Narrative by Sajiha

“No! Get away from me!” The young girl screamed in terror. It was her only chance to escape from the two mysterious men who had kidnapped her, before she was stuck with them forever or even worse, before she was dead. She sprinted and sprinted until they could no longer be seen in sight.

“Where am I?” She questioned herself. Trapped in the middle of no-where, the sky grey as a old man’s hair, the grass dry as a dessert that had not had rain for decades. What was her next step and could she ever escape from the tragedy she was in; were the questions she was dying to know the answers to.

It would have never happened if she hadn’t gone out with her friends in the middle of the night. It wasn’t her fault though, her 3 close friends had persuaded her. Although, she did suspect something was going to happen from the outset…

She also knew that she would be full of regrets.

“Why was I that ludicrous to walk through the Alley Way just because of a dare?”

She questioned herself…

“Just do it, it won’t cause you any harm, will it?”

Her best friend exclaimed as she convinced her.

“I might let my best mates down, they’ll be hugely disappointed.”

She thought to herself quietly. Sarah could clearly see two men in black hoodies walking her direction though.

“It doesn’t matter, my friends are here, they’ll protect me if anything happens”.

But… She was wrong, more than wrong. As soon as the two men had Sarah in their hands, all her friends bolted away, as fast as Usain Bolt.

“THUMP!”

She was shoved into the trunk of a car, with her hands and mouth tightened with strong duct tape. She knew a long journey full of mystery was ahead of her.  

As the night fell, the clouds got darker and darker until she no longer could see anything clearly. Her heart felt as heavy as a rock. She could burst into tears in any minute. But, she made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t give up until she reached home. There was no solution at the moment, so she would have to wait until dawn,  until the sun rose, until she could reach out for help from someone passing by.

“What if… no-one passes by though?”

She exaggerated.

It was finally dawn. The smile on her face showed how delighted she was when she saw the bright yellow sun slowly rising up into the baby blue sky. She dashed like lightening towards the edge of the road, where it was as silent as a library yet as empty as her wallet.

Hours and hours passed, but there was still no sign of anyone. She had lost her faith into getting home. She was no longer the energetic girl she was yesterday or even an hour ago.

Questions and worries kept popping into her mind:

“It can’t be helped! I have to keep on staying here until eventually someone passes by.”

It could be minutes until someone arrives, or hours, maybe even days.

“But, I wouldn’t be able to survive a week here though, as I have no water or food.”

She depressingly murmured to herself.

“I wonder how my parents are doing right now, how worried my siblings might be right now?”

She started praying to God to help her get home by the end of the day, to help her find someone, to help her stay safe…

“My prayers are not answered!” She wept.

Exhausted on the dry grass, hopeless. Physically and emotionally drained too.

“Another night for me to spend here, I guess.” She yawned.

She slowly wiped away her salty tears that were unhurriedly making their way down her rosy cheeks.

After a few minutes, the sky was pitch black. There were trees in a distance that were rustling, which made her even more petrified. Suddenly, she remembered how the night before she had promised herself to not give up until she reached home. As soon as this popped into her head, she stood up, as if all her energy was back.

“I can’t give up now, after how long I’ve been waiting.” She said in a high spirited tone.

Unfortunately no cars passed by…

“What is that?”

Sarah stood silent. She could see a object in the air gradually making its way towards her. It got closer and closer.

“A helicopter!” Screeched Sarah.

She shouted for help to the helicopter as loud as she could. At the same time waving her arms in a super fast pace, showing how desperate she was to get home.

As the helicopter got nearer and nearer, Sarah’s heart pumped faster and faster.

The helicopter finally landed… Right next to her!

Sarah’s feelings could not be explained. She felt as if a whole heap of pressure had finally vanished from her. The worry that was on her stressed out face, minutes ago had disappeared as well.

“We are in charge of checking in for lost people in unknown places.” Explained one of the two men.

Oh, how overwhelmed and pleased Sarah was to hear this. She quickly rushed into the helicopter as the only thing she wanted to do in her life at that moment, was to get home. (Approximately 3 hours to get home.)

Sarah was on her way to, ‘home sweet home’.

Relieved, contented, radiant but exhausted, dead-tired and worn out simultaneously.  

Another long journey of travelling all the way back home was ahead of her.

This term we have been learning to write narratives. We used the picture prompt below to help us imagine how this situation came about. We tried to hook our audience in by thinking about the pace of events and the pictures we painted with words. I have used sentence structure to help develop pace and a sense of urgency. Next time, I need to try and keep the pace consistent throughout my whole narrative.

Narrative by Thomas

Madeline and the Wolf

Her legs felt like lead and she knew she wouldn't be able to run for much longer. Why had she insisted on going on this hunting trip? Was she really going to lose her life because she wanted to be a hunter like the boys? She always wondered how great it would be to join the hunters and have everything you ever wanted and to be famous as well. Too bad it was going to cost her greatly…

Two weeks earlier:

“Dad, why can’t I hunt like the other children?” she had queried.

