Silly Sports Day

Tuesday 23rd August 2011 started out like any other day with writing and reading at the beginning of the day but, instead of having maths after morning tea we played 'Silly Sports.'

The way these 'silly sports' worked were, the 4 intermediate classes were given a 'silly sport' to start out with. The 4 silly sports were ball tiggy-with Mrs Lagitupu, the giant slingshot-with Ms Tito, 3 legged race-with Mr Harris and a sponge race-with Mrs Nua. After a certain amount of time at a silly sport we rotated on to the next activity.

Ball tiggy was the first silly sport that we got. Before we started the game, Mrs Lagitupu split us up into 4 teams-green, yellow, red and blue. The aim of the game was to try and tag the opposition without running with the ball or throwing it at them. So to win the game, co-operation and good communication skills were needed. It seemed that at the end of that activity, my team was really good at those 2 things because we had won !

The giant slingshot was our next rotation. The aim of the game was pretty simple-try and shoot the ball out of the slingshot into a hula hoop. One hula hoop was pink and whoever shot the ball into that hoop earned 100 points for their class. Many people tried but failed at getting the ball into that pink hoop. That was, until Helen had her go. Some friends and I cheered "go Helen !" When she was ready, she fired. All eager to see where it was going to land, everyone sat up. It was rolling towards the pink hoop, “WOOHOO !” everyone was cheering. Suddenly the ball missed the hoop by a just few inches! We all sat back down and had a little laugh at how excited we all were. But not all was lost as someone managed to score us 10 points before we left to the next 'silly sport.'

We went on to Mr Harris who was taking a 3 legged race challenge. It was like a 3 legged race and a tennis ball race at the same time. We had to pair up with someone, tie one of our legs together and race to the other side and back without dropping the tennis ball. My partner Tia and I had our turn, and just when we were about to cross the finish line, I dropped the ball ! Tia started hitting me and shouted "SELA MAN, WE WERE RIGHT THERE !!" and we both dropped to the ground laughing our heads off.

Then we rotated on to or 4th and final activity. Again, we were spilt up into 4 teams and each 2 buckets, 1 full of water and a sponge and the other one empty. The aim of the game was to let the sponge absorb up as much water as it could in the full bucket, and pass it along to your team members (who would be in a line behind you) and squeeze it into the empty bucket. The team who's bucket had the most water in it won. The red won...twice!

That Tuesday was such an awesome experience. I would sure love to do it again!

Year 7 & 8 Cross Country 2011

Here's a little riddle: what do most people look forward to, is very competitive and is kinda like a battle of the fittest ?...Cross country !

Every year, we hold a cross country race. The way its usually set up is in age groups but this year it was a bit different. Instead of age groups, we just raced in years. For example all the Year 7 girls race each other, Year 7 boys race and so on.

Something that was also a bit different was the race course. Instead of just a run around the reserve and back to our field, we ran a race course that was 3.5km ! But luckily for the Year 7's, they only had to run 3km.

As soon as the Year 7 boys were out of sight, the Year 8 girls lined up along the starting line. Miss V explained the race course to us and we waited anxiously for Miss V to clap the clapper. "On your marks" she started "get set..." CLAP ! As soon as we heard the 'clap' we shot off like lightening bolts and tried to overtake each other.

We hadn't even gotten to halfway when we saw the boys catching up to us. Most of us girls started sprinting as soon as we saw the boys, but others were calm and collected and didn't even try to keep in front of the boys. Unfortunately, I was one of those girls. Taking our time, kind of just strolling through the bush.

For a while we started to just stroll along, but then we felt quite de-hydrated so we started to power-walk. A long while later, we saw our school poking through all the ferns and trees, so we started to walk faster. We had nearly gotten to the finished line when we were told by Mrs Lagitupu that we still had 1/2km to run. Puffed out, we went back to walking and finally got to the finish line.

I had known that I wasn't going to come first because I was competing against people like Etta and April. But my goal was to not come last and guess what ? I didn't !

Holiday Highlight

Whether you’re a teacher or student, school always seems very busy and tiring. So when the holidays come, most people are excited. I, on the other hand, enjoy school and don’t really look forward to the school holidays.

Movies, shopping and sleep-overs fill some people’s holidays, but for others like me, holidays are filled with sleep, chores and even more sleep. However, during the holidays, I did go to the movies and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2. I found the last chapter of the Harry Potter series quite exhilarating.

Going to the movies was pretty peachy keen, but another cool thing we did was go over to my grandma’s place to celebrate her birthday. We had a big feast and consumed most of it and sang happy birthday to her. We could tell by her facial expressions that she really enjoyed it ! We also enjoyed it.

The holidays weren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be, but the holidays I’m really looking forward to are the end of year ones, because when these holidays approach us, my family and I get ready for our annual trip to Tonga ! Unfortunately, this isn’t for another term so I have to wait for a pretty long time.

France

This term our topic 'Keep your eye on the Ball' is based around the Rugby World Cup (RWC). There are 20 countries playing and each person in our class was given a country to do research on. I got France and did a presentation about it. Here is my finished product.