The Giraffes

 Silence.... Then, sounds of clip-clops echo through the hallways. A tower of giraffes, in a single-file, walk forward in a hypnotized sort of trance. The atmosphere is heavy with uneasiness, though no-one seems to notice.

Alma, meaning soul in Spanish...

 She breathes through her nose, and exhales the oxygen out roughly. She does this in a panic, and does this rather quickly… Breathes in, and out. In and out. In, and out… Alma isn’t able to rotate her new, plastic head, so she moves her eyes instead, examining the poorly decorated doll shop. She moves her eyes silently, and the clock that’s ticking get’s her agitated. Tick, tick, tick, tick.. Confusion and fear starts to rise within her as the attempt to move her body fails. “What’s going on here?” she asked herself. 

Alma figured out pretty quickly that she couldn’t move her lips to sound out the words she wanted to say. Her movements were very limited, and she didn’t like that. She continued to scan the room to kill time, hoping she could find a door, or someone that could somehow help her esca- wait…. Alma realizes she’s sitting on a shelf, no standing on one, that’s pretty high off the ground. She stops thinking all of a sudden, noticing a couch below… And, is that her glove?? How did it get there? 

Alma begins to retrace her steps and initiate everything that has happened that got her into this mess. “Now let’s see….,” Alma thought. “I saw a mini doll who looked like me that was displayed in the middle of the window, the door opened by itself once I angrily threw a snowball at it, I stood on that very couch down below to grab my mini self, and somehow…” Alma’s mind froze. The pieces were all coming together, and it didn’t create a nice puzzle. It was a very sinister one. To put it simply, Alma is now stuck inside of a doll that resembled herself almost too accurately. 

The sun has now fallen into a deep sleep, and the full moon has taken its place. The moonlight shone so brightly it created shadows for the light posts outside of the shop, which lit the walkway with its golden light bulbs. No one came into the shop. Not even the person who owned this empty-hearted doll store. Alma grew tired of waiting, and began to observe every detail of each doll. Some dolls have old school clothes from the 1800’s. Some have some very foreign looking accessories and bright clashy colours. 

When she was just about to close her eyes, voices started echoing in her consciousness. “Oh no, he’s almost here.. Hey, there’s another new victim today… How much you wanna bet that another kid’ll come here tomorrow… Oi, shush, we’re not supposed to hope for that kind of stuff…” Alma decided to join in while she still had the chance. “Wait, what? Who’s coming? What are we not supposed to talk about?” There was silence...

When she was just about to say something, the voice who asked about the bet spoke softly, but something about his tone made it sound like he was spilling a very important secret. “Just try to survive. Don’t anger the shopkeeper. And most importantly, don’t talk to us in front of him.” Alma was surprised, but the last part sent chills up her spine. “In front of wh-,” Ding-a-ling. The doorbell rang. “Who would come into the shop at this ungodly hour?” Alma asked herself. “Hopefully it’s not a child.” It wasn’t a child. It was someone worse. 

The person who walked in wore a pitch black cloak that covered most of his body, though you could just see his shoes sticking out, they were pitch black too. His baggy hoodie covered most of his face. “This guy has no sense of style,” Alma forced herself to snigger, or smile at least, but it was no use. The dark figure rotated his head while standing in front of the door and took his time examining the dolls, like a kid admiring all the candy in a confectionery shop. The hooded figure stops at Alma’s area, but it’s almost as if he's looking at her. He starts walking in her direction, making her panic. If she could scream, she would. If she could cry, she would. If she could wake up from this nightmare and forget all of this happening she would do exactly that. But this wasn’t a dream, and she couldn’t scream for help or cry her eyes out. This was reality, and things were about to get messy.

The sun was dawning and the hooded figure prepared to head out for the day. He looked at his new masterpiece with satisfaction, and put it on a stand in the center of the shop window. The brand new doll had snow-white skin with green eyes and crimson red hair. She wore a  maroon jacket with sea-blue jeans that stopped stretching around her ankles. She had pink mittens and her shoes were black with white laces. Looking back at his dolls once more like it was his last, he left the shop as swiftly as he did the night before. Without anyone noticing, the story took an unexpected turn.

