Zoo, by Anthony Browne is a story we studied for English. What is the role of a zoo and what is the relationship between man and animals? Below is my recreation of an orangutan enclosure and a diary entry from the POV of an orangutan entering it for the first time.

Entering my new enclosure, feeling fascinated. The essence of freshly clipped grass invades my nostrils. I walk by a gigantic and healthy green tree. I stumble upon a clean, clear pond. Gazing at my reflection, The sound of crickets chirping feels like music to my ears. The soft green grass brushed my arms and feet. I sat down on the grass. It feels like heaven.

 

This is my poem showing all the things I loved or things I admire while growing up and things I still love. All the things i did and things I learnt. The adventures I went on that helped me. These memories hold a lot and some things i did while growing up I still do to this day.

 

Last week we had a very special day, we re-enacted the Stations of the Cross as a class after lunch in front of the entire school. Good Friday is the day when Jesus died on the cross for our lives. My role was to play one of the women of Jerusalem wearing a blue robe with a blue-ish patterned veil.

We started with the soldiers walking Jesus to meet Pontius Pilot. Two soldiers helped Jesus put the cross on his back. The suffering that Jesus had to go through to save our lives must have been a painful experience.  

Jesus fell on his knees, soldiers hitting him to get back up. For the first time Jesus and Mary made eye contact, The pain in Mary’s eyes seeing his son in this type of situation.

Mary walking behind Jesus carrying his cross stumbled across a woman called Veronica carrying a white cloth in her hand. Jesus stopped for a moment letting Veronica wipe his face, His blood, Tears and sweat is now wiped on the cloth. 

We finished off with Daniel singing the song  “Were You There”. It sounded so angelic and calming. The school was silenced as they left and quietly walked back to class.

Euphrasie Barbier wasn’t only known as the founder of the Missions Sisters but was also known as a religous caring women who mostly spoke for the marginalised. Which were at that time women, children and the Maori.

On March the 12th, my class got an amazing opportunity to go sailing at the Akarana Yacht Club in Okahu Bay sponsored by St John’s Rotary. 

 Arriving at the Akarana Yacht club, a really kind lady greeted us and introduced herself to us. Her name was Kim and she taught us all the basic things about sailing , also explaining the clothing and footwear we need to be wearing to be safe on the water.

The Other instructors were called Hattie, Lola, Jake and Nico and they helped us put on our rash shirts, life jackets, helmets and this waterproof jacket, but before we head over they put our equipment on one. Instructor Jake assigned us to 3 different groups and each group had 5-6 people.

It was a bit cloudy but for sailing it was the perfect weather, where the sun wasn’t too bright and the wind current was not that strong.

Our first boat we rode was a boat called the Optimist which is a big green boat with two benches on the side. Since we had 5 members on our team, 2 boys and 3 girls, the boys went on another optimist with instructor Nico while we went with instructor Lola.

We had no idea there were water blasters on the boat waiting to be used until one of my classmates pulled it out. We were so thrilled we had them so we can shoot the rest of our team with water.

Our next boat was called a quest which is a bit smaller than the Optimist but was the colour red. It was harder to use than the Optimist because it only had 1 sail when the Optimist had 2.

A bit later we had finished all our on the sea activities and it was time to do the classroom activity while the other groups went on the sea.

The classroom activity was so entertaining. We learned how to tie two different knots called a “figure eight knot” and the other one called a “reef knot” which was more simple.

At the end of the day we were lucky enough to go swimming for 10 minutes while being able to jump in the water. The part I struggled with was getting out of the water but it was worth going in the water.

I just wanted to say thank you to Akarana Yacht Club, New Navigators for letting us have this opportunity to be on the water and teaching us different things and how to be safe on the water.

 Choie Sew Hoy is a successful merchant and a community leader in Dunedin and he was born in 1838, Guangdong province and died in 1909 at the age of 65 after the Ventor, the boat he was travelling on struck rocks off the coast of Taranaki and his remains were left onboard.

He was born in a village called Sha Kong in the Poon Yu District of Guangdong Province. He had accomplished being a successful new Zealand business professional.

Choie Sew Hoy was in a society that was formed by the community called The Flourishing Virtue Society, the society raised money to return all deceased Chinese to their family’s and returned remains of 230 men to their families back in China. The society did exactly what had been planned.

 

Pope Francis,

Pope Francis was born on 17 December 1936 in Flores, Buenos Aires, Argentina. We call him Pope Francis but his full name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Why doesn’t his name have Francis? He chose his name in honour of Saint Francis Of Assisi who lived a humble life and dedicated it to the poor.

Pope Francis is 87 years old and is famous for his humility and concern for the poor.  Pope Francis also loves to communicate with younger children and one funny thing he does is that he likes to take selfies of himself. Before he became a Priest and then a Pope he was a seminary teacher and bouncer. He graduated studying German Technology. Pope Francis was also a janitor when he was a teenager.

Did you know that the leader of the Church may live in the magnificent Vatican City but he chooses not to. He has no possessions. His declaration of poverty deprives him of all material possessions.

 Pope Francis encourages young and old people to restore hope and to be open to the future, to spread love just like how Jesus loves us. He spreads the word of God to both young and old.

This is my Lenten drawing showing praying hands. It reminds us to always pray to God if the situation is good, bad or even if we just want to have a little chat with God. My Lenten promise was to keep my body healthy by drinking more water and by eating healthy food.

A few weeks ago we finished doing our reading so we started to do something called novel study. For my novel study I decided to choose this book called “Anzac Ted”. I went with the activity where u had to make a comic strip about what happened in the book. This is my comic strip:

On November 1st we all walked down to Dunkirk park to do our touch tournament. There were 42 kids in our school who participated in the touch tournament. We left our school at around 8:45 and did a quick karakia. Once we arrived at Dunkirk Park Mr Bell and the others prepared the mat and put our bags on the corner so the mat wouldn’t fly away. After Mr Bell finished setting up the mat he went to the area where the assistants and members were to see the schedule for the games.

 

 While we waited we all stretched and did some exercise. The first group to play were the year 5-6 girls at field 5 versus the Sylvia Park girls. The Sylvia Park girls were really fast so I couldn’t really catch up.After our first game I was out of breath but both teams didn’t get any tries. The girls and I went back to the mat and got a drink of water and something small to eat. We didn’t eat a lot because if we do we might get bloated and not be able to play properly.

 

A few minutes later we went to the other area to watch the senior boys play. Their game looked more tough than ours but it was alright. We cheered them on while they played and they all played really good.After that round we went to go watch the senior girls do their touch play. Soon we went all the way to the other side of the field to play our last game.

 

Once we were there we waited for a bit for our turn then selected the six girls who were gonna go play for the first bit of the game. I was really happy that it was our last game because I felt really exhausted.After halftime I decided to sub out because I was too tired to continue playing so I went to Zenalia and got a drink of water. Once it was full time we went back to our area and put our shoes on and got our bags.

 

We soon started walking back to school and I already wanted to sleep. My foot and legs felt so sore so me and Zenalia took a 3 second break on the grass.Once we arrived at school we waited for the other kids to finish class. While we waited we played Games and just rested under the tree. I didn’t really wanna play so I just picked out some flowers with Zenalia.