Weaving

Last week was Maori language week for 2018.

Room 8 spent time learning about Maori vowels and consonants, how to correctly pronounce NZ place names and the meaning being Maori place names. We sung songs, read stories, leant action songs with our buddy class and even had a go at weaving our own putiputi from harakeke.

Some parts were a bit tricky, but we helped each other and persevered to create a lovely flower.

We spent time learning about the tikanga involved with weaving flax.

We know:

• A karakia is said before harvesting the flax. This is to give thanks, to ask that no harm comes to the harvester, the weaver or whoever will receive the finished product. I also acknowledges that harakeke is a taonga - a gift.
• When cutting harakeke you should cut from both sides of the plant to keep it balanced. It's also important to only cut the outer leaves, not the inner ones as that is where the new flax grows from. 
• Pregnant women should not harvest harakeke - they are tapu.
• Harakeke should be harvested during fine days, not at night or in the rain as that can affect the quality of the harakeke.
• The first item you make should be given away.

Some of the new vocabulary we learnt...

Harakeke - Flax

Raranaga - To weave

Tikanga - custom

Putiputi - flower

Tapu - sacred 

Tongan Language Week 2018 Challenge

The challenge for Tongan Language week this year has been to create a piece of traditional Tongan clothing which was to be modelled at the closing assembly on Friday.

We had a lot of fun learning about different types of clothing such as the ta'aovala, lei, kiekie, tekiteki and kafa.

Room 8 decided to make it all! 

We watched videos such as this one which taught us about the process of making ngatu - Tongan tapa:

We then explored Tongan patterns and made out own 'ngatu'

Aphrodite and Tia designed and created a beautiful tekiteki

A group of girls worked hard on the lei...

And another group worked on the Keikei...

We were very proud of our final creation. Sulyne modelled it beautifully.

Making Otai

This week has been Tongan Language week. The theme this year is...

What better way to celebrate than with making the delicious traditional Tongan drink...Otai.

This is the recipe we followed:

• 1 seedless watermelon grated
• 3 cups water
• 1 15.25 oz can crushed pineapple
• 1 12 oz can evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 2 tbsp white sugar (optional) or to taste
• 1/2 lime juiced

It was a bit tricky trying to get all the seeds out of the watermelon!

Lots of grating!

Lots of fun and joking around!

Pouring, combining, mixing...

...And of course our favourite part...drinking it at the end!

Harvest Time!

Remember when we gave the garden a makeover earlier in the year? Well things have been busy growing and as part of our gardening rotation a few weeks ago, we decided it was time to harvest our vegetables.

It was a fun and busy time pulling up carrots, snipping kale and spinach, cutting cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower.

We gave them as wash (and carefully removed the slugs!). We were so impressed with what we had grown.

Some children took vegetables home but we had so many that we decided we would gift the rest, so Tia delivered them to our local food pantry where they were hopefully made into a delicious dinner.

We have started planting some of the seedlings that we have raised in our greenhouse, and we can't wait for our next harvest in a few months time.

Thankyou

This term our school wide writing focus is persuasive writing.
We are learning that when we choose our words carefully, we can use them to persuade others.

Last term we learned about a company called Thankyou which has recently come to NZ. Their goal is to end world poverty by 2030. They sell personal care products and give 100% of the profits to go towards reaching their goal. You can learn more about Thankyou here.

We decided to use our persuasive powers to convince the staff at our school to buy these products.

Here we are ready to deliver our letters!

Mrs Waird and Miss Baird receiving their letters

After delivering our letters we put Thankyou soap in the staff toilets for them to try.

Lots of teachers have already told us they plan to buy the product next time they are at the supermarket and we read a lovely email from Mrs Dayal who thanked Gordon and Latrell for introducing her to the Thankyou range (which was followed by high fives and a round of applause by the kids in Room 8 😊)

It is exciting and empowering to know that WE have the power to influence people and that our actions can literally help to save lives. Ka pai Thankyou for all you do and well done Room 8!

Telling the Time

Last term Room 8 were learning to tell the time. Some of the learning we covered was:

• Learning units of time - minutes, hours, days, weeks, month, years
• Telling the time to o'clock, half past, quarter to/past, as well as to 5 and 1 minute intervals.
• Showing digital time on an analogue clock and vice versa 
• Converting time between 12 and 24 hours
• Solving problems involving time
• Understanding how to read and write roman numerals

We demonstrated some of this learning through our maths/art project - Cuckoo Clocks.

Some of our inspiration came from this video:

Check out our finished clocks - Can you solve the time problems?

 Some of our clocks are displayed in the foyer or the office. Look out for them next time you are in there.

Kia Orana - It's Cook Island Language Week.

What a colourful and fun week it's been! From our amazing opening assembly on Monday, to our cultural dress day today. It has been lovely to hear of the Cook Island drums throughout the school.

This week each class had a challenge put to them - create a 30cm x 30cm tivaevae square to share at our closing assembly on Monday of week 3.

After doing some research about what tivaevae is, who makes it and why, we decided we wanted to do some stitching of our own! Room 8 children have been working away on our creation throughout the week and are very proud of the results.

It was lovely to see people working together. One person would do some sewing, then teach the next person and so on.

Look at the concentration as we work on out tivaevae.