Aroha, heart filled with love but mind clouded with grief...

Aroha was a free-spirited girl
Full of warmth and sunshine
She enjoyed exploring the forest grounds
Except the times she fell on her behind

Aroha was a thinker
A strategist no doubt
But as she watched her friends return to their parents
A thought made her pout

For Aroha had no parents
And it never failed to spoil her day
When this happened, she often roamed around
She'd run, and jump and tumble and fall down
All to get away from this feeling, somehow

Though a voice echoed softly somewhere
"Don't worry you're burden isn't all for you to bear"
She refused to let the thought prevail
And held her head up
Instead she breathed in deeply
And let herself exhale

Aroha attempted to share her thoughts
Her strengths, weaknesses and feelings
It made her feel proud
and somewhat lighter
And she knew whenever she felt down
Her friends would be there to make her days brighter

  

Mophead - Diary entry

 

 This is a piece of writing in the form of a diary based on a book called Mophead by Selina Tusitala Marsh

My diary entry:

My gosh, I hate the kids at my school. I want to ask my parents if I could move schools but they'll ask why. I don't want them to get involved with all the bullying happening outside of home. It's annoying...

Oh no, mum said the principal had called her to say that we had to go back to school and have a Restorative Justice meeting, whatever that means...

We were the first to arrive. A few minutes of waiting later my bully (the one whose patronized me the most and the longest and says the meanest retorts) comes in with her parents and sits across from us. My bully and I made eye contact, and just when I thought someone was about to speak, the principal opened her office door, welcomed both families, thanked us for coming to the meeting, and invited us inside her office. It was pretty cramped and the cold, dense atmosphere made me feel like a person diagnosed with claustrophobia. Then the Restoration Meeting began...

My parents and I have jut come back from the extremely long meeting. When I first heard about the meeting I had thought my bully (Regina George) had made up another lie so that the principal could tell my parents about it, but, no. I later found out we were there to discuss the bullying that's been going on. We talked and I shared about my experiences I've had with the countless bullying. The pair on the other side of the room apologized on behalf of her daughter, and then she apologized. I accepted their apology, but didn't forgive them. I don't think I'm ready to forgive Regina and the rest of her followers yet. Until next time, dear diary...

Heros come in all shapes and sizes!

Everything, and everyone, stopped all of a sudden. The sound of laughter had just turned to shouts of panic. I looked around to see where the source of fear had begun and from the corner of my eye I saw a boy, blood trickling down his face. A girl, smaller than him, standing just behind him, was in shock and eventually started crying. Non-stop. “His little sister,” I assumed. But where was their mother? Ah, here she comes with her children’s ice-creams. She too must’ve been in shock to see her son in his current state as she dropped both ice-creams, and her purse, she ran faster than any other mother in the world to be by his son’s side. Just as I was about to walk over to offer my assistance a loud siren stopped me in my tracks.

He was taken away in an ambulance. His mother and father chatted with the police with their daughter in between them. They stayed like that for a while until their conversation was interrupted by a loud ringtone coming from the mother’s jacket. After a minute or two she raised her frail hand and covered her mouth while tears slowly ran down her face. Her husband gently pulled her in for a hug, while their little girl stood there, watching in silence, unsure of what to do.

“He’s opening his eyes!” a familiar voice exclaimed. The next thing he knew was a bunch of people were towering over him. He tried to sit up but felt numb all over. “Where am I?” he whispered to himself. “You’re in the hospital, buddy,” called out his dad from the end of the bed. The little boy looked around the room from where he was and saw his little sister hiding behind his mum. He tried to smile despite the pain he was feeling, particularly from the left side of his face. “Try not to smile too much, son. You’ve just woken up from a plastic surgery,” his mother half whispered while smiling gently at him. With all this talking, confusion and questions racing through his head, he slowly drifted off into a deep sleep.

