Why is littering so bad? Littering is bad because plastic goes directly into the sea and when it gets there, it could end up in our sea creatures’ mouths and they could die. Even worse is if they were maimed or deformed because they get tangled in it!! This is never good!

Litter can be blown away into the sea by wind or travel down drains with rain water. Sometimes people just don’t care and throw rubbish straight into the sea (like some people on boats.) We must make people aware of the reasons why we do not throw our rubbish into the sea.

I saw a lot of rubbish on the beach one day but no one picked up any of the rubbish. This made me sad and I started to think of how we can make people more aware of what happens to litter when they just throw it on the ground. I want to tell you people “Stop throwing rubbish into the sea. Our sea is precious, and the animals that live in it are too.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the result of rubbish getting  into the sea. Did you know it is the same size as Texas and people call it the great pacific garbage patch because of its size and that it contains between 1.1 to 3.6  trillion pieces of plastic? That’s why people should stop littering especially when we are on land.

In conclusion  now we all know why littering is so bad for the sea animals and even boats because they can’t get through the tangled nets sometimes. We all need to do our part and learn  to “recycle, reuse, reduce and refuse”  to use ‘one use’ plastics. Let us save our oceans together.

Yesterday St Patrick’s went to the stone cottage. We were lucky enough that it was across the road from us. We left at 10am and started to walk down to the cottage. When we went to the cottage the people who met us said that their names were Terry, Josephine and Patrick.

Patrick, our historian, was going to be showing us around and he was telling us about some things called artifacts . Terry showed us the bedroom downstairs and showed us the bedroom upstairs. She told us that the pantaloons that the women wore when they wanted to go to the toilet had to be undone at the back and done up again.

Then we had a look at the kitchen where we saw some puzzles. They said that they used them to entertain themselves when it was a rainy day. They also showed us how they washed their clothes. They used a washing board and they also learned how to knit jumpers.
They also had this special cup for the men to protect their mustaches from getting wet when drinking their tea.

Then we went upstairs. We had to be careful because the stairs were very narrow. We checked up in the rooms. They kind of looked like attic rooms because of the space in the roof. It looked like they used to sail a lot we also saw a big anchor it was huge and there was a map of what New Zealand looked like back then.

I loved our trip to the stone cottage because now I know a little bit more about the cottage.

Today on a sunny morning two people from Bigfoot Adventures, Kate and Kyla came to teach us how to cycle safely on a bike. First they told us how to check if our helmets are safe and  if we were wearing the right clothes to be seen by others on the road. We need to wear bright coloured clothes and closed shoes to protect our feet.

Next we lined up from the shortest to tallest so we could get our bikes. They also taught us the alphabet A, B, C, D, and Q  check for the safety of our bikes. A is for air, B for brakes, C is for chain and control, D is for drop and Q is for quick release. Then we split up. I went with Kate so that I could practice so I can get used to pedaling without  training wheels.

Later Kate asked me if I felt comfortable when I was pedaling and I said ‘yes’ and once I started to pedal I loved it. I also practiced using the brakes. She asked me if I could go around the poles  and back. I said “sure” and I went and tried and I did it.

Later that morning Kate also asked me if I could go to the others up the ramp but I was too afraid to go so I stayed. Then a bit later we went onto the field to ride our bikes. She also took us to the bottom court. It was fun. Then we finally played a little game of “buddies up, buddies down” and if she said ‘up’ we had to get on a piggy back and when she said ‘down’ we had to hop off their backs and when she said ‘under’ we went under their legs. It was very fun.

In conclusion I learned a lot and feel much more confident on a bike.

Two weeks ago the whole of St Patrick’s School went swimming. The boys got to go first because there were more boys than girls, so we waited for 15 minutes before going with Room 7 and 8 girls on the bus. When we got to the pool we saw some of the boys diving and making big splashes.  Afterwards it was the girls turn and we had three lanes. I was in lane 3 and our instructor taught us about breaststroke, freestyle and backstroke.

The last day was Monday I was in a hurry to get to school and I forgot to pack my togs. I didn’t notice until I got to school. When I told Mrs Agnew she asked Mrs Thompson to call my mom and luckily she was able to go home and drop them off for me. We did a lot of hard stuff and we had to swim a  whole lane and the hardest one I found was breaststroke but on your back. I really enjoyed being able to go to the pools with my class.

On Friday, July 14th, New Zealand celebrated it’s first public holiday for Matariki. We were still on holiday but when we came back last Monday we did some learning about Matariki. One thing we did which I enjoyed was making Matariki stars. It was hard at first but I had help from Mrs Agnew. She helped me with the spokes and the wool. In the end I was able to do it by myself and I changed to a second colour and added more pointy spokes to the star to make it colourful.

I learned that Matariki is Maori New Year and a time when families come together to think about those people who have died and also to plan  for the year ahead.