Holiday 

                                                                           

  'Chit' 'Chit' 'Chit'                                                 

Hello everybody!!                                               How was all of your holidays. . . ?                       Good. . . ?                                                           Well that's great!  I had a pretty decant holidays as well. But I will get into more of that later. First things first, your probably wondering what the bird call is from... well to the right, is a picture of a Whitehead, which just happens to be the bird call of the week.     This adorable bird is only found in the north 

island, usually seen in flocks of 10-20 while 

feeding. 

Alright, that's enough of that, lets get into the real blog post for this week. so continuing on from before. . . The first few days mostly consisted of chilling. . .                                                 . . .and yoghurt story! Mmmm!                                                       Slowly, Wednesday arrived. My brothers and I spent the following 3 nights at our grandparents house in Palmerston north. Then on Saturday morning our parents picked us up and headed to our beach house on castleclif beach. 

So this was the beach that we stayed at. (Above) It was really nice, 

Well maybe when the tide wasn't in. because then there wouldn't 

be any beach to play on. . .  lol. 

We weren't at the beach the whole time though. we went off to do 

other activities, such as going to Virginia lake, with the cool light 

shows at night!  

We also had a bush walk at bushy park and saw some really 

cool birds. . . hehe. They include Stitchbird, New Zealand

Falcon, Saddleback, Tomtit, New Zealand Robin, Grey Warbler,

Fantail, New Zealand Pigeon, Tui.

That was probably the biggest highlight from the holidays!! 

(Don't Judge me) The only downside in that bushy park trip was 

leaving. . .  

Stitchbird

New Zealand Falcon

Saddleback

Tomtit

New Zealand Robin

Grey Warbler

Fantail

New Zealand Pidgeon

Tui

Random Fact of the day. . .

By the way this is what Sulphuric acid does...

Goodbye

Favorite Art

'Cuck-Cuck-Cuck'

Hello!!

Greeting everyone i'm back and the grey teal is this weeks bird call. Usually seen in small flocks of about 10-50 birds, the grey teal is native to New Zealand and is protected and can be found throughout the country. 

As all of you know . . . we just recently had the art exhibition last 

Thursday, (By the way, everyone did a great job on that it all looks 

super cool) anyway for this weeks task we have to post a picture on 

our blog of our favorite piece of art that we did, as well as another 

photo of our favorite piece from another class. 

Lets start off with my favorite piece from our class . . .

   

First up is the X-Wing!! 

It's so cool, but it was originally going to be a moon . . . yip you heard me a moon! going to be placed just underneath major tom (The astronaut) to give it the effect of it 'falling' down to the moon. 

Yeah but as you can see it didn't quite get to the finished product because it started to turn out to be a big pile of weirdly cut wire . . . 

Yip that failed a bit . . . okay a lot!!! and yeah I know it isn't even  

hemispherical but look what it turned out to be! an extremely big X-Wing! It doesn't really fit in our classroom ether, and it is only being held together by a few blobs of glue, and a couple of broom sticks.

Everyone in Rm12 helped assemble both the X-Wing and Major Tom.

My favorite piece of art from another class comes from room 9.
Their art theme was mountain ranges and alpine. I just think that they are so cool. Everyone worked really hard on them and the rest of the art throughout the school.


Overall well done everyone! all the classes look so cool!!

Random Fact for this week . . .

The volcano in Indonesia poors out "Blue Lava" but it isn't rally lava itself, due to the combination of sulfuric gases in contact with the air at temperatures above 360°C. There's so much sulfur, that at times it flows down the rock face as it burns, making it seem as though blue lava is spilling down the volcano slopes. But because only the flames are blue, rather than the lava itself, the effect is only visible at night—during daytime, the volcano looks like any other.

Goodbye

Poems

"Weet"   "Weet" 

Hey!!

I'm back once again for this weeks blog post and this weeks bird call comes from the Wrybill. this bird is endemic (found nowhere else in the world) and is fully protected (because there is only about 5, 00 or so of them left) They breed on riverbeds in Canterbury and Otago but after breeding season they migrate North to the North island.

            

Our writing topic for school is poetry, over the weeks we have covered loads of different poem styles such as...

• Squash Clubs
• I hear
• Limericks
• Quatrains
• Emotional poems 

The poems I'm going to share with you 

today are my emotional poems. 

Anger is a ticking bomb, just waiting to 

explode.

But when it does, it’s prison cell erupts,    

A crash of thunder screaming from the sky.

Inferno burning down my body, my cheeks 

alive with red.  

A predator vs prey, a hailstorm as it hits. 

But,     

Anger is just fragile ice, it will melt away 

in time.

