Dear Dave,

How have you been? I just wanted to have a little chat with you about your family issues that you are having. As your best friend, I am going to try my best to help you. So, I have noticed that you have been abusing Maraea, mentally and physically. I have heard that she has kicked you out, I am so sorry about that but can you blame her?  Here is some advice you could do to work on your self control. No.1 Try to move on now that Maraea has a new partner, No.2  Whenever you get mad, try to calm down before doing anything else, No.3  Try to understand why things happen, No.4 Talk it out with T and Maraea to make things right, and lastly No.5  Be patient, listen to T and Maraea whenever they need help.

From: Zach

This morning Mrs George led us to the library and the first thing I noticed were the VR goggles, once we entered this nice man Thomas told us to have a seat. When we all settled in, Thomas started talking about the company and himself. He started off by telling us about Peter Blake, he ( peter Blake ) was a hero and a champion to people, he is well known because he went around the world 5 times for the American Cup and has won 2 times throughout his time in the American Cup. Peter Blake sadly died being shot by pirates ( robbers ) in the amazon river. Thomas told us that he was a marine biologist and he loves puffer fishes. After he told us a bit about himself he told us how to use the VR goggles and what not to press, Thomas started off by telling us to put on the VR goggles and waited for him to start the video.

Once he started the video we were all excited and surprised, everyone was amazed at how beautiful the ocean was together with the sea creatures. We saw beautiful fishes, dolphins, stingrays and sea urchin, it was so magical looking up to the surface with the sunlight beaming in the water. After we saw the first video Thomas asked us what we saw, we all explained to him what we saw and heard during the first video. then we started talking about our favourite seafood and our favourite sea animal. Then he started playing the next video, and we saw whales they were so beautiful and amazing, it felt like we were swimming with them, I even tried to pet the whales. after seeing such beautiful whales we took off our goggles and Thomas asked us what we thought the whale was, people said ” orcas? ” ” humpback whales? ” but they were actually Southern Right whales, I have never heard of their kind before.

The next video we saw pods of dolphins, it showed us 2 types of dolphins, which was so beautiful and incredible. they were all chatting, it sounded weird but really amazing. We learned that all pods of dolphins are females, because males like to go around, female dolphins likes to stay together as a pod and combine with others. Next and final one were whales, they were so astonishing, I learned that a whales noise can travel 10,000 miles that only takes 3 hours. Whales also have better memory than us humans, when there are 2 whales singing they both sing different songs but then collaborate with each other and combine their songs together. They always chat and tell each other when to meet up, and every year they come back and create another song.

That was the last video so we all put the goggles down and Thomas started asking us questions on what we saw and heard. Then Thomas started talking about thing like over fishing, sound pollution, pollution and threats that these sea creatures and many others are going through. Thomas told us that when we ride boats it makes a really loud noise that affects the whales and many other sea creatures from hearing each other and socializing with each other. Pollution affects and kills sea creatures that live in the ocean, sea creatures eat the plastic thinking it is food but then choke and die all to find out it was plastic rubbish. That is why Thomas recommended buying a long lasting water bottle and use less plastic as much as possible. Over fishing affects creatures in the ocean because we take as much fish in the ocean but never think about the creatures that also need food in the ocean, which means that sea creatures like dolphins will not have enough food to feed the whole of their pod so they keep hunting.

It was such a pleasant amazing and beautiful experience, I felt that we were all connecting with the ocean and the sea creatures that live there. I hope we would do it again some time next year.

Last week, the same 4 black boxes appeared in my classroom, Mrs George told us that we would be doing Epro8 again. Epro8 is an engineering program for kids that are year 6-8. She started off by showing us a video from the Epro8 website. The man in the video showed us how to pack up all the essentials that we needed. He also showed us where all the objects go and how to put it in. Before we started building, Mrs George split us up into groups and started off by watching a video in our groups that tells us what we build and tips to use along the way. The first thing we had to build was a hut, with a bridge that could go up and down. A hut that could survive and be stabilized during a hurricane, cyclone or maybe even a tornado.  My group came up with a name and decided to be called The Almighty Engineer’s. We, The Almighty Engineer’s started with the base together with the building of the hut. After connecting the base to the hut, we started to build the roof and bridge.

