Gumboot Friday and Mental Health

Gumboot Friday and mental health

Last Friday on the 5th Of April it was Gumboot Friday. Gumboot Friday is where
everybody in New Zealand is encouraged to wear Gumboots to raise awareness and
there is also a special charity website for Gumboot Friday where you can donate money.
Gumboot Friday recognises Mental Health. They chose Gumboots to stand for Mental
Health because sometimes your mind feels like it is wading through mud with Negative
feelings. Mental Health is very important. Your Mental Health should always be positive.
Bad Mental Health is when people struggle to even get out of bed and feel like there
is no point in doing anything. If you think that you can’t do anything that is very bad]
Mental Health, so stay positive. Good Mental Health means you feel good about yourself
and your capabilities. Its being healthy on the inside and outside.

In our Senior Syndicate we know that bad Mental Health can have a terrible impact on
people and families, so we made small cards for random people that we have never met
that live near our school. Then we searched up some inspirational quotes and statements
that would make people feel good about themselves and wrote them down on the cards.
All of us made more than one card. Then once we had enough cards for our schools
neighbourhood we split into groups of 8.

Then we were assigned a street close to our school and posted our cards in any random
letter boxes of the houses that we passed. The two quotes that I did were “ Your smile
is like a ray of hope so keep smiling” and “ Someday everything will make perfect sense.
So for now laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears and keep reminding yourself
that everything happens for a reason.” This fabulous idea came from a girl named Neeve.
Some of the students including me were chosen to do a Healthy Puketapapa
Student Questionnaire pamphlet in which we had to write down what is important and
Neeve chose Mental Health. This all was her idea and we did this to uplift other people.
It even relates to our inquiry topic for this year “ HAUORA WELL-BEING”. I think this
is a super great idea. Here are some of the photos of us and some of our cards:

Family Fun Day

                       Family Fun Day

  Last week on the 21st of March on a Friday we had our school Community Fun Day. A community Fun Day is where we are in out house groups and do four different activities. I am in the Green group which is called Pukeko. The house groups are:

Pukeko- Green
Kea- Red
Ruru- Blue
Tui- Yellow

I am a little lucky because one of my best friends Ama is in the same group as me. She is in Pukeko. I'm also a little bit unlucky because my other best friend Abigail is in Ruru so she wasn't with us. Pukeko's first activity was a walk down to the Molly Green Park. We walked there in pairs so of course I was with Ama. When we reached there we got divided into three groups. One group went to the basket ball courts. The next group went to the fields and played a beanbag game. The last group  played in the park. We would be in each place for 15 mins then would swap places with the other groups. My first group was the play in the park group. There was a rotating play equipment me and Ama went on and it spun so fast when we were on it that when we got off I fell down. Ama got off it first and then when I tried I lost my balance, jumped off the play equipment, bumped into Ama's face and then fell to the floor laughing. Then I went to the beanbag game. Over there we got partnered up with a junior and we had to get two beanbags each. then we had to throw them in a hula hoop and try and get them inside the hula hoop. Then again it was swap over time. I went to the basket ball court next. Over there I was put in a group three. There were 4 hoops. There were also 4 groups of three. So each group got a hoop and a ball and we ha to get it in the hoop. Once we were done with them we came back together and walked back to the school for out next activity. Our next activity was Wheel Zones. Wheel Zones is where we ride wheels. It was kind of boring because I chased Ama around on Abigail's scooter. Then our next we had our lunch where we also got something from our school bake sale. Then we were up to our second to last activity. It was the swimming pool and the slip n slide. OMG the slide was so big. I was in the pool first with Ama. Then we went to the slip n slide. The only rule was on our first go we have to go alone but on our second go we could choose if we want to go with a friend. So of course I went with Ama. We had the time of our lives. Then we moved on to the last activity of the day. It was the bouncy castle. There was a big one and a small one and Ama and me went on the big one first and we were racing against each other and it was a tie. Then we kept going for a while. Then it was time for us to swap over and we did the something in the smaller one. It was the best day. Here are some of the photos from the day.

Karate

                                  Karate

   Welcome back bloggers. This time my blog is about something really really important... Self Defence. Me and my best friends Abigail and Ama go the Onehunga Dojo to learn Joyshimon Karate. A dojo is a big room/rooms where you learn self defence. When you start Karate you have a white belt then once the teachers think that you are ready to grade you go to a different dojo where you will do some of your Karate in front of the Grand Master. If Grand Master thinks you are ready then you grade. If you grade it means that you get your next belt. The belts are: White, Yellow with white stripe, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Purple, Purple, Green, Green, Brown, Brown, [Maybe another brown],Black. Black is the highest belt if you are a Black Belt then you can even be a teacher and teach Karate. I am a Yellow Belt, Ama has just joined so she is only a White Belt and Abigail who has been going to this Karate for about  3 years she is the highest out of all of us she is a Second Purple Belt. We call our main teacher Sensei and the other teacher is called Senpie. Our uniforms are called a GI. Our belt is called an Obi. We have a really great time doing karate together. Here are some photos of us doing karate:

Tread lightly Carevan

                     Tread Lightly Caravan

 Hello Bloggers. This blog is about something fun and important. So today on the 2nd of April, my class Waitemata went for an activity called the Tread lightly Caravan. We didn't really go anywhere the Caravan came to our school. There were two people in the Caravan, a man named Phil and a girl named Hannah. At first we were all together then we got split into three groups and went for three different types of activities. The three activities were the caravan model, in which we go to the caravan and learn about where the correct type of waste goes, then there is the map game where we will get an old map of the school and have to go all around the school with the map and a marker. Whenever we saw a drain we had to make a dot on the map to show it.  The last activity was where we were inside and it was the coolest activity. There were three tasks set inside the inside task. One was wet land explanation where Hannah would explain to us about what a wet land does. Second was a virtual reality one where we would wear headphones and wear the virtual reality mask and look at some video's. The last one was when we would colour a picture of a Pukeko and then using either a phone or an iPad and make our colouring come alive.  That one was my favourite. We really enjoyed all these activities. Here are some of the photos :