Writing

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be sharing with you my writing task for this week.

That was my writing task. Do you know any spelling rules?

Underground soldiers

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be sharing with you my reading task for this week.

That was my reading task. Have your read or heard about the story underground soldiers?

Arms and Cups

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be showing you my writing task for this week.

That was my writing task for this week. Do you have any tips on Editing your writing?

Fake or real?

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be sharing with you my reading task for this week.

That was my reading task. Have you done a infographic before and if so what on?

Coved-19

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be showing you my maths task for this week.

That was my maths task. Have you done a statistical investigation and if so what on?

Maths

Hi, welcome back to my blog. This week is the first week of online school for me and my brother. Today I will be sharing with you my my maths task for this week.

That was my maths task for this week. Hope you liked it. Did you learn anything from it and if so, what?

writing

Hi, welcome back to my blog. This week is the first week of online school for me and my brother. Today I will be sharing with you my my reading task for this week.

That was my Writing task for this week. Have you done something like this before?

Reading

Hi, welcome back to my blog. This week is the first week of online school for me and my brother. Today I will be sharing with you some of my my reading task for this week.

That was my reading task. Have you done online school before and if so how was or is it?

O Christós anésti

Hi,welcome back to my blog. As you know Easter is here and in the Greek Orthodox church it is the biggest thing thing they celebrate. I was baptised Greek Orthodox but last year converted to being Catholic.  Because I am a quatre Greek we still do some of the Greek traditions. For example, If lockdown was not happening and the Greek Orthodox church  was still open we would have gone to church. One of the sayings there is that is always said at this particular Mass is O Christós anésti. It is said by the priest and means Christ has risen. Some other traditions are painting eggs red to symbolize the blood that christ spilled for us and after the service we celebrate with easter bread. A sweet type of bread had on easter. Me and Mum would like to try and make it but we may not be able to get the yeast. Something that is not a tradition but I like to do anyway is to make trifle. One of the components in trifle is a Greek cake that we call chocolate olive oil cake. It sounds a bit gross but it is delicious and tastes good in trifle too.

Do you have any traditions that you do on Easter if so what and why?

It has arrived

Finally I had been waiting for ages and now it has arrived. Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be telling you a short story about a missing parcel. When we went into lockdown my Mum was not prepared that well so we had to dig through all the boxes of random stuff to find things to do. For example, puzzles, sewing things, colored pencils and more. Lucky my Yiayia ( Grandmother ) was prepared with stuff to do. She sent up two packages from Timaru for me and my Brother and a package for my baby cousin Henry. We got our package two days after the lookdown started but the second packed was nowhere to be seen. Then a week after lockdown started, Henry got his package. We were wondering what had happened to our package.  We knew that it should be here and that the couriers were still delivering, because my Dads' endless supply of bike stuff and tools aren't enough and he keeps buying more which were still arriving. Yesterday there was a knock on the door. Mum opened it to find the courier with the package. It turns out that my Yiayia had written the wrong address on the package. Lucky my Dad orders so much stuff, the the courier had grown accustomed to our house and recognised our name on the package and she could bring it to our house.  Has something like that happend to you before?

Hansel and Gretel

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be telling you about my opinion and summary of Hansel and Gretel by the RNZB ( The Royal New Zealand Ballet ). They performed the show last year but luckily had it recorded so in the last couple of days they have been doing free showings of the recordings, so that people can watch the show from home. There were certain times when we could see the show and Mum decided that 10:30 am on Sunday was the best time for us.  Dad had said that he could put it on the computer that had been sitting on the garage for ever, so we were waiting and counting down the time until the show started.

It was spectacular. They did it in an old fashioned way almost black and white, until the witch came in with her flamboyant style and colourful clothing. The story line was a bit different.  The parent where kind and loving the whole time and the witch made her first appearance when the  other school children were teasing Hansel and Gretel for being poor and different. The witch appeared as an ice cream lady and all the children lined up for ice cream, unfortunately for Hansel and Gretel it cost money so they felt left out once again.

Hansel and Gretel were portrayed as poor children that loved each other but liked teasing each other, wishing for more.  They ran away because they had been about to take more food than they had been given and thought that their Mum had caught them. They got lost but luckily dew fairies found them and helped them sleep. When they woke up they were lost in a forest, so while they were trying to get out the stumbled across a gingerbread house. They start to eat it then they found the door to go inside. There the witch was waiting. She pretends to be nice to them for a bit, giving them sweet food and acting sweet then the lights went out. When they came back on Hansel was in a cage and was quite fat. Gretel was very upset but didn't have time to save Hansel because the witch came in. She makes Gretel start the oven but Gretel pretend that she doesn't know how to, so the witch had to do it herself. While she was half in the oven trying to get it started Gretel pushes her in and gets Hansel out of the cage. Meanwhile their parents have been looking for them and have found the dew faires who help them look for Hansel and Gretel. They found them at the gingerbread house with a lot of money from the witches lackeys who are very grateful to Gretel for killing the witch.

