Currently there are 28 summer sports on the Olympic Games programme for this year. Approximately 10,500 athletes are expected to participate in this year’s games. Did you know that the 28 summer sports break down into 302 events?! Some of the sports are: archery, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, canoe/kayak flatwater, canoe/kayak slalom, cycling BMX, cycling mountain bike, cycling road, cycling track, diving, equestrian, fencing, football, gymnastics artistic, gymnastics rhythmic, trampoline, handball, hockey, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, softball, swimming, softball, synchronized swimmimg, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling. Interesting aye?! See any sports you could try for? So keep doing your swimmimg lessons, bouncing on your trampoline, riding your BMX and playing table tennis! They are Olympic sports!
Bet lots of you will be learning about the Olympic Games to be hosted by China soon. If you want to know more about China, Modern China is a great new book in a series published by DK Eyewitness books. The layout is great with tons of photos and info on topics like megacities, family life, fashion and much more. There is also a bonus clipart CD for any projects.
I came across the book Taming the Sun by Gavin Bishop and was engrossed with it. It is sort of a quick read one and has lots of wonderful illustrations. It has four Maori myths in one book so you really get a cool deal. The stories are entertaining and it always has a bit of moral lesson in each one. The stories are
- Maui and the Sun
- Kahu snd the taniwha
- Maui and the big fish
- Rona and the moon
It illustrates the rich Maori culture and myths and legends. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.
Hey guys its only four days to go till the Olympics start! Check out the official website for the Olympics: http://en.beijing2008.cn/ . Also check out New Zealand’s official site: http://www.olympic.org.nz/Front.aspx?ID=3783 . Our team is already there and they are saying how hot it is! Check out this site also: http://tvnz.co.nz/content/olympics_2008_index/olympics_index . It’s going to be very exciting to watch…..
I was reading a folk tale the other day that I hadn’t read since I was a child, ‘How Bear lost his tail’. This folk tale originated in North America (it’s an Ojibwe legend) but it has been retold by Julia Wall and beautifully illustrated by Ali Teo. It’s all about Bear, who thought that he was it, & his tail was so beautiful. All the other animals got a tad sick of this & they thought it wasn’t “all that cool”, but were too afraid to speak up, because Bear had sharp claws.
Anyway, one day Bear saw Fox fishing without a pole, and he wanted to know how he had got such a huge pile of fish. So Fox explained that, by dipping his tail into the water, the fish latched on and “voila”! Well as you can imagine, Bear wanted to do it too! Food was scarce because it was winter and since he had such a huge tail, he was sure to catch bigger fish. So Fox decided to play a trick on Bear… If you want to know the end of the story you will have to read it for yourself, all I can say is the book is beautiful and well worth reading! (even big people should read it if they don’t know it!)
