Poem: A Friend...

That's right! Poems are back! This poem is called A Friend... If you haven't figured out all ready.

Original by Trevor Millum:

A Friend...

A friend is someone who borrows your ball

And returns it to you later in the day;

Who will lend their newest pens - and will play

Your games. Who’ll come around to your house

  and call

For you in rain as well as when it’s fine;

Who’ll listen to your secrets, share your fears,

lend a shoulder when your eyes are full of tears

And won’t divide things into ‘yours’ and ‘mine’.

A friend will peel the plaster gently off your cut

And a friend won’t say ‘Yuk!’. A friend laughs at your jokes

When others just go ‘Eh?’; who likes you but

Will tell you when you’re wrong; who strokes

Your favourite pet in spite of all the fleas -

Who knows your family but, when invited, says

  ‘Yes, please!’

Trevor Millum

New and improved version by Me!:

A Friend...

...is someone who hangs out with you all day

even when theres nothing to do.

A friend is someone who comes to your house

and always asks before using your stuff.

A person who’ll will do all your dares

even if they really don’t want to.

Someone that doesn’t make fun of you.

A friend is someone who will help you when you're hurt

even if it’s not that bad.

Someone who shares with you, stands by you and sits next to you. A person who likes the same sort of things as you.

A friend is someone you will know for the rest of your life

Elijah Casson.

What it looks like in my book:

My class preforms the original (all credit to Mr Moriarty):

\

The Little Lizard's Sadness

In my reading group, the Jedi  Knights I have just read a book called The Little Lizard's Sadness. It is a traditional  Vietnamese legend about a rich man and a beggar here is my retelling.

A long time ago in Vietnam there was a very Rich Man who had invented a game. He loved to play this game with other rich men in the country because he would win almost every time.

This is how the game was played. One man would say I have 50 gold bars and the second man would say I to have 50 gold bars and no one would win. But if the first man said I have 10 cows and the second man said I only have 5 cows the first man would win.

One day a stranger in ragged old clothes came to see the man. "What are you doing here?" the Rich Man asked.

"I have come to play your game," he said. The Rich Man thought that this man looked to poor to play this game but he let him play anyway.

"Where do you come from? What is your occupation?" asked the Rich Man.

"What does it matter to you? Lets just play," the stranger replied.

"But," said the stranger "I have some Ideas to add, to this game of yours,"

"What sort of Ideas?"

"Well I think the winner should get a prize," replied the stranger "So if I win, I would like in return all your belongings and if you win you can have all my belongings and myself, as your personal slave."

"Well... What sort of thing do you have to offer me?"

"You will be amazed at what I own," answered he.

"Very well then. Lets begin!"

"Oh and one more thing," said the stranger "I would like to go first"

"Well I guess that will be ok,?" the Rich Man replied.

"Ok" said the stranger removing something from his belt and holding it out "Do you have one of these?" In his hand was a chipped up, old coconut cup. The Rich Man thought that for sure he had a cup like that and told his men to find it. But the men did not find it. All the coconut cups were new not old. And smooth, not chipped.

The Stranger had won and was very pleased. In the next few months the stranger gave away all his new belongings to the poor people of the country. When he had given away all his riches, he once again set off, and was never seen again.

As for the Rich Man, he turned into a lizard. These days he crawls around on the ground crying "tsst tsst" in self pitty saying "tsst tsst what a pity."

And that is the story of the little lizard and why lizards say tsst tsst.

Das Piano

Lately I have read a book called Das Piano. It is a story in one of the School Journal  about a boy named Thomas, who is at war with his teacher Mrs Biggs. At the same time World War II is going on. He is caught pretending to be a German (not the good guys) and is told by Mrs Biggs that him and the rest of the people being German's to have to sing god save the king under the flag pole. The singing gave Mrs Biggs an idea. She would invite the Mayor, to school and they would put on a concert. She brought a huge piano for the concert. And they practiced everday, until it was the day of the concert. Thomas was standing next to Mrs Biggs. He accidentally sneezed on her and was made to sing a solo... Find out what happens next in the School Journal June 2014. Click this link to download digital version of the story and this to download the whole Journal.

My Inquiry

This is my inquiry note taking. My topic is the galaxy. I have some facts, my key words and some questions and their answers. I got all the facts from Mr M. Please comment!

Why is the moon upside down?

This week we have read the book called Why is the moon upside down. We had to find some interesting words and explain what they meant. Here's what I've done...

Author: Trish Puharich

Word (and page number)	Sentence in the text	Meaning in my own words
Equator P.g 5 Hemisphere P.g 5 Marama P.g 4 Taha P.g 4 kohanga P.g 1	no sentence in science we’ve been talking about The northern and southern hemisphere After a While Marama went behind a cloud Rona got a taha and went to the river to get some water for her children. Niko and I had known each other since we were in kohanga	It’s like the diameter of a sphere The northern and southern hemispheres our to parts of the earth separated by the equator The Moon A container made from a gourd Like a nest for children

Here a link to the web site with some photos and videos about the book.

Walt Build Our Vocab

We are learning to build our vocabulary. My group has been reading a book called Extraterrestrial (ET) Search. We had to find words we did not know the meaning of and write them in the table below. these are my words.

