I am so proud of my dad!

On Wednesday 16th of November, my family and I went to to my dad's graduation ceremony in Dunedin. He was becoming a priest. His family and friends came to Dunedin as well to support him. Before we went to church, we all dressed up in our best clothes. I wore a dress that had pictures of nature on it.

When we got to the Knox church, we took some photo before we entered the church. After that, we went into the church and the church was humongous. There were flights of stairs going up to the second or the third level so that the people can sit there if they wanted to.

Soon, the ceremony started. The graduates walked into the church and took a seat. They were wearing their culture clothes except for my dad and his Samoan friend. My dad was wearing a black suit with his new brown church shoes and his friend was wearing a cyan suit with black shoes. We were all singing, praying and praising God.

Later on, it was time to place the lolly necklaces on the graduates. Afterwards, we all sang our last song. Then it was time for my brother and I to say the Benediction. A Benediction is the last prayer for finishing off the ceremony. We both said it loud and clear. Before long, the ceremony ended and a lot of people thanked my brother and I for the lovely prayer that our dad had written for us to say.

My favourite part was when my brother and I said the Benediction because our dad wrote a lovely prayer for everyone to feel the love of God.

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

Success criteria: I know I can do this when I describe my recount using adjectives like humongous and lovely in my writing.

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.

I'm starving, can I have some ice-cream?

On Sunday 14th of August, my family and I went to the hospital to visit my cousin, Josephine. As we drove to the hospital, I felt sad because my cousin had operation and she might be sick after the operation.

When we arrived, we walked to where our cousin was and we saw Josephine lying on her bed. First, my parents talked about her sickness and her wedding day that's happening on October the 15th at the St. Patrick's Parish. After their conversation had finished, my dad said a prayer. Soon, we said goodbye and we left the hospital.

On our way home, my family and I felt hungry, so we decided to go to Ollies at Mt. Roskill, for some ice-cream. We walked to the counter and I ordered a sundae with a scoop of boysenberry ice-cream and a scoop of chocolate fudge ice-cream. I also added some passion fruit sauce, whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles and a pink triangle shaped wafer on the top.

Before long I took a bite and it tasted delicious. Then, we cleaned our table and left the building. I had had a day.

My favourite part was when, I ate my ice-cream because it was so delicate and sweet.

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 family and I going to the hospital and going to Ollies for ice cream.

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.

I would like a new entrance for my bedroom door!

On Thursday 29th of June, my family and I went to the warehouse to buy ourselves some new clothes for us to wear on Sunday. First, we all got dressed up and then we ran to the car because it was very cold.

My dad drove our little black car and my mum and I looked outside to see what was happening. However we could not see very clearly because our car was moving. When we arrived at Sylvia park, we parked our car and the we walked over to the entrance on the roof.

We walked and walked until we reached the Warehouse. As we got close to the Warehouse, I felt really tired from walking all that way. I grabbed a trolley and pushed it to my parents. My mum grabbed me a pair of pink sport shoes and a rainbow striped singlet. My dad and my brother went to the shoe section and bought some school shoes and a black suit for themselves to wear to our new church called St. Columba.

Meanwhile, my sister was begging my parents to buy her a new pink and purple bike but my parents said, "No!" because we didn't have enough money. So my sister decided to buy a little live pet which was a white and blue bird. Afterwards, I went over to the dressing room and I saw Lupe and Lasike with their mother looking for some new clothes. I walked over to Lupe and said, "Hi have you come to buy new clothes?" Lupe said,

"Yes I have!" Then I walked to my mum to try the clothes in the changing room.

Eventually, my family and I walked over to the checkout to pay for our clothes. The cashier scanned our clothes and we paid the cashier.

My favourite part of that day was when my family and I walked through the clean new entrance.

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 eventually and meanwhile to start my paragraphs about my trip to the Warehouse.