“You doing alright back there?” his dad called from the driver's seat. The little boy nodded in unison with his cheerful little sister. Then, after putting their seatbelts on, they drove their way back home. “How’s it feel to  be released from the hospital for the first time, buddy?” his mother asked, smiling brightly. “It feels good,” he replied. Then he felt a small hand grip his jersey softly. “Are, are you sure you’re alright?” his little sister stuttered, staring at her brother seriously. He smiled and pulled her in, half hugging her. “I’ll be fine now,” he responded.

The Cloak of the Unknown..!

Yesterday, for Drama we began a study on the Fairy Tail Rapunzel. Instead of reading the story we had to design an article to support a 10 second drama around different artifacts associated with the Fairy Tail. The artifacts consisted of:
A black cape, a bird/nest necklace, a padlock and key, and lastly a crown. Here is the article my group constructed around the artifact our group chose:

My Why Poem!

The green children - A letter to my friend

The Tale of Two Mindsets - By Tom Foolery

Steam Station Description!

There is nothing at the station that can fill my empty stomach. While trying very hard not to think about how hungry I am, the saliva in my mouth has begun to dry up. I stopped fidgeting with my jacket to look around the station. The first person I see is a tired mother whose eyes had dark circles under them. She had her arms around a small child who coughed every few seconds without rhythm. It was hard to fall asleep because of the scent of people's B.O mixed with the smell of the salty sea. 

My blog profile

Talofa lava! I am commonly known as Roneeza and am a year 8 currently attending St Patrick’s School. If you read my greeting or my way of saying “hi”, you would have probably already guessed that my nationality is Samoan. Both my parents have large families, though I live in a family of five. I have two sisters, automatically making me the middle child. My hobbies include drawing/sketching, watching anime, learning about my ancestors and collecting things I take great interest in, like a bee drawn to honey. My goal for this year is to finish my work I am given within that same day or week. I would also like others to recognize my writing as sophisticated and strive to be the best person I can be this year. I enjoy eating real fruit ice-cream (flavor - mixed berry). My favorite animals are dogs, especially if they are huskies or german shepherds. I like playing volleyball, kirikiti (A Samoan version of cricket) and soccer. I hope you enjoy reading the posts on my blog! Good bye, for now :).

Masks

During one of our drama sessions with Stacey, we skimmed a poem by Shel Silverstein.

After a while, we were told to get into groups of 4-5 and rephrase the poem in our own way.  Here is my group's poem:

My first week of school!!

My first week back at school was great! New students have come into our school, some old students are still away on holiday, and certain people who bothered to show up at school haven’t changed a bit, though in a good way. 

My class is smaller and even more quieter than last year and I’m still struggling to see if it’s better this way. As far as I can see, people have been enjoying their days back at school. Others still miss the soft comforts of their bed.

Towards the end of the school holidays, I had been really excited to go back to school. Days at home had become a little boring. I was really happy to see my friends again and seeing the new year 7's come into our class. I wonder what my last year at this school will be like...

Last year's picture:

This year's picture:

The Treasure Box!

It was a dark, cloudy and dreary day for everyone in the village. Abruptly, a turbulent sound befell that made my head create a high pitched ringing tone. I glanced out the window and the library was on fire. I watched how the books exploded out of rhythm and the bits and pieces of paper drifted gently in the breeze. It didn’t take long for the fire to escalate throughout the village and burn everything to the ground.

Father handed me an iron box, inside was a library book he had borrowed the day before. "This is a book about our people Peter, it is very special to us," said his father. Sometime later, I asked him a question that left him voiceless for a sustained amount of time. “Father, why hasn’t mother come back from work yet?” Then he suddenly stopped in his footsteps and grasped my hands tightly. “It’s better if you don’t worry about her right now," he said flatly.

It’s been weeks since the fire incident transpired in the village. Father has been coughing an awful lot throughout the past few days, sometimes he becomes light-headed and collapses.

One night, before my father and I, go to rest, father presents me the iron box he packed before we left the village. "Swear to me, son, that you will keep our treasure protected," he said weakly. "I promise, father," I said, quietly. I take my father's hands into my own and sleep soundlessly throughout the long and cold night. The next morning, some of the villagers help me bury my father and advised me to leave the iron box. Instead, I left the suitcase near the grave, said a quick 'good-bye' and went to catch up with the rest of the villagers.

