Super Ski Trip!!

The Year 7 & 8 Super Ski Trip

On Thursday, the year 7 and 8s went on our annual ski trip to Porters Ski field. Once we were at Porters after a looooong drive, we quickly got changed into our ski pants, jacket and put on our ski goggles. Once everyone was finally changed, we got to go and gather up our skis and ski boots. How we did this was we all got a number on our hand, (I was number 2) and then we went into the room where people gave you your boots and skis. They looked at your number and then went into the rows of boots to find the right pair for you. We then sat down and put this on except they were hard to put on as they were so tight.You had to jump and wiggle just to shove your foot in. (We had put our shoes in a bag for afterwards). We then walked outside to show the people our number again and then they would find the right skies for us. However, it was really hard to walk as you couldn't move your foot in the boot. 

Once we were all sorted and had our skies on and were on the snow, we learnt the basics of skiing. This included the 'pizza'. This is when you push your heels out to form a triangle to help slow you down and stop when going slow. We then got to go down a really little slope to practise. We were still practising when suddenly an instructor called us over to see if we could weave in and out of 3 cones. This was too see if she could take us up to the Pommer. The Pommer is a decently steep slope which is the next slope up from the learners. On my first try I passed along with Regan. We were the only 2 though. To get to the top of the slope, you couldn't walk, you had to take a sort of lift. They look like flying fox seats except you don't sit on them, you still stand up and put the seat in between your legs this way you can get dragged up. At the top the instructor talked to Regan and I about how we had to go down. We had to go to the very edges of the slope then turn to go to the other side yet sloping downwards, like a snake. We both found this very fun and kept on going up. Nearer the end I could go almost down only doing very little turns in the middle. This way I could pick up speed and I would only slow down at the end on the last corner. Skiing was a lot of fun and I can't wait until the next ski trip next year.

Motueka O.D.E

Motueka One Day Event
On Saturday early in the morning, Mum and I were packing the car to go to Motueka for my first one day event. We were also taking up a friend, who was also riding in the O.D.E. We loaded my pony, Casper then Rosie, my friends pony. 
On Sunday was the event. A one day event is a type of show that you do on your Horse or Pony. First you do your Dressage. Dressage is when you memorize a test which involves Cantering, Trotting and Walking. At the higher levels of Dressage you also have to do extended paces, collected paces, working paces and many more complicated moves. Dressage is to see how graceful and obedient you Horse or Pony is. For example Canter between M and C, Trot at E and change the rein through K, X and M. Each movement is rated by the judge out of 10.
Cross Country comes next. Cross Country is when you and your Horse/Pony has to jump a number of jumps, however Cross Country jumps are mostly made of wood, meaning they are solid. You have to go over the jumps in the right order without any refusals, (when your Horse or Pony stops before the jump), and also get across the finish line in the time limit. If you come in over the time limit, you get time faults, you do NOT want any faults including refusal faults.
Last comes Show Jumping. Show Jumping is in an arena usually, and is similar to Cross Country. Show Jumping is when you have to jump all of the jumps in the right order. Unlike Cross Country, Show Jumps have stands that hold the poles which are usually colourful and can be very scary for your mount. Show Jumping jumps aren't solid, but easy to knock. Usually each pole you knock will give you 4 faults as well as refusals. Like Cross Country you don't want faults.
I did really well in my dressage coming 4th. However, since it was starting to snow on the roads that go home, we had to leave so I didn't see my Cross Country and Show Jumping Results. I do know though that I came 7th over all of about 20 something people. It was really fun at my first O.D.E

Holiday Recount

The Weird:
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The Wonderful:
My Sister, Gran, Auntie and I went to Auckland to watch WarHorse live. We stayed in the hotel, Cordis. WarHorse is about a foal that gets sold at an auction. He lives with a boy, Albert, who named him Joey. However, the army needs more horses for World War 1, so Joey was sold to the army by Alberts dad. In the end, Albert finds Joey again. It was really cool because for the horses, they use life size puppets. 

