Holiday Reading #1

Title: Stormbreaker (Novel)
Author: Anthony Horowits

Task: Choose your Own

A Tux Paint drawing of Portuguese Man of War

(VERY POISONOUS)

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Rich Task Week 10

For rich task, we have to figure out how long our family have travelled to reach Auckland.  Linda's family came from Tonga, and travelled a total of 2 003 km to reach where she lived now.  My family flew to Auckland from Fuzhou in China, and flew 9 098 km.  My family have travelled further than Linda's family, with a difference of 7 093 km.

Moon Festival

Our family celebrates the Moon Festival, or the mid-Autumn festival, every year.  As its name implies, it is celebrated in mid Autumn.  Or more specifically, the 15th of the 8th of the Lunar year.  During the Moon Festival, people gather with their families and friends, or anyone they are close to.  Most Chinese families eat moon cakes, my family also have a traditional Chinese lunch and dinner.  We start off with a normal breakfast.

In the morning, my family eat toast with chocolate, peanut or butter spread for breakfast, and my sibling’s eat it with cereal.  But my dad likes to eat rice with any leftovers from the day before.  We don’t have any moon cakes the morning because my mum says it’s too sweet.  Sometimes I make instant coffee for the grown-ups in the morning (mum, dad and me), or just tea for myself.  We start eating moon cakes in the afternoon.

My brother and sister eat moon cakes in the afternoon for snacks at around 12 or 1, but not so many.  We have mooncakes in the afternoon thanks to my mum buying too many deluxe packs (which she does every year).  For lunch we usually have homemade dumplings or noodles in the fridge made by mum from yesterday.  One time my baby sister tried to make it, it ended up in a mess.  The dumplings are filled with eggs, bacon and beans it is delicious!  After some time after lunch, the sun begins to set, and it’s time for dinner, and more moon cakes.

When dad comes home at night, the tables are probably already set.  Dinner is the most important meal of the day to us.  We have fish, pork, vegetables, and of course, moon cakes!  Last year’s Moon Festival my mum’s friends came to New Zealand to take a tour.  They dropped by our house a day before the Moon Festival.  We had chicken wings, sweet and sour soup and fried rice.  After dinner, if we’re not full enough, we have a lot of moon cakes for dessert.  We get candy afterwards, and it’s always the brand that mixes a lot of candy together.

The Moon Festival is important to many Chinese families.  Where they are, they always gather at one place, home or restaurant, to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.  The lunar year calendar is different from the calendar we’re using, so the date changes every year.  This year’s Moon Festival is on the 8th of September, so the mooncakes are in stock in supermarkets.  My mum always buys the deluxe pack at the local Chinese market.

Mengchun

Coraline

My favourite part of Coraline is the dark feeling of the movie.   It just makes everything different, or spooky, in a way that I like.  It is made for children around 10, or even teens.  Adults tend to like it too, but as a horror story while children think of it as an adventure.  Coraline is one of my favourite movie’s of all time.

It all started when Coraline Jones moved into a creepy new house.  She is always bored, since her parents are always busy and when they’re not, they ignore her.  So she explored around the new house which is split into three parts.  Coraline visited the two retired actress’ who are living in the same part and a man who is training a mouse circus, which is all very weird.  Anyways, she is still bored and her dad who is doing nothing told her to count all the doors in the house.  It is then she came across a door with a brick wall behind it.  She experimented with the door a bit, and went to bed after eating dinner.

Coraline woke up in the middle of the night, woken up by the squeaking sounds the mice under her bed are making.  She followed the mouse, because she thought she would not go back to sleep anyway or just random curiosity to the bricked door earlier.  Strangely, the mouse can pass through the door.  Coraline opened the door, and the brick wall disappeared.  Instead of the brick wall, there is a peculiar tunnel.  She climbed through the tunnel, and ended up in her house where she just was.  But something’s different.  The house is decorated nicely, and her parents have buttons instead of eyes.

The Coraline movie is based on the book by Neil Gaiman, which is also named Coraline.  The movie is made by using stop motion, and as you all know stop motion films are very hard to make.  I watched the movie 2 times, one time when I was about six and I thought of the movie as a horror movie.  Now that I’m year 7, it just looks like an adventure story.

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The Fence

She stands over there every evening, gazing over the fence, staring into the horizon. The girl took a deep breath of the salty seaside wind. The cool breeze is blowing over her expressionless face. The ocean waves are moving with the wind, and sometimes suddenly forms a wave that splashes onto the coast. She changed position and laid her hand on the moss-covered fence. It must have felt like touching a mix of cotton and grass. The sun started setting over the sea, which made a beautiful scene. The clouds gathered, the birds warbled and flew towards the setting sun in small groups. She continued standing there, focusing on the shimmering sea now reflecting the sun’s colors. A few fish splashed around not so far off the beach, and the wind picked up again. The girl turned, glanced back for a few seconds and went back to the little wooden lodge where she lived with her mother.

Read Around the World

Xtramaths

Presents

A big pile of presents was stacked carelessly at the bottom of the Christmas tree, after the Christmas party.  I stumbled to the pile, and picked up the most unusual present that had my name tag on it.  The present is a perfect circle, with a stand at one side.  I wondered what it was.  I shook the round present in my hand, but it made no noise except a ‘DING’ sound probably created by the stand.

The wrapping was made out of diagonal stripes with the color of Christmas.  I ripped the paper open, and inside was a globe, with the theme of Christmas.  No wonder it made no noise.  A Christmas tree, a reindeer and a bunch of pine trees sat neatly in the globe.  Small flakes flew around the black sky inside the globe.  The stand was colored red, tied with some bells.  So that was what made the tingling sound earlier.  BANG!  Someone threw the door open.  “What are you doing here?” She asked.  “We’re not suppose to open the presents until tomorrow! Leave that there, and go clean up the lounge.”  I left the globe where I found it, and followed her to the lounge.