Fear takes ahold of you, with long prickly 

fingers.

Lurking in the deepest part, coursing through 

the veins.

It creeps inside, a big black spider taking a 

poisonous bite.

It pounces on the other emotions, a lion attacking 

its prey.

It can visit everyone, but can’t stay for long,  

Fear has an endless diet, it will always come back 

for more…   

So... what do you think?? I can think up of ideas pretty quick, it's 

just the 'making it perfect' stage that always takes ages. It all literal 

comes into my head, and writing down your emotions is way easier 

that saying your emotions out loud. 

...and you got to admit it makes you feel a lot better when you 

express your emotions somehow, it's just like extra slab of weight 

lifted from your back... 

well I guess that's all for this week I'll see you all next time. Bye now...

Goodbye

Favorite 

Artist...

'Chee' 'Chee' 'Chee'

Hay!! Everybody! 

Tyler here for another blog post and this weeks bird call is from the 

Silvereye, or waxeye or white-eye... well whatever you want to call it. Yeah well I like to call it a Silvereye. Anyway most of you will be quite familiar with these small noisy birds because they mostly live in parks and gardens. 

All righty lets get into this weeks actual topic... 

Which is to choose our favorite artist, and that person is...

Craig Platt

Craig Platt had a strong passion for New Zealand's wildlife. From a 

young age he rescued birds, including sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes 

and many other species that had ether fallen from their nests or were 

hurt and injured....

Yeah, Yeah I know I can just about see you *face palming* in front of 

your computer screens saying
"Tyler, sooooo predictable" ...but just hear me out on this one...
He is really good! some of his art is already featured in some of my
earlier posts. Even this one, for instance, how do you like the very first
pic... the one just under the heading? that has to be one of my favorite
pieces of his. and also how do you like the one just above the heading
saying Craig Platt?

Frenzy 

The park bench to Craig Platt is a symbol of  trust, craftsmanship and a icon of time and history. The story behind the bench is the first kiss of  Bill and Audrey some 50 or so years back. The bin is a symbol of change, signs of disrespect, with the occurring littering,
graffiti and vandalism.

The white and gray of the gulls are representing the colors of iPhone, smart phones, ipads ipods and other devices, as an image of the modern technology is slowly taking away the craftsmanship the artist's process.       

Tui Elite 

The meaning of this painting was to go further into the personality of the Tui. trying to make connections of it's almost human characteristics. By putting detail in the eye and making the neck vail presented as if he was ready to welcome of importance. Who knows maybe he is a Rangatira. (A Maori chief or noble)

If anyone is interested in any more of his art... I have put a link bellow...

http://www.artbythesea.co.nz/craigplatt.htm


So yeah CRaig Platt is the artist I have chosen for this weeks blog... 

Okay, well thanks guys for reading this weeks post 
that's all for me please comment below.

Goodbye

Sports 

Fest  (Updated)  

                                                  Hello!! It's Ty-Ty here! Yay           and this weeks greeting call comes from the North Island Kokako (Top left) In the picture. (Bottom middle) is the extinct South Island Kokako. Their songs were very similar. During the dawn chorus their song consist of organ-like sounds. It is beautiful, complex and people describe it haunting the forest.                                                                                                                                    Anyway lets get to the main point...                                                           

...as most of you know, the sport fest is coming up Wednesday to be exact) I'm playing for the mixed team in dodgeball. To be honest... I've only read like half of the rules and they are pretty bizarre and confusing... yip that could be a bit of an issue. 

-Ten people in a team... (right) But only six people on a court at once! 

Well what are the remaining people gonna do then?

turns out that they get to do the fun gob of going out and retrieving 

all the balls outside the court for the team... (I know, I know what a 

terrible excuse but I didn't make up the rules now did I...?)  

Just wait until you get a load of these rules!

-Four ball maximum on each side? 

-If a ball bounces off another ball and hits you, then that's an out!!!

-and going back to the first rule... six people on a court at once! 

How many games are we going to play!?! cause that's sort of unfair

cause depending on how many games we play some people might 

have to go off the court and miss a whole game twice! or ether only 

play one game and have for people missing the game... the math 

just doesn't add up to make it fair. Anyway I hope my team and I 

will have fun and enjoy the whole sports fest overall. 

To make things even we need to come up with a 

descant plan so everyone is happy can can enjoy the day playing 

dodgeball! 

