Tamaki Cluster Cross Country

The feeling, of coming last was getting on my nerves. What if I don't make it?

 What if I tripped, sprained my ankle and had to sit the whole competition out?

As my dad and I drove to

Bailey Road School, we stopped by the dairy to grab myself a few drinks for

hydrating.

As we were getting closer and closer to the death trap, I mean Cross Country,

I could feel my legs shaking.

I didn't know if I was cold or nervous. We arrived at the school, as my butterflies

got even

BIGGER.

As my dad and I were heading to the 2nd main gate,

I met up with a few reps from our school.

Xavier, Soane and Oliver were standing underneath a tree probably waiting

for the whole team to arrive.

"It's the other way"my dad says as he has been their when my

brother had ran last year.

So we walked the other way, and in we went through the gates as my dad showed

me the track.

My nerves dropped when I saw how big the track was. I have ran a track like this,

except there weren't

any steep hills.

Walking back to out of the gate where I found my whole team standing by the post.

"Punipuao's here!" a teammate calls.

As I see another school stop by, my stomach sinks as we approach the crowd.

As we walked inside the hall, we were madly searching for our sign, but apparently

it was invisible.

We finally found our sign and gently threw our bags by the wall.

Before we had to run, we walked the course so that we couldn't get lost. Oh

my goodness, was

the track so

BIG. Soon, it was time for the younger kids to run. "In your marks, get set, GO!"

shouted Eric.

The little boys

and girls shot past as they ran wildly through the course.

Nervously, the crowd waited for them to return to the finish. Soon, a Stanhope kid

came 1st place.

Years later, or minutes later, it was show time.

Getting advice from my dad really gave hope that I wouldn't come last.

As Eric said “go”, I shot past a few girls coming 2nd place.

I kept running, as I reached a point where my body felt heavy. Feeling dizzy,

didn't stop me.

I took a rest for a minute by the tree, where I saw my little cousin, Solomon,

standing there

cheering on for me.

Sooner or later, I stood, putting my hands behind my head. I ran past a few girls

on the way.

The next lap I zoomed past, where I nearly reached a checkpoint,

I crouched to the ground, feeling the grass, saying a little prayer before I launched back

onto my feet.

Reaching the end,

I zoomed past a group of girls and one of my teammates Xavier where I crossed the line.

How relieved I was to make it. I hugged my dad, as he could feel the pain on my legs. Walking

back to my team,

I felt hungry, so hungry I nearly ate my whole lunch. By the end of the day, I was fully puffed.

I would also like to thank Mrs Vaivelata and the other parents for helping us with transport.

Punipuao

First Reversal Poem!

Learning Intention: WALT create and write our first reverse poem.

Success Criteria: I know I can do this when I use words that make sense.

Diamante Poem!!

Learning Intention: L.I.: understand the format of Diamanté Poetry and use this to create our own original poems.

Success Criteria: I know I can do this when I choose nouns, adjectives and verbs that suit the description of a girl and a boy.

My Autobiography!

Punipuao Afamasaga:

Introduction:

My name is Punipuao Rewalina-Jane Afamasaga and I am proudly given the culture to be Samoan. I am one of three children and a daughter of a minister/priest and a Early learning childhood teacher. I can be a competitive girl in sports especially soccer and netball but absolutely love maths.

Early life:

During my early life I had cared for my family but mostly my parents and grandparents. Having a caring and humorous family has been a massive experience towards my future. My father is an ordained minister/priest who has recently been chosen as priest for Ranui PIC. He had preached at may different churches such as :

• St Columba Botany-2014(2 months)
• Manukau PIC-2014-2016
• St John's Union Parish(Opotiki)-2017-2018
• Ranui PIPC-2018(Permanently)   

My mother has been teaching for so many years now and has been given so many promotions from other preschools because of her education and early life prizes she was given. I have two siblings who both are achieving their education and receiving promotions too. I have one brother(13) and sister(8) who have been a pain in the neck for 12 years now. My brother is attending Sacred Heart College while my sister and I go to the same school.

