling against the wind,

heave ho, heave ho.

To my partner, Ella B I say,

"Perseverance is the key, perseverance is the key,

we can't give up now the fight is almost over!"

Finally we have won the battle against the wind and the currents,

Horray, horray, horray.

Arriving back at the docks, water stilled, wind down as pumped up as can be,

we have completed our task.

By Ella

Writing

What do I enjoy about writing?

For writing I enjoy writing fiction texts where you can just use your imagination to create a great story. I like it because I can just let my ideas pop out of my head and onto the paper. In other words I can be creative. Also in my stories I like to have a few slightly wacky things happen. For e.g. People being hit over the head with a frying pan(it tends to be used in my funny stories) As well as all of that I find that in most of my stories I have to have an animal somewhere in it. If you know me well you will know that I love animals, nature too. If I ever became a famous NZ or world wide author my style of writing would be like Des Hunt. His books are mostly based around a real place and about history too. But despite that his characters and other bits to it are pretty unique. I think that style of writing I would enjoy because like I said I like being creative and I something to know is that I find history very interesting. That is what I like about writing.