Kura Taiao/Enviroschools Ōtari Trip 2021

Yesterday we went on an Ōtari Bush trip with Ōtari and Houghton Valley Schools. We did a bunch of cool activities and learnt heaps of new things, and, it was just the year sixes! Hooray!

- Mae S

Activities that we did and things that we learned:

Testing the water clearness 

Looking at what critters were in the water to see how healthy it was

 Checking the water temperature

What water types are there; Run, Pool, Riffle 

 Going for a walk in the bush

How old the oldest trees were; 850 years

 That the river came from Zealandia and then the landfill

  That Addison loves Cicadas and kept one on her face the whole time 

We were with two other schools.

Looking at bugs that we found in a pile of debris and naming them by looking at them through a microscope.

  Types of plants; Rimu, Rata, Kawakawa, Whauwhaupaku

 Learning about different types of seeds and how they disperse.

 There is this type of tree that there are only 11 of and we saw one.

- Rani S

Star 1: My First star was doing the kaiwharawhara stream testing, because I liked looking through the magnifying glasses and studying all the creatures closely. I also like looking for the riffles and the runs and pools, and thinking/testing if the stream was healthy (and it was quite healthy). Star 2: My second star was looking through the microscopes and looking at the details of the creatures and leaf litter. there was one scope which showed the details of which leaf or stick or animal was on top of each other. I also found a container in the lab's creature storage with dried up millipedes which were curled up and dead. The bees were kind of FREAKY!!!
  

WISH: My wish was that we had more time to look through the microscopes, because it was really interesting to study all the tiny springtails and bees and things up close, but on the bright side, the stream testing was a bit like it anyway.

- Will J

Another fun thing was looking at bugs in magnifying glasses and we got to look for our own bugs in sticks and leaves and dirt then looking under the microscope. I had lots of fun.

- Ethan F

Another star, a thing that I loved seeing was the 850 year old tree. It was so wide and big. I just wonder how much wood you would get if you chopped it down. And I wonder how much it weighs. Though the tree looks like it is 1000 years old.

- Yoichi S

I loved going on the walk and learning lots of different stories from Māori culture, they really inspired me to look on the bright side of things and we learnt about lots of different berries and their stories.

  My wish is to get out more into the bush and acknowledge all the beautiful things and how lucky we are to have a great country.

- Eddie B

It was also fun planting the kōwhai seeds and I learnt that if you sand the seed it will be easier to let the water in.

- Cleo S

Fresh air. 1 star. Admiring bugs and insects I learnt a lot. 2 star. It was very exciting and it was also fun. My wish is to go there again. To me it's precious.

- Archie M

Hello friends from France!

We would like to say "Bonjour" to our friends in Brindas School in France. 

See their last message to us: http://cm1.galligani.eu/auroa-school/friends-2020-2021/

Bonjour friends!

How are you doing? We have just arrived back from Camp Kaitoke. We had a fun bus ride and got to watch a movie!

We did lots of fun activities such as a big zipline called the Super Fox, kayaking, abseiling, and crate stacking! We got to sleep in cabins and have meals in a big dining hall together.

We are having a Whanau Festival on the 28th of March. Our Whanau Festival will have fun and games, also food, dancing and music, we have been making Kowhaiwhai patterns (Maori patterns) to go with it and designed some posters to advertise.

We are very excited!

How have you been at school? Have you done much cool writing, reading or maths?

It’s really cool that you are learning English, we want to thank you for that. It’s fun being able to talk to your school all the way from New Zealand! Maybe we should start learning some French!

Did you guys have a good Christmas holiday?

We have been spending some time at the beach and once got to host another school!

We had a sandcastle competition and we also got to swim in the water!

We also have started a maths investigation.

What we did was pair up with a buddy and research a cultural pattern, then, we copied one and made our own one, after that, we put them on display.

While the year fives and sixes were at camp, the year fours made some awesome artwork of their Turangawaewae, inspired by the artist Heather Brown.

From Cleo and Mae

Girls Futsal Festival

 

We had 3 very enthusiastic teams representing Worser Bay at the Girls Futsal Festival on Friday. All of our teams showed huge amounts of Teamwork, Leadership and Kindness in every game and also when off the court.

Thanks so much to the parents that helped out with transport and managing the teams on the day. You guys were fantastic and really made the day run smoothly.

All of our teams played hard but fair and we managed to win a majority of our games!

Building Whanaungatanga through Bounceback!

You would have seen in our recent  Inquiry Chat that we have been talking recently about 'ko au?' Who am I? 

Furthering this learning we have been exploring who we are together or the concept of whanaungatanga through Bounceback. We have learnt that this is about togetherness, team work and collaboration. 

Through collaborative activities we learnt that communication to help the team succeed is difficult.. but rewarding! Below are some pictures from our 'Collaboration Walk' in which we had to walk shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot in a line - harder than it sounds!

Camp Kaitoke 2021

Camp Kaitoke 2021 - He tino pai mātou! As our school karakia says - i roto i te hari, me te koa, me te aroha. Anō o tētahi ki tētahi, kia puāwai tātou katoa! (In joy, and in love, it is together that we all flourish).

Camp Reflections- Rock, Leaf and Stick

The thing that Rocked for me...

The thing I will Leaf behind...

What will Stick with me...

Eddie: 

The thing that rocked for me was the crate stacking because it it something that you don't hear everyday, ´today were going to do crate stacking.” What even is that!! It was a lot of fun. 

