School camps should not be banned

I strongly suggest that school camps should not be banned because the amount of happiness they give to people. They are great fun and I personally enjoy them. But they also teach kids to be independent of their choices. It shows that as kids we can take actions on our own responsibility as kids.

Let’s just imagine that there is no school camps, it would be a bit boring and nothing much to get excited about through the year. Also camps are about getting out of our comfort zone and trying new things like the giant swing or the flying fox.

Camps also provide memories to share with your friends. Also it is fun to share a cabin with your friends. Activities at camp are always fun, one of my favorites was archery. Just imagine it would be very sad if we banned school camps.  I hope that you agree with me and I really hope that we continue camps in the future.

 

Our Genius Hour

For genius hour Anabelle, Stephanie and I made tie dye tops. Our big question was ‘How do we make tie dye tops.’ We found out this included chemicals such as soda ash. Safety is really important so we wore a mask and a plastic apron, we had to use parent supervision so Anabelle’s mum came to mix the soda ash and to be sure we were okay.

The colours we used for our tops were: yellow, golden, turquoise, magenta, orange and deep blue.The steps were we had to twist the tops so they looked like cinnamon buns, to make the tops secure, we used elastic bands to hold them. Next, we put the soda ash and water into the dye bottles and then we started to put the dyes in. The order was: yellow, yellow, turquoise, golden, orange, deep blue then magenta.

When we finished, we wrapped up all of the tops in news paper so it wouldn’t drip and then we wrapped it in a garbage bag for more safety. When we took it home, we had to put the tops in a safe and warm place for 24 hours. After the 24 hours, we took the tops out and rinsed them in cold water until there was no colour in the water. Next, we put them in the washing machine then hung them up to dry.

The things we found difficult was finding the tie dye kit and we chose the ‘ great big tie dye kit’ which was a good choice. Another difficult thing was twisting the tops because we had to see the swirls of the top. We chose this topic because it was a fun but a challenging topic to do and we used chemicals we didn’t know.

All in all, we had great fun making tops and we could do this again.

Kala’s Escape

Kala is 12 now, she used to live in the outback of Australia until she found out about her true self. It is the early 1860s a hard place to be for her and her family, since her mother is an Aboriginal and her father is English It means that Kala is mixed with British and Indigenous blood. Instead of Kala’s skin being dark brown like her mothers it was a light brown.

Kala used to come from a different tribe, but the English destroyed it for more farming space. Then Kala and the rest of her clan found a different tribe which they are staying at. The good thing about it is they have lakes and trees in the land but the bad thing is that they are sharing the land with the British. Kala liked the place but her mother was scared because the English thought that Kala was British or Irish. So the English took her and sent her away to learn how be educated as an English woman.

The place Kala was staying was terrible. It’s almost if they were trying to poison her. The food was always the same, some sort of slime or mud but the cook says it is just healthy porridge. Kala hated her room, it was warm and stuffy and they expect her to sleep on a bed!? This house was really noisy too, people were always screaming and running around the house like they were chasing a dingo. Kala didn’t get it. Someone was also coming over to teach her how to read, but how could she read something on paper? It just looked like a bunch of lines to her!

“Darling are you alright?” asked the cook.

Since Kala was a kind person and I didn’t know what she was saying she didn’t reply.

“Would you like more?”

Ok, Kala knew she didn’t speak English but she could understand if someone was holding some slime out it mean, “You would want more food?” So she ran out of the kitchen and into her room, looking out the window she saw animals in a big barn. Now she was just thinking of how she could get out of there but she knew now just what to do. When she arrived at the barn it was very noisy, and Kala could hear Chickens, Cows and pigs. Problem, how could she make all the animals follow her? She grabbed the seeds and sprinkled them in the direction of the house and ran out of the gates and broke for her freedom. The funny thing was in the distance she could slightly hear screams and glass breaking. But in the back of her head Kala was screaming for joy!  Wherever she was she didn’t care as long as she left the evil prison and could go home.

 20 days later she found her mother Kala remembered someone saying that the mothers and fathers of the children would forget us. But when she saw her mother she was crying and asking me how Kala escaped.

My story

My parents came from completely different places. My dad was from England and my mum is from Peru.  My dad was working as a geologist in Peru and met my mother and stayed in Peru for several years.  My brother John, and my sister Paola were born in Peru. They then all relocated to Scotland. They travelled from Peru to Scotland on a plane which stopped in Columbia and Spain.

In Scotland we lived for 10 years. I was born there along with my younger sister Corina and little brother Anthony, so I am Scottish (as well as Australian). We lived in the Highlands of Scotland and had a lot of snow every year.

After that we moved to Perth in Western Australia. There was 7 of us and we had 14 passports. On the plane we had to stop at Singapore because it is impossible to go straight from Scotland to Australia. The plane ride was a 13 hours. I remember that I was sick on the plane. Then after Singapore we were on the plane for a further 6 hours to reach Perth. We stayed in a house that my dad had rented. Perth was very hot after Scotland but we enjoyed lots of swimming. We stayed in Perth for two years and then my dad changed job.

We moved to Melbourne and travelled by car because we wanted to stop at some places like Monkey Mia, Kalgoorlie and Adelaide. Then we finally got to Melbourne which is wet and cold.  We have been in Melbourne for one year, six months, ten days and several hours.