Okay well that's all for well... today I guess I know it's very short and 

snappy but I have only done half a blog post... come back on 

Wednesday afternoon or if not Thursday, to see the whole post!

and yeah yeah don't worry I'll be back to post the bird info thing at 

the end of my blog once again... (everyone's favorite) 

                                                                                                                                                                   

Okay so i'm now typing from after the sports feast, and I gotta say... that was pretty fun! (Yeah I know we play every Friday afternoon but It was nice to have a bit of a change and play by some different rules, and vs some different people) Oh yeah speaking about those new rules.... to be honest... they weren't as bad as I thought it would have been (I may have over exaggerated a bit in the first half of the blog post) 

Now a question for you all reading this post... how did you like the sport feast? 

Make sure to let me know in the comments below! 

Okay now that we have that out of the way... oh yeah dodgeball!                                                                                                                                   Like most tournaments the first few games were fairly easy (no offence of the other teams)         When it was our time to shine! A.K.A start playing dodgeball... it actually surprised me each game was about 12-14 minutes (I think) and then within that time frame we have to play as many games as possibly... every time a team get all the other teams players out... then that's a point to them and then a new game starts.                                                                                                           So that continues until the countdown starts and the time has Finnish. 

The first round we won (as in played the most games) 

(please tell me if i'm getting this wrong dodgeball peps) 

anyway the first round we WON! but only lost one game

the second round we WON! all of the games I think,

the third round we WON! ...and I cant remember how 

many games we won and lost in that one...

The third one on the other hand, went terribly... we 

LOST? By a mile, the score in the end 

was like 1-5 to the other team (mind them they have 

some people who throw really really hard!!!

and the last game (BY FAR THE HARDEST!!!)

We won... sort of...  we actually drew in the end. 

overall we came third... not too bad if I don't say so myself! 

(and we do, do training like every Friday, lol) 

to put that in perspective we won a 2 basketball and 2

other balls for the school, (I think) Oh and a coupe of 

drink bottles.

...and now for story time with Ty-Ty (don't get too exited the story time is just for this weeks post...)

                                                                             It was a nice day to play dodgeball...                   it was the first game of the whole tournament and it was us vs Raroa,                                           Okay lets cut to the chase here, we were getting thrashed. balls were flying everywhere rocketing pasted, as we desperately tried to dodge, you could hear the loud thumping noise as it smashed against the ground... only centimeters away from us. one by one we retreated to the referee, we were all out. Except for one person...                       

Catherine M. She was the last person standing, our last team mate, our 

last glimmer of victory lies in Catherine, (No presser) The Raroa's coach 

started to chuckle, I called down from the side line, "come on 

Catherine you can do this!" but deep down I knew that this wouldn't last 

long...  I closed my eyes as she placed one foot down ready to through,

with an almighty arm swing... the ball flew through the air, only just landing  

at the edge of the opponents foot. I looked up. the roar coming from our 

team was deafening, clapping and cheering echoed through the building, 

now all eyes from the grand stand was fixed on Catherine. 

Now Raroa was getting angry, they all through each and one of their balls 

at Catherine on a count of three. She dodged! another small cheer from the 

side line 

"You can do this!" someone called. She collected as much balls as she 

could, and rolled them to the other team.... confusion and muttering came 

from our team. 

"What is she doing?" 

Roroa ran towards the balls bending over to pick them up. They took the bait. 

Catherine took another daring though and landed right on the persons back! 

another cheer, again and again she rolled the ball towards the other team 

and then through another ball on top of them. Her trap was working like a 

charm...  Raroa never seemed to learn. until there was one person left.

An endless battle between Catherine and the Raroa person went on for ages, 

throwing and missing throwing and missing. A ball rolled on to the opponents 

side of the court, Roroa screamed! 

"Don't pick it up, don't pick it up!" The world seemed like it was in slow motion... 

he bent down, Raroa jumped up and down, we were jumping up and down, 

the game on the other court looked like it was paused, cause they were all looking 

at Catherine. Foleshly he bent down, Catherine threw the ball, The other person 

quickly saw and stood up, trying to dodge, but it hit him clean! 

Roaring and cheering was heard all through the building. 

Catherine had just one the game for us. Who would have thought! I can't wait 

to see her on the Friday game!

  

Goodbye

                                                                                                                                                                                         

Flag 

Change...

'Cheet'   'Cheet'

Hey!! everybody!

Tyler here for another blog post and by the 

way... That was the cheerful greeting sound of 

the Fantail, Their call mainly consist of high-pitched, repeated 'Cheets' 

which varies in different parts of the song.

'Kuu'   'Kuu' 

That was the soft 'kuu' of the New Zealand 

wood pigeon 

or kereru. 

'Tsit-Tsit'  'Tsit-Tsit'

The call of the rifleman or tiipounamu is a 

rapid 'Tsit-Tsit' Often heard between pairs as 

they feed together. 

