Owairaka 20/20

The third time around Liam feels like he had pins stuck in his feet. He could hardly take another step. It felt as if a 50kg man was pulling him down . Liam could smell the sweat pouring from his chin down to his feet. Liam thought that he was going to puke.

Sweetie was cruising, then she saw her chance. She started to sprint. She could feel sweat pouring out her shoes. She was sure that she would win. Her eyes were focused on the finish line. Sweetie picked her speed up and passed Liam. Liam slipped. He could feel the pain. It felt as if his legs are broken. Sweetie sped up and crossed the finish line with joy.

“Mummy” said Liam.

“SHAME!” said Sweetie.

by Moeez

Title of challenge: Recycling Music Challenge

Scenario:
A group of friends are stranded because their money has been stolen. They decide to earn it by busking using discarded packaging items to make instruments.

Task:
Get into teams of four. You need to make at least four musical instruments and play a designated tune (e.g. Twinkle, twinkle little star.)

Conditions:
There are no set materials, but you must not use real instruments. Each team member must play
one instrument, and the tune may be played for at least 30 seconds.

Judging:
Teams will be judged by the standard of music, the variety of instruments and audience reaction.

Videoed:
Entries will be videoed and put on this blogsite. Others may judge your performance differently.

Thanks to the BP challenge for this idea. See BP Challenge for their website.

Kashin, the elephant at Auckland zoo was put down by vets yesterday. She has been suffering from foot abscesses and chronic arthiritis. She was 40 years old and had been at the zoo for 36 years. She had become depressed and withdrawn. We have some questions we are wondering about.

1. Is it cruel to keep animals like elephants in a zoo?
2. Was it right to put Kashin down?
3. How long do elephants live for in the wild and in captivity.

What do you think?

Have you got any questions about elephants you want to ask?

Here is a video of Mr Waller’s adventures with elephants when he was in Malaysia. People got to ride on elephants and to swim with them.

Congratulations to the two Owairaka Netball Teams that competed in the Eden/Albert Netball competition last week. Both teams won their grade. 150 players from 15 schools compete in this tournament. Well done Ms. Karaka. Well done girls. You are all stars.

On the eighteenth of August, Pro Sport Rugby came to our school to teach us some basic rugby skills.

Altogether there were four instructors; the two that took the boys were called Brian and David, and the other two that took the girls were called Noah and Tyson.

The boys and the girls were split into two different groups.

To start off with, the boys had to do some fitness and 25 push-ups. Unfortunately some people cheated so we had to do 10 more. The girls started with a running race and then they had to tackle a punching bag. Then the boys had to tackle each other. The girls had to try and catch a ball that one of the instructors had kicked. The boys then had to tackle two of the instructors, Brian and David, who were holding tackling bags. At the end, they gave us all prize packs with puzzles, lollies, tattoos, and more.  

The next day lots of us were still feeling sore from all the hard work we had done on the rugby field.

We had a fun day with the Pro Sport instructors and we hope they come again.

Written by Paddy B.

Video made by Shaquille W. and Helen M.

Wow. I saw orangutans in the wild. Not in a cage or in some zoo. Not a tame pet. A wild animal free to roam wherever it wants to. Semenggoh is a 650 hectare tract of jungle. 24 orangutans live there.

One family of orangutans needs 500 hectares of space to get enough food to survive. Therefore, the wardens have to offer food twice a day so that these animals will not starve. They come to the feeding station if they want. Sometimes they all come, sometimes none do.

I went on Sunday afternoon. Two teenage orangutans turned up. I wish I was there earlier that day. Some of the tourists were too noisy and some had cameras on a tripod, two things that can annoy an orangutan. They hate tripods because they look like a blowpipe that the native tribes use to hunt orangutans with. Ritchie, the largest orangutan, got angry and rushed at the crowd shaking the handrails and urinating at the people. Everyone had to rush to safety. It might have been scary but I think it would have been exciting to see.

[slideshare id=1746228&doc=orangutansinthewild-090720205442-phpapp02]

I asked Room 20 earlier what animal is in bigger danger of extinction, the kiwi or the orangutan. We haven’t yet made any conclusions. Here are some facts to consider.