The thing that will stick with me was the peppers, (literally, I still feel the spice), and the campfire, that was the second best part of my life. 

The thing that I will leave behind is my fear of heights because I did abseiling and crate stacking because they were both high up.

Anneke:

Stick - I want my new friends to stick with me 

Rock - the campfire rocked because we sang lots of funny songs 

Leaf - I want to leaf behind the noise that cabin 5 made all night

Konrad

Rock: I rocked at the kayaking. I jumped out and got back on by myself and we got to see Hazel (our instructor) to do a loop around and sink. 

Stick: the mud slide will stay with me because it is my last time at camp so I will remember it because it is fun we also had to cross a bridge to get there
Leaf: I will leave the chips there because the chips where as hard as a brick.

Suki-lee

Rock: I rocked at kayaking because. We got to jump out but my shoes/gumboots went sinking a little bit but at the end I got them but I had know idea I had my gumboots on when I jumped in Something that Stick: Sticked to me was the mud in the bridge of doom like my shoe almost came off in the mud but when I got out there was so much water in my shoe/gumboots.
Leaf: I will leave behind my hat because I didn't bring one anyway. So then I used John's hat but then I kept leaving John's hat in my cabin.

Yoichi

Rock: What Rocked? Ok, I'm going be honest, everything rocked… but if I have to choose one thing,  I loved singing around the campfire.
Stick: What will stick with me forever? Everything, then again Nik Mastrovich will go ‘You need to choose one thing!’ so I would say that the thing that would stick with me is… Abseiling
Leaf: What will I leave behind? My fear.

Pōwhiri 2021

Weeks of practice and dedication came together on Friday as we carried out our pōwhiri for 2021. Though the weather forced us inside at the last minute, we were so proud of the 'mana' and 'ihi' (essential force) shown by all students while performing haka and waiata. A special mention to our 'kaea' or kapa haka leaders who led from the front and really brought the house down! From the staff perspective, we were also thrilled to have been able to carry out more of the ceremony in Te Reo Māori, while following the 'kawa' or protocol of mana whenua, Te Āti Awa/Taranaki Whānui. If you haven't already, please check out the Week 4 Newsletter for translation and explanation of our pōwhiri.

Here are some of our students' thoughts on pōwhiri:

Pōwhiri was good. I liked the singing and sang with lots of power - Fabian S

I liked doing Taku Manu pōwhiri because you get to do lots of actions - Zen S

I had so much fun at the pōwhiri with all the people we were welcoming to the school - Zoe C

It was great, I felt really good about it because I was quite loud and I am very proud of myself - Aila B

I thought pōwhiri was really good, I enjoyed singing the songs and listening to the speeches - Lucy N

I was a leader for the pōwhiri and I think we gave it our all and gave it lots of power - Eddie B

Well, where to next? As well as mihi whakatau (smaller welcoming ceremonies for later arrivals) throughout the year, our attention now turns to the first kahui ako (group of Eastern Suburbs schools) Kapa Haka festival in Term 2. We are developing some old, new and different haka and waiata for this occasion, so watch this space!

Tuia, tuia tuia anō

Tuia i runga, Tuia i raro
Tuia ki roto, tuia ki waho,
Tuia te Whānau o Whetūkairangi.
Ko te whānau o Whetūkairangi e
Nō reira, e tau nei ki runga i a tātou katoa, te wairua aroha. Kia ora koutou katoa!

Above and below are woven together, as is what is inside us and that which is outside of us. And, we are woven together as a whānau, the Whānau of Whetūkairangi.

Te Aro School Beach Day

Te Aro School Beach Day - We welcomed our friends from Te Aro School to our wonderful beach playground. This was a great opportunity to get to know our fellow Wellingtonians.

Cleo: I used manaakitanga by including some kids that didn't have a group. It was really fun swimming and doing tug of war with them. I also liked playing football. It was fun making sand sculptures and I got to know some of them more while we were in a group. It was fun playing with other kids and doing activities. It was cool watching them do their karakia and songs like us. It was actually quite funny. Next time I would like to go and have a look at their school.

Ethan: I liked playing football with the kids from te aro school. The teams were fair but then Nik joined the other team and it was hard. I liked doing tug of war with the other kids. The funniest thing was when we did Kids vs Teachers. My wish is that it wasn’t so windy because sand went in my eyes. I met some new people in the sandcastle building competition and football. I showed manaakitanga by being kind to them and helping my friends when they got hurt. I found the sandcastle building interesting because it was about Ngake and Whataitai.

Rani: I met a few people who were working with Mae and I when we were building a sand castle. The sand castle was a fish tail basically to symbolize Ngake. I showed manaakitanga when I was showing some of the Te Aro school people the bathrooms and explaining the rules of tug of war. I also showed manaakitanga when I was playing tug of war with them. I also show manaakitanga when I was going to show them a few games that I have sometimes played at school or not at school including sliding down the dunes, HIde and Seek tag, Chain tag, Camouflage, and the colour game. Also a few ball games in the water that a few played with me and a bunch of other people. Next I think that we should do some more beach things with Te Aro school and maybe invite them to our school and have a day of different activities and games and also going down to the beach for a bit and then back up for more games, The games we could play might be: Ditchies, camouflage, tag, chain tag, ultimate tag, cricket, touch rugby, and the colour game too.