My PARTY!!!!

My party was in May.
I went 10 pin bowling with my BFF's.
Ella took sooooooo many photo's - all of them are cool.
I also got some awesome presents including vouchers, stuff from Smiggle and Diva!!!
For dinner we got takeways from Mango and we had trumpets for a birthday cake.
We watched Bandslam the movie and Bride Wars.  Both movies were awesome.
At night we didn't go to sleep for ages. We played a game where we said 1, 2, 3 then we all jumped into the middle. It was so fun. After that we just talked and chilled and Ella took so many photo's of us at night. That's one of them. In that photo we were all really hyped.

Matariki

Matariki is the Maori name for the group of stars also known as the Pleiades star cluster or The Seven Sisters. It is referred as the traditional Maori New Year.
The Maori New Year is marked by the rise of Matariki and the sighting of the new moon that follows. Matariki can be seen in the last few days of May every year and the New Year is marked at the sighting of the next new moon which happens during June.
Matariki has two meanings: Mata Riki (Tiny Eyes) and Mata Ariki (Eyes of God).

Traditionally the size and success of the season's crops were determined by the stars. The brighter the stars were, the warmer it was, and the better it was for growing crops. Matariki was also a time for a family gatherings and to think about the past and future. People celebrate Matariki to show respect to the land they live on and to celebrate the Maori New Year.

Matariki is celebrated by planting new trees and crops which signals new beginnings.
It is also seen as a good time to learn about the land they live on and to remember whakapapa (ancestry) who have passed from this world to the next.
All Iwi (Maori tribes) celebrate Matariki although they celebrate it at different times. Some celebrate it when Matariki's first seen in the dawn sky, others celebrate it more to the end of which is after the full moon rises.

Volcanoes

Lately we have been researching volcanoes so I'm going to tell you a bit about them.

A volcano is an opening in the planet's surface or crust, which allows hot lava, magma, ash and gases to escape from below the surface.

Some volcanoes can be very violent. This is where the top of the volcano may blow right off and lava, magma, ash and gases will explode out very quickly.

Other volcanoes may not be very violent at all - just oozing out lava for a long time or they might have a soft quick eruption not as often (just a little spray of lava etc).

There are ratings for volcanos going fron 0-5 so 0 is not active and 5 is violently active with eruptions happening up to every 20 minutes sometimes.

The types of volcanoes are "cinder cone volcanoes" which are ones that normally blow the top off them so they have a dented circle at the top.

Composite volcanoes are more sort of an oozing volcano and sometime are quite symmetrical with more of a point at the tip.

Shield volcanoes are really flat and when the lava comes out it goes everywhere and it can't be controlled.

Mayon Volcano, a beautifully symmetrical but dangerous composite volcano on Luzon Island, Philippines.