C.A.R.R Values Blog Post

Hi there!

Today I will be writing about how I showed the C.A.R.R values this week.

Commitment: 
I showed commitment this week by doing my work at home and at school to my best ability and did as much work as I was able to. I sat with people who wouldn't distract me from my work, if they did start to distract me, I would focus even more on my work and try to finish it to my best standard.

Achievement:
I showed achievement this week by setting my self tasks when I did class work at home to finish at a certain time and then move onto something else. This system worked very well for me and I enjoyed racing against myself to see how long it would take me to finish a task. In fact, I think it made me work faster and I would end up finishing more work.

Resilience:
I showed resilience this week by carrying on trying my best even when I didn't feel like it. I went from having no homework to having homework from three different classes which was something I had to wrap my head around and accept. I decided that there was no point in sulking about it because it would take me even longer to do which would make me even more stressed out. 

Respect:  
I showed respect this week by listening to others when they were speaking and respecting the instructions given to me by my teachers. I also showed respect by taking care of class equipment and returning it to the place I found it. 

Thanks for reading!

Home Economics: My Birthday Cake

Hi there! 

A couple of days ago it was my birthday. My sister made me a cheesecake which was made by combining two recipes (I'll leave a link to both.) and making one delicious cake.  

Nutella and Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

Ingredients:

• 225g Rice Cookies
• 75g butter, melted, unsalted
• 300g Nutella + 15g, warmed in microwave
• 150g Dark Chocolate (used 70% Cadbury Old Gold)
• 45ml boiling water
• 2 ¼ teaspoons gelatin powder
• 560g cream cheese (we only had 500g), softened in microwave
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 225ml fresh cream
• 40-70g hazelnuts, roasted and chopped

1. Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm (base measurement) springform pan.
2. Place the biscuits in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely crushed. Add the butter and 15g Nutella and process until well combined. Transfer mixture to the prepared pan. Use fingers or a glass to spread and press mixture firmly over the base. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
3. Place the Cadbury white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir with a metal spoon until chocolate melts. Remove from heat.
4. Place the boiling water in a small heatproof glass. Sprinkle over the gelatin. Stir until gelatin dissolves.
5. Use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add the cream and beat until smooth. Add the gelatin mixture and stir until well combined. Separate the cream cheese mixture into two thirds, and one third. Add the 300g warmed Nutella to the two thirds of the cream cheese mixture and stir to combine. Pour into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon. 
6. Meanwhile, place the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over saucepan of simmering water. Stir with a metal spoon until chocolate melts and remove from heat. Add the remaining cream cheese mixture to the chocolate and stir to combine. Pour into the middle of the Nutella mixture and smooth the Nutella mixture over the surface. 
7. Sprinkle the chopped hazelnuts over the top, cover with glad wrap, and put freezer for 2-3 hours to set.
8. Take out of freezer about 10 minutes prior to serving, it can be kept in fridge after this.

Notes

This recipe takes inspiration from this Triple Chocolate Cheesecake.
https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/triple-chocolate-cheesecake-2/0745db87-bfba-4094-9764-0c7a948ee527

Except as we were using a 20cm pan instead of a 23cm pan, My sister calculated the area of each pan, to find out by how much to decrease the ingredients (it worked out to be roughly a 25% smaller area, so we multiplied all the original ingredients by 0.75, and allocated the milk and white chocolate weights to the Nutella. 

We decided to not buy another container of cream cheese to get the required 560g, and just kept it at 500g.

If one were to want sides made from the biscuit base, more biscuits would be required.

The dark chocolate mixture is thicker and denser than the Nutella mixture, and so doesn’t pour or spread well – hence why it was ‘hidden’ under the Nutella. We may try putting it as the first layer next time, so that it spreads easier over the base.

We also used this Nigella Lawson Nutella Cheesecake recipe as a reference.
https://www.nigella.com/recipes/nutella-cheesecake

We took the idea of putting a bit of Nutella in the biscuit base, as well the idea of using roasted chopped hazelnuts on top. 

We also used less butter in the base as the amount of from the Triple Chocolate Cheesecake recipe seemed like too much, and Nigella’s recipe used a smaller butter to biscuit ratio.

Regarding the maths above, my sister worked all of this out.

Sensory Evaluation:

The Nutella and dark chocolate complimented each other really nicely and went very well together. The two flavours also went very well with the rice cookie crust. The hazelnuts were a great addition to the cheesecake too. The Nutella layer was creamy and sweet. It wasn't overpowering and complimented the dark chocolate. The dark chocolate layer was a bit harder than the Nutella one but was still easy to get through with a spoon. It was also sweet but had a bit of a bitterness which complimented the Nutella layer.

The rice cookie crust and hazelnuts added a nice crunchy texture to the cheesecake making it more interesting when you ate it. The creamy Nutella layer and firmer dark chocolate layer went well, it was interesting eating it as the consistencies were quite different to each other. I liked this as it would've been quite odd having a completely creamy cheesecake or a cheesecake which was firm and slightly bitter throughout. Both flavours bought out the flavour of the other one when paired together, you could always distinguish which was which and neither were too strong or overtook the other. 

The cake looked very appealing, the hazelnuts on top made it very eye catching and made the cake look more exciting and interesting. 

