Visiting Author | Emil

Visiting Author

On Wednesday 27th of March 2019 we were lucky enough to have Thelma Eakin come and visit in our classroom. If you don't know who Thelma Eakin is, she's the author of a book we're reading about the Brunner Mine disaster called The Mine's Afire. Thelma Eakin made the book with another woman called Susan Battye. We were told that they decided to make a play before the book which took two years to make! Once they had made the play they were asked by Scholastic to make a book and that's what they did. 

A lot of people from the class next to ours (which also met Thelma at the same time) came up with a bunch of questions to ask her. A lot of people asked questions like "Where did you get all your information?" and "How did you come up with the title?" We were told that they went to see a guy called Bill Mosley which told them most of their information. They also based the main character in the book (Tommy Carter) around Bill Mosley. They had to write the book as a diary and from Tommy Carter's view because Scholastic were making a series of diaries written from peoples perspectives and one of those was Tommy Carter. Below is a photo of Thelma Eakin coming to visit us.  

Brunner Mine Site | Emil

Brunner Mine

On Monday the 25th of March 2019 my class and I went to the Brunner Mine Site. The Brunner Mine disaster was one of the worst tragedy's that have happened in New Zealand with 65 men and boys dead. There were two lady's named Mrs Mears and Miss Barber who knew a lot about the site and planned a whole day at the Brunner site for us. The day started with meeting at school and driving out to the site. Mrs Mears talked about the site before we went down to it. We got split into two groups and did two different activities and then we would swap over. I got put into the group which got a tour around the site with Mrs Mears. We went down to the coke ovens and we got to go inside them before we talked about what they were used for. We then went up to the memorial where you can see all the men who died. We also saw one of the entrances to the mine. Eventually we got back around to the information shelter and had a snack. We then changed around and we did the other activity. The group I was in got split again and one of the groups had to answer questions about the mine like how coal is made and what technique the miners used to get the coal which is what I did first. Then we swapped around and we got to dress up and take an olden days photo and I got to be a doctor. We then had lunch.

When we finished lunch we did this mime thing where we got put into groups and had to act out a scene from the book without talking and the audience had to try and guess what we were doing. We were the miners trying to get the horses into the mine. We then packed up and went to Stillwater Cemetery where the mass grave is. We did an activity in the cemetery where we had to go around and answer questions such as who is the youngest person buried in the cemetery. When we finished at the cemetery we packed up and came back to school. I really liked the trip and can't wait to continue with this subject.  

Blue Colour Poem | Emil

Blue Colour Poem

Blue is the colour of waves folding over boulders stranded on the beach

Blue is the flavour of a blueberry being crushed in between my teeth

Blue is the smell of flowers blooming on a fresh spring day

Blue is the sound of the grass waving in the wind

Colour Day | Emil

Colour Day

Today on the 22nd of March 2019 we are having a colour day. A colour day is where you bring a donation and have to where bright clothes. The colour day is for the tragedy that happened a week ago in Christchurch and for the lives that were lost. The whole school are going to be having two minutes silence. Most of New Zealand is actually also having two minutes silence and I think a lot of schools as well. 

The two minutes silence will occur at 1:32 approximately when it happened. A lot of people have actually dyed their hair bright colours. I guess some people didn't really care or just didn't have the clothes because a lot of students are just wearing black or dark colours. We are thinking of you Christchurch.

Favourite Song | Emil

Art Term 1 2019 | Emil

Art Term One

For the past six weeks my class and I have been working on this really cool art. We start by sketching two or three circles in the middle and then (for example) draw a cool pattern in the outer circles and then write your name in the middle. Once you've done that, you then start sketching things that you like doing and things the relate to you. Once you've sketched everything you colour it all in and then you find (for example) an animal or an instrument that you like and trace it on and cut it out. You then glue the animal onto black paper and make a border. Once you've done that you take the excess paper and glue that onto black paper and then you have two pieces of art!

Below is the art I made

  

Four Bar Composition | Music

Four Bar Composition

Tuesday for the first couple of weeks our class have music in our neighbouring class (T2). This time we had to make a four bar composition and make a slide about it.
Below is the slide we made! Hope you enjoy.

Starting Tech | 2019

Starting Tech 2019

This year is my first year in our top syndicate called Totara which means that I am starting tech. Tech is short for technology and is where we go to our Greymouth High School (Grey High). We walk there and get sorted into five different groups which all go to different things like metal work, making things with materials, coding on computers, woodwork and cooking. We go every week on Wednesday. I got sorted into woodwork which is the one I wanted to get sorted into and about five of my friends are in my group as well. So far we have been to Tech twice.

In woodwork we have a teacher called Mr Stevens. He's a nice and humorous guy. On the first day we started making our drafts and coming up with a good design for the tongs we would be making, but before we started designing them we had to fill out a bunch of safety stuff and Mr Stevens took us on a tour and showed us where we had to go in the case of an emergency. We had to make a pair of tongs designed to do what we wanted, for example I designed a pair of noodle tongs and put long pointy ends on them so you could twirl noodles and stab pasta on them. I also put holes in them so if you serve pasta with them then the water can drain out.

On the second day we decided on our final design that we would be making and then we went into the workshop. The workshop is a classroom where there are lots of tools and lots of wooden benches with storage underneath for our bags. We first had to construct a working prototype from cardboard and then had to get that verified from Mr Stevens and only then could we begin to make the actual thing. First you had to sketch the design on the wood and use up as much of the wood as possible. Mr Stevens also taught us how to use the machines we would be using to cut out the design. We were using these machines which you had to slide the wood under and then this blade goes up and down really fast and begins to cut the wood. So far I'm up to cutting the wood and I'm really excited to get back in the workshop. I'm really happy that Totara go to Tech because I really enjoy it.