Keeping Creative During Coronavirus

Scary tales of isolation

Just when I was having a nice time at school, going out places in the sunshine and planning a family holiday later in the year... the coronavirus happened.

I don't really know what a coronavirus is - William think it's something big, like a bear, which will chase us if it sees us. Whatever it is, it can make people really sick, so while the coronavirus is outside we have to stay inside. That means I'm now sharing my room with William since Mum and Dad are using his bedroom as an office to do their work.

Because nobody is allowed to go out anywhere, that means school is shut. But the teachers say I still need to keep up with school work, so I've been doing some creative things while I've been stuck at home - like drawing pictures.

That one above is of a permerd (pyramid) in egept (Egypt). You can see all the steps up the sides of the pyramids and the spings (sphinx) which is guarding them. It's very hot in Egypt, as you can see because the temperature is 1000 degres.

I've done some other great drawings too, like this space book I made for Dad, including planet Earth, rockets, the sun and even the international space station. The drawing next to it is of a transformer robot, which turns into... well, just read the description I wrote.

But it's not just art I've been working on. I've also been writing stories, just like I normally do in class. These are two of the scary stories I've written - one about a skeleton and one about a vampire. Hope they're not too frightening for you!

So those are some of the creative things I've done during our first week of being stuck at home during the coronavirus. I'll share some more with you next time.

School's Out For Summer!

Fun in the sun these holidays

After Christmas has been and gone, it would be easy to feel sad after waiting for it for so long. Luckily, the end of Christmas just means the start of a nice long summer holiday for me - thanks to the super-long school break.

This year we've had a real summer heatwave, which meant bye-bye rain, hello trips to the beach. There was so much sunshine we were able to visit lots of different beaches this year - all of them close to home (not that that stopped me moaning about how long it took to drive to them).

As well as playing in the sand and racing into the waves, we even got to see some unusual creatures at the beaches this year. On one visit to Castor Bay we watched a little green turtle slowly plod his way across the sand. He looked so small we think he must have come from someone's house somehow.

Another time, at Waiake Beach, we saw a dead stingray washed up on the rocks. We were pretty sure it was dead, but I still stepped carefully a long way around it, just to be certain the scary stingray wasn't just sleeping.

But we haven't just spent the whole summer lazing about in the sunshine. Most of it, maybe, but not all. We've also done some walking, scrambling over the rocks along the beachfront with Dad and Mum, and biking along some tracks with Grandma near her house.

So with all these trips to the beach and fun in the sunshine, you'd think it was the best summer holidays ever right? Wrong. I also had to go to Greenlane Hospital for a day to have surgery to remove my tonsils and open up my nasal passages. I didn't even know what tonsils were - but they were causing problems, so the doctors had to take them out.

Everyone who knows me knows how much I love food. So I was pretty sad when I found out that lots of the types of food I like were going to be off the menu for a couple of weeks. If you want to see the difference, just look at these pictures: before surgery I could eat the yummy cake Grandma made, but after surgery I could only have drinks and iceblocks.

Luckily my throat and nose were back to normal (actually, better than normal!) by the time the end of the holidays came and it was time to go back to school. I was looking forward to a fun year with my friends in Year Three, but then, only a couple of months in, came the coronavirus.

To be continued...