Here are some photos of the end product:

Thanks for reading!

P.E.: Table Tennis & Juggling

Hi there! 

A couple of days ago when my class had Physical Education we practiced juggling and table tennis. 

We learnt how to serve a table tennis ball and how to hit it, as well as learning how to keep rallies going between our partner.  

Something I encountered which made my time playing in the begging was hitting the ball too hard. The ball would always going speeding past the table as my aim was still a work in progress as well. To try fix my first problem of hitting the ball too hard my partner and I decided that we would try to hit the ball lighter and see what happened. 

At first, the ball was more controlled and our aim was improving too. A couple of rallies into our experiment, the ball kept of hitting the net and not reaching our partners' side of the table. We then started to hit the ball to each other a bit stronger than we were doing. After a couple more attempts we found the perfect strength to hit the ball to each other and hit the ball to each other many times until one of us would hit the ball off the table. 

I also played with some of my other classmates, I feel like I developed my skill in table tennis by playing others and observing how they played. Although I am very certain I have a long way to go until I can play table tennis well, I am very pleased with what I achieved.

After my wonderful time doing table tennis, I moved to the other side of the gym and went to attempt my hand at juggling. 

At first I juggled with scarfs to get a feel of what to do. At first I would throw one scarf up and then pass the other one to my other hand so I could catch the other one, this is not the way you juggle. I carried on practicing and I finally got it! I carried of repeating the motion until I felt like I had done in enough times.

 I then moved onto using hacky sacks. Unfortunately, things didn't go as well with the hacky sacks. To be honest, it felt like I started from scratch and hadn't even practiced with the scarfs at all. I carried on trying to juggle with the hacky sacks for what seemed like forever until I decided I would go back to practicing with the hacky sacks. I am going to see if I can find something round at home and practice my juggling skills. 

I really enjoyed this session of P.E., it was a great way to get back to doing Physical Education.

Thanks for reading!

A Summary of my Lockdown

Hi there! 

Guess what? 

As I am writing this, I am sitting in my class with all of my peers! I'm back at school! This blog will be about my experience in lock down. 

For almost 50 days, the only people I saw daily were my mum, dad, sister and our adorable dog. During this ever-lasting journey through lock down (and the measures that came with it) I did a lot of things which, in my opinion, would've altered my expedition through the outbreak we called Covid-19. I will now write about what I have done and achieved for almost two months, while I have been snug in my abode. 

My family has started a garden, we have a lot of fresh produce and it's been really cool to see them grow. Some plants we planted on the first day of lock down are now climbing their way to become taller and taller which is quite cool when you think about it. Something that was a seed turning into a plant with leaves that make your hands look like something the size of a ladybug. The most exotic plant we have is a chilli plant. We have gotten 5 or six chilli's from it so far, and by the looks of it, I think there are more on the way. We have used spinach, chilli, lettuce and mint from our garden to make meals. I used mint at the beginning of lock down to make myself peppermint tea, because we had run out and it tasted really nice. Something I wish I had done is let it steep for longer, it didn't taste like it had steeped to its full potential. 

I also exercised quite a bit during lock down, here is a list of what I did:

• I went on some long walks at parks and beaches. (I saw plenty of cute dogs!)
• Workout videos
• Rowing on a rowing machine
• Running
• Netball drills
• Muscle strengthening exercises. 

Some negatives I experienced was trying to figure out what type of exercise I would do and when I would do them, this happened quite a bit but I managed to get them all done. Another negative I encountered was that I wouldn't really have any motivation to do physical activity but I would get on with it because I knew once I had started that I would enjoy what I was doing and that it was good for me. Some positives I had were that I got to workout when I wanted and do what I felt like I wanted. I also enjoyed trying out the rowing machine, I am definitely going to carry on using it! 

I got inspiration from the T.V. show, Grand Designs to try make a floor plan of a house I would like to live in on an app I found. Unfortunately, I forgot that wall lengths existed. So, some of my walls ended up being quite long!

Another thing my family and I did during lock down was watching bucket loads of movies and T.V. episodes. We also ended up having plenty of impromptu marathons, movie marathons. The longest movie we watched was 4 minutes away from being 4 hours long. We watched shows and movies from lots of countries. One of my favourite movies we watched was called 'Little Tito & the Aliens'. It's about a professor whose wife has died, so he now lives by himself in the Nevada Desert, near Area 51. He is supposed to be working on a secret mission for the U.S. government but he is actually just lazing about. The only contact with the outside world is with a woman named Stella. Stella runs alien themed weddings for tourists. The professor receives a message from his brother who is about to die in Naples, and entrusts him with his two children Anita & Tito. Anita & Tito expect to be living in the glamorous city of Las Vegas, but are really stuck with their uncle in the middle of the desert.  

Overall, I have enjoyed being at home, however I wish I was able to see all of my friends in person, not through the screens of our devices! I am excited to be back at school seeing all my teachers and peers.

Thanks for reading!

Social Studies: Where the Black Plague fits in History

Hi there! 

In Social Studies we are learning about the Black Plague. An interesting fact I have learnt is that the deaths caused by the Black Plague is estimated to be between 75-200 million. 

Here is a timeline showing where the Black Plague:

Thanks for reading!

P.E. Respiratory System Slideshow