The Magnificent Marae

Hi, I'm back again and today I am going to tell you about our Marae trip last Thursday and Friday. This term we have been learning about Horua and one of the things that we had to do for it was go to our School Marae. Our School Marae is Te Poho o Rawiri. Te Poho o Rawiri was built almost 90 years ago. Even though it is very old the Marae is not in the exact place were the first one was built. Where Te Poho o Rawiri stands today is not where it originally was built. Te Poho o Rawiri was originally built down by were the port stands today. 

The Marae with all our stuff in it

When I first got to the Marae I was not excited at all. I didn't really want to do a Powhiri. I thought it would be boring and well not that fun. We sat out in the parking lot waiting for Aunty Buba and Uncle Albe to welcome us into the Marae. A couple minutes before we went into the Marae we had to take our shoes. I learnt that it is disrespectful to wear shoes into a Marae. Finally Koka Terri got us into our Powhiri line and Aunty Buba welcomed us onto the Marae. Her clear powerful voice made us feel welcome. After she had finished Koka Terri replied just like Aunty Buba had. Then we sang our school song and did a hungi. 

The Kapa Haka Performance

Kids Doing Rakau

After the Powhiri we broke up into different groups to do activities around the Marae. There were games like handball and skipping and then there were more traditional games like Rakau and games with Cabbage Tree trunks. There were also things like flax weaving and walking up Kaiti Hill to see the place where Cook landed and where the Marae used to be. Each group missed out on two activities. The two activities that I missed out on were flax weaving and handball. I was really bummed that I missed out on flax weaving as I want to be able to make different things out of it. That night we had a performance and our parents came to watch. We performed our Kapa Haka bracket and some school groups did Ukulele and told Jokes. The next day everyone was tired and gobbled up breakfast. After we continued with our activities and welcomed Wai onto the Marae. Packing up was very stressful and we were all glad to be back at school and back to our own beds to sleep. 

A group doing Maori art

Flax Weaving

Winn Dixie Map

Hi again, Today I am going to tell you about our activity for shared book. As you know our shared book is "Because of Winn Dixie". Again as you know "Because of Winn Dixie" is a book about a girl who moves to Watley, Florida from Naomi. Our task for shared book this week is to make a birds eye of view map of where all the characters live in the story.

The task was quite tricky because if you forgot about a certain landmark in the story then you had to restart. Our teachers wanted everything that they mentioned in the book to be on the map. THey also wanted the map to be colorful to attract people's attention. There is one house that is yellow in the book and most people forgot about that and they did it a different colour and had to restart. Luckily I didn't have to restart.

My Map of Naomi

Blog You Later!

Because of Winn Dixie!

Hi again. Today I am going to tell you about a book that we have recently finished reading in class. The books name is: "Because of Winn Dixie". "Because of Winn Dixie" is a book by Kate DiCamillo. She is a well known author who wrote: "The Tales of Despereaux", "Louisiana's Way Home" and "The Tiger Rising". We are not doing Chapter Chat this term so our teachers decided to read us two shorter books and do our own Chapter Chat.

Winn Dixie Book Cover

"Because of Winn Dixie" is a book about a girl who finds a dog at the local grocery store: "The Winn Dixie Supermarket". India Opal Buloni is a 10 year old girl whose mother left her when she was just 3 years old. Her and her father, The Preacher, move to a small town in Naiomi, Florida where Opal doesn't know anybody. In Naiomi, Opal thinks about her mother more than she had ever before. She thinks about all her old friends and wishes she had some in Florida. One day after church, she and Winn Dixie go to the local Herman W. Block Memorial Library. There Opal made her first friend Mrs Franny Block. I will not tell you any more of the story so you will have to read the book yourself.

India Opal Buloni (left) Winn Dixie (right)

Here is what I think about the book:
I enjoyed reading the book for the first time. The ending was kind of a let down because India Opal Buloni did not find her mother, but I liked the story and the plot. I first read this book when I was skiing. I liked it because it was a short book that I could read at the lodge. "Because of Winn Dixie" did not take long to read. Personally I think that this book is a book that you only would want to read once. As soon as you read it the first time then you might not feel like reading it again for another year or so. Overall I think that this is a cool book that you should definitely read some time. you could                                                                                                     read it on a plane of on a rainy day.

Go KARORO! Cross Country!

