Year: 2025

Māui ki Te Waipounamu

A exetremly long time ago an amazing waka houra called Tūwhakarara that travelled across the ocean on its way to Te Tai Poutini. While they were travelling to Te Tai Poutini they sailed into Mahitahi. They were captivated by the land’s elegance and beauty. Sadly they could not stay because they had to continue on their journey. So they tied two taniwha to the land. One a bronze whaler and a great white shark. The place is still called Heretaniwha, the place where taniwha were tied. They put the taniwha there to protect Mahitahi

Māui was sailing on his waka, Mahaanui with some of his people. They were trying to escape from raru (a serious problem). There were lots of people of different ages on the waka. Young and old, Men and women, boys and girls. As they went on their way a child cried out “He whenua, He whenua!” Everyone thought it was land but Maui said “Kao! He tiriti o te moana!” No! It is just a mirage of the ocean. Yet when they got closer and closer to the land Maui and all the people saw was land being covered by huge white clouds! So Maui decided to name the two mountains at Mahitahi after his grave mistake and after his bird. Maui then noticed Taniwha tied to it. So he defeated them both.

This is part of my recount about Māui ki Te Waipounamu.

Susan Brocker is a talented author. She has written more than seventy children’s books and counting. Born 

Hamilton, New Zealand. On the fourth of August, 1961. She went to Hilltop  Primary school. She then went on to attain a degree in history at the University of Waikato. She has a husband named Lionel and she volunteers at her local SPCA. The first book she wrote is called ‘Restless Spirit’, a book about saving the wild Kaimanawa Horse. After that she went on to write many more books such as “Dreams of warriors”, ‘Ice’ and ‘Mrs Chippy the cat’. The most recent book she has written is called the ‘Eye of the Dragon’. She speaks strongly about war and social issues. For example in one of her books ‘Dreams of Warriors’ the main character Bella, you may be able to tell that she loves animals because they tend to feature in almost all her books! She is currently 62 years old and she lives in a villa on a small farm near Tauranga.

This my Choir recount I hope you like it!

Introduction 

The Christchurch choir trip was a delightful experience. I made new friends and talked to old ones. I enjoyed it so much.

The Lodge 

After hours and hours of driving we finally got to the lodge. We then had to check into the lodge. We waited in the lodge. There were lots of vending machines and I remember seeing lots of makeup. We then went into the rooms we would be sleeping in. I was in a room with 2 of my friends, Mienka and Millie. After we finished packing our stuff we explored the hotel. We first went to the playground. There was a huge jumping pillow. We spent about 5 minutes on it. We left and took interest in the swings. After that we went to the game room and I played a racing game with Millie. The lodge was great and I liked it a lot.

Food

The food we ate at the choir trip was delicious and tasty. After we had checked into the hotel we went to a restaurant. At the restaurant there was a huge buffet where you could eat anything you wanted. When I had finished eating ribs and chips I went straight to dessert where I had four bowls of ice cream. I remember drinking a lot of water. There were lots of people singing and dancing. Our choir group sat on a huge table together. The next morning we went into the hall and had breakfast, where I ate cornflakes. Some of my friends had toast or an apple. I loved all the food I ate at choir. It was delicious.

Rehearsal 

The rehearsal was fun and exciting. On the second day of our trip we went for rehearsals at the Christchurch town hall. It was surprisingly warm in the hall. When we sat where we were supposed to and for about what felt like 15 minutes we waited for the rehearsal to start. As my eyes flew  across the room I noticed instead of adults in fancy suites I saw kids in uniform. Then the rehearsal started. We were told when to clap and how and when to move and when not to. We sang and sang for what felt like two hours. The rehearsal was long and made me quite tired but I still enjoyed it.

Performance 

Then the big performance arrived. We walked into the Christchurch hall again and all I could see was flashing lights and the huge bright red carpets. All the students there (including us) at least wore clean white shirts and long socks. Others wore blazers and dresses. We sat in our seats and the show began. We did lots of siting and standing but in the end it was all worth it. After 3 hours of singing and laughing the show ended and we were blessed with Mcdonalds as a reward for our hard work. The performance was one of the greatest thing we did on the trip.

Conclusion 

I enjoyed the Choir trip and I would most definitely recommend it to anyone who loves singing and long hours of standing. In the end I think it was totally worth it. Thank you for reading my choir recount.

Here is my blog post about some of New Zealand’s Most terrible disasters. The first disaster I did is the Hawks Bay earthquake. On the 3rd of  February 1931 thousand’s of people died in a earthquake that shock the region. Teachers and student’s died in school and playgrounds. My second blog post is about the Ballantynes fire, Which occurred on the 18th  of  November 1947 In a Department store. 41 people died this fire and they were New Zealanders. I hope you enjoyed reading this.

THE NEW ZEALAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 

On the 21 of October 2025 It was a surprisingly sunny day in Greymouth and I was scrolling through our class site. When on the time table it said “New Zealand symphony orchestra”. Excitement swelled within me. I was bursting with joy and happiness. The moment Mrs Creagh told us to line up outside Room 8 I forced myself to calm myself down as I walked through the door

Slowly my anxiousness faded away when my eyes bounced towards the instruments laid on the ground. I wondered for a while what I was looking at. Then a guy wearing what seemed to be a long purple cloak. He also wore pink glasses. He greeted us in a heart warming manner and told us about the New Zealand Orchestra. He said the New Zealand Orchestra is like the All Blacks of music and that maybe they deserve to be on the Weet-bix box as well. The New Zealand symphony orchestra is New Zealand’s national orchestra. It is recognized as one of the oldest orchestras in the world. It performs a wide variety of classical music too. He told us that his name was Chirs and he is an animator. He basically said that his job was to introduce the audience to the musicians. We did a few warm up activities and then came the exciting part. We were going to make music. We were put in small groups. I was in a group with Bobby, Cooper, Cade and  Gabby and we were playing the drums. There was also a triangle and tambourine group, a group who had shakers and a glocenspiek group. There were four groups in total. We then had about 5 minutes to get a feel of the instrument. After that we had to find the hidden sounds from the instrument we where playing. Then came the exciting part! We had to pick a theme to play the instruments on and the class picked flying. Our group was the helicopters. The triangle and tambourine group were the clouds, the xylophone group were the birds and the shaker group was the planes. We had what felt like 15 minutes to figure out what sounds we were going to play. Then came show time! the xylophone group went first then the cloud group then our group (The drums) and last but not least the shaker group. 

After our “stunning” performance we sat down and asked Chirs some questions. I had so much fun playing the instruments. I think It was a great experience and I would pay to do it again.