Gingerbread Haka!

During parent interviews a thoughtful parent shared this video with me from the New Zealand bakery of the year website. Her brother in law works in advertising, and they were discussing our topic on holiday in Auckland! Isn't it great that learning goes beyond the classroom walls.

Have a look it is an interesting mix of Pop culture and Maori culture.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

Takitumu School Photos!

Hayden thinks that they do different sorts of art than we do in New Zealand. They are doing flowers and patterns and it looks like they are sticking pieces together for a wee circle or ball.

Madison thinks they are doing a lot of Samoan flowers, and they are painting on material. They put flowers behind their ear and they make them as necklaces in Samoa. In our song Le Aute that we sing in the mornings it means the hibiscus behind my ear, so I think flowers must be important.

Olivia Legg thinks that the art is beautiful because she likes the flowers on it and the colours they have used. I think the classroom looks different because they have a chalk board and we don't, they also have patterned lino!

Add a comment and tell us what you think!

Reports on Kahurangi Dance Group from Room 6 Children!

On Tuesday the 24th of July at 11:10pm the Kahurangi Dance Group performed a show. They showed us a poi dance and they used long poi and short poi. They told us Legends and showed weapons they used to do dances with, and they told us a song which told us what Kia ora means. They said if someone says Kia ora you should say it back straight away and nice and loudly.

They got people up onto the stage and showed them some actions they did, and the people had to copy. The people were Mr Larson, Logan and Logan. It was interesting to see them do different kinds of dances and Mr Larson was funny! They told us a song and we had to repeat it back, then they showed us the actions to go with the song. We had to stand up and we did it all together.

It was fun and before they left they said Kia ora but they didnt say goodbye because they did a dance instead.

By Tayler



The Kahurangi Dance Group performed legends about three brothers, two were not very nice, it was a legend about a rock that had a hole in it.

The people bought along weapons, one was the tahiha and the other was a rakau stick. There were some volunteers one was called Logan another one was called Logan as well, and the other one was Mr Larson. The people had to show the volunteers how to be a Maori warrior.

They also did dances with long poi and short poi, and told us if some one said Kia ora say it back loudly.

I enjoyed it my favourite part was how interesting it was.

By Hayden

Kahurangi Dance Group

As part of Maori Language Week and our current topic, the Kahurangi Dance group came to perform at our school last week.

They performed legends, retelling them in a variety of ways using poi, string, rakau and taiaha. They moved wonderfully and had amazing singing voices, and we especially liked it when they got Mr Larson our principal up to try his hand at taiaha, we laughed a lot, it was very funny! Room 6 are currently writing reports on this performance, so stay tuned for some samples...

Our Museum Sleepover!

On Thursday night our year 3's and some year 4's from Room 9 got to spend the night in the Otago Museum. It was loads of fun with Pizza, night time walks around the museum and lots of time to play in Discovery World. We got to sleep anywhere we wanted to in Discovery World, except in the tunnel, on or under the air hockey table.

Here is a picture of Mrs CB serving up pizza, it was yummy!

Our Year 2's were a bit too young to go to the museum, so they had a fish & chip night at one of our kind parent's house, they even had a chocolate fountain!

We got to be detectives and had to find clues and find out who the criminal was, we had to go into a dark room and look at evidence.

We had to use only newspaper and make up a costume, flag, and a song about the country we had chosen in the People of the World Gallery. We had five countries to chose from; Japan, Greece, Egypt, Australia and the Congo. Here is a picture of one of our fabulous creations.

We enjoyed learning about the Egyptian Mummy and all of the gory details about the mummification process.

Thank you to the parents who came and helped, we appreciated it and hope you had a nice restful weekend!

I AM

Here are a selection of our I AM pictures as promised. The children have had a fabulous time making them and I think they have done a fantastic job. They have put their own personal spin on Nigel Brown's original master piece. I am proud of my amazing 7 year old artists.

Leave a comment below and tell us what you think!

Our Wonderings!

