Friday 20 February 2015

Week 3 in Gallipoli

 In this post you will see;

Making Hard Tack, An Afternoon at Gallipoli and An assembly to remember.




Making Hard Tack 


Hi, my name is Cortez and I'm going to tell you what the soldiers in World War One ate to survive. They ate Hard Tack. Hard Tack was basically a dry bread that looks a bit like biscuits and has six holes in each piece.
We in Room 17 at Sylvia Park School made our own hard tack. The soldiers in the war thought that it was boring, I guess because they had to eat it all the time. But when we ate our own hard tack we thought it was very interesting. Room 17 doesn't know why the soldiers didn't think much of it. I think they didn't enjoy it much because they might have had not much to look forward to. Well, that's all from me - but if you want you can talk to some of our Room 17 students about their experience.
Cortez
 P.S. Check out our special hard tack recipe.







HARD TACK RECIPE
Ingredients
Makes six biscuits.

1½ cups self-raising white flour
3 cups self-raising wholemeal flour
5 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons milk powder
pinch salt
1 cup water
Equipment

Large mixing bowl
Mixing spoon
Board and rolling pin
Baking tray
Method

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix together.
Make a well in the centre and add the water. Mix together until an even dough is formed.
Turn the dough onto a floured board and knead for a few minutes. Shape the dough into a ball and let rest for half an hour.
Divide the dough into three and then roll each ball into thick 1cm sheets.
Cut the rolled sheet of dough into 9 cm squares, using the edge of a steel ruler, rather than a knife. This pressing action helps to join the top and bottom surfaces of the biscuit and will improve the "lift" in baking.
Now make a regular pattern of holes in each biscuit, five holes across by five holes down (25 holes in all). The ideal tool to use to make these holes is a cotton bud with the cotton wool cut off or the thick end of a bamboo skewer. Push it through to the bench, twist slightly and withdraw. (Some historians claim that each biscuit had 49 holes.)
Place on a slightly greased baking tray, being careful that the biscuits are not touching. Form a wall around the outside edge with scrap dough. This will stop the outside edges of the biscuits from burning.
Bake on the centre shelf for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown. Be careful not to burn them!
Leave the biscuits on a cooling rack until they harden. Or switch off the oven and return the biscuits to the oven until it becomes cool.


Gallipoli, 1915 Soldiers in the trenches
enjoying a light meal.


An Afternoon at Gallipoli

It was really fun when we were in the trenches as the 17th Company of Te Manawa Battalion. We all had to crawl to our trench inside the classroom that Whaea Emma had secretly set up at lunchtime. As we crawled we had to look for the place in the trench with a letter addressed to us. We could hear the sounds of war (Whaea Emma played them though a YouTube Clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baIFIKtQDxw ). We waited for our General (Whaea Emma) to give us the signal to open and read our letters from home back in New Zealand - because we were silent and pretending we were actually a WW1 ANZAC soldier at Gallipoli in April 1915.
We then all silently wrote back, while we wrote we were given hard tack to eat - even though it was a bit plain it was quite delicious for food from the past. We finished writing our letters and then watched an announcement from General Alexander Godley telling us that we are to retreat. That this part of the war is over.
You can watch it here
By Gigi Young












An assembly to remember.



Room 17 had the pleasure of presenting what they have experienced so far in their inquiry to the whole school at assembly. We are particularly proud of Adi, Tevita, Richie and Cassidy who stood in front of the school and read their letters from the trenches to everyone. They captivated the audience with their ability to read with the emotions we think the soldiers would have felt. We are also proud of Sienna-Rose who was the narrator and Nia who wore full army uniform and led the Te Manawa Chant. What a week we have had!


Principal's Award


Term One Week Three
Sienna-Rose Tawera

For Stepping up and not being afraid to share her work with Peter Hughes the Secretary of Education when he visited our classroom. You are a true Ambassador of S.P.S.


A Room 17 student also received the Senior Sports Award this week.
Congratulations
Danina Pahulu

I also choose my STARS of the week on a Friday afternoon who get to write a blog post the following week. So you can look forward to blogging from Chiko, Opeti, Richie and Maedana in the coming week!

1 comment:

  1. I cannot believe how much you have learnt in 3 weeks. Thank you for your amazing assembly item. It was so, so powerful it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. You are incredible - including your teachers!

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