The school holidays have just started, (I’m so grateful they’re finally here!) and lately I’ve got a lot of activities. I bake, I paint, I write, read, watch Netflix and hang out with my cat.

Today, I am going to make a smoothie.

There are two options, both of which include almost the same ingredients. I use smoothie mix from the supermarket frozen isle, where you can get a bag of frozen fruit to make a smoothie.

You can either use tropical fruit mix or berry.

Here is the recipe:

A reasonable amount of fruit from the smoothie mix

2 tablespoons of yogurt

Watermelon or apple juice

Toss this all in a blender, and blend until all combined. Enjoy!

This is the tropical smoothie.

This is the berry smoothie.

This holidays we have the option to do this thing called the ‘Winter Learning Journey’. To do it yo complete certain activities and post about them.

We got to try it today, I chose to make music that reminded me of winter using Music Lab.

This one is in the shape of a snowflake

This one is meant to be to the tune on ‘On the First day of Christmas’

This one reminds me of how my cousins act when it’s the holidays

This one is people’s slow reactions when they realize it’s the last day of school

This one is for when people are super happy it’s the holidays

This week has been droning on forever because it’s the last week of term.

Yesterday, on Wednesday, I helped at the Matariki Disco. Seniors are invited to come and help set things up and make sure the kids have fun, while we also have fun.

I could only help at the year 4-6 Disco because I had a piano lesson. After that, I biked to school.

Me and my friends had found seats on the tarp, which is where we had to be allowed to eat and drink stuff. Our seats were pretty good and we were right next to the toilets so it was our job to make sure kids didn’t run outside once they entered.

I got a lot of food and drinks because why not, and I bought stuff for my friends too, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Me and Kera were in charge of limbo, so at one point the limbo song came on and we were given this huge pole, and we set up in the middle of the room and gave out prizes to the people who put the most effort into doing the limbo. There were some really impressive attempts, a few people did back bends under the bar. It was really cool to see.

After that me and Kera went to go sit back down with Alexia and we watched all the dancers for the rest of the night, except for the one very memorable time Kera took a Metos from the lolly bags and but it in her coke bottle… that was funny. It went everywhere on the tarp.

And then the lights turned on and the music stopped and it was all over. I biked home.

Unfortunately, the school week started on a Monday, much to my disgust. I begrudgingly went to school, but not until after I had fed my cat. I did junior tutors and read a book to my buddy, Luna, and her twin sister Stella because Stella’s buddy was away that day.

On Tuesday, we did a lot of inquiry. I am almost done with my part of itt, and next time I will probably finish it. I’m making a pick – a – path with Kera, Millie and Alexia.

Nobody likes Wednesdays, they’re just a reminder that you’re only halfway through the school week. So I’ll skip it.

On Thursday, it was very rainy so we had a couple of inside breaks. We did manage to have Tech though, I’m in Mr. K’s woodwork class, and we’re making what’s called a ‘Papa Hou’ to store stuff. I made a hinged lid for my one.

On Friday, there is no winter sport because it is raining. Yay. Although we do have to write this blog post, which is just mean. I think we should spend Friday mornings in bed. There should be no school on Fridays.

One of the RISE values I have used throughout the week is empathy. I played with some younger kids on Monday, and when one of them fell over me and some others took them to the sick bay. I also used Resilience, because inquiry was quite hard although I got through the hard part and now it is quite easy.

That is the end of my weekly Blog post.

Imagery and Symbolism 

For Literacy, we have been working on the meanings of poems and songs. We had to try and find the meaning of the extremely high- pitched ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry. This is my writing explaining about it. I think it is my best writing this week because the teachers liked it, unlike my other poems, which were apparently ‘too long’. I hope this one is good enough for you, teachers.

‘Firework’ by Katy Perry

‘Firework’ is a song by Katy Perry that talks about loneliness, hopelessness, and then literally all of the opposite. 

The first line goes ‘Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, waiting to start again?’ This sets the tone for hopelessness, sadness, and feeling like you’re not enough. It’s downbeat, and uses similes and metaphors to show feelings and images that are different to each person.

The next part of the song however, the tone changes greatly. It’s now upbeat, hopeful, uplifting, and optimistic. It’s extremely high pitched, and uses similes like ‘Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow.’ This shows different images, such as happy, confident, smiles, etc. 

Throughout the song, the tones, metaphors, and similes change greatly. It goes from downbeat to upbeat, sad to happy. It is a ‘great’ song about confidence and finding your voice.

The end

For maths we did a division test. I got 99/100 in 8 minutes and 49 seconds. The question I got wrong is 108 divided by 12.

For maths we did a test. It was quite long and had 100 questions. We had a 10 minute timer on.

I got 100/100 in 7 minutes and 46 seconds.

I think I did well because it was quite hard.

Last week for passions I learnt French on Duolingo, with the hopes of making it to the top 8 in my league. To do that, I needed to get a lot of XP from lessons, and beat everyone else. I ended out getting 5th, which was way better than I expected.

I enjoyed learning new words and completing the courses, but I found getting the questions right tricky, as they were very hard.

This week we did a lot of stuff.

Tech was one of those things. I am currently in Hard Materials, a group that focuses mainly on making stuff with wood. We are each making a Papa Hou, a box to store stuff in. I’m making mine to store my jewelry.

For passions, I used Duolingo to do French lessons. One of my long term goals in life is to be fluent in French. I’ll do this by completing at least one lesson each day.

For school lunches, the vegetarians got curry every day for the past, like 2 weeks. Maybe 3. Lots of the time the rice is all stuck together, and hard to mix up. Meanwhile the non-vegetarians get pasta, and spaghetti and meatballs.

For Inquiry, I’m in Talei’s group. We are learning about how food is used in celebrations, and how it is made differently in different countries. Me and my group made a Canva slideshow about White Sunday, a celebration in Samoa to honor the children.

In Literacy, we have been working on the subject of World War One. It’s incredibly boring, but we have to get it over with each session.

Lastly, for Winter Sports this year I am doing circus. I don’t really know what to expect, and apart from being able to do a cartwheel and being able to hold a handstand for 4 milliseconds, I’m not exactly flexible.

And that is my reflection of this week. I really don’t want to write anymore now.

For Action Stations I have been doing Clay Bone Carving.

I am making it for Alexia, who is making it for Millie, who is making it for me.

I am making a pikorua, which I made last year when we did this for art in my class. It symbolises friendship.

I enjoyed playing with the clay.

I found molding it challenging, as it always ended out too small or too big. I eventually got it.

The changes Sharon could make for next time are maybe using a clay that can be baked like polymer clay so it doesn’t take so long to be ready.