“It is because you are a woman, and everyone knows that only the men get to hunt.”

“But still!”

“No buts. You will not be going hunting!” her father slammed his fist on the table. “I don’t want to lose you as well as your mother.” He said in a quiet voice. Her mother had died when Madeline was 7, while hunting a wild boar. Her mother had been shooting at it from a tree, when it had charged the tree and she had fallen. The tree was on the edge of a cliff though, so there was nowhere to run. The boar had charged and caught her in the side, causing both of them to fall off the cliff. Neither the boar or her mother survived.

“Please dad! Just this once!”

“Fine; stay safe, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I’ll be fine! You don’t need to worry!” If only she knew how wrong she was...

The next week she was tasked with other hunters, with getting enough meat to sustain the village for a week. At the end of that day she returned home and just collapsed into bed. ‘Maybe the life of a hunter isn’t for me,’ she thought. ‘There’s too much work involved. I think I’d rather be mocked than do this everyday!’ She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

She was woken by the screams. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. ‘What’s going on out there?’ She thought. She stepped outside and her eyes widened with the carnage presented to her. Broken houses were strewn all over the place, people she had known were strewn all over the place and the air was thick with the stench of blood. She looked around and saw her father. He was in a bad way, with a piece of his hut impaled in his stomach. There were healers around him, and when she approached they all looked at her remorsefully. “He doesn’t have much longer, but he wants to speak to you,” one healer informed her. She heard him speak then. “Madeline.” It was almost inaudible over the cries of the mourning; her ears just picked it up. She knelt next to him. “Father, I’m here.” His unseeing eyes turned towards her. “Madeline I have something to tell you. It’s about your mother. She...” His eyes glazed over and he let out a final breath, and Madeline knew he was gone. Hot salty streaks rolled down her face to splash on the ground, and that’s when she looked down. She saw it then, the footprint of a wolf, except this one was at least three times bigger. She then knew she was going to become a hunter, and avenge her father.

A few days later, she had organised a party. The finest hunters of the tribe were going to go with her to slay the beast. They were bringing with them: 3 spears, a pack full of food, ropes, flint and steel for a fire, 3 torches and the golden dagger with rubies encrusted in its hilt that her father had given to her for her birthday. She had asked everyone she knew about it, and finally one person had some information for her. “I saw it myself,” he said “At least three times bigger than a normal wolf, but that’s not the strangest thing about the beast.” He leaned closer, “It’s got no eyes, so I don’t know what it relies on to track its prey. Maybe smell, I don’t know, but that thing’s unnatural, you probably don’t want to mess with it.”

“Thanks for the information.”

“No problem. Also, good luck, seems like you’ll need it.”

“You’re right. We probably will.”

They trudged through the marsh, following the footprints and the occasional drop of blood. After a while, they came across a caravan on its side and the broken bodies of traders were scattered everywhere. Their spears were smashed, but one was missing a head and there was a trail of blood leading across the road and into the dense forest, heading to the mountain.

“It must be going there,” Madeline stated. “We will follow it.”

When they reached the mountain it was then they realised the height of it. They thought that the trip was all for nothing until they saw a narrow trail on the side leading straight up. “We’ll go up there!” Madeline stated. Suddenly, one of the hunters went green. “I don’t do well with heights, I’m actually quite scared of them,” he stuttered (He had fallen out of a tree when he was young and had been terrified of heights ever since).

“I don’t care!” She shouted. “We’re going up there and that’s final!” The hunter reluctantly trudged up the path, looking less like a man and more like a sulky child. When they were halfway up they saw a cave in the side of the mountain. One of the three hunters knelt. “The blood goes in here.” He said, pointing into the gaping mouth of the cave.

“I don’t like the dark.” Another hunter commented (His parents had been killed at night when there was no moon by some bandits dressed completely in black).

“And I don’t like spiders,” the third hunter said. Madeline sighed. For the supposed greatest men in the village, they were acting like babies! She gave them each a flaming torch so they would be able to see in the near complete darkness, but even with the torches they could only see about a metre in front of their faces. The man who was afraid of darkness whimpered. “Oh come on!” She groaned. “Act your age for goodness sake! In fact, I’m sick of you doing nothing but acting like a baby. We’re splitting up now.”

The hunter paled. “No, please, let’s stick together! Safety in numbers right?”

Madeline ignored his pleas. “Nope, we’re splitting up and we’re splitting up now!” The hunter's reluctantly split up, complaining it was a bad idea. If only Madeline had listened to them, then maybe they would have all survived.

