Kids Blog

AnyQuestions is a great website set up to help New Zealand School Students find the information they need for whatever they need it for.

It’s free, safe and reliable.

Here’s how it works: jump on the website, type in your name and your question or information need, then a NZ librarian will chat to you live and help you find a helpful website. Afterwards you chat will be emailed to you so you will have all the directions and websites in your inbox.

AnyQuestions is open Monday to Friday 1pm – 6pm. If you need help outside those days/times you can visit AnyQuestions‘ sister website ManyAnswers.

ManyAnswers is where lots of websites and information is kept about heaps of topics. Use the search box or word cloud to find your topic.

Do you have some tough homework, an assignment due in, or just don’t know where to start finding info? You need to know about this website then – anyquestions.co.nz

AnyQuestions is a New Zealand website set up to help NZ school students find online information. It’s a live website that open Monday to Friday from 1pm till 6pm. during those housrs there are librarians waiting to help you find online information to help answer your questions or to help with your school work.

It’s really simple – just state what your information need is, then chat live to a librarian who will help you find what you are looking for online. Not only will you discover reliable and helpful websites together, but the librarian will also give you hints and tips on good internet searching. Cool, right?

Sometimes you’ll need help when AnyQuestions is closed (like late in the evenings, in the mornings or on the weekends). But we’ve got that covered too.

ManyAnswers.co.nz is the sister site to AnyQuestions and contains helpful information, website links and search tips for heaps of topics. We carefully look at all the types of questions and topics we get at AnyQuestions, and write up information about how to find info about really popular topics and common questions over at ManyAnswers.

These two free websites are great for helping you find info for school, or just answering some of life’s tricky questions. Check them out today and impress your teachers and parents with how much you know.

I’ve always pondered this.

We have some great books about astronauts. Check these out:

Daylight Savings Time is when we put our clocks forward one hour so that evenings have more daylight, and mornings have less.  This is typically done near the start of spring, and clocks set back one hour to normal time in Autumn.

In 2013 NZ daylight saving will end on Sunday April 7th (that’s this week!) when the clocks go back one hour – 3:00 AM becomes 2:00 AM.  Enjoy your sleep in!

Daylight saving starts again on Sunday September 29 when the clocks go forward one hour – 2:00 AM becomes 3:00 AM.

These links have  some fascinating information about the history and origin of Daylight savings;  www.timeanddate.com ; Wikipedia Daylight Savings

Here are a few books you can reserve and borrow from your local library to learn more about Time!

Really really big questions about space and time by Mark Brake

Just a second by Steve Jenkins

The time book; a brief history from lunar calendars to atomic clocks by Martin Jenkins

In Ancient Greek mythology there is a sea dragon called ketea (singular ketos).

They are amphibious and have two flippers instead of legs. They have sleek bodies with hides covered in barnacles, and a long, tapering tail with a sea-weed like end.

Ketea have a long, pointy snout, long ears, sharp horns on their heads, and small sharp teeth. Although they live in the ocean around Greece, they can also survive on land.

Ketea obey Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, and he sends them to punish people who have offended him. They are ravenous and can never get enough to eat!

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find out more about dragons in The Dragon Companion: An Encyclopedia by Carole Wilkinson. All the facts in this post were taken from this book.

Some new books about dragons that you might like to read are:

The Dreadful Dragon by Kaye Umansky

Dragon Boogie by Erik Craddick

Fangbone!, third-grade barbarian by Michael Rex

How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel by Cressida Cowell

Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Regan Barnhill

Secrets of the Dragon World by S. A. Caldwell

It’s George Ferris 154th Birthday today!!!!!

So who is this guy?

What did he do !!!!

Well he was an American engineer who built bridges. You have probably gone on one of  his best ever inventions -  The Ferris Wheel!!!!!  He was challenged to see if something could be built that would rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris !!! He wanted something  ’original, daring and unique.’ So he came up with the cool idea of a gigantic wheel with carriages to ride in!!! Hooray for George!

So the first original Ferris wheel was built in Chicago for The World’s Columbian Exposition held in  Illinois, 1893.

So remember George next time you line up for a ride on a Ferris wheel and remember it’s his  154th birthday!

Happy Birthday George Ferris!!!!!

Chinese New Year falls on Sunday February 10 this year. It’s the most important traditional Chinese holiday. In China, it is also known as the ‘Spring Festival’.

The date of Chinese New Year changes every year as it is based on the lunar calendar. The dates usually range between late January and late February.

While the western calendar is based on the earth’s orbit around the sun, the lunar calendar that China and most Asian countries uses is based on the moon’s orbit around the earth. Chinese New Year always falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice.

Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally run for 15 days: from Chinese New Year’s Day, the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar to the 15th day of the first month, also called the Lantern Festival.