Eventually, we reached a small village. Afraid that this village would be slaughtered because of our presence, we decided to continue walking. At that point, we came upon a steep mountain, and knowing that the iron box was too heavy for me to carry, I buried it beside a medium-sized linden tree near the village, where it would be safe from explosives and eruptions. Night came by and we rested so that we could have the strength to climb up the mountain the next morning. Finally, when we reached the bottom of the other side, we came across a town. We planned on seeing their 'leader' and ask if we could rest in their humble home.

Days in the wonderful town turned into months and the months into years. Everyone lived lively and peacefully. I had gotten a proper education and now works as a businessman. Remembering my father's death and the iron box I had promised to protect, I decided to journey back to my home village. When I reached my destination, the village looked very different from what I remembered as a boy. It looked brighter and happier. After my long journey, I chose to rest in one of the rental apartments overnight and decided to journey to where the  linden tree was, on foot, the next morning.

When I finally reached my destination, I looked for the linden tree with which I had marked a deep X shape. I dug the treasure box up and read through the book. Out of curiosity, a little blonde girl took a quick peek inside the iron box, hoping there would be some gold and plenty of beautiful jewelry. "There isn't any gold or silver if that's what you were thinking," I said to the little girl. She looked a bit disappointed. "This book is more splendid than any gem in the world," I said, trying to make her feel better. “What’s so special about a book?” she said quietly. “This book is about our people, about us,” I told her. Gradually, we ended up reading the book together until 6:00 pm.

“Thank you for sharing you and your father’s treasure with me, Mister Peter,” said the little girl with a glowing smile. “But for now, I have to go home before my mother starts to worry." Mother… I haven't heard that word since the ‘incident’ that happened in the village years ago. After a short time of ‘awkward silence’, I offered to walk the little girl home. “Safety reasons,” I said evenly.  The little girl lived in a small house with pretty flower paintings on both sides of the house. As we walked closer to the house, I noticed some small hand prints in various colors at the bottom right corner. "Till next time," I said, in a manner that there was no chance at all that they would ever come across each other's path again. "Goodnight, Peter," responded the little girl with a sleepy grin.

The next morning, I proceeded to the newly reconstructed library that was once my father's favorite place to roam around in. I brought my book along with me and placed it in one of the library shelves. I thought it would be accurate for people to know what occurred in past generations of their ancestors. I returned me and my people's treasure to the place where it belonged so that others can read it with interest... and with love.

The Treasure Box! (Drama session)

There are a lot of things that are happening at the moment. I can smell the smoke from our burnt houses. I can hear family and friends mourning for their loved ones, including the massive explosives that are bombing random areas. The sight of people panicking and dying makes me feel like a useless human being, we can’t do anything about it. Especially when we are attacked without any warning.

Our home… Gone. Family and friends… Gone. The feeling of our comfortable beds… Also gone. We were forced out of our houses and were ordered to leave immediately without any circumstances. Seeing the soldiers with guns, knives and even tanks scared me so much it left me speechless for some time. I assumed these sights frightened some adults too, so we had no choice but to leave our beloved home.

It’s been 2 weeks since the mysterious soldiers invaded our home. Our food and water supplies are almost finished, we only have enough to feed us for no more than three or four days. Eventually, a group of travelers passed us. A middle-aged man stepped out of the crowd to stop them and then ask questions about where they’re going to and if our humble village could accompany them to their home, we have nowhere left to go. Then before I know it, we began to follow the group of travelers.

A few hours of walking later, we came upon a large village filled with beautiful houses and cheerful people. “Welcome to our humble home! It’s not much, but we would be honored for you to be part of our forever nourishing family.” The same man that had the conversation with them thanked them happily with tears in his eyes and promised they wouldn’t regret taking us in. Looking around at my people, I saw the elderly crying as well. Some of the little children were shouting with joy, a few of the people looked confused and some were shocked at what was happening. I’m so delighted that the journey of finding a new home is over, but the incident of the mysterious soldiers taking over our home is still stuck in my head. Who were they? Why did they take the lives of innocent people? Do they usually go from village to village to cause destruction just for fun? Who is their leader? And most importantly… What do they want from us? I hope one of us deals with the situation later in the future.