Career:

My career for the future is to compete in different sports and be a great cook or baker. One of my most exciting dreams for me is to be in MKR(My Kitchen Rules) or New Zealand's Great Baker in the future. I also would like to play for the Silver Ferns and win many awards for my family and maybe also get a chance to play with Maria Tutaia. Playing netball and soccer might be a challenge as their might be a lot travelling. I have played netball twice with two schools which I had some injuries(I recovered). I have also played piano my whole life and I am still continuing on. I had a few lessons with some teachers but I could not understand them well, so I decided to play piano self-taught. I have a organ and 2 keyboards at home that I play and also a ukulele and a guitar which I use to create my own music.   

Achievements:

As I grew I competed in a lot of competitions. These competitions have took all over New Zealand which was challenging for me because my parents were busy with work. These competitions were mostly interschool sports which I performed at St Joseph's Catholic School in Opotiki,Bay of Plenty. It started at school when we had athletics and the principle was impressed with my performance. She decided to put me as 5 of the Opotiki Athletics competitors. I competed and got through with six 1st places in, high jump, 800m,500m,400m,300m and 200m sprints. On my birthday was the day for the Bay of Plenty Championships which took me straight to Western Bay of Plenty Championships. I was also given a promotion to compete at the National Young Athlete World Championships taken at America which I did not attend because I decided to carry on with my education because no education means no life.

Conclusion:

I love sports, cooking, music and especially my family. School and education is what I am looking forward to and during my future. I also like pop music and RnB.

Learning Intention: WALT write an autobiography describing ourselves.

Woodwork is great!

Learning Intention: WALT use descriptive words to explain what I have learnt at technicraft.

The Lobster!!

Lobster:

Introduction:

Lobsters comprise a family of large marine crustaceans. The scientific name for the lobster is 'Nephropidae'.where

Appearance:

Lobsters are related to prawns and crabs. They have thin bodies covered in a hard shell, big claws and long antenna. Some lobster shells are blue and black when they're alive but turn red during cooking. Most lobsters are around 30cm in length and weigh around 1kg. The lobsters tail fan has a weird shape, because it is like a propeller of a boat. This tail fan is really useful and fun for the lobster because it helps it to swim around the deep sea and hunt for its favourite food. One of the lobsters claws are called 'pincher claw' and the other side is 'crusher claw'. The crusher claw is the biggest claw which is used to crush its prey. On the other hand the pincher claw which the lobster uses to rip into the prey.

Habitat:

The Northwest Atlantic is where the American lobster calls home. From Labrador to North Carolina this lobster is found eating, breeding and roaming the ocean floor. Lobsters prefer to make their homes in rocky areas where they can hide in the narrow opening from predators. Some lobsters can be found in the pacific ocean or other deep areas where lobsters can swim around.

Food:

Lobsters like to eat crabs, clams, mussels, starfish, smaller fish, and sometimes even other lobsters. A lobster does have teeth, but they are not in its mouth, they are in its stomach. The food is chewed in the stomach between by what look like three molars.

Behavior:

American lobsters are scavengers as well as predators, eating just about anything they can find along the bottom of the ocean, including fish, small crustaceans, and mollusks. They are cannibalistic as well and have been known to devour other American lobsters in lobster traps. Lobsters are just one of many types of animal in the crustacean family. Other crustaceans include crayfish, shrimp and crabs. In a place of a vertebra, the lobster has an exoskeleton, which is considered soft because it is flexible unlike a clam's exoskeleton. To grow, the lobster has to shed their shell.

Adaption:

Lobster adaptations include the ability/talent to shed their exoskeleton, compound eyes, dark coloring, claws that are designed for different tasks and a heightened sense of smell and taste. The lobster's ability is to shed its outer skin through a process called 'molting' that allows the animal to regenerate lost limbs.

