5 minutes of...

Down with the fish

I could see the bubbles, floating up towards the shiny surface above, but I couldn’t follow them. As the shore swept by, I felt a sudden push. My board, that used to be stuck, was ripped out by the surf, and the rip shoved me further out. It was pitch black, I couldn’t untie the string around my hand. I slammed into something, wondered what it was, then the pain hit. My head began to turn, I felt as if I was going to puke in the water. I screamed in pain and fear. As I tried to hurl up, I was pushed downwards. I heard some cries, and someone shouted out, “Just hold on, son! Help’s on th...” CRASH! The words were swept away by the roaring of the ocean. I could hear a machine coming in from the distance. A steady beat of whoomph, whoomph, whoomph. I could see a red wagon in the air, down came a rope. I heard a calming voice, “It’s okay, kid, I’ve got you.” I thought I was on death's row, my heart felt as if it had stopped. Then everything faded into blackness and murmurs, except for the steady beat of the chopper's blades, seeming to tell me everything will be alright.

This is Lathams and my "5 minutes of.." narrative recount writing sample that we wrote based on a picture of a rescue helicopter. We took turns writing a line each until we had finished it. It was all about what we thought had happened in 5 minutes for the picture.

Hyperbole DLO

This is my DLO on Hyperboles, which are exaggerated sayings.

Recount Quiz

Today we had a quiz about recounts, focusing on the tenses of a recount, the different types of views and making sure we knew it had too be in chronological time order.

Owl Narrative

The drop

I stared down into the deep, dark nothingness, and then I began to fear what was to come.

“Hey son! Can you walk with me?” My mother said in a near sing-song voice, or at least as much of a sing-song voice you can use as an owl. It’s pretty hard, since all we do is hoot for communication. She was always cheerful, but this time I could see it was a bit forced. I remembered all of the new rules. Don’t play for longer than an hour, no more sneaky snacks, the list went on. The rules seemed harsh, but my siblings and I all loved our mum so we followed all of them without complaint, well, except for Derek, but he didn’t complain in front of her.

“Hey mum, why are we at the food storage?” This place had been the first thing to become out of bounds, and when I peeked in, I saw exactly why. “Oh no! Is it that serious mum? I mean, surely, maybe, you can still find some more food right? Right?” She had a sad smile on her face as she said the dooming words. “No son, I’m sorry. Right now, you and Derek either find some food, or we’re going to run out.” The blood drained out of my face.

Derek and I stood with mum, staring into the great abyss before us. “You go first, geek!” Derek sneered, but I could see in his eyes that he was frightened out of his skin. We had all been told about Uncle Terry and what happened to him when he forgot to spread his wings. It wasn’t pretty, I can tell you that much. Maybe for all his size, Derek wasn’t much the “Macho guy” he pretended to be. I smiled back at him. “If you say so!” and hopped off the edge, laughing at Derek's scream.

I had practiced for years to get to this point. Mum didn’t know it, but the time I broke my wing when I was young was when I was practicing to fly, jumping off a little tree’s branch and gliding down to the ground. The tree was about 3 feet before, and nows it's nearly twelve. I had always wished I could be tall like that, until I found out that you need to hunt for food. If you were the size of a tree, how much would you need to eat? A lot, that’s all I know. And a lot of food means a lot of hunting. Anyway, back to the present. I spread my wings as I heard mum shouting encouragement, her words garbled by the rush of air through my wings and feathers. I began to glide, and felt something peculiar. The air was pushing me upwards, and instead of gliding, I was flying! “Muuum! I’m doing it!”

“Great job son!” I surged upwards towards her voice and “Watch out for that tree George!” and the world flashed red. “Ow! Owie Owie Ow!” I bounced off branches until I freefell, regained my balance and flew up again. “I did it mum! We’re saved!” I saw that Derek was still perched tentatively on the edge of the nest, sticking his claw out and then whipping it back in. “Cmon Derek! You’ve got this!” he didn’t budge. Then I thought of attacking his pride instead of being friendly. “Look at yourself you big wimp! A tiny, little geek like me can fly better than you! Although, you’re probably used to coming last on things that require brains, aren’t you?” He roared at me and dived head first towards the ground far, far below. Mum went pale “What is it mum? He’s going to fly!” She turned her head to me and her voice shook. “Son, that’s how your Uncle Terry dived when he tried to fly.”

