Writing: Our First Badminton Session | RECOUNT

L.I: to revise a recount writing

This week for writing, our must do was to write another recount. This time, our recount needed to be about our experience at our first badminton session for this term. We once again had 40 minutes to write this recount, and made sure to try and create a better recount than last time. When I was writing this recount, I could feel the time pressure kicking in, and I honestly thought that this would be a terrible. Although, after I had finished writing, I realised that this recount was probably better than my edited version of my recount from last week. We were required to mark ourselves, and give our opinion. My marked score that I gave was a 39, which is 10 points over what we should be around the end of the year! I'm really proud with the way this recount turned out, and I can't wait for the next recount to write next week.

Our First Badminton Session

Today, we learnt the basics to badminton. We had this session as our KiwiSport for this term, and once I had first heard that this was our next KiwiSport, I was so excited.

Although badminton is my favourite sport, the thought hit me. I’d realised that since I’ve injured my knee, I may not be able to take part in this session. I went back home that day, and I was so irritated. It was the next day, and to my surprise, I was told to come along to join the other students. I thought I would just have to continue with my work, but I guess I was wrong.

Our badminton teacher’s name was Kevin, and he first gave us an introduction of himself. After he had finished the lesson started, and as I expected, there was a warm up. Stuck in the mud, one of my favourite warm ups, and I had to sit on the stage and watch all my friends and classmates have a bunch of fun. Eventually, the warm up stopped. Finally, I thought in my head. Even though everyone played for about 3 minutes, it felt like an eternity to me. We were told to pick up a badminton racket, and then choose a shuttle / shuttlecock. We then all stood in a line, and had our badminton rackets in our hand. We were then asked a few questions, the first being, does anyone know the two grip names? Followed by, does anyone know how to hold the racket?

After all questions had been asked, and all answers had been given, we began the first part of the lesson. We were challenged to see how many times we could juggle the shuttle using our fore-hand grip. I already knew that I was quite experienced at this, because of the amount of times that I would play badminton in the weekends. In the end, I managed to juggle the shuttle 21 times, which was over our 10 or over goal. After about 2 minutes, Kevin moved onto the second part to our lesson.

Now we had to juggle the shuttle with our backhand grip. This I knew I was going to struggle with knowing that i’m not the most accurate at backhand hits. Surprisingly, I got to 21 hits again! It wasn’t what I had expected, but I still really enjoyed it. We then once again stood in a line, and shared our scores. To my surprise, lot’s of people made it over our amount of hits goal as well. Little did I know was that we were going to get into some extreme stuff in the first lesson.

By extreme, I mean we started to learn some pretty simple trickshots. All together we learnt 2 trickshots, one quite easy, and one quite hard. The first trickshot we attempted was to regularly juggle the shuttle, and sometimes put your arm around your back and hit. I found this as a pretty easy challenge, and a lot of people started to become experts at it. The next trickshot we attempted was to again regularly juggle, but this time, wrap your arm under your legs, and hit. For this one, like me, many people found it a lot harder. Most people didn’t make it over the ten hit goal.

The last part to our lesson was to have a competition. For this competition everyone had to normally juggle the shuttle, although this time, if you dropped the shuttlecock you had to sit down. We had two round of this, and both times, I dropped the shuttle under pressure. We had two winners for those rounds, Julian, and Jonathan. Most people like me would think that that would be the end of it, but instead, Julian and Jonathan had to have a 1v1 battle to see who could juggle the longest. In the end, Julian was the winner.

We then put the equipment away, and said goodbye to Kevin. So far, this has been the best first KiwiSport lesson that has happened. I really cannot wait for the next lesson, and hopefully it will be as fantastic as this one.

Writing: 2017 Production Recount

L.I: to create and mark a recount

This week for writing, we had to write a recount. This recount needed to be about our experience with the 2017 production that we did, and how we felt as we practised and performed. We had 40 minuted to both write, and edit this recount, but I had eventually ran out of time to do any editing, and had only 1 minute left. We had everyone in our groups mark these recount, and once everyone was done, we added up the scores to see who got the highest marks. Out of my group, I got the highest mark, but that wasn't the end. We would then as a group look at another persons recount who got the highest marks in their group. As a group we would then mark that persons recount, and then go back to see how we were marked. Then all the people who got the highest marks would be marked by Mr Ogilvie. In the end, I got 35 as my score, and level 4A. I was happy with this mark, because that's only 1 or 2 points away from my score that I got on my latest narrative. I think that I did well on my ideas for this recount, and that I had many different ideas in separate parts. I think I could've done better with my punctuation, because I didn't use a wide variety of punctuation marks, but I did use them all correctly.

