Electives

Chocolate Moulding

Lovely, delicious, dark and smooth chocolate melting into your mouth. For electives a group of lucky students were selected for the elective chocolate moulding and I was one of that group. Our teacher was Mr Strydom, he talked us through the different methods to use with the chocolate moulds and how to get shiny glossy chocolate.

The objective for our elective was to make good quality chocolate then sell it to make profit, using this to then purchase more chocolate to make more moulds and so on. Our time table was simple at 9.15 get out the moulds and mould mould mould! The most challenging part of the elective was being patient enough to wait for the chocolate to set.

The most rewarding part of all of this was getting to see and eat all of our creations made over those three days. Special congratulations to Jarred for creating an awesome chocolate house and also Grace for her amazing chocolate wheel barrow.

Mr Strydom also gave us some information on where our chocolate comes from and who has to make it. He showed us how we can purchase child labour free chocolate from the super market by just looking for the child labour free tick on the back of the block of chocolate.

By Mereana Barsdell

Power in The Wind

The Elective - Power in the Wind, gave students a chance to create a wind turbine. Over three days a group of around 18 of us students got to work with Mr Guffey (our hard materials teacher). Mr Guffey helped us to research about wind turbines, and then later he helped us to pull together our final product. On our first day of electives we researched and we made drafts of our model. During the second day we created our models. And for the last day we tweaked and tested.

While we tested our wind turbines we had a range of electricity from 0.4v to 19v. Three people came out on top. Aaron created 12v, Joshua generated 13 and Rowan made an amazing 19v.

Clarke Spence  

Beginners Horse Riding!  

An awesome experience with horses. Lorraine was our riding instructor, in this elective we learnt to catch, groom and ride the RDA’s amazing horses.

RDA stands for Riding for Disabled Association. What we did at this elective involved a lot of balance, we didn’t use saddles we used pony pads. We learnt to stand on the horses back while they were walking, how to lie back on the horse and other balancing skills.

Lorraine was a great riding instructor she had lots of patience with us. Lorraine taught us a lot of new horse knowledge. After the horse riding I’m sure everyone thought it was a great experience. Thanks Lorraine! J  

By Chloe-Rose Crabtree

Trout Fishing Elective With Mr Mitchley

The first day of electives was learning to tie our very own fishing fly.

We started by clamping a small fishing hook in between the clamps of a tying iron, next Mr Mitchley showed us how to wrap string around the hook and how to make the fly look tasty to a fish. The end result was a small bug looking strip of cloth, feather and string.

Day two was more interesting, we got to know the rules and regulations of trout fishing like, what the size of a legal trout was at the Matahina dam. The legal size is 300 millimeters.

That day we also walked down to the Whakatane bridge to practice our spin fishing, a few lures broken and three thrown away and a mullet later.

We were all ready for the dam.

On Thursday the lucky kids who had been given Trout Fishing for their elective all headed to Room 11 to talk to Mr Mitchley and the rest of the kids.

Once we had figured out what cars we were traveling in and off we went!

The wind was cold and bitter and for scary moment there was absolutely no hits on any of our seventeen rods!

But after moving down to the side of the dam that lets the water out fish after fish after fish were caught and they were huge!

At the end of the day four fish altogether were caught and so many were the ones that got away!

Thanks Mr Mitchley for giving us the opportunity to learn about the trout species and to have a great time!!

By Stacie Stanley-Harris

Ginger bread house making

Day 1

When we got to our elective we put on our aprons washed our hands and got straight into it. First we had to melt the butter with the milk then add the molasses. In a separate bowl we had to mix the ginger, cinnamon and baking soda. We then mixed this with the main bowl to make it into a dough. We put the dough into the fridge to set.

After interval we got the dough out the fridge and traced our templates.

Once all the templates had been traced on our dough we baked them for 15 minutes each.

Day 2

When we had our aprons on and washed our hands then we grabbed a side wall and a gable end so we could stick them together with royal icing. We used jars to hold up the edges so they wouldn’t topple over. Once the first to walls were standing alright we stuck our other side wall and gable end together. By the end of the day most of us had our to roofs on as well.

Day 3

When we got to the class thankfully all of our ginger bread houses were standing.

Mrs Cure had made some colourful icing for us to decorate our houses with. Along with the icing she had also brought some delicious lollies. We all had an awesome looking plan of our house in our book that we had to follow. By the end of the day all the ginger bread houses looked FANTASTIC!

By Natasha Taylor

The Tongoriro Crossing 2011

On the first day of our elective we traveled all the way to Taupo. We had a stop at the AC baths and had an hours swim and lunch break. Soon after that we travelled just past the chateau and did a two hour walk to the Taranaki Falls. The views were stunning and the breeze was refreshing. The air was so clean as well. After the walk we had a look around the information centre which was almost like a museum. It had lots of information about volcanoes around the area and native plants and animals. We settled in at our campsite and hung out for a while, had dinner and then set up our beds in the cabins. We prepared all our gear and lunches for the next day to make sure we had everything that we needed for our great 8 hour, 19.4 kilometer hike the next day.

We woke up at 6.00 a.m. the next day and packed our day packs for the hike. We ate our breakfast and had a hot milo and then we were off, packed and prepared for the day to come. First we travelled over a gravel road that had lots of potholes and hills. As soon as we arrived everyone got dressed into their hats, gloves, scarves etc. It started off flat and cold but as we walked we got hotter and hotter so then we had to strip off all the stuffy gear that we had loaded upon ourselves. We were walking up and over boulders, beside small streams and on top of boardwalks. We had a rest at soda springs, ate some snacks and also had a toilet stop. Soon after that we started the devils staircase. It was beside a steep cliff face with jagged rocks and leads up to the opening of south crater. The average amount of steps that people counted was 410, it only took us around 25 minutes.

We walked across South Crater and then we walked up this steep hill and slowly climbed to the summit or Red Crater, the highest point that we climbed. It was all worth it because the views were stunning and we were actually above the clouds! It was a very scary experience sliding down the steep mountain over scoria but it was worthwhile seeing the breath taking Emerald Lakes and touching snow for the first time in ages! They were a stunning turquoise colour at the time and the sky was a radiant bright blue.

We took many photos of the lakes but then we had to start walking down the whole mountain and past the Alpine area. As soon as we arrived to the Keretahi Hut some of us had big painful blisters but it was worth the walk. We walked for hours down to the car park then at the end we took of our shoes and lay down on the soft grass, what a relief! It was a brilliant experience and I will probably do it again. Big thanks to Mrs Volmuller and all parents and caregivers that made this all possible!

By Hannah Bakker