St Patrick's Day Play Dough!

Recipe for making play dough:

• 2 cups of flour
• ½ cup of salt
• 2 tbsp of oil
• 2 tbsp of cream of tartar
• 2 cups of boiling water
• 1 tsp of food colouring

Method:

1. Mix all dry ingredients.
2. Add oil and boiling water with food colouring and mix well.
3. Store in airtight container.

On the 18th of March, Room 8 made green, not-so-sparkly play dough. It was to celebrate St Patrick’s day. This took part in the afternoon at St Patrick’s school.

In class, we were separated into five groups and each person had an important role to do. One of us put all the ingredients into a bowl, the other read out the instructions for making the play dough. Another person had a rubber glove to knead the play dough and the other cleaned the table after we were done. The teacher also added some glitter for the final touches.

The Play dough was very sticky at first and was in need of lots of flour for it to shaped properly. Adding more flour also helped it to not stick to the table.

After all that, we were told to roll it into a thin and long snake and twirl it into a spiral. When we were done, we had to blow through a straw and guide a polystyrene ball to the middle of the spiral. Then we could form it into any shape we wanted. I made a soccer field and bent the end of two straws and stuck it to the side of the square to make it look like goal posts. Me and my friend used two other straws to blow the polystyrene ball into each other's goals.

We had heaps of fun making play dough, even though it was very messy.

WALT: look at a variety of Narrative Devices to understand how visual meaning can be conveyed.

This trip we took was fascinating and fun at the same time!

St. Patrick’s School - the oldest school in Auckland, is situated in the heart of the suburb of Panmure in Auckland. It’s surrounding area offers many opportunities to learn about the past - together with numerous chances for family outings.

One key feature of Panmure is the Panmure bridge. But the bridge that stands today is not the original! Auckland Provincial Council in February 1857 for a bridge to get across to the other side, without having to rely on boats and boatmen, or crossing at Otahuhu. In 1864-65, the first bridge was constructed of stones, imported from Melbourne and iron from Sydney.

Every Thursday, room 8 would walk outside the school and find information about the original Panmure bridge built in 1864-65. We call it E.O.T.C. (Education outside the classroom). During one of our walks, we found an alleyway, not far from the panmure library. In it, was a mural, which is a painting wall. It was a mural of history in Panmure during 1920. We all read the the writing that was authorized on the wall and started taking notes.

The History of Panmure:

A volcano caused the Panmure basin to sync. Mt Wellington was created by an eruption in 9,300 BC. We also found out that volcano soil is very fertile. The Maori, Tamaki area is possibly the largest Maori town in the 1,800’s. The first arrival of the Europeans was in 1820, Samuel Marsden. Aboard the ship was 79 families, 71 of them were catholic. Then, the catholic built St Patrick’s School in 1840, St Mathias was built in 1865 and Panmure district was established in 1875 and the Anglican school stopped enduring. St Patrick’s School is still a flourishing school, meaning it is still developing rapidly and successfully. Sadly, none of the original buildings are in existence, meaning it does not exist anymore. The mural was painted by Billy McQueen in July 1997.

Facts about the Original Panmure bridge:
Between 1864 and 1865 the first bridge over the Tamaki River was built here. The bridge was officially opened on October 20th 1065 by Robert Graham. The first bridge was constructed of stones imported from Melbourne and iron from Sydney. The first panmure bridge was designed by William Collett and William Weaver supervised the construction. The original panmure bridge was 195 meters long and 6 meters wide.

After all of us were done taking notes and reading it to make sure they haven’t missed anything, then we all walked back to St. Patrick’s school the same way we came here at the alleyway. Then, we had to write a report of what we have seen today. Some of us wrote in their notes they took during the walk. Others looked up information on their chromebooks. After a few minutes, our teacher, Ms Dines asked some of us to share their report about the walk.

