Hot Air Balloon

Today, our school walked onto our grassy field to take a ride in Wildfire, the red, orange and yellow hot air balloon.

Finally, it was my turn. I was nervous and excited at the same time but I hopped into the small basket anyway. My heart was pumping but I knew I would be ok. I saw the man who was controlling the balloon put his hand on a small handle and pull down on it. A small flame appeared on the top of it. The balloon started to slowly inflate and lift off the ground then it started to hover in the cold misty air. I looked down at all the people. They all looked like tiny ants on the grass, then we started to go down very slowly and we had a bit of a rough landing. We got out of the basket and on to the grassy ground. We saw three other people hop into the basket as we walked off with smiles on our faces.           

I thought that the ride was really fun and I would love to do it again.

St Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March the 17th every year. It is celebrated all around the world in different ways.

In New York, people drink green coloured beer and they put green lights on the Empire State Building.

The people who live in Auckland, which is in a country called New Zealand, paint the Sky Tower green and talk about Irish things. People also listen and dance to Irish music and they have parades that are Irish themed.

Australian people have parades at 12pm. Saint Patrick’s Day is also a family day in that country.

In London, England, they have colourful floats and marching bands in a parade.

Tokyo and Japan also have parades on Saint Patrick’s Day.

In Germany, the people have bands that play Irish music and the people do Irish dances.

The people in Belgium wear green suits and they also have parades.

Ash Wednesday

Cavalli Island Shell.

This beautiful pearl white shell from the Cavalli Islands feels smooth and hard. It  is in the shape of an oval and is very shiny indeed. The shell is cold but when you hold it for a little while it starts to get a bit warmer.
I think that this shell was in the very shallow part of the sea, amongst all the other shells in the water. This shell also smells quite unpleasant compared to its pearl white beauty.

Symbols of the Holy Spirit

Water reminds me how Jesus’ cousin baptised Jesus in the waters of the Jordan River. Water is used to baptise people and this gives them a stronger relationship with the Holy Spirit. 
You can see more symbols of the Holy Spirit that our class drew on our class blog at stproom4.blogspot.co.nz

Honey Bees

Introduction  

Honeybees are a part of the insect family. Like most insects, they are small and have six little legs.

What Do They Look Like? Honeybees have black and yellow stripes on their abdomen. They have three body parts-  the abdomen, head and the thorax. They also have a pair of compound eyes on each side of their head. Honeybees have a pair of straight antennae on top of their heads and they have four wings.They also have six legs which have something called a pollen basket on them. Only the worker bees have a small but sharp stinger on their abdomen. Where Do They Live? Honeybees live in groups called colonies that stay in small boxes called beehives. Colonies are groups made out of drones, worker bees and a queen bee. Honeybees can live all over the world except Antarctica and the North Pole,. They also can live anywhere that is not too hot or not too cold, and any place that has flowers. Giving Birth Drone bees mate with the queen bee to make more bees that are at first eggs then they pupate into small worm-like insects that are called larva. They are then stored in the wax cells. Honeybees are metamorphosis which means they go from being an egg to larva until they grow into an adult bee. How Long Do Honey Bees Live? Queen bees  can live for several years and drone bees and worker bees live for a few months, or even a few weeks! What Do They Do? Worker bees fly around looking for flowers to collect nectar and pollen from them. Honeybees use their straw-like tongues to collect the nectar from the flowers. They can fly up to 24 kmph.They can also flap their wings 11’000 times per minute. Nectar is collected and stored in the bee’s honey stomach. They actually have two stomachs called the honey stomach and their ordinary stomach. Honeybees need nectar to make honey.They get nectar from flowers.They need to visit 1000 flowers to fill their honey stomach. Finally, they have finished collecting all the nectar and fly  back to the hive. When the honeybee returns to the hive, it has to give the nectar to another worker bee. The other worker bee gets its straw-like tongue and sticks it down the other bee’s mouth and gets the nectar out of the other bee’s honey stomach. They chew it for half about half an hour. The worker bees then spread the nectar around the honeycomb and fan it with their wings until it is hard and thick. Worker bees then spread wax over the honey, then it’s ready for the beekeeper to collect.    

How Do They Communicate With Each Other? Honey bees do dances to tell the other bees which way to go for flowers. There is one dance called the waggle dance to tell the other bees which way to fly for flowers.