Daffodil Day!

Thank you to all of you who contributed donations for the Cancer Society. A special thanks to those of you who dressed up for the occasion!
Flo should have won the award for Best Dressed!

Shane Christie, Captain of the Mako's comes to visit!

 Thank you, Shane, for coming in to talk about your career with us!

Writing: Purpose - Inform others of how animals are used for human benefit

Elephant Tragedy in Thailand By Sophia

In 1900 there were 300,000 elephants in the wild and 100,000 in captivity, but now there are 2,000 elephants in the wild and 4,000 elephants in captivity but elephants in captivity aren’t living the best life at all!

While in captivity elephants are being abused for the Thailanders benefits and entertainment. Elephants go threw brutal and painful training everyday and hardly get any food or water and several weeks of brutal training can leave different mental disabilities and also physical disabilities.

Elephants get captured and thrown in captivity at the age of 6-8 months. Elephants try to fight back but only get a bullhook in the head. In Chiang Mai there is a rehabilitation center that rescues injured and endangered elephants.

To help the rehabilitation of these beautiful animals, visit http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/

Elephant Abuse
By Andrew

If elephants are Thailand's symbol animal then why are the killing them off? In the 1900’s in Thailand, there was 300,000 wild elephants and 100,000 captive. Now, there are less than 2,000 wild elephants and about 4,000 captive elephants. Sure that's a lot less captive elephants, but that's even less wild elephants! The question is…. What happens to all those captive elephants? Lets start from the beginning, the very beginning.

Baby elephants are taken straight from their mother for “training”. The training consists of brutal beating and open gashes. In videos and images you can see the Mahout *Ma-hoot* (person controlling the elephants) poking or stabbing the mighty mammals with anything from bamboo  sticks to bull hooks and even whips and chains! During training elephants are deprived from food and water for days and sometimes even weeks! Also their tusks are sold as ivory!

After training the elephants are taken to the streets to ride, beg, or even perform “cool tricks or stunts!”. One of the acts they will make the elephants perform is to paint a picture. The way the Mahout will get the elephant to perform this “trick” is that they will pinch the elephant's ear to get it to move its trunk up and down. Also if you see an elephant swinging its head around, that is a sign of mental or stress disorder. Another thing they will make the elephants do is illegal logging, which is when they make the elephants carry heavy logs up extremely steep hills in the blazing sun!

But you can help! By visiting elephant rescue centres, cruel Mahouts won't be able to endanger any more elephants! One elephant rescue and rehabilitation centre in Chiang Mai run entirely on donations! So, beg your parents (or teacher) to take you to Thailand, so you can save the elephants, not kill them!

Writing: Speeches

Purpose: To inform others

My 7 Wonders of the World

By Seth

That was shamazing!

Hi I’m Seth and I'm gonna talk to you about my 7 Wonders of the World.

What are your 7 Wonders of the World?

Well here are mine…

A Wonder is something that blows your mind like KABOOM…

I smell the sweet smell of chocolate bouncing off the walls.

The machines rattle as the brown oozing liquid slopes off.

You know where this is the cadbury chocolate factory.

The cadbury chocolate factory is one of my wonders of the world .

Every room you went to there was chocolate brown oozing liquid.

YUM. Well not for you non chocolate lovers. The cadbury chocolate factory is located in around the centre of dunedin.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like in the secret city of the Incas? Cusco was one of the last Incan refugee camps after the Spanish Conquests raided for gold and silver. Imagine walking in the dense jungle searching for the lost city knowing you're gonna get lost.

Have you ever wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower? The sights at the top would be amazing. The Eiffel Tower is 300m tall. I would love to climb it. It would be amazing climbing up the metal work. The reason I chose this is because I love France I would love to go there. There is only one stop sign in Paris.

Tottenham Hotspurs are my favourite football team. I would love to see them play at their home ground but there is one problem their home grounds in England. Tottenham Hotspurs have paid 400 million dollars for a new stadium called Northumberland development project. It has a capacity of 61,000 as their old stadium White hart lane could only fit 34,000.

Dream world oh so fun… well until you come across the dreaded line that take hours till you get to the top. Dream world is one of my wonders because I went there a few years ago and it was so FUN! Dream world is located in Queensland, Australia. Some of the rides there were so freaky.

The Grand Canyon have you ever wondered what lies at the rocky depths at of the grand canyon have you heard of the man who jumped over the grand canyon on a motorbike well he made it I think unless he plummeted to his death so it's a win win situation no one gets hurt apart from the motorbike I and the man on it. How long has it been there?  What's it made of? Who knows. I would love to tell you but that's not my job. I’ll leave that up for the scientists.

The Taipei 101 wouldn’t you love to get to the top well I wouldn’t there are so many dangers like falling out the window, stampedes of people trying to get to work and extreme winds blowing you out of the buildings. I would love to climb it. I didn’t mean it what I just said well what are the chances of any of that happening. The Taipei 101 is 101 stories high. It was the tallest building in 2004 and remained such until 2009 when Burj Khalifa in Dubai was built. There is a giant ball keeping it from leaning over it weighs 660 tonnes equivalent to 660 cars. It would be amazing going there at night when the tower lights up majestically.

So there are my 7 Wonders. I hope you enjoyed my speech. Au revoir. That is French for goodbye. So good bye to you all. Merci de votre attention.

Writing: Purpose - To create a story based on an image

Mr Banks Unusual Morning

By Aisha  

'Ring', the alarm went off as Mr Banks listened to the birds chirping. He had a strange feeling about today. His brown leather jacket swooped passed his bruised knees. He combed his slick, dark hair back. He raced out the door. Wait a minute, he thought to himself, turning and flying back up the stairs. He picked up his dull suitcase that matched his leather jacket and then swiftly walked down the street smiling at every elderly who trudged past. 

As time passed he arrived at the cold train station shivering, wishing he had put another layer on. Mr Banks was a businessman taking the train to work, there and back every day. He went through an alleyway. As he stumbled past something that caught his eye, a shadowy figure was holding its ground. Mr Banks chocolate brown hat flew off his head as he stood in astonishment.

This was no puppy or kitten for it had a gecko like tongue, shark fin feet, a lizard tail, big whale eyes, ears like a bear and what seemed to be shark gills. "What on earth is this?" He thought to himself, too stunned to move as did the creature. Mr Banks slowly held out his right arm shaking as he did so. Just then the creature let out an astonishing scream and Mr Banks snapped back his hand.

Ten minutes passed and in that ten minutes a lot went on for Mr Banks. He had made a new friend, asleep at the bottom of his newly polished shoes. Mr Banks picked up his new pet and stuffed him in his coat where he could keep this mouse alien nice and warm. Instead of going to work he took the train back home.

He entered his big wooden doors of his home. His wife had left the fire blazing and the mouse alien and Mr Banks had a hot chocolate and they both sat down to watch X factor.

Pen tapping at Assembly

Kereopa and Wiremu Pen Tapping at Assembly. 
Such a talent!

Superhero's and Villains Social

Some wickedly cool dress ups for our social! Good job, team!