My recount:

The 2017 Production

Last term, we performed in front of a lot of people. We did this performance to represent the 60 years that Panmure Bridge School has been running for. It was at the start of term 3 when we began to learn what we would be doing for this production, and when our first lesson started, I had no idea what we were doing. For this performance, we were going to learn a dance each, and we learnt that dance with a group. In my group there was, Alex, Julian, Matthew, Chris, Peter, Te Pounamu, and me. The dance that my group learnt was the Gangnam Style dance, but little did I know that the whole school was going to be a part of this production! The dance teacher’s name was Zoey, and she did a really good job at teaching us these dances. Each week we would go to the school hall and practise these dances, at this point I couldn’t wait for when our next rehearsal would be.

This all continued until the last week of term 3, and after each practice we learnt more and more. One day when we rehearsed, it became a lot more extreme. This was when we started to practice the dance on the stage, and learn where we would stand, and how we would let the next dance group go to the front of the stage. I felt as if I was forgetting the dance, and that I only focused on moving to the right spots. It was more challenging now, but I just made sure to try my best, and continue with the dance anytime I did something wrong. Around our fourth of fifth rehearsal, I started to get the hang of things, and I enjoyed practising the dance a lot more.

It was almost the last practise with Zoey when we had to get the costumes ready. I thought that we would do this production in our regular school uniform, but I must’ve been wrong. Most groups had required costumes, and if they brought the wrong things then the production wouldn’t work out. What my group and I had to wear was sunglasses, a bowtie, a white shirt, black pants, and black shoes. Once all the costumes had been sorted, understanding what to do for the production became a lot more important. Now whenever we got the chance, we would practise our dances in the class to make sure that we had it all correct.

To me, it felt as if the weeks had passed in a matter of days. I remember when we had a whole school rehearsal, I forgot the we had been practising these dances for the entire term. Once room three had finished their practise, it was our turn. Presenting our dances in front of the school was already nerve racking, so I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to present the dances in front of parents as well. Then it was week 10, if we were to fail our dances, then everyone would see.

All together, we presented the production 3 times, one time during Wednesday afternoon, one during Wednesday night, and the last one on Thursday night. During the afternoon production, everything worked out ok. We all remembered our dances, where we would perform, and how to get on and off stage. It was the same for the Wednesday night production as well. Then we had to perform on Thursday night, and I really wanted this to be the best one, knowing that it would be the last time we would perform. Room three had finished their dance, it was now time for us to go on stage. While classed would get on and off the stage, there would always be an ad playing, which would make the audience focus on the ad instead of seeing the classes get into positions. The music started playing, and I felt my nerves kicking in. Then my groups music stopped, and the next group started their dance. Eventually, our dances had finished, and we had to get off stage. After performing, I wish we would still perform these dances, because I found it really fun. I hope that one day I can experience something like this again.

My camping holiday

In the christmas holidays me my dad & my brother went camping.I was really excited so when I knew we were there I raced right out of the car and said YES! with excitement.So we got all the gear and headed for a spot to camp.While dad was setting up the tent my brother Latham and I went into the river and played on the rocks.Then dad finished the tent so we got into our togs & went for a swim.After the swim we went on the opposite side of the river and went for a walk in the water.When it got deep we stopped because it was so cold that we would freeze but we had to do it so I counted down 3 2 1 and I jumped in & swam to land.Then it got shallower and I could stand up.We ended our walk in water at the beach which is a very long way.We went back there at night to chatc some flounders but we couldn’t find any.But then Latham saw an eel so we got out the net & caught it.Eels are really smart because if you put them on land it will find its way into water.Then we headed back to camp & went to sleep.In the morning we were planing to go to a waterfall but first we went for a swim in the river.Then we headed to the waterfall which is a very long walk.When we got there the water was cold & clear.when it got dark we got out the gas cooker & to toast marshmallows &went to bed.I enjoyed camping & I hope I can come back soon.