Little Malcolm

Finally, as promised, photos of my ADORABLE little nephew and myself.  I do have video but it will be a few days before I can upload that.

He's just the cutest thing - giggles at everything.  He struggles to pronounce the blend 'gr' at the start of words, so poor Gregg is called 'Egg'!

All sorts in England

Wow, it's been quite a week!  We had a long weekend in London catching up with my sister and visiting a whole heap of fantastic sights.  It's an incredible city.  London is vast with history going back centuries.  As a result you never see or learn everything there is to see or know in London.

One of the highlights of our London trip was catching up with a friend from my first year in New Zealand.  I haven't seen her in 7 years.  Now she is a tour guide on one of the London tour buses, so she took us on a tour.  We found out so many new things!  For example, after the changing of the guard, a small group of horses patrol back down the avenue.  If the horse at the front is white, you know the queen is at home in Buckingham Palace.  Random fact.

We are now in the Lake District visiting my granddad.  It's quite a contrast to London.  Instead of miles and miles of buildings and streets, lots of people and traffic, we're back in wide open countryside.

On our way up here, we had a day at Alton Towers.  Alton Towers is the UK's premier theme park - 7 roller coasters and a load of other rides.  Oblivion roller coaster has the world's first vertical drop on a roller coaster.  There was also a brand new roller coaster: The Smiler.  The Smiler has 14 upside down loops and twists.  We had to queue for an hour and a half to get on it, but boy was it worth it.  You can check out the promo video for The Smiler here: http://www.altontowers.com/rides-and-attractions/thrill-rides/the-smiler/
I tell you what, Alton Towers made me feel very old.  I first went there when I was 7.  The main roller coaster that was there then, The Corkscrew, has now been discontinued and taken down.  However, they have kept a section of the track (the corkscrew bit) and mounted it as a sculpture at the entrance of the park.  And after a day on the rides, I felt very battered and bruised.  My poor old body… ;o)

Room 5, have a fantastic, well-deserved Easter break.  You have done some awesome learning this first term as Year 7 students and I look forward to seeing you relaxed and raring to go in May.

Keep watching this blog - photos of Malcolm will be up later next week.

The Auks in Scotland

OK, so first the answer to my castle riddle:  Congratulations to anyone who identified it as a roof (although it could just as easily have been a floor).  It was in fact the vaulted ceiling of a round room on the ground floor where the servants probably lived.  Here's me taking the photo.

Today we went to Stonehaven on the coast.  We visited a RSPB sanctuary - a section of the coastline protected by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, as it is a nesting site for a whole range of birds.

Here is your next challenge: Can you identify either of these two birds that we saw in the cliffs:

If you think you know, don't post your answer.  Instead, post a hint for the rest of the class; post a fact you find out about one of the birds to help point your classmates in the right direction.

I'll start with mine: Both birds are types of 'auks' (another bird in the same family is the puffin; auks are closely related to, but not the same as, penguins).  Good luck!

We're off to London tomorrow morning, so you may not hear from me for a while.

Balvenie Castle and the Cooperage

Hello again!

Today we had a proper road trip - a couple of hours up the road from my mum and dad's to Dufftown.

And what's to see at Dufftown?  Quite a lot, it turns out.

Dufftown is in a large area known as Speyside.  It's a beautiful place with lots of rolling hills, fields and stone walls.  The Speyside area is also well known for excellent quality water coming from the natural springs, which is used to make whisky.

There were, and still are many different trades associated with the production of whisky.  One of them is the making of the wooden casks in which it is stored.  Someone who makes casks (one type of cask is a barrel) is called a 'cooper'.  A place where coopers work is known as a 'cooperage', and casks are still made and repaired by hand by skilled tradesmen today.  We visited the Speyside cooperage, watched the coopers making and fixing casks, and had a go at putting together a mini-cask ourselves.  I wasn't very good at it...

This guy is a pro - much better than me!

After the cooperage, we took a tour of one of the many local distilleries, where they make the whisky.

Next we decided to take in a Scottish castle.  There are castles EVERYWHERE in Scotland, and every one of them is a bit different.  Today we visited Balvenie Castle.

Time for a mystery picture: I took this at Balvenie Castle.  Where or what do you think it is a photo of?  Post your ideas in a comment...

Keep up the great work on those amazing maps, Room 5!  The picture Jules sent me shows some really impressive effort.

First days in Scotland

Well, here I am in Aberdeenshire, Scotland!  If you go on to Google Maps and put in 'AB31 5EP', it will show you exactly where I am at my parents' house.  36 hours of flight travel later and I'm feeling pretty tired. One of the best ways to beat jet lag, I've found, is to get out and about in the fresh air.

So today, off we went to a place called Burn o'Vat.  You trudge through the woodland to a place where the river seems to pour out of a narrow gap in the rock.  But in fact, you can squeeze through that gap and come out in the 'vat'.  The vat is a large natural rock formation.  Thousands of years ago, when the glaciers melted at the end of the ice age, enormous volumes of water rushed down the hillsides towards the sea.  In the vat, the water formed a whirlpool and gouged out a huge cavern in the rocks.  It's pretty amazing!

Week 8-9 video report

Thanks to Finn and Flynn for putting together this fortnight's video report.

Room 5 students: While you're watching, think about some feedback.  What are 2 things you think are really good about the video?  What is one thing you think we could learn from this video to help make the next video report even better?

Have your say in House Singing

Instead of commenting on our blog today, have your say in House Singing here: https://docs.google.com/a/balmoral.school.nz/forms/d/1YRWYaJJEy7N6S9Ll_Y_2hBb9wV41gxcLUHbCZsOC3j0/viewform

(You'll need to be logged in to your Balmoral School account to be able to access the survey.)

Little Ruby

Remember to bring clothes to wear in the pool over your togs tomorrow!

So, we're getting to know Ruby the baby elephant a little bit now.  What do you think of her?  Describe her in 3 fantastic words...