1. Orangutans need a huge space to live in.
2. They never have more than one baby at a time.
3. Mothers only have a baby every five years.
4. They are being poached and sold on the black market because some people believe they have medicinal benefits.
5. Mother orangutans get shot by poachers so that the baby can be caught and sold as a pet.
   

Thank you to Nicki, Joanna and Phelicia for sending me a message from New Zealand. It is nice to hear from people back home.

I would love to hear what other people have done in their holidays too.

I have had a great time. I arrived in K. L. last Saturday. Although I had just had an 11 hour flight and spent an hour getting from the plane to my home-stay, I still managed to go out to town and look around the parks and have some food. I got to bed at 2am KL time, which was 6am NZ time. Next day we were up and touring around. We went to Batu caves, a Hindu temple site. There are lots of steps to climb and lots of monkeys running around. I also saw a python draped over some one’s neck. There is a large gold statue guarding the entrance way. Then we went to the Royal Selangor Pewter factory. We had a very knowledgeable tour guide. Then we went to the Kuala Lumpur Memorial. It is similar to our cenotaphs and war memorials although it did have a much more striking and interesting statue of soldiers than ours have. People were very surprised when I informed them that NZ also sent soldiers to World War 1 & 2.

The next day I visited my first school. They were very welcoming. I saw children doing environmental “green day” type activities. I joined their assembly and spoke a bit about New Zealand.

Tuesday I went bright and early to the Twin Towers to get a ticket to walk the sky bridge. When I arrived at the ticket opening time of 8.30am there was already a que a mile long. I had a plane to Kuching to catch in the afternoonm so had to give it a miss. I hope to do the sky walk when I get back to KL. The flight to Kuching is about an hour and a half. Air Asia is the budget airline but it was a clean, comfortable flight. My new host family comprises of Mum, Dad, and three girls.

Wednesday I had an amazing day. I visited an arts school. 605 of the day is devoted to the arts and 405 to academic subjects. Their assembly performance was outstanding. They sang, danced, and played instruments like professionals. They were so confident and proud of their work. Robyn Mc Queen from my school would have been blown away. I then went on the the Kuching Arts Village to watch the real professionals. They were good but I still enjoyed the childrens performance better. I got to walk through some native Sarawak long huts and have a go with a blow dart. I hit the target in the bulls eye. Lucky there weren’t any wild animals around or they might have been history.

Thursday and Friday I relaxed a bit after my hectic week. I have been to the museum and the market. I have also seen one of the world’s biggest deer antler collection. It is valued at 30 million ringgits or 15 million NZ dollars. It is owned by the father of Hasfa, the mum of the family I am staying with. He is an amazing man and told me stories about his life for three hours.

Today I played cricket with the boys at the local school and then watched them play rugby. They were very impressed with my All Black jersey. It was a stupid thing to wear in this heat. Tonight I am going to be Simon Cowell at the school’s talent show. I don’t know how mean I should be. My instructions are to give comments about the style, beat, and tempo of the performances. I can hear Robyn in NZ choking with laughter now!!

Tomorrow I am going to the World Rain forest Concert. I know i will die in the heat but this is pretty special. Performers from all over the world are coming. I can’t wait…

Hello everyone. I am having a wonderful time in Malaysia. The flight over here wasn’t very exciting because there weren’t any good movies to watch. So I had to play games  and read my book for 11 hours.

I am being treated like royalty by everyone here in Malaysia. I have tasted the delightful food and cuisine of the Malay people. When I went to India earlier this year I was so careful what food I ate in case I got sick. I still got sick, so this time I have decided to eat everything I am offered. I have tried some very unusual food that I wouldn’t normally try.

Before I left New Zealand Samantha suggested I should try the king of fruit, the Durian. I have. I can’t describe it. It smells foul, like something rotten. It feels like gooey slime. It tastes strange and unusual. I can’t say I loved eating them, but then again, I didn’t hate them either. I have some photos I’ll put on some time showing the Durian fruit. I have also eaten other fruit that I have never seen before.

I have also been to Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur. You have to climb up 272 steep steps to enter the cave. There are monkeys running around everywhere. The cave is huge. There are Hindu temples inside where people pray. At the foot of the steps there is a large gold statue.