Here are some of our wondering questions that we would like to answer during our topic on Samoan culture.


1. How do you survive with flax roofs when it rains badly in Samoa? Hamish

2. How many years have people been living on the Samoan Island? Megan

3. Do you wear a uniform to school? What do you wear to school when it is so hot? Ben

4 What do you do in Samoa if there is a tidal wave? Casey

5. What kind of things do you learn at school? Olivia L

6. How do you travel to school? Rebecca

7. Do you have bikes, cars and buses in Samoa? Nathaniel

8. Why do you speak a different language to us? Mikayla

9. What do you write with? Jamie

10. Do you have houses near the beach? Christian

11. What kind of furniture do you have? Abbey

12. Do you celebrate Birthdays, Christmas and New Years? Caitlyn T-S

13. What do you write on? Danny

14 What do you you like to eat, and where do you get your food from? Billie

15. How do you make your houses? Do you have celebrate Easter? Ava

16. What is your school day like?

17. What are your favourite games to play?

18. Do you have any jobs to do at home?

19. Do you have TV and computers in Samoa? Jack

20. Do you have pets? Shannon

21. Do you have power in Samoa? Danny

22. How do people live in the Cook Islands? Casey

23. How warm are their houses? Casey

24. What do they eat? Casey

25. Where do they get their water from? Casey

26. What do people wear? Olivia R

27. Are your houses made of logs? Cameron

28. How many villages are their in Samoa? Hayden

29. Where do they put their books at school? Caitlin

30. How do you travel to school? Jessica

31. What kind of school bags do they have in Samoa? Tayler

32. What does your furniture look like? Madsion

Useful websites about New Zealand

Some Kiwi websites for you to have a look at, kindly given to me by Allanah King a teacher in Nelson. Thank you Allanah!

Virtual New Zealand
Living Heritage

Takitumu

We have made contact with a school in the Cook Islands called Takitumu school, we hope to be corresponding with them over the next term and comparing our cultures.

Here is a photo of the school. They also have a blog here is the address http://takitumu.blogspot.com

Our Key Understandings

These are our key understandings for our who are our neighbours topic.

1. We all have similar basic needs but we meet them in a variety of ways.
2. Ceremonies and festivals help identity and distinguish who we are.

Please leave a comment explaining what you think these understandings mean for you. Feel free to add any wonderings or questions you have about our topic.

I AM....

Today as part of our 'who are our neighbours' inquiry, we started making 'I AM' pictures a la Nigel Brown, a New Zealand artist. We chose 3-4 kiwi icons that represented New Zealand for us and 2 other icons that represented us as a person.
February 2006

The paintings of Nigel Brown represent the good kiwi icon. Indeed, the images are full of icons - gumboots, black tee shirts, McCahon-like "I AM" text and fence posts. Here is an example of his work.


























I chose the Buzzy Bee, Kiwi, Silver Fern, and the Southern Alps for my kiwi icons and I represented myself with 2 koru joined together which portray my family, waves and culture. I also drew a flower because it has many personal references for me.

When I get a chance to snap some photos I will post some fabulous Room 6 art work here to show you our finished product!

Children in Room 6 might like to comment on what they did!

Great Kiwiana site to look at

Otorohonga in New Zealand has named itself Kiwiana capital of the world. On their website you can find out about all things Kiwiana. Here is the address: http://www.otorohanga.co.nz - have fun looking!

What makes us Kiwi?

I would really love to know what makes us unique as New Zealanders. When I think about New Zealanders I think about Buzzy Bees, Marmite, Pavlova, L&P, Fred Dagg, Wearable Arts and of course Reuben Patterson an artist who is famous for working with glitter.

What do you think makes New Zealand special? Please leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Welcome to our blog!

Hi, welcome to Room 6's purple cloud of purpleness! In our our blog we will be writing and thinking about the things we are doing in our classroom.

Our first topic is all about culture and it is titled "Who are our neighbours?", we will be doing an inquiry based study over the next term on this question and will be putting up all sorts of things that we find out in here...