Matariki

Today we celebrated Matariki,  and we had so much fun. There were twelve activities to choose from and we got to choose three of them, which we did during the course of the day.  Our groups were mixed and we had children from Rm 1 up to Rm 10. The activities included kite making, star art, poi, cooking kai, koru patterns, making lanterns flax weaving, kite making etc. We had an amazing time in all the different activities.  In the evening we were invited to watch the Kapa Haka group perform, followed by a sausage sizzle and vegetable soup made from the vegetables from our school garden. 

Morris Dancing

On Tuesday, as part of our Citizenship Inquiry Unit we had a visit from a group of Morris Dancers.  Morris Dancing is a form of English folk dance, usually accompanied by music.  Our visitors danced to the music of an accordion and wore bells on their ankles. They also wore traditional costumes and used sticks, handkerchiefs and flowers in their folk dance. At the end of the performance, some of us got to join in and have a go at some Morris Dancing. It was lots of fun!

Inquiry Unit - Citizenship

As part of our Inquiry unit into Citizenship, the teachers decided to turn our shared learning space into an airport/airplane and take us on a trip around the world. 
Before our trip we all made passports and learnt about the information that they contain. On the day of our travel we all got a plane ticket, used our reading folders as luggage and headed off to the airport!  Our tickets told us what country we were flying to.  Four flights to India, England, Japan and Samoa were called one at a time. We had to go through check in, show our tickets and drop off our bags, before heading into the waiting lounge. When our flight was called, we boarded the plane and found our correct seat.  On the plane we watched a safety video and enjoyed a dramatic monologue from the pilot. After we disembarked, we went through immigration where we got a stamp in our passports, collected our luggage from the baggage claim and headed off to customs. When we finally got out of the airport, we made our way to India (Rm 1), England (Rm 2), Japan (Rm 3) and Samoa (Rm 4), where we learnt a little bit about each country and had a lot of fun along the way!