A few minutes later, she heard the first scream. “It’s after me! Help! I can hear it!” The screams rang out again and again for what seemed like an eternity, before the screaming stopped and the caves went quiet. “Who was that?” Madeline queried as she headed towards the area where the screams had come from. It was the hunter who was afraid of the dark, although he was kind of hard to recognise, he had been clawed that much. She muttered a quick goodbye before moving on. The next death was the hunter that was afraid of spiders. He had been running after he had heard the first hunter’s screams and had ran straight into a spider's web. The spider itself was completely harmless, but he didn’t know that. He, like the first hunter, was found battered and broken by the third hunter. He couldn’t take it anymore, and ran screaming from the cave.

Madeline heard him screaming, and it sounded like he was getting further away. Of course! He was running, and that meant the wolf was probably following him. Maybe, if she was fast, she would be able to attack the wolf and save the hunter outside, killing two birds with one stone. By the sound of it, he was running down the mountain. She ran outside, into the blinding sunlight. “No, no, no!” She tried to make him turn around and come back up, but she wasn’t a psychic so the hunter kept running down towards the... “Oh no!” He was going towards the cliff, the one where her mother had died! “Not there! Turn around, turn around, turn around!” Still the hunter kept running. She ran down, following him towards the cliff she had avoided for so much of her life. When she arrived, though, she knew she was too late. She saw the hunter, or at least, what was left of him. She heard the growl then, and felt goosebumps ripple across her flesh. She turned around slowly and saw it. It was hairless, and its skin was pure white. Her heart started racing, and it looked up. The worst part was its eyes. There were no indentations there, which meant it had probably never meant to have eyes at all. She shivered and it seemed to get a lock on her, staring right at her. She looked at it’s mouth, and saw blood. That reminded her of her of her father, how he had died, and that made her almost explode with rage. She felt every bit of fear leave her, and the wolf spun around in  circles, looking for her. “It smells fear?” Madeline said. “That must be why the hunter that was afraid of darkness died first. It was because he was the most afraid.” She looked at the wolf, spinning in circles and searching for her, and almost felt sorry for it. Almost. She pulled out the only weapon she had, the dagger her father had given her, and with a deafening cry, she leapt at the wolf.

This term we have been learning to write narratives. We used the picture prompt below to help us imagine how this situation came about. We tried to hook our audience in by thinking about the pace of events and the pictures we painted with words.

Group 1 Science Video

For the past few weeks we have been doing science in groups. After we did all the experiments we had to make a movie in our groups. We used scientific language throughout the movie and we reenacted the experiment with our own props. We used baking soda for our own effects.

Group 2's science movie

This is Group Two's movie that shows a re-enactment of the experiment we did dropping a Mentos into a bottle of Coke. We followed a scientific experiment process by making a hypothesis each before we started and by recounting what we saw at the end. We also used a video from youtube for the reaction footage.

PBS Flag Vote by Sajiha

LI - To make an informed choice 

Today, our class had a chance to make an informed choice. An informed choice is making a decision/choice from factual information. Our informed choice was based on whether to change the New Zealand flag or leave the flag as it is now.

We first started off by creating T-charts with our thinking groups. We found information about both sides on the internet and wrote them down. Later on, we all got together as a class and summed up all our ideas. At the end, every single person in our class, including teachers, received a voting paper. We had to make our final choice.

I chose the current flag because it has a lot of history, (Our soldiers fought under the flag) it is recognized worldwide and the new flag will cost 25.7 million dollars which will be a total waste.

Everyone had their own opinion about changing the flag, but we all respected each others choices.

Congratulations Paige and Latham!

Congratulations Paige and Latham a certificate for Participating and Contributing. Taking part actively is an important part of your learning journey. Well done to both of you. Keep up the big effort!

Collaborative Home Learning

In LS2 our home learning is collaborative as we believe we learn best when we learn with and from each other. This is the movie that Thomas, Latham and Lyndon created to show the facts they found out about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

Developing pace and mood in a narrative

In LS2 we are unpacking and exploring the structure and language features of a narrative. The purpose of this task was to show the pace and mood of a story going forward.

The boys sat together thinking about the poor man. They were sorry that things had happened the way they had, and they still felt a little bit guilty - they hadn't meant for anything bad to happen. Jack sighed. He had learnt the hard way that it wasn't always a good idea to go with the crowd and he wouldn't be making the same mistake again.

...Three weeks earlier, Jack had been walking to the shop with a group of his friends. As they passed the old railway bridge, they had spotted what looked like a bundle of clothes next to a rusty, old bin. Jack stared at the rags intently, until, to his surprise he saw a pair of eyes blinking back at him. He hurried on, to catch up to his friends.