This year is the Year of the Snake, also called Junior Dragon by Chinese people.

The Chinese Zodiac is a rotating cycle of 12 years, which consists of 12 signs: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig, with each year represented by an animal.
Chinese New Year is celebrated by eating special New Year food, such as nian gao or sweet sticky rice cake and savory dumplings – which are round and symbolize never-ending wealth. People will travel home from far away to have a family reunion. The biggest feast is on Chinese New Year’s Eve where pork, fish, chicken, duck and dumplings will be consumed. People set off fireworks, visit friends and relatives, give out lucky money, deliver good wishes and hang lanterns.People born in the Year of Snake are believed to be intelligent, cute, charming, aware, elegant, mysterious, cunning, and passionate.

The origin of the Chinese New Year Festival is thousands of years old and varies from teller to teller, but all include a story of a terrible mythical monster called Nian, an extremely cruel and ferocious beast who preyed on villagers on New Year’s Eve. Nian (年) is also the Chinese word for “year.” To ward Nian away, villagers made loud noises with drums, set off fireworks, hang out red-paper couplets on the doors because Nian is said to fear the color red, the light of fire, and loud noises.

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in the grounds of James Busby’s house in Waitangi, in the Bay of Islands. It was signed on February 6th 1840 and is considered by many to be the founding document of New Zealand. It was signed by 500 Maori Chiefs and the British Leaders representing the British Crown.

There were two different versions signed, one in Maori and one in English. The wording was not exactly the same. And so the words did not mean the same to both parties, this has caused many problems over the years. Especially as past Governments have not always abided by the Treaty agreements.

Since 1974 New Zealand has celebrated Waitangi Day On February 6th each year as a Public Holiday (which means you get a day off school!).

Some celebrate it by re-enacting the treaty signing at Waitangi (in the Bay of Islands) others as a day to celebrate being a New Zealander.

What are you doing to celebrate Waitangi Day?

Some Waitangi Fiction:

And non-fiction:

Have you heard about The Great NZ Science Project? Now’s your chance to get behind science and help New Zealand decide how we use it to invest in our future. Explore areas of interest and join the debate. The future of science in New Zealand is in your hands.

Important and leading NZ scientists have teamed up with our best free-thinkers -you guys, to figure out what science areas NZ should be focusing and spending our money on.

There are lots of ideas and projects suggested in the areas of

• Advanced materials and manufacturing (can we design exciting new products and materials?)
• Food for health  (We are what we eat… or are we?)
• Fighting disease (can we cure cancer?)
• Land and water (keeping or land and water clean and pure)
• Natural hazards (like volcanoes and earthquakes)
• Changing climate (Is the world getting warmer? How does it affect us?)
• Our rich seas (marine life and what lies beneath)
• Protecting our biodiversity (all our native plants and animals)

In each of these areas you can find out about what’s happening, what could happen in the future and why it’s important for scientists to work in these areas. There are heaps of facts and videos to watch. The videos are really cool, I reckon you should watch them.

Then you get to vote and write your opinion on whether you support science developments in these areas, which areas you think are most important and, coolest of all, you get to tell the scientists what you think they should be working on.

If you have an idea for a project for NZ scientists you can suggest it and you never know, an awesome scientist out there might think it’s a good idea and start working on it -Cool!

The Great NZ Science Project is on Facebook and Twitter for you to like, follow, post and comment.

Yesterday Tongariro, a large volcano in the middle of the North Island, erupted. Scientists had been expecting some volcanic activity from Ruapehu, a volcano next to Tongariro, and the Tongariro eruption was a little surprising.

New Zealand has many volcanoes because we are located on the edge of the pacific ring of fire. The volcanoes located in the middle of the North Island – Ruapehu and Tongariro are some of our most active.

Tongariro is 1,978 metres high and first erupted 275,000 years ago. It is made up of at least 12 separate cones. Ngāuruhoe, which most people think of as a separate mountain, is actually one of Tongariro’s cones (the most active one) and has itself erupted more than 70 times since 1839 (the last eruption from Ngāuruhoe was 1973-1975).

Did you know that scenes from The Lord of the Rings movies were shot on and around Mt Tongariro? Cool!

Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand has some great info about New Zealand’s volcanoes – you can find out about why we have so many, where they are, the different types, historic eruptions and how the active ones are monitored.

GNS Science has a great page about New Zealand Volcanoes. These are the guys who do all the monitoring and scientific work around our volcanoes. Check out this cool video explaining about our volcanoes.

And don’t forget that if a volcano erupts in your area that you’ll need an emergency plan to help you get through. Civil Defence have some great advice about this on their site. Similar to be prepared for an Earthquake, but with a few key differences.

Of course there are books! Lots of books! Here are some of my favs: