Shot Put - by Taeshell

Shot Put is followed by many Kiwis, because Valerie Adams represented New Zealand at the 2012 Olympic games, in London. A lot of people thought she was going to win a gold medal. But Nadzeya Ostapchuk put the shot further and got a score of 21.36 meters. Fortunately for Valerie her rival tested positive for steroids, and Valerie got her gold in the end.
If you haven't participated in Shot Put before, well you're about to learn. Here are some of the rules:
Standing in the circle is where you start.
When the shot has landed you are allowed to exit
If you walk out at the wrong place or time, you are disqualified.


There are two putting styles involved in Shot Put. One of them is the Glide, and the other is the Spin. A very common technique is the glide, and is not really used by beginners, (people that have just started learning Shot Put).

Keeping the shot below your shoulders is what you have to do. Getting a good throw is what you will want, so pushing the small metal ball at about forty degrees makes the ball go fast, and far, not too high, and not too low.

Good luck for when you start participating in Shot Put.

Olympic Volleyball - by Taeshall

Stress Busters

In the Life Education caravan we were thinking about what causes us stress, and what can help us feel better.
Taeshell

Ancient Olympic Wrestling

Do you know that boys in Greece learnt to wrestle? This was because in Greece they were always trying to win wars and take over countries. Greece was very powerful, until the romans came and took over them.

The place where the boys learnt to wrestle was school! Yes that’s right school. It did cost for parents to send their kids there, that’s why mostly rich people sent their kids to wrestling school.
Taeshell

Taeshell critiques Starry Starry Night

This painting was painted by the famous Vincent Van Gogh. He painted Starry starry night in the year 1889, one year after he painted Sunflowers. He is a very talented artist.

Blue is the main color for this painting, but the colour that stands out and makes it hopeful is yellow. Shining gold stars stand out from the blue exaggerated sky. The contrast makes it very cool, that's when it's bright up the top, then dark down the bottom.

There are different kind of objects. Like the cypress tree, and a church. There is also a small and peaceful village, shiny gold stars, swirly wind, and a bright crescent moon.

Can you guess what two objects stand out on the foreground? Well, it’s the cypress tree and the church. This is because they both are pointy. These two things balance out the painting.

Starry Starry Night is one of my favourite Vincent Van Gogh paintings. It surely looks better then, his other painting Sunflowers.

Van Gogh by Taeshell

This term Room 17 has been doing research about Vincent Van Gogh. These are some facts that I found out:
     Van Gogh suffered from lead poisoning because, he was using lead paint so he could paint his pictures. The jobs that he tried was a preacher, teacher,  selling art in an art gallery, and then he became an artist.
     He also chopped off part of his ear, put it in a box then he sent it to his girlfriend, But she did not like it.
      His paintings are really cool. He would get a knife, put a lot of paint on it then just slam it down on a paper, and that's how he painted his paintings.
    Vincent Van Gogh died in the year 1890, two years after he painted the painting Sunflowers.

These are some of the paintings that I like.

This painting is called Olive Trees: Bright Blue Sky.

This is one of my favorite paintings, its called Irises

Another painting that I like is Starry Night.

Frogs

I’m thinking of a commonly found amphibian, can you guess what it is? If you thought of a Frog, that’s the creature that I’m going to tell you about.

Amphibians are creatures that live both in water, and on land. These creatures are members of the zoological class called Amphibia or Amphibians. Like all Frogs are cold blooded.

Because frogs are Amphibians, they are commonly found in ponds, swamps or slow moving water. Under mossy rocks, logs or on the forest floor is where you can possibly find some of these water loving creatures. If they live in dry areas, their skin will dry up and they will sadly die.

Can you guess what a frog's skin and body looks like? Its skin feels really smooth and moist, on the other hand it has a short and stubby body. No neck is what a frog has. These creatures have long legs to help them jump really far.

A frog has webbed feet to help it swim. Their very good and interesting eyes can look up, down, sideways and ahead all at the same time. A frog's tongue is really sticky, that’s because when its trying to catch its prey, its sticky tongue catches it, then eats it .

When tadpoles are born they are Herbivores, that means they only eat plants and algae. After they grow into a froglet or a frog they become a carnival. Eating insects is what they eat.

In Winter frogs hide in little places to keep warm. Sleeping in the winter season is what they do. They hide in cracks, logs, rocks and burrows.

A life cycle of a frog starts off with a female frog and a male frog mating. After that the female frog lays its eggs in the water then, after a couple of days the eggs hatch into newly born tadpoles. About 6 to 9 weeks later the tadpoles start to grow legs. By 12 weeks the tadpole turns into a froglet, which is a frog but still has a little tail.

By between 12 to 16 weeks, depending on how much food it ate, It turns into a frog. Then the frogs will start the whole process again.

Snakes, hedgehogs, snakes, turtles, lizards and birds are frogs enemies. These creatures eat frogs. If they see frogs around they would eat them.

Taeshell