Continued part:

When Jack got home that day, he couldn't help but think of those eyes staring back at him. He barely touched his dinner, thinking about that poor man all by himself and wondering whether he would eat tonight, or even tomorrow. When he had done his homework, he lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

By Thomas

On the street, day time. Legs run along the pavement. They are Mark Renton's. Just ahead of him is Spud. They both belting along. As they travel, various objects, (pens, tapes, CD's, toiletries, ties, sunglasses and so on) either fall or a discarded from inside their jackets. They are pursued by two hard looking store detectives in identical uniforms. The men are fast, but Renton and Spud maintain their lead. Suddenly as Renton crosses the road, a car skids to a halt inches from him. In a moment of detachment Renton stops and looks at the shocked driver, then at Spud, who has continued running, then at the two men who are closing in. He smiles.

                                          

Continuation:

Spud kept on sprinting. Mark then drops his wallet, Spud stops.

"Mark move on!"

Mark runs back. Spud then goes. He sprints, hurdling the chairs and shoving pedestrians.

"Spud wait up." Mark cried. The police were behind them but Spud doesn't have a care in the world. "Spud when we get away from here were splitting the money!" he yelled back as he turned the corner. The officers split up.

"Ya better be good at free running!" yelled Spud. He jumped up the wall and stopped! A siren went off. Mark knew there were more officers.

"Spud don't go that way!" Mark screamed. Spud didn't listen. Rocks went flying from all the little street thugs. The police stopped them. Spud tripped on a rock and they stopped him.

"No..." cried Mark.

"You Have The Right To Remain Silent!"

By Latham

The boys sat together thinking about the poor man. They were sorry that things had happened the way they had, and they still felt a little bit guilty - they hadn't meant for anything bad to happen. Jack signed. He had learnt that it wasn't always a good idea to go with the crowd and he wouldn't be making the same mistake again.

...Three weeks earlier, Jack had been walking to the shop with a group of his friends. As they passed the old railway bridge, they spotted what looked like a bundle of clothes next to a rusty old dustbin. Jack stared at the rags intently, until, to his surprise he saw a pair of eyes blinking back at him. He hurried on, to catch up with his friends.

Continuation:

"Hurry up Jack!" One of Jack's friend screamed. Jack didn't care, he had been staring at the old rusty dustbin.His friends stopped."What do we have here?" They wondered. Joe(Jack's only real friend) motioned his hand to the back of his dark tracks pants."Joe, don't do it!" Jack shouted as he sprinted towards Joe. "Smash!" The poor old man's blood drowns the bright yellow t-shirt."Oh no, what did you?" Jack yelled. Jack stared at the pool of blood. He was in shock as his friends belted off. Joe & Jack froze. "What do we do?" Joe question urgently.

"I don't know!" Jack screamed with adrenaline rushing through his veins.

By Pote

The boys sat together thinking about the poor man. They were sorry that things had happened the way they had, and they still felt a little bit guilty - they hadn't meant for anything bad to happen. Jack signed. He had learnt that it wasn't always a good idea to go with the crowd and he wouldn't be making the same mistake again.

...Three weeks earlier, Jack had been walking to the shop with a group of his friends. As they passed the old railway bridge, they spotted what looked like a bundle of clothes next to a rusty old dustbin. Jack stared at the rags intently, until, to his surprise he saw a pair of eyes blinking back at him. He hurried on, to catch up with his friends.

Continued:

"What took you so long?" Mike asked.

"I thought I saw someone..." Jake replied.

"Let's go and check it out then", this time it was James that spoke. They wondered over to the dustbin. They peered into the darkness. Now all of them could see the poor old man. He was covered in old rags that now looked nothing like cloths.

By Daniel

Decimal Word Problems

Pote and Sebastian worked collaboratively to create a DLO that explains their thinking on one of the decimal word problems they have been working on with Ms Kirkpatrick.

Zeba's Cyber Smart message

Zeba is one of our 2016 PBS Manaiakalani leaders. Her Prezi is one of the components she has chosen to complete as she works towards achieving her PBS CARE awards Confidence badge. To share her message within our school Zeba will be presenting and talking about her DLO to our junior classes. 

How to be Cyber Smart by Sebastian

Sebastian made this poster giving some tips on how to be and stay cyber smart. This important message is helping him work towards his gaining his Confidence badge in our PBS CARE awards. Great work Sebastian!

Congratulations Eric and Daniel!

Congratulations Eric and Daniel. A certificate for thinking like a scientist. Well done both of you have been an asset to your groups as we have worked our way through our LS2 science rotation.

Teach my teacher by Victoria

This year for my CARE awards I have been creating a D.L.O to teach Mrs Anderson how to count and speak in Tongan. Mrs Anderson got them all right. Good Job Mrs Anderson.

Experiment Rotation 1

Mahdia

Sajiha

Jessie

Zahra

Collaborative Home Learning

A superb example of collaborative home learning by Mia and Sajiha. They have thought carefully throughout to make sure their readers can make a connection to their information.