Over all I loved the show, the sets were incredible, especially the way they portrayed the forest with knives and forks acting as trees and I loved the colourfulness of the witches house and how it was so different to the bleakness at the beginning.  The dancing was beautiful and my favourite part was the dew fairy queens par de deux with the dew fairy king - I loved how they were so light, posed and the light made them sparkle and look like stars. The costumes contrasted darkness and lightness depending on the characters - Hansel and Gretel and their parents all wore dark colours and the witches, her lackeys and witch friends were all colourful.  Pink and red were their predominant colors.  The music was an original score and was stunning overall.  I can't wait until I can see another one.

Gretel holding the bellows to start the oven

That was a quick summary of Hansel and Gretel. I thought that it was incredible. Have you seen it and if so what did you think of it?

Challenge

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be telling you a bit more about my pointe shoes and about what I have been doing in the last couple of days.  As you may know I have just broken in my pointe shoes and some of you may have been wondering how and why I have to break in my pointe shoes. When you get pointe shoes they are very hard and you can barely walk in them. What you have to do tho is put them on and then walk for as long as you can without the heels slipping off. When they do slip off you sit down and go through the long process of putting them on again, then you start to walk. Once you can walk comfortably without the heels slipping off, then you start to pony trot in them. When the heels slip off you sit down and put them on again.  This can take over a week. After that you should be able to go up on to pointe and demi pointe ( your tippy toes ) without the heel slipping off.  In pointe shoes you have a very small space to balance on, so it takes a lot of effort to stay on pointe. Your feet have to be very strong and they have to stay very strong. Some ways of getting stronger in your feet are to do one legged rises. They are when you stand on one leg with your other foot at your ankle holding on to a barre or something like it, and rise up slowly onto your highest demi pointe and go down slowly keeping your weight on the ball of your foot and always trying to pull up and be taller. Normally you do 35 of these but to start off, do as many as you can. I always count the amount of hours I spend in my pointe shoes so I know that I am not pushing my feet to hard. The last few days I have spent trying to get stronger and fitter since I now have ballet classes and although they are online and the teacher can only see one of us at a time, it will still be as hard as it is in the normal studio. Because one of my friends is a cheerleader she is always working on handstands and cartwheels and how to be more flexible, so me and her often give each other exercises because often our goals align. Yesterday she sent me through a challenge that had gone viral and a video of her doing it, so I tried. It took me almost 1000 tries to get it right but I did.

Have you seen the challenge and do you think that you can do it?

Finally

Hi, welcome back to my blog. Today I will be telling you about how excited I was to finally have a zoom meeting with my ballet teacher, Miss Lucy.  It took a while to get the link up as the password was not working but once I did get to see her I was really excited.  Funnily she called me Sina - another girl in my dance class and I didn't have the courage to correct her as almost everyone is terrified of her.  We had a lovely talk about what we were currently doing and when our online classes will begin.  I can't wait to get started! Today I also finished breaking in my pointe shoes. Yay! It took a month and 3 hours. It was worth it though and now I can start to get my feet stronger in them. I am a bit scared about working in them more as I went on point for 10 seconds a week and then went for a run and I was constantly getting a shock of pain going up through my shins. Although I could break my ankles, knees, or just my legs going on point I am ecstatic about going on pointe as I have been working at ballet since I was 2 and a half years old and it is most definitely my favorite thing to do.

Me in my pointe shoes

What is your favorite thing to do and why.

Delicious

Hi, welcome back to my blog. As you may know I have been going on bike rides to Burwood forest and this afternoon I went on a bike ride and it was incredible. I have always loved this time of the day and going through the forest made it even better. I love this part of the day because it always feels so still and peaceful. I  love how the sun is at a point that makes the light filter through the trees casting golden spots on the forest floor.  I also love how the dust has been illuminated is such a way that it looks like mist flowering through the gaps in the trees which also look good in the light. especially the ones furthest away because in the shadow of the other trees they look so green and dark in contrast to the tiny pieces of broken shells sparkle like a thousand diamonds in the sun. Another reason I love this time of the day is because dinner is almost ready and tonight Mum is making butter chicken.  She is testing out a new recipe for the dish and it tastes incredible. It tasted so good that I stood at the stove spooning it into a mini bowl while the rice was cooking.

The butter chicken.
Have you had butter chicken before?

Bakeing

Hi, welcome back to my blog.  You may know this already but I love to bake and quarantine gives me a chance to experiment with different recipes. I have made quite a lot of baking since lockdown.  Unfortunately or fortunately my Dad keeps eating all the baking so I get to make more. I have made Afghans biscuits, Banana muffins, blondies and more Afghans biscuits. Today I am going to make a lemon cake and I hope it tastes good.  I also love to be in nature and since yesterday was sunny me, my brother and my Mum went for a bike ride in Burwood Forest, it was really fun. We went on a awesome track and got to go up lots of hills. My brother is a great mountain biker and loves to go down hill but dislikes uphill and I am an average mountain biker, love to go uphill and dislikes down hill. I am really glad that we are allowed to go outside for walks and bike rides and am grateful that I live in an area that is safe to do so.

                                                                      My lemon cake
Do you like to bake and if so why and what?