A Million Fireflies

Finally, the time has come for New Zealand to host the Rugby World Cup! Thousands of fans were on their way from all over Auckland to watch the opening ceremony at Eden Park. The Government only expected 50,000 people to watch the opening ceremony in town, but if you times that amount by four that was the actual number. 200,000 people turned up and if any more people had gone onto the wharf the Government thought it would CRASH and BREAK!

Sparkles filled the sky from 8pm on. A BAM went off here and a BAM went off there. What a magnificent sight. The sky lit up in sparks of colour. Our eyes were as wide as dinner plates for the full 11 minutes of amazement. It looked like a million fireflies bursting colour into the navy blue sky.

Probably everyone in Auckland who was in town was squashed against strangers who were trying to get a glimpse of the sparks.

Georgia was wearing some pretty cool sliver fern earrings, while Jude had her face painted with a sliver fern on her cheek and New Zealand ROCKS painted on her forehead. Jude was also wearing a New Zealand hat, shirt and pants.

After all the sparks and BAMS, began the game. New Zealand got into a head start of ten nil. But soon enough Tonga was in the game. Both teams did very well and it was a hard first game. Dan Carter scored the first points of the Rugby World Cup. After an exciting and nerve wracking hour and twenty minutes the score was 41-10 to New Zealand. We had won the match!

VICTORY TO NEW ZEALAND!

By Jude and Georgia.

Opening Ceremony

On Friday night it was the opening ceremony for the Rugby World Cup. It was amazing with all the costumes and props even the singing was magnificent! The fireworks were squirting up all over the place, the sky was completely lit up and people swarmed in from everywhere. The wharf was packed with painted faces and even some dogs were dressed up!

But the best part was the special effects stage. All of the eyes were drawn to the stage, the big rugby ball shaped stage. It created pictures of volcanoes, the earth and the water. It showed how people believed New Zealand was discovered. Even the GREAT Jonah Lomu stared in the performance. During the performance a young boy wore a red and black rugby jersey to support Christchurch. The excitement built up as the ceremony linked onto the All Blacks vs Tonga game.

We think it is something New Zealand should be proud of. It kept us excited from the first minute to the last. Now we are looking forward to the rest of the World Cup

By Molly Turpin and Sian Stuart-St Clair

World Cup Game !!!!!!

South Africa versus Wales

Everyone had finished singing the peaceful national anthems ....and now the crowd has gone WILD waiting desperately for the rugby game to begin!!

Wales and South Africa are warming up for their battle to get through to the finals.The boys are tackling hard, running up straight to their opposition to get the ball and score a try!

Francois Steyn grabbed the ball off the ground and ran through all the hard tacklers from the Welsh team! He ran like the wind towards the try line..scoring the first try of the game for South Africa!!!!!!

Everybody’s eyes were on Morne Steyn. He was going to accomplish the conversion for his country. Then, there was silence all around. They were waiting for him to get the conversion over. “KICK” he kicked the ball and it flew into the sky like a cannon ball, through the goal posts landing onto the field. The crowd roared with excitement.

Eventually South Africa won by one point over the Welsh. The points were 17-16. It was such a close hard game it was very exciting to watch.

We think that the South Africans were more skilled than the Welsh and that they will make the finals. Maybe the All Blacks will beat the South African team but win or loose we are behind them all the way.

By Christine and Leilani

Rugby World Cup Opening Ceremony

Friday was a very proud and disappointing day for New Zealand. The Opening Ceremony was a blast! Many Maori NZ citizens performed hakas. I think we all enjoyed the big screen on the Eden Park field.

Suddenly many people in the stadium counted down the Opening Ceremony with their cellphones. When they counted they opened their cellphones, when it was a tiny break they quickly closed it and they repeated that pattern. When the Opening Ceremony started the big screen on the field was turned on and a Maori woman started a call.

My favourite part of the whole Ceremony was when Ethan Bai, a 13 year old kid, went onto the field and took on one hundred Gladiators!

Then he talked to All Black legend Jonah Lomu.

When the bright Fireworks started we were all starstruck! It was AMAZING! I loved the end especially because they just let out all the fireworks and it looked very special!

One disappointing thing was that the train transport was horrible and jammed so many people who bought tickets for the NZ vs Tonga match was late and some even MISSED OUT ON SEEING THE GAME!

Although that I bet that the whole of NZ was so honoured and proud to be an NZ citizen.

By Angus and Alan.

T.N.I.S

T.N.I.S

 

On Wednesday some of the year 6 people went to T.N.I.S to look around the school. Fortunately we were allowed to choose a partner. Unfortunately we were split into two groups and we could only do one thing. One group did cooking and one group worked on electrical torches. We were both in the electrical torch group.

first we were all given balloons. We blew them up and rubbed them on our head. After that we poked the balloons with a barbecue skewer dipped in detergent which made it harder to pop them.  Then we made a torch out of foam, LED, plastic glass and battery. We also had a tour around the school. After, we met some of the people who baked cookies, they were all holding a packet of cookies.

By Joy and Deakyn

Puppets

This week we painted our puppets different colours to represent the world cup countries because we are making them fans at a rugby game. I painted my puppet white and black because I am supporting the All Blacks. I am going to put black and white clothes and stickers on his face. We had to paint the faces very carefully and not go over the pencil line we drew, so we didn’t get smudges on our faces.

Puppets

We are making puppets that look like fans at the Rugby World Cup. On Wednesday we painted our puppets. Some people painted their faces white and black to show that they are the All Blacks fans while other people are supporting South Africa, Canada, Japan and Tonga. Some people have already put their eyes on. The puppets are going to be awesome!