“Derek!” As much as I disliked him, we were brothers. “I’m coming, don’t you worry!” I dived, and all my mother could do was watch the two of us go down, down, down, into the darkness.

This is my narrative about an owl flying for the first time, and the prompt for this story is based on Panmure Bridge School's topic this term, flight. It was very fun to right and even though Mrs Anderson's writing group all made plans my writing deviated off of it, only the characters and their characteristics staying the same.

6 Sentence Stories

This is my DLO on 6 sentence stories. We use these to practice fitting a lot of detail into one sentence and also to help us with using pictures to write stories. We started off with writing about Mrs Anderson, but then moved on to using photos to write short stories describing objects and people in them. All of these photos were taken by Harris Burdick.

Tongan language week Pourquoi story

Long ago, before it had been discovered by European settlers, Tonga was a far, unknown and distant land.

In a kingdom on the edge of the ocean, in a forest just behind the beach, lived a Tongan king named Lepote. But he was no normal king, for he was obsessed with perfection and cleanliness. Every tapa had to be straight to the nanometre, and if even one speck of dirt was found, the servant responsible for cleaning was whipped mercilessly by Lepote himself until screams of pain could be heard from miles away (This had happened numerous times, and almost half of his servants had been whipped).

The servants had begun to resent him, but with his mighty army of two thousand guards he soon put an end to any rebellion that might spring up. The servants began to lose spirit and the will to persevere. Many soon abandoned Lepote in search of a more kind and fair king and soon only Lepotes Head servant and five other servants remained, mainly because of the servant that had returned the night before bleeding heavily, saying there were bandits and they had killed the servants before him, dying twelve minutes later. With no other choice, the servants were forced to stay and attend to their wild tempered and perfection-seeking king.

The day soon came where Lepote had become bored, and he decided to hold an event. He announced, to his remaining six servants: “I have decided to make a challenge, where you may tell me to do anything. The person who gives me the hardest challenge which I cannot complete will become the new king.”

Except for the head servant, all of the servants thought this would be easy, but it was not, for Lepote was a fierce and formidable warrior. One by one, they challenged him to slay magical beasts plaguing Tonga, but one by one, he slew them. By slaying them though, he gained magical trophies like an unbreakable sword, a shield that always reflects light, even in darkness, a bow that could not miss, and many more artefacts. These even helped him to slay the beasts, making the battles easier every time instead of harder.

The servants were all confident when they swaggered up to Lepote with their challenge, only to see him return confidently and very much alive, and slink slowly away. But the head servant was more confident, and he chose more cautiously. He pondered on the challenge for three days and two nights, and finally, he knew the answer and what would make him king. When the sun rose and the sky turned the colour of candy floss, signifying a new day, he approached Lepote and said. “Mighty king, I have pondered on your challenge and have carefully thought about my challenge in turn, finally coming up with an answer. King, I ask you, can you swim in the ocean?” Lepote laughed at the head servants request. “Hahaha! Easy! I will show you, servant, and I will remain as king!” The head servant smiled, knowing the outcome already.

As the Lepote waded in the ocean, getting ready to swim, he saw how murky the water was. “What is this? Aagh! So dirty!” Lepote then proceeded to collect the dirt and put it in his endless bag, a artifact from his adventures, only to find that more dirt came in with every wave. He continued cleaning then, slowly, almost sloth-like, gaining nanometer by nanometer on the dirt, only to have the head servant point out some dirt in the water, which would make him turn around and grab at that patch, trying to get rid of it. He continued on at this for days, and for some reason, maybe Tonga wanted him to continue at this task and make it cleaner, allowed him to become immortal, making him Tongas immortal water janitor.