The Rifleman is the smallest bird in New Zealand and is a member in the wren family. Their name comes from the color of the 19th century New Zealand rifleman military. 

The Rifleman is almost tail-less and possesses short, rounded wings. For its small size it has relitivly large feet. Meaning 

that it is flightless or nearly flightless as it feed quickly among the trees.....

Yeah yeah alright... no more nonsense 

Okay so lets get to the pint. One of the current events 

happening in New Zealand right now is the whole deal 

of changing the flag design. They have rounded all the 

possible designs of over 10 000 flags into a top 40. From 

there the public has to narrow it down to 4 and then the 

winning design!  

So for this weeks blog post we have to choose our own top 

4 flags and then our favorite out of those 4 flags. 

So DRUM ROLL PLEASE!.....  

This design refers to the 'long white cloud' and has the
Southern cross in the blue sky. The color palette is quite simple
and symbolizes the deep connection between the land and the sea.  

This design represents peace and tranquillity, and uses the same colors
as the union jack (Which is about as close as you can get to to the union jack)
   The design holds a wave and the southern cross. 

This design I also quite like, it has a silver fern (another kiwi icon)
and hasThe same color palette as the union jack. The white is supposed to
represent the 'long white cloud'

                 Now the moment you've all been waiting for... My all time favorite is...

This one!!! Firstly what I like about  this one is the fact that It's quite simple but punchy, 

The black represents the night sky with the 

southern cross placed in it. The white is the 'long white cloud'

and the green is the land with a Maori koru ting it all together. 

It's so beautiful!

To be honest other people don't seem to enthusiastic about 

changing our flag, but I think it's a good idea... anyway 

here are some pros and cons about the whole changing the 

flag business...

Firstly... People have grown up with this flag, born with the flag looking exactly how it is now, and dying exactly how it was their whole life. People now know it has been the same generations upon generations, and have grown up with it their whole life looking exactly the same. I feel like some people will find it quite hard to move on. For us (young people) it will be maybe a bit easier to move on from, because were still quite experienced with changes and learning new stuff so moving on can be easy. But older people might not and (because they have the right to vote) they have a dead advantage over us... 

We all know world war 1 and 2, right? well the flag has 

been exactly the same the whole time and hasn't done 

any harm to us right? Well just imagine what it would feel 

like if we changed it... we would be doing great shame 

upon our relatives who gave up their lives under that flag.

and It's not only that... sorting events and Olympics 

have been playing underneath the New Zealand for

for a long time... Besides we'll all different, that flag could 

have some sort of personal value to some people.

Causing them not to vote on a new one. 

Well I think it's really cool that New Zealand is finally showing its true identity through changing the flag. 
The first reason is well obviously Australia's flag looks exactly like ours. The southern cross in their flag actually serves a purpose. The largest star in their flag has seven points which represents the seven states of Australia. Our flag only represents the Crown and not Maori, In fact any kiwiana of any sort. 

The southern cross (you may think as kiwiana) but to be honest, the southern cross was rejected as a symbol of the current flag. Because it wasn't related to New Zealand, but   then after failed attempts of coming up with a new idea they had no choice but to stick it on there for no good reason. (I mean come on, it shouldn't be that hard... just look at all the ideas they came up with in the present day) 

Going back to the looking the same as Australia bit people 
outside the UK actually struggle to find the difference 
between the flags, (really?) If you think about it our flag sort 
of advertisement for Australia! Also the flag dose dwell a bit 
in the past.... (just saying) I mean come on we have sort of 
moved on from having the union jack in our flag, that's just 
a thing in the past from when England took over us and 
other countries. Becides, they have all changed flag by now 
except Australia and us. 
(don't you think it's time for a change...)


Yeah well that's just my opinion anyway... don't be offended 
by mine or anyone else's (have an open mind...)
Oh before I go! You probably know about other people 
having book reviews and stuff at the end of their blogs... 
well you can probably guess what i'm going to do... 




This weeks bird is... Bellbird!

Bellbirds are green and with a short, curved bill, and a slight forked tail. Males tend to be Olive green and slightly paler on the belly and other underparts, the head is tinged purple and the wings and tail are blackish. 

Females on the other hand are browner with a narrow white-yellow stripe running from the cheek to the bill. 

Bellbirds are endemic (meaning that they are native to a certain place) They live in Native, exotic forests, parks and gardens. Where they can harvest some of their favorite foods: nectar, fruit and insects. 

A wide variety of loud, clear notes can be produced by these birds. Clicks can sometimes be heard and also sounds of a bell-like quality.



Okay, well thanks guys for reading this weeks post 
that's all for me please comment below. 
(feel free to tell me in the comments what you think 
about this new bird thing...)

Goodbye