Rainy Day

Jordan, Tai, and Louis went to spend some time in Room 13 today where they learned to create a movie on an iPad using SonicPics.

Special Interview With Princess Ariadne

As you can see, we filmed this on the same day as the Special Interview With King Aegeus....and our lighting wasn't good enough for the green screen effect to work. Oh well! Ariana and Lucy had too much fun...we just had to post it. Once again you'll have to imagine that a castle is in the background. Thanks Stevenson for doing the filming for us!

Special Interview With King Aegeus

Grrrrrrr.....it is so frustrating when the lighting isn't right and the green screen effect doesn't work the way it should!!! Oh well, the boys had fun so we decided to post it anyways.....just pretend that there is a picture of the Parthenon in the background!! Here is Sean interviewing King Aegeus (Taimana) while Stevenson films.

Brave Theseus

What kind of eveil king would feed children to a minotaur? Kids menu or should I say kids on the menu.

One day when King Minos went to battle with King Aegeus, King Aegeus cried to him, "Please let's make a deal. Instead of battling, I will give you 7 boys and 7 girls every nine years to feed your minotaur." King Minos agreed.

The muscular, handsome Prince Theseus knew that his dad, King Aegeus, had made the wrong decision. So he went on a quest to find the labyrinth and destroy the minotaur.

When he arrived in Crete, Prince Theseus saw a charming, beautiful princess named Ariadne. She was madly in love with him. "Hello. Do you need help?" she said sweetly. "Yes." he replied. "You have to make me a promise. If I help you, then you have to sail away with me so others can admire my great beauty." Prince Theseus was not prepared properly to battle a minotaur so Ariadne gave him a sword to slice off the evil beast's head and she gave him a ball of thread so he could lay it out behind him and find his way out of the scary maze.

It was pitch black as he entered the labyrinth. He saw the minotaur and quickly chopped off it's head.

Theseus felt happy because he had been brave in destroying the minotaur and the children would no longer be sacrificed to the horrible beast.

Courageous As A Lion

Fighting the Horrible Beast

In the land of Ancient Greece, lived a horrible beast called a Minotaur. In that country was a mighty kingdom with a king who was also mighty and powerful. There was just one problem...the king always got bored. Oops I almost forgot ...I haven't told you the name of the king yet...his name was King Minos. Now back to the story... so King Minos told his men to grab their weapons and get ready to fight with the Athenians. Once they got to Athens, King Aegeus ran on to the beach and cried out to the king of Crete, "Please don't battle with us. Instead you can take fourteen children to feed to your minotaur." King Minos agreed.

Once Prince Theseus, who was King Aegeus's son, heard this, he immediately galloped like a race horse to his father and wanted to put an end to this madness. Bright and early the next morning, Prince Theseus set off on his quest to find and kill the minotaur. his father ran down to where the boat was and called out, "Son, the sails are black, but if you succeed you must put a white sail on."

With a bump, the boat landed on the sand. Up ahead there was a princess - a beautiful, stunning princess. Her name was Princess Ariadne. That night Princess Ariadne wrote a note to Theseus about her great beauty and to make a deal. The deal was if the Princess helped the Prince slay the horrible beast, he would promise to take her away with him so that others could admire her. So Prince Theseus agreed. The next morning, Theseus met the Princess outside the Labyrinth where she was waiting for him with a ball of string and a sword.

The next thing you knew, Prince Theseus stepped into the maze and there in front of him was the beast! The minotaur was furious...he wanted revenge. Prince Theseus destroyed the beast and sailed back to Athens. On the way, he dropped Princess Ariadne off on a small island...after all...a deal's a deal.

We Love Our New Dictionaries!

Last week those of us in year 4 were visited by some people from the Pakuranga Rotary Club. We love it when the "Rotary Club" comes to visit because it means that it is that time of year when we get our ...very own dictionary!!! We could hardly wait to get back to our classrooms to start learning new words and find the definitions of words that we come across in our reading books. What makes our dictionaries extra special is that they are written in language that kids can understand and they have pictures! We plan to leave our dictionaries at school for the rest of this year so that we can use them regularly.

Thank you to all the people from the Pakuranga Rotary Club who raised funds to buy these for us. You've made us feel very special with your generosity.

Zane has been learning a bit about Greek Mythology. Here is one paragraph that he worked hard on to add detail and make it interesting for an audience.

Long ago, King Minos, an evil king, was so rich that he had everything he wanted...even a vicious human eating pet. Every time he was bored, he said, "Let's set sail and fight the Athenians." One day the fighting Kings were down at the beach and King Aegeus made a terrible deal with King Minos. He promised to send 14 kids to Crete to feed the minotaur if King Minos would stop battling with him.