The servant returned to the kingdom, happy that his plan had succeeded, and the king learnt that cleanliness is a want, not a need, and the joy and comfort of your people should come first before the cleanliness of your home and the work amount of your subjects. This is how the sea around Tonga remains clean.

This is my story that I wrote for Tongan language week. It is about a Tongan king named Pote who is very cruel to his subjects and loves cleanliness. The moral of it is that you should be kind to people who work for you.

My Magic Box poem

I will put into the box …

The vibrant plumage of a Peacock,

The helm of a valorous Knight,

And a costume from Halloween long past.

I will put into the box …

The deafening cry of a Phoenix,

The ringing of steel from war,

And the hiss of an enraged Cobra.

I will put into the box…

The natural sweetness of Honey,
The intriguing scent of Cherry blossoms,

And the tangy scent of Lemon.

I will put into the box …

The wise whispers of the Wind,

The glittering allure of Citrine,

And the comforting smile of a friend.

My box is fashioned from time, space and darkness, with Galaxies on the lid and Black holes in the corners.

Its hinges are enormous Asteroid belts.

I shall explore in my box,

For it’s size is infinite,

I will wander space for eternity,

Maybe I will stumble upon Earth and my friends sometime,

But the chances are slim, if they exist at all.

This is my own magic box poem. I modelled it off The Magic Box, a poem made by Kit Wright. We were told to use the 5 senses to make our sentences become more interesting. First off we included four groups of three interesting things or sounds, for example the vibrant plumage of a Peacock. After that we included what our box was made of, what was on the lid and what was in the corners. We also included what we would do with our box, and in my case I said I would explore it.

Olympic Comparison

We have been learning to consider both sides of a provocation so that we can make an informed opinion. Mrs Anderson asked us to think about the two different sides of this, wether it be an Olympics enthusiast or someone who worries about the hygiene of their country. To make our informed opinion we had to think about how else the 1.2 billion USD could be spent such as some research on the Zika virus, a virus spread by mosquitos that causes birth defects and so far there is no known cure and also think about how the Olympics would benefit the people of Rio by increasing the economy. My DLO shows some ways the citizens of Rio can make the most of it and a picture of the 2004 Athens Softball Stadium, which in ten years became overgrown with weeds and started to rot, being just one example of some Olympic venues that have been abandoned.

Advertising

Today we read a text on advertising and learnt some new things about it, then creaate this paragraph using 25 words exactly to explain our knowledge of it.

Persuasive Speech

Why Minecraft should be allowed in learning time

Minecraft. It has been around for about 7 years so far, and about 5.8 million people have bought it. And if 5.8 million people think that it’s a fun game and that it’s worth it, why can’t schools in New Zealand use it to learn too? I say schools in New Zealand because in Switzerland, some schools have actually got some time in a day where they get their students to play Minecraft. They use it because in it there are a variety of blocks which can be used to craft more blocks or to create massive structures. There are three modes in minecraft, which are Survival, Creative and Adventure. Survival is my favourite, since you start of with nothing and have to collect everything yourself. I like this best because since you have to get everything yourself, when I create something amazing I feel more proud of it than I would normally be, since everything I used had to be collected through long periods of time. Creative is my second favourite, since even though you have access to everything in the game, when you build something since everything is easy to get you don’t really feel as accomplished. Then there is adventure mode. In it, you cannot break blocks without the right tools. Just to break dirt, you need an Iron shovel, the second best grade of tool in the game!

Minecraft is also like real life, since in it you must eat or you will die of starvation. You can either break leaves to try and get apples, or you can kill animals to get meat. There is no blood however, and the animals bodies just disappear without leaving anything to show that they were there. There is also some school work involved as well. For maths, you can think. If one piece of wood makes 4 planks, how many pieces of wood do I need for 16 planks? And if 2 planks equal one stick, how many planks will I need for 20 sticks? As you can see, it can also help with your basic facts.

Minecraft can also be played online, which means you can go on servers, and play with people from everywhere in the world. I think that these reasons are more than enough to make you consider allowing Minecraft in learning time.

