Jake Bailey

Special guest visitor: Mr Jake Bailey

This week we had a very special visitor, Mr Jake Bailey.  He spoke to the year 6,7 and 8 students about his battle with cancer and how it has changed his life for the better. He was inspirational. I liked the way he was both honest and kind with the students. I think everyone was touched by his speech. His message is one of being grateful for each day and being resilient through tough times.

Our garlic garden

Our Garlic Garden!

Today we made the most of the beautiful, sunny, warm weather by visiting our garlic garden. Everyone was so excited to see the shoots poking up. Mr B joined us and told us about how the shoots and roots grow. the shot up and the root down were about the same length.

Poutini Collaborative artwork

POUTINI

This term we have been looking at the local Maori myth of Poutini. We have learned a lot about geography, geology and mythology through this story. Did you know that Te Tai Poutini is the Maori term for The West Coast and that Poutini is our local sea based taniwha who protects us and pounamu? We read the story, mapped Poutini, Waitaiki and Tamaahua's chase around Aotearoa, turned the myth into a play and then created four art panels to show the main parts/characters from the myth. Here is Tamaahua and his magic dart, a map of Aotearoa with fires where they stayed, Poutini riding the waves and Waitaiki bathing while Poutini looks on...

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Matariki

Matariki

This week we have been thinking about the Shortest Day of the Year (Winter Solstice) and Maori New Year (Matariki).  The students all wrote on a star what they do at this time of year.  I like to keep warm, eat food and think about what I could be planting now so I can have a big harvest in Summer!

We have been working on increasing our Maori vocab each week this year. Here are T4 matching the English words with the Te Reo Maori words. It is great to hear so much Te Reo Maori being used in class now.

Here's some in time for Matariki...
He whetu koe!  = You're a star!

Public Speaking

Public Speaking

This week Totara Four have been looking at what makes a good public speaker as they prepare for to give their own speeches in weeks nine and ten. We were so fortunate to have Mr Chris Lam Sam come and entertain us on Friday. He is a fabulous public speaker.  He is engaging, confident, funny and has a worthwhile message "Reading and Writing will help you reach you Dreams!" He was inspiring. I can't wait to here Totara Fours fabulous speeches!Check out his fantastic purple suit! Love it!

Matariki and The Shortest Day

Matariki and the Shortest Day.

To acknowledge Matariki, the shortest day of the year AND our school wide Big Idea of "Windows to the Past, Pathways to the Future" we planted garlic. Molly's Dad, Mr Meek, came to guide us through this. It was great getting to spend some time with Mr Meek. Do you know he can speak six languages? And he knows all about gardening. He told us that garlic is traditionally planted around the shortest day of the year and harvested around the longest day of the year. As we planted the cloves we thought back to how our ancestors would have planted garlic the same way. We thought forward to six months from now when we plan to harvest the garlic. Taylor and Hannah said a Karakia Timatanga to support the garlic in its growth. We had a beautiful morning in our school garden, Te Ara Hauora, The path of Well-Being.

Maths Rotations

Maths Rotations

Friday 14.6.19

Totara Four have been enjoying our new maths rotations this week.

Here are Abbie and Martin hard at work solving bus timetables and 24 hour clocks

The Porowhita group were meant o be on MathsBuddy but worked on there timestable skills instead

The girls in the Games rotation had a lovely time sitting in the sun playing Uno.

Junior and Rykar experimented with 3D shapes for the Figure It Out rotation.