Conclusion:

The lobster is part of family of large marine crustaceans. They come in all different shapes and sizes but they can be harmful to predators who hunt them.

References:

Interesting Lobster facts

Lobster- Fish and Kids

Lobster life and Evolution

Learning Intention: WALT identify and write an information report about an animal.

Success Criteria: I know I can do this when I describe the identity of a lobster.

Explanation Writing

Water Cycle

How is water made?

Water Cycle is a circulation of water made around the world. A water cycle is also a cycle of a step by step process of water being made.

Evaporation:

When evaporation commences, it changes the water from liquid into vapor or steam. Evaporation is also when the sun heats up the water in rivers, lake or oceans and turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or steam then leaves the ocean and goes into the air.

Condensation:

After evaporations occur, 'condensation' begins. Condensation is the process by which water vapor in the air is changed into liquid water. Condensation is crucial to the water cycle because it is responsible for the formation of clouds.

Precipitation:

Precipitation now begins. Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore. Soon the clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow.

Collection:

When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on land. When it ends up on land, it will either soak into the earth and become part of the “groundwater” that plants and animals use to drink or it may run over the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or rivers where the cycle starts all over again.

Conclusion:

When water vapor cools, it becomes liquid water. Precipitation is water that falls to Earth as rain, snow, sleet, or hail. The Water Cycle is the movement of water from Earth's surface into the air and back to Earth repeatedly.

Learning Intention: WALT write an explanation writing about the water cycle.

Writing Process

Essential Question:

"How does my love for sports affect the way I feel and relate to others?"

Questions:

1. Why do other people have different taste to sport than me?
2. Why am I different to everyone else?
3.  Do other care about my love for sports?

Key understanding:

1. People have different tastes because they have different interests to me.
2. People are different because they come from different cultures and they have different interests.
3. Others can be harsh about what you love to do but some can support your interest

Learning Intention: WALT Identify the steps in the writing process.

That fruit sponge cake was so delicious!

On Friday 28th of October, Saint Patrick's School had a Mission Day. First we walked up to church for a whole school mass. We all sang with our beautiful voices. When mass had finished, we had a coin trail in our classroom.

When the bell rang, Vaughan and Kyle went to Room 2 to set up our activity. It was called 'Hit the target!'. You have to hit a cup using a ball to win  a prize. The number of lollies that you get depends on the cup that you hit. If you hit a cup that had the number '5', then you get five lollies.

After that, the bell rang and people started going visiting the stalls. While Vaughan and Kyle were running the activity, Jayden and I went to the cake stall to buy a cake. I bought a fruit sponge cake.  Then we went to Room 5L to see what activities were there.

When I saw the trivia group, I decided to play it because I wanted to challenge myself. I picked the topic countries. There were some easy questions  and only one of the question was hard. I won nine lollies because I got nine questions correct.

Later on, it was my turn to run the activity with Jayden. Some people came to play and everyone got lollies. Soon it was time to pack up.

My favourite part was when I was running my activity because the people who played it were all very good at hitting the target.

Learning intention: We are learning to use descriptive language in our writing.

Success criteria: I know I can do this when I use adjectives to describe my recount of the Mission Day that was held at our school.

Yay, Guy Fawkes Day is here!

On Saturday 4th of November, My siblings, friends and I celebrated Guy Fawkes Day at my house. Her name is Anita and some of her friend's were invited as well. They were Alfred and Beatrice.

First we all watched other people's fireworks before we lighted ours. After we watched five fireworks blow up, we all went to our houses to get our fireworks. My siblings and I had a box of fireworks and it was called the 'Big boom box'. Alfred and Beatrice had the same box as us, but Anita only had 3 firework sticks.

After a while, Anita called her brother if he could light our fireworks and spectate us. Anita's brother came and we decided to light the small ones first. We opened up our box first and we lit up all the cascade fireworks. Cascade fireworks are small sticks and when it is lit, it spins everywhere on the ground. It was very cool.