Once we had finished doing our first few steps, we moved on to attaching the bridge on to the building. Our first attempt was not what we expected, the building was crooked, so we had to rebuild the base but had to make sure it was the exact same height using a measuring tape. After rebuilding our base, it was finally time t put on our bridge. We used the rope to pull the bridge up and the winder to wined up the bridge that is attached to the rope. It took us a while to get the exact position to pull up the bridge, but then we noticed that our bridge wasn’t steady at all. So we added little metal sticks in between the base and it was finally steady enough for the bridge to pull up.We were all so happy that we had successfully made our hut with a pull up bridge.

For religious education we did the beatitudes. Mrs George told everyone to choose a verse that was really attached to you, put it on a google slide and decorate it. Here is my work I did for the Beatitudes.

For maths we learned how to use a protractor. Mrs George got out masking tape, she started sticking the tape in different angles on our table. Later on she finally finished and told us that we had to measure the angles of the tape and write down the answer. It was pretty hard at first, but then we got the use of it.

Our last building mission was a playground. People were away so we had to combine our groups. Once we were in proper groups, we started by watching a video for the instructions before starting our building. After watching the video, we stood up and went straight to our Epro 8 boxes and started building. First we planned out our playground on a piece of paper seeing what we could put in our playground.  Later on we started getting out our equipment and started off by building a base for a slide. Afterwards we built a swing and a flying fox attached together with the building the slide was attached to. Later on we decided to build monkey bars which was the last thing we built. After successfully building our playground, we had to check if it was safe for children to play in.

Right after, we had to present our building with the class. Everyone’s buildings were so cool, there was a mary go round swings monkey bars almost some of the things we thought of. It was another great day of building things with Epro 8.

On Tuesday the 13th of June 2023 we had the privilege to have a Ki o Rahi tournament. We were arranged into our houses, our teams were Kauri, Rata Rimu and Totara, I was in Rimu.  Once we were all arranged in teams other classes had to go back and wait for the match between Kauri and Rata.  While the rest of us were in the classroom room 6 were watching the game. At the end of the match, the Coach Trey and his assistant     called out the winner. The winner was… KAURI. Now it was time for the 2nd match, it was my team Rimu vs Totara. I wasn’t a part of that game but my 2 brothers were so I could go and watch my brothers play. I went out of the classroom and started cheering from the sideline. It was so exciting seeing and hearing people shouting and cheering on their teammates, we were all so proud to show how much we love our team. After that game we all waited for the coaches to tell us who won…  RIMU WON, We were all proud of our team for making an effort.

The next game with our team was with Kauri, we all played really well and always tried to push harder to win, but we lost, but it didn’t mean we lost hope in winning for our team, we all still had really good skills in playing. The last and final game was with Totara and Rata. Totara and Rata was a real tense game, they were all running guarding and side stepping. As we were all cheering for them, Totara and Rata were running like a cheetah and scoring goals effortlessly. In the end Totara won. After the tournament we all gathered up in the canopy and waited for the coaches to gather up all the points from each game and team to see which team won the monopoly $100 note. When the coaches came up onto the steps to announce the winners, we could see that everyone was hoping for the win. Coach Trey announced the team that came 3rd and the team was… RIMU! We were all so proud, even if we didn’t make it 1st place, we knew that we tried our very best. The team that came 2nd was… TOTARA! they were all so proud of their team, but some were disappointed that they didn’t come 1st. The team that came 1st place was…. KAURI! They were all cheering, screaming from the top of their lungs, they were all very proud of their team.

People angrily protesting

Yelling, Murmuring

anxious and careful

nervous, scared and cold

seagulls flying above our heads

clouds turning grey

 the annoying squawks irritates me

big mad waves thrashing around

gushing through the sea.

This week we have been researching our own advocate for people. I chose Rosa Parks, my reasoning is because I never had the chance to learn about her. I took the opportunity and started researching her, finding out what she did to make a difference.

I feel excited and thrilled as we are all lined up against the handrail waiting for the bomb to release. Facing the starboard ( right side ) the commander started the countdown from 60 reaching 1. ” BOMB GONE! ” I could feel sweat coming down from my head caused by the heat. I can see my bones through my eyelids. The commander started to count up from 1 to 15, then he said ” goggles off, all eyes open and face the blast! ” I turn, seeing beautiful magical colours. The clouds in the shape of a big fluffy mushroom. Heat penetrated my body as I watched the burst