The Worst:
At Cordis, for breakfast, it is a MASSIVE buffet. They have everything at the buffet like Fried Rice, Ice Cream and a Chocolate fountain! They have 2 flavours of ice cream, Rum and Raisin and Black Forest. My sister and I went to go and get some ice cream, first reading the 2 flavours on the wall. Rum and Raisin was listed first then Black Forest. Obviously I wanted Black Forest, not Rum and Raisin. Since Black Forest was listed 2 I thought it was be on the right. I helped myself too a big scoop of the ice cream, went and sat back down, and took a BIG bite of the ice cream. Straight as the flavour bursted in my mouth, I knew I had gotten the wrong flavour, I had gotten Rum and Raisin.

Book Review

Tessellations

Tessellations

In Room 8 our Maths for this week is tessellations. We have learnt all about them, from who named them, to what they are.
What is a tessellation?
A tessellation has 4 requirements, a tessellation is a pattern made out of the same shape that repeats and repeats over and over again. A tessellation also can't overlap or have gaps.

Who invented tessellations?
In 1898 when M.C Escher went to spain for a holiday and he visited a Cathedral where he saw many different maths patterns. He loved these patterns but realized they didn't have a name. He decided to call these patterns 'Tessellations'. M.C Escher didn't actually invent tessellations, he just thought of the name for them. He made many of his own tessellations, connecting art and maths.

Here is some tessellations:


Plus my own tessellation:

Kiwi Creche

Visiting the Kiwi Creche

Yesterday, Room 8 and Room 7 visited the Kiwi Creche, (Crèche du bois Gentil). A kiwi creche is a massive piece of land border with a predator proof fencing. The Moonlight creche fencing is 1.8 kilometers. The creche is where young kiwi come to once out of Willow Bank, a place in Christchurch where Kiwi eggs are kept. If kiwi eggs don't get taken from their nests, stoats, rats and weasels will eat it. Kiwis stay in the creche until they around a year old when they can fend off predators with their big sharp claws and their wild hissing and growling noises. Kiwis are great fighters. The wildlife trust gave us the opportunity to come and learn more about the Kiwis. First what we did once we were outside the creche was split into three groups, these were the groups that we would rotate in as there were three tasks. Seeing the kiwis get their health check, learning about the predators and the traps or having lunch. First our group got to learn about all of the predators and the traps. Stoats, Rats and Weasels are the main threat. However, Dogs are another big threat. How the traps work, on one side of the wooden traps is an egg or 'bait'. The stoak for example will come in through a hole in wire mesh netting in other other side of the rectangle trap as there is wire covering the other end. He will then go through the middle hole and will think he can reach the food but before the food there is a big mettle trap. The stoat will put his two paws and head onto the mettle bottom, then, BANG! The trap will come down squashing the predator flat. Paul Berry, who was teaching us about the traps, showed us this process with a piece of hose though. Next he showed us where all of the traplines were on a map. Before we knew it we had moved on and were having a quick lunch. Next our group silently followed Jo and Ray to find the kiwi we were going to see get a health check. Each group was meant to see a chick each but there were only 2 so we saw the saw chick as the other room 8 group. Her name was Royal. She ended up being healthy, putting on weight and her bill had grown quite a bit in the last three weeks since she had gotten her last health check. Something else that we had learnt about the Kiwis was that females grow bigger and when an adult can weigh more than 3kg when males weigh over 2kg. We then quietly retreated back to the other groups. It was now time to each plant a tree. We walked down to a new planting spot in the creche each with a little tree in hand. The holes were already dug where we had to plant them so we just 'massaged' the plastic wrap to loosen up the roots and dirt. Then we would lower the tree into the hole, took off a frost protector and moved the dirt back over the tree. All the the activities were now done. We ended this amazing experience by Jonathan and I saying a massive thank you on behalf of the school.

Thank you to the Wildlife trust for letting us have this chance.

Coordinates, Mapwork and Directions

In Room 8 we have been learning about Maps, Coordinates and Directions. To help us understand about these, we did lots of activities. We did things like floor plans and drawing our own maps.  Throughout the week we also practised our compass directions. They are North, North-North East, North East, East, East South East, South East, South-south east, South, South South West, South West, West South West, West, West North West, North West, North-North West and back to North.The map work was also to help us on school camp next week for some of our activities. I am now good at Mapwork, Directions and Coordinates. At the end of the week we did a big treasure map where we used somebody's map they had made and a few people buried the treasure at the end. The treasure was boxes of rose chocolates, they were sooooo good. Thanks Miss B.