This is my persuasive speech which was judged by Manu, Sylis, Juanita and Mishaan. It took me 2 minutes and 20 seconds to say it, which means that I just need to slow down when reading it and it will be perfect.

Young Authors Challenge

Touchdown

“Yes!”

“Nice job!”

The crowd roars as Mark runs across the line, scoring the final touchdown and winning the match for his college team. His friends stream across the pitch towards him, patting him on the back and hugging him. His coach just nods at him, but for Mark that is the equivalent to all the praise in the world. He smiles. To him right now, life is great. Little does he know, after this game, nothing would be the same. He’s walking across the street, and a car comes screaming around the corner. It’s going way too fast. Mark looks at it, staring like a possum in headlights. There’s a sickening crunch, and the world goes black.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, catching snatches of conversation, and wakes to an unfamiliar voice. “He’s in a critical condition miss, you can’t see him right now.”

“But he’s my son! You’ve got to let me in!” He hears his mother say.

The unfamiliar voice responds. “Sorry miss, but right now the best thing for him is sleep. You can sit outside though, and I’ll keep you updated.”

He hears the defeat in his mother’s tired voice. “Fine.” He hears her slump into a chair and let out a shaky breath, and he falls asleep. “He’s awake! Nurse, can I please see him?” He opens his eyes. “Mom?” The word feels unused, rusty. Ever since his father had run off and let his son down, all he had ever called his mother was her first name, Mary. “I suppose you can.” The nurse replied in a monotonous voice. His mother rushed in and grabbed his hand. “Mark, I was so scared. You were hit by a drunk driver who was going at about ninety kilometres an hour. The police said he was well over the limit!” She suddenly looked hesitant. “Mark, I don’t want you to get angry at this, but the doctors said you sustained permanent head damage. You’ll never be able to play again.” Instead of being angry, all Mark could feel was numbness. Never play again? Playing for a team had been his dream ever since he was a kid. “There must be something else you want to do right? Some other job in case something happened?” Mark’s mother said. Mark thought for a bit, then he remembered something. “I kind of wanted to be a mechanic when I was four.” His mother smiled. “There you go then. You can become a mechanic.” Mark shrugged. “It’s worth a try.” He said.

“Morning Mark!” Jericho, one of Mark's employees said.

“Morning!” Mark replied.

Mark had done what his mother had said and opened up a mechanic shop. Business was booming, so much that he had to so far hire seven people to help him, while doing some of the work himself. He now had enough money to live comfortably and luxuriously. To be honest, he thought, thinking back to that day when he had made a touchdown and won the match but also had his dreams crushed, I probably would have been injured during a match anyway, so maybe being a mechanic is for the best. Putting his feet up, he realised that no matter what happens in life, you will always get opportunities to be happy.

This is my entry to the Barfoot and Thompson young authors challenge. The stories could be funny or scary but they had to have an inspirational message. My message was that whatever happens in life you will always have opportunities to be happy.

SPaG DLO

This is a Google Drawing that explains the uses of commas and why we need them.

SPaG DLO

This DLO shows how punctuation can completely change the meaning of your sentence.

SPaG Punctuation DLO

This is our DLO that explains some of the easy punctuation such as commas and full stops. It also shows why we need punctuation.

Sub work

This is some work that Sajiha, Mishaan, Mya and I did on the prefix sub. Prefixes go on the front of words and have different meanings. Sub means under or below, and I did some work before on the preifx un, which meant not. For the word wall we wrote as many sub words that would make sense if you substituted the sub for under and for the paragraph we had to write a nonsense paragraph using nine sub words.

Un Prefix game

This is a screenshot of one of the word games we did to better understand the prefix Un.

Un Prefix game

This is a screenshot of one of the word games we did to better understand the prefix Un.

War letter

This is my letter from the trenches. We were learning how the soldiers of World War 1 felt about what was happening and wrote letters posing as them.

Un prefix word games

This is a screenshot of one of the word games we did to better understand the prefix Un.

Un Prefix word wall

This is a screenshot of my word wall made up of words that start with the prefix Un. We learnt that Un means not, for example unhappy, which means not happy.