Today was a very exciting day. I have learnt a lot during our walk. It was also good exercise. I hope something like today happens again soon!

Now I know a strategy to finding out how many days there are in all the months of the year!

Today, Summer and I learnt a new rhyme which reminds us of how many days are there in each month. We were wondering how many days there were in November because we were trying to figure out which day the 1st of December would be on. The cause of this was because St Patrick's School was preparing for a party on the 1st of December. We were going to probably play ukuleles during singing carols in front of a HUGE crowd. Summer was saying there was 30 days in November and I kept assuming there was 31 days. So Summer searched up if there was 31 days in November. It didn't really help us when we saw the results, so she searched up 'Month rhymes'. The results was really interesting, so we memorized the rhyme so that we would always know how many days there was in every month of the year. Here is how the rhyme went:

30 days has September, April, June and November. When short February's done. All the rest has 31..

There was also another month rhyme, but we didn't memorize it. If your curious about what this rhyme sounded like here it is:

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November, all the rest have 31. February has twenty-eight, but leap year coming one in four.

If you don't understand what the last part of the rhyme meant, it means that usually, February has 28 days, but after every four years, there will be 29 days. It was really fun saying the rhyme! Our teacher Mrs Dines suggested to blog the rhyme and what you were arguing about, instead of saying it out loud so much. We figured it was a good idea, and started blogging. It wasn't something the whole class was talking about, it was something that just came to mind. I guess I was wrong about November having 31 days. Now I know...

My 10th birthday celebration was a special time I spent with my friends and family!!

On Saturday the 18th of November, my family,

friends, next door neighbors family, my friends

from church and I celebrated my tenth birthday

at Grace International church.

First, we all woke up with excitement to celebrate

my birthday. It was going to be a really big party

because loads of friends and family were invited,

like my grandparents, my cousins, the next door

neighbor's family, my best friends from church:

Elizaly, Jackson, Eden and Lily and my best friends from

St. Patrick’s School: Anamaria, Angelina and Summer.

Next, we got dressed in our most finest clothes.

We didn’t wear dresses or high hills or earrings

though. We were wearing nice casual clothes,

like jeans, shorts, tops, jackets, sports shoes and

sandals. After that we all gathered around the table

and started to eat breakfast. Then, my mum and I

drove to pak’n’save to buy the cake, the balloons

and the party bags. After that we drove to Grace

International church.

My mum and my Sunday school teacher, Cecilia

helped sort out the room we were going to use for

my birthday party. While the party was getting arranged,

two Chinese men started to pump up a bouncy castle

outside of the room. It was so huge that it nearly touched the roof!

After the bouncy castle was pumped up, my friends

that lived inside the church played inside until my

family and my friends from school arrived. The first

to arrive was my grandparents and my two cousins

who came along, Fano and Margret.  I happily greeted

them and hugged them. They put there presents they

bought for me in the room on a small table in the left corner.

A while later, my friend from school, Summer arrived,

then Anamaria and then Angelina. I introduced them

to my friends from church. We all played, talked and

laughed in the bouncy castle.

After a while, we were all called to come inside the room

because the party was starting. Firstly my dad gave a

speech. Then my grandpa said a prayer in Samoan and

in english for the food we were about to eat and for all of

the people that was in the rooms blessings. Then we all

sang happy birthday and ate the food that was spread

across the tables we were sitting at. There was chicken,

chocolate sticks and bluebird chips. Then we cut the cake

and served it out to everyone of people that were in the room.

After we all finished eating, my friends and I went out to

play in the bouncy castle, while some adults stayed in the

room to talk to each other. Then it was time for my friends

and family to go home. I handed out the party bags and

thanked everyone for coming to my birthday. My mum,

dad and Cecilia cleaned up the room while some adults

took some of the food home.

My favorite part of celebrating my tenth birthday, was

when all my friends and family came to celebrate it with me.

Also because of the yummy food my mum bought for us.

I can’t wait to celebrate my next birthday.