Eventually, we decided to save the firework sticks and light some big ones and do the big ones. There were 20 big ones. When the big ones were finished, we lit the rest of the firework sticks. There were 6 sticks each so we all had one each. Anita's brother lit our sticks at the same time so that the fireworks would appear in the same time together. It was so amazing. We all had a fun and exhausting day.

My favourite part was when we watched the fireworks because we saw a firework that blew up and had ' Happy Guy Fawkes day' on it.

Learning intention: We are learning to use descriptive language in our recount.

Success criteria: I know I can do this when I use sentence openers to sequence my recount for example, eventually and  after a while.

Are you brave enough to go bungee jumping?

On Friday 16th of September, my family and I went bungee jumping of the Auckland East bridge to celebrate both my brother and my graduation from camp art. First we got dressed. Then I helped my brother to pack up a yummy lunch. We packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, five bottles of flavoured sparkling water, some strawberries and a couple of chocolate bars.

Then we were off. When we arrived at the mountain that was next to the bridge, we parked our car next to the playground. Then we walked to the man to pay for the parking ticket. After that, we went to the store to buy what we needed.

Before long, we walked to the bridge and a woman clipped a wire onto my belt. I felt really scared so my brother and I held hands and we both jumped off the bridge together. It was so cool and scary. Then the woman used a pulley to bring my brother and I back up onto the bridge.

My parents and my little sister were getting ready as they were next in line, while my brother and I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a chocolate bar each and we also drank sparkling flavoured water.

We were all so tired after our jump so we drove back home.

My favourite part was when my brother and I jumped into the air, we went down really fast and it was really amazing because I could see the view from high up.    

Learning intention: We are learning to use descriptive language in our writing.

Success criteria: I know I can do this when I use different sentence starters, for example before long to start a new paragraph.

Baseball is fun!

On Saturday 27th of August, my siblings and I went to my aunt's house because our parents had to go to a wedding. First we all got dressed up and then we drove to my aunt's house in Panmure.

When we arrived at my aunt's house, we said, "Goodbye mum and dad!" Then, we sat down on the chairs and watched a movie. We watched Ice age collusion course. It was funny and very interesting. The movie was about was a mammoth who had to save his daughter and wife from the big snow storm. 

After we watched the movie, we were called to go and have some breakfast. As we were about to eat, my little cousin Jerome, came out to hug my siblings and I.  His little baby sister, Mackenzie did the same.

We all had coco pops and some toast for breakfast and then we all went outside to play. We played Volleyball. I was on my uncle's team with my little sister. When the ball was flying towards me, my uncle said, "Do a spike!" so I did it and the other team couldn't hit it because the ball flew to the back. Our team won by six points and my auntie's team won by four points.

Soon, we went back inside to take a nap. At 12 o'clock, we all woke up. My auntie asked us if we wanted to go to the park so we all said, "Yes please!" We packed up some chips, cookies and peanut butter jelly sandwiches and a large bottle of coca cola. Then we drove to the park nearby the house. When we arrived, I ran to the swing and I lifted my legs up and down so that I could swing high into the sky.

Later on, we played a game of baseball using the bouncy ball that my younger sister had. We used our hand as the bat to hit the ball. When it was my turn, I hit the ball with my hand and I ran past all the base until I reached the last base. Soon it looked like it was going to rain so we had to go home.

Eventually, we arrived home. When the doorbell rang, my parents arrived so we said, "Thank you for looking after us!" and I gave them a kiss.

My favourite part was when we played baseball because I won by touching all the bases with my hand.

Learning Intention: We are learning to understand and use descriptive language in our writing.
Success Criteria: I know I can do this when I use adjectives in my writing to describe my visit to my auntie's house.

The view from the top was beautiful!