I am now in Kuching, surrounded by the rainforests. It is very hot here and I am drinking lots of water, having lots of cold showers, and enjoying any air-conditioning I can find. I have visited two schools so far and will see some more over the next two weeks.

I hope everyone in NZ is enjoying their holidays. Let me know what you are doing….

This video clip on Youtube is the best I could find about kiwis. It has interesting facts and figures about the kiwi’s plight. I cannot embed it into the blog but please do watch it from this link. It is well worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Be5XYhkEnI

Can anyone else find some better kiwi videos? The first twenty kiwi videos on youtube are not about the kiwi bird.

This is animated but Joanna loved it so much I have put it in.

I know the narrator is speaking in Swedish but the visuals in this short clip are very interesting.

Borneo Orangutan Sweden from Borneo Orangutan Survival Sweden on Vimeo.

I love this one. Thanks Ethan for your email. Here it is. Who can solve it?

Ethan says, “Hey Mr… This is random

Ok. Assume last year a girl began with no money. Every month she gets an allowance for a whole year.  Then she spends 1/2 of her money on clothes, then 1/3 of the remaining money on games, and then 1/4 of the remaining money on toys. After she bought all of that, she had $7777 left. Assuming she only gets money by allowance, how much money does she earn every month?”

No, Paddy, it can’t be $0. How could she end up with $7777 if she gets nothing each allowance?

No one was prepared to have a go. So, as a class we worked it out by “trial and error.” Our first attempt was $100. We were no where near. So we then tried $1000. We were still not close enough. Samantha noticed that the answer was always half the number we thought of. This made it easy. The answer has to be $7777 x 2.     $15554

How worried are you about this latest world pandemic called swine flu? Do you also think it’s a bit of an ugly and unfortunate name? Do you prefer it’s other name, H1N1 Flu.

At Owairaka School we have been fortunate to not have any swine flu cases so far. Of course, that could all change so quickly. One class at Kowhai Intermediate has been sent home because one child in that room has swine fever. Health officials admit it will spread rapidly through the community.

To help prevent any cases of swine flu at our school we are introducing new procedures and practices. Each class has a new tissue dispenser. We also have a new plastic bag lined bin to collect the used tissues only. These will be collected and disposed of separately to all the other rubbish. 

Which animal is more endangered, New Zealand’s kiwis or Malaysia’s Orangutangs?

What are the biggest threats to their survival? How is man trying to help them survive?

Find out…

• fascinating facts about each of these amazing animals.
• reasons why their survival is being threatened.
• what steps are being taken to ensure their species does survive.

Paddy has researched this information about Kiwis and orangutangs.

• Kiwi are flightless birds endemic to New Zealand.
• At around the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites and lay the largest egg in relation to their body size.
• There are five recognised species – all of which are endangered.
• The kiwi is a national symbol of New Zealand.

• The orangutans are a species of great apes.
• Known for their intelligence, they live in trees and they are the largest living arboreal animal.
• They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is typically reddish-brown.
• Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, they are currently found only in rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, though fossils have been found in Java, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Vietnam and China.
• There are only two surviving species.

 Paddy needs to find meanings for new words like ratites, arboreal, Borneo, Sumatra, endemic, species.

Let’s add to this list of fascinating facts. 

Here is the Owairaka Rugby Team that played in the 2009 Barbarians Rugby day at Ngataringa Naval base in Devonport on Sunday 7 June. We had to be up early and meet at school at 7am. Not all of us made it. We had to rush around the neighbourhood knocking on doors and getting  boys out of bed. Eventually we had a team. It was a great day. We played three games and had lots of fun. One of the parents put on a bbq off the back of a truck. It was great to see so many parents turn up and support their sons.

For the record, we won two games and narrowly lost the third.

Here is a photo of the 1996 Owairaka School rugby team. They were a champion side who also won the Auckland Rugby League title.

The captain holding the ball is Sonny Bill Williams. The player to his right is Paul Faleva’ai, Mrs Faleva’ai from Room 8’s son. Who are the other players from that team? We all know what Sonny Bill Williams is doing now but what about the rest?

Do any of you out there reading this post know anything about these boys?

Which boys from the 2009 photo will we be talking about in 13 years time because they have done great things in life?

Ayan thinks I look alot different in 1996. She’s right. But what did Ayan look like in 1996?