Welcome back to my blog. Today I am going to tell you about our first school Cross Country in our houses. Cross Country is where we run on the sand-dunes along the beach. If you place within the top five runners then you get to go to interschools. Interschools is at the fairgrounds. A couple years ago there used to be obstacles that you had to go over in interschools. Now all you have to do is jump over 1 tiny fence. It is disappointing.

Josefa in front and Sarah close behind!

At the beginning of this year we got our school houses. We have done one school event in our houses. The color of the houses are Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Even though we have had our houses for a while it was still a challenge remembering who was in your house. I am in Red/Karoro! If you came in the top five than you would get points for your house. When we started it was really cold, but when we were on our second lap then you would feel the heat.

I am a year 6 so we had to run 2 big laps of the course. Each lap is 1 kilometer so we had to run 2 kilometers. Every single year Kya always comes 3rd and I come 4th. And it was the same this year. Josefa came 1st, Sarah came 2d, Kya came 3rd, I came 4th and Ruby came 5th. It was a tough race! I am just glad that it is over.


Before School Today:
"I am so nervous for Cross Country."

After Cross Country Today:
"I am so happy that I am finished with that. I am so tired!"

Just look at that beautiful scenery!


Blog you later!

Science Fair!

Hi it's Miriam, and I am going to tell you about my science fair project. Since the beginning of this term I have working on my Science Fair Project. In the holidays I went to a presentation about native New Zealand plants. The presentation was at a local Marae called Te Poho O Rawiri. After the presentation we walked up Titirangi (Kaiti Hill.) Titirangi has heaps of Kawakawa bushes and we had to pick 20 Kawakawa leaves each.

The next day we went to a workshop where we learnt how to make a Kawakawa and Manuka balm for your skin. The way you incorporate the Kawakawa and Manuka is by making Kawakawa and Manuka infused oil. To make the infused oil you have to pack down Kawakawa leaves in one jar and Manuka leaves in another jar. Then you fill the jars with grapeseed oil all the way to the top, put on the lid, shake it up and then put the jar or jars in a dark place. You will leave the jars in the dark place for about 2 weeks and shake them every 2 days. Then the infused oils will be ready to use.

After the workshop I decided that I wanted to use the balm for my Science Fair Project. I decided that for my Science Fair Project I would see how long it takes for Kawakawa and Manuka to heal chapped or damaged skin. Working with native New Zealand plant is fun. You learn alot about the environment that we live in and how it is important to look after our native plants.  Now I am going to share with you my Science Fair Slides and my display board:

My Science Fair Board

   

Basic Facts, Whoops!

Hi it's Miriam. Sorry I haven't been posting anything lately. It has been a busy couple of weeks back at school. Today I am going to tell you about last week's Basic Facts Challenge. When we found out what we were doing everybody thought that it would be simple but it was not, and I am going to tell you all about it.

Our terms inquiry topic is Hauora. Hauora means well being. We have been doing some writing about our well being. For our quick writes we had to write about our physical well being, our social well being, well being for family and friends and our spiritual well being. When our quick writes were finished we had to make a cube out of paper. Each square that makes up the cube net needed to be 8cm by 8cm. You would think that it would be easy but it was so hard to do. The part that made it hard was getting the measurements exactly right.

When we had finished the net we had to draw a picture of us on one side of it and our name one another side. Once finished there would be 4 more sides left blank. On those sides we wrote main points from each of our pieces of Hauora writing. Then we got to decorate our cubes. My cube got crushed a bit because people decided to put there books/chromebooks on top of it. It is much harder than it looks.

Have a try!

Here are our finished products:

Reading Refugee

Hi it's Miriam. Today I am going to tell you about a book that my reading group is reading. My reading group is taken by Koka Ngaire (my home room teacher.) She loves books so she gave my reading group a book to read. The book is Refugee. We have been reading it for less than a week and I like it alot so I am going to tell you about what we are doing along reading that book.

So when we found out that our reading group was reading a novel written for year 8 and 9 students we all were really excited. But of course like all other good things there was a not so good thing. Koka Ngaire is only releasing bits of the book at a time. During the week along with our other priorities we have to read the book and answer questions and do activities on the book. We can read the book at read to self and at home. We also got given a little orange writing book to display all of our work in. We can do whatever we want to display our answers in our book. We also can make a cover page in it. Koka Ngaire said that this work was how we could shine in different ways.

Three different kids.

One mission in common: ESCAPE.

Josef is a Jewish boy in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world…

Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety and freedom in America…

Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe…

I got this information from the back of the book

This is the trailer to Refugee sorry that I can not have the video on my blog, but I do not have access to it.