Text: Extraterrestrial (ET) Search                                               Author:Sharon Parsons

Word (and page number)	Sentence in the text	Meaning in my own words
Extraterrestrial (pg.1) Cosmonaut (pg. 7) Aeronautics (pg. 12) Astronomy (pg. 15) Astrobiology (pg. 16) exoplanet (pg. 18) Protoplanetary Disks (22) Extremophiles (pg. 24)	Avatar is a science fiction movie about extraterrestrial on the fictional plant of pandora. ...Russia calls their space explorers cosmonauts but the usa call them astronauts The National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Nasa) ...Astronomers believe there are... ...Astrobiology institute in the USA. Every exoplanet that has been discovered... ...fast swirling dust and gas clouds called Protoplanetary Disks Extremophiles are single-celled organisms called microbes...	being from another planet Astronaut Studying or practicing flight Someone who studies space Astrobiology is when  you investigate the probability of life somewhere else in the universe planets that orbit stars, like the sun, outside the solar system swirling dust and gas clouds creatures that live in extremely hot conditions

This is the Book.

3200 year old tree project

Recount

This is my recount of how they captured the image of the sequoia tree.They had to walk deep into the sequoia national park were the “president” stands. The lifted the huge camera into the air with pulleys and ropes. People had to climb up the tree to measure how far out the camera would go. They had to take hundreds of photos so the camera went side to side and up and down. They had to put all the photos together to make one huge photo of the tree!

Summary

Wow this amazing tree called the “president” he is a Giant sequoias. He has been estimated to be 3200 years old.  He measures 247 ft in length, 45,000 cubic feet on volume, 27 ft high and wide and has over 2 billion needles. He also adds 1 cubic meter of wood a year! Make him one of the fastest growing trees in the world. A Giant sequoias can only be found on the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas in California.That’s 5000-8000 ft above sea level! Until now the tree had never had its photo taken. And they had to take lots of different photos and put them together to make this.

Tane Mahuta

Tane Mahuta is the biggest tree in New Zealand (counting width). He is a huge kauri tree in Northland of New Zealand and is estimated to be from 1,250 to 2,500 years old.

It’s Maori name Tane means god of the forest.

This is how big he is

Trunk girth	13.77m
Trunk height	17.68m
Total height	51.2m
Trunk volume	244.5 Cubic meters
Total volume	516.7 Cubic meters

Hachet final assingment

This is my final assignment post on Hatchet.
I'm kind of sad that the book is over because it was exiting. I'm kind of bummed out because I really enjoyed the book.
here is a slide show of my assignments and a what I thought of the book.


Elijah's litercy circle presentation from Room16 Parkvale on Vimeo.

Here is a photo of my final assignment.

It's a bit rushed (can you tell)

 I put rabbits in like in the story but there is a little to much!

Pangolin report

This is my pangolin report. Hope you like it. Please comment.

You might not know but in India there is a thing called a scaly anteater (pangolin). Pangolin are just like normal anteater but with scales! And no not the scales you weigh with, the ones on a fish. Want to find out more? Read this.

Description

The pangolin has a hard shell on its back. Like an armadillo, the pangolin uses it’s shell to protect itself from predators, it raps into ball and covers his face with it’s tail. It’s scales are sharp at the ends which is good for extra defence. When the pangolin is young it’s shell is soft and as it gets older the shell hardens. The shell is made of keratin, The same thing our fingernails are made of. The texture is similar to a pine cone. The pangolins claws are too long for walking, so it curls it’s paws to protect them. Pangolin can release a  poisonous acid similar to the spray of a skunk. A Pangolins claws are used to burrow and dig out termite and ant hills. The size of Pangolin depend on the species the range is 30-100 cm.  Female are usually smaller than male. The tongues on pangolin are very long. Big pangolin can stretch their tongues to about 40 cm!

Actions

Pangolins are nocturnal animals and use their great sense of smell to find insects. Arboreal pangolin live in hollow trees. Ground dwelling species dig tunnels as deep as 3.5 meters!  Pangolins are also good swimmers.

Diet

Pangolin have no teeth so they can not chew. Instead they tear open ant and termite hills with their claws and dive deep into them with their long tongue. The pangolin has glans in its chest to cover its tongue with sticky spit. Some species of pangolin like the tree pangolin have strong tails that let it hang from trees, it uses its claws to strip bark and expose the insects.

Threats

Pangolin are hunted by eaten in many parts of Africa and Southern Asia and they are a very popular meat in the bush. Chinese are also trying to get the meat sent to them because it is considered a delicacy. Some Chinese think its scales have medicinal uses. This caused the pangolins population to drop. In 2010 pangolin were added to the  ZoologicaL Society of London’s endangered list. Two species are in the IUCN'S endangered list. Even though pangolin have protected by an international ban of their trade, the population has been lowed by illegal smuggling because people  in asia think their scales could be used as cures for cancer and asthma. They are also smuggled for their meat. In 2013 10,000 kg was found in chinese boats. The captain provided a description of the killer of the pangolin.

Types

There are many types of pangolin here is a list from savepangolins.org

The Asian pangolins include:

• Indian or thick-tailed pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) – Conservation status Near Threatened
• Chinese or Formosan pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) – Endangered
• Malayan or Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) – Endangered
• Palawan or Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis) – Near Threatened

The African pangolins include:

• Cape or Temminck’s ground pangolin (Manis temminckii)
• Tree or African white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) – Near Threatened
• Giant ground pangolin (Smutsia gigantea) – Near Threatened
• Long-tailed or black-bellied pangolin (Uromanis tetradactyla)

How can you help save pangolin?

You can help save pangolin by not buying pangolin stuff like pangolin medicine, pangolin wine, pangolin jewelry and pangolin clothes. And of course don’t eat pangolin!

So you see pangolin are cool animals and they come in sorts of shapes and sizes. But they are in danger. To find out more try the links below

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin

http://savepangolins.org/what-is-a-pangolin/

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/kids/pangolin

Glossary

Smuggling: Smuggling is when you take something illegally across borders

IUCN: the international union for conservation of nature

ZoologicaL Society of London: The world wide conservation charity to protect animals and their habitats

Ground dwelling: Means lives underground

Burrow: a tunnel dug by a small animal