On Saturday 23rd of July 2016, my family and I went to Rotorua for the school holidays. We packed up our bags the night before and  we went to sleep at 7 o'clock in the evening so we can all wake up early in the morning. We were all excited to go for a great adventure. My alarm clock went off at 4 o'clock in the morning and we all woke up and got dressed. Just before the sun rose, we were already on the road.

I slept in the car because it was still too early for me. Our dad used a GPS to guide us to get to Rotorua. Along the way, we stopped over for breakfast. I ate two Joseph Parker burger combo from Burger King. I had a crispy chicken burger and a big Hawaiian burger. Altogether they cost five dollars. Not bad eh!

Later on, we arrived in Rotorua and my dad parked our car outside our hotel called, "The Freshening Hotels of Rotorua." At the back of the hotel, there was a large swimming pool for kids and a spa pool for the adults to relax in. We checked in and deposited our bags in our room. I couldn't wait to get changed into my swimming gear so I could jump into the pool.  My siblings and I were in the pool while our parents went to the spa pool. We were having so much fun!

Then, my family and I decided that it was time to get off the pool so we could go to the Sky line. We all took a gondola to get up the mountain. However, I felt frightened that the gondola wires might snap when we're way at the top. I used my bag to cover my eyes from looking outside but my dad told me to just relax and enjoy the view. He reassured me that we will all be fine then I started to feel calm. Eventually, we got there! Yay!  I was amazed seeing the beautiful view of the forest down below and the spectacular view of Rotorua from the mountain top.

After a while,  my family and I went on the luge. I grabbed a medium sized green helmet for head protection. Then a man showed us how to ride the luge safely. First we had to push the lever forward for it to move and then pull the lever backwards for the brake.

When I was ready, I drove past the woods that had tall trees, and some willow trees(a kind of tree that has branches spread around and you can build a treehouse on it because it is a very  strong tree).  I took 19 sharp turns before I suddenly had to slow down due to a steep track which can be dangerous. When I got to the finish line, I took my luge back up to the top of the mountain by travelling on the chair lift. When my family and I got back to the top, my mum took photos of us again on her samsung S7 phone and I used my android ipod to take photos as well.

After that, I went to the jelly bean store and bought 5 triangle packets, two of the packets were filled with raspberry jelly beans and the three others were blueberry jelly beans. I gave some to my family and they all said, "Thank you for the jelly beans!"

As we were heading back to the hotel, we said, "Thank you for the rides!" Then we took the gondola down to the bottom of the mountain. It was an extremely fantastic day full of so much fun and adventure!

My favourite part of the day was when I rode on the gondola because the view from the top was magnificent and awesome!

Learning Intention: We are learning to understand and follow the correct structure of a recount.
Success Criteria: I know I can do this when I write an introduction, followed by the events, then a conclusion about my family and I going on the skyline.

I love making my insect sculpture!

On Thursday 7th of July, Room 7 had our last art lesson with Salome and Siliga. Salome planned for us to have a shared lunch to celebrate our last day of our art lessons for Term 2. First we all said a prayer and then we ate all the wonderful food.

After that, we were all told to grab our insect sculptures. The students who had not finished painting and gluing their insects needed to stay in the classroom to finish off their art piece. The other students had to go with Salome to take photos outside in our garden bed. I walked with Salome past Room 8 to our garden bed. Salome told us to be quiet because we didn't want to distract Room 8.

Soon, we arrived at our garden and I was the first to take a photo with my insect. First I had to hold my insect. Then I had to place my insect somewhere in the garden. I placed my insect near my broad bean plant. After that I was told to go back to class.

After we all came back to class, we had to present our insects to the rest of the class. We all sat around in a circle. I introduced what my insect was and the materials that I used to make my butterfly. Next I said a speech about Salome and Siliga helping me to make my insect. It was really fun.

My favourite part was when I said my speech because Salome and Siliga said that they loved my speech.

Learning intention: We are learning to understand and use descriptive language in our writing.

Success criteria: I know I can do this when I use adjectives to describe Room 7's last art lesson for Term 2.