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Thursday, 19 September 2019

Marae Noho

Last week the whole of Nui syndicate went to our schools Marae. Our Marae is called Te-Poho-o-Rawiri. When we arrived we waited awhile on the concrete. All the kids stared up at the marae and all the carvings in amazement. We got asked to take off our shoes since it's a Maori tradition. Haere mai, Haere mai, Haere mai Auntie buba and Auntie Charlotte welcomed us into the Marae. Once everyone was fully in the Marae, Papa Albie and Jonas Te - Aho took turns speaking. After they had finished welcoming us in they talked to us about all the traditions and how it came to this location.


We had some Kai and then we got split up into small groups of all ages. The teachers had set up some activities for us to do in our groups. On the first day my group did Rako, Old maori games, String games and and a walk up Kati hill. Our Rako were made out of plants and we played games with them. For the old Maori games we played with poi's knuckle bones and old spinning tops. With the string we learnt how to do tricks and games with it. (For the rest of the day all the kids were playing with them.) We walked from the marae to the bottom of the hill and then to the top.


Before dinner we set our beds up and once we had done that we lined up for dinner. That night we had nachos for dinner made by the parents. After dinner our parents came to watch a performance first up we did Kapa Haka and then there was more performances by different kids. After the performances we got ready for bed. I shared a mattress with Olivia. In the morning I had spaghetti on toast. Once you had finished breakfast we went onto the court had a run. Overall I really enjoyed my stay.

          

   

Wednesday, 11 September 2019

Stopping homelessness

This term we have our speech competitions, mine is stopping homelessness. It has to be over 2.30m otherwise it won't get you into the finals. Our inquiry topic is Hauora (Well being), and our speech has to connect to it. In a speech you have a introduction, three main points and a conclusion. In the introduction you say what your speech is about, how you can change it and usually a fact. For your main points you make a point and write about it. For the conclusion you say what you should do to change it.

In our writing workshops we have been learning lots of different sentence structures. They have also given us ideas that we could put into our speech. I'm a little bit nervous since I have to do in front of the class.

   

Monday, 2 September 2019

Duolingo

This week the teachers decided to add another option to the word work. Word work is a priority that we have to do every week, there is different choices like poetry, handwriting, Kiwi kid news and now Duolingo. Duolingo is a cool website where you can learn other languages. You press on the language you want to learn and than say how long you are going to spend on it each day. I chose Russian and am doing it for 10 minutes each day.

You do courses, in the course it might ask you to pronounce something or spell it. In others it gives you choices and you have to press the correct one. When you get better you unlock the leaderboard so you can see your progress and tell how good you are compared to everyone else. Overall I think it's a fun activity and I love doing it every week.



   

Because of Winn Dixie

Every term our class has a shared book. This term we read Because of Winn Dixie, it's a book about a girl and her dog. The girls name is Opal, she wants to buy a bright red collar for her dog but she doesn't have enough money. The owner Oatis says she can work there to save up. The next day she goes early to work and spots Oatis playing guitar to the animals, they seem to love it.

On the walk back she meets the Dewberry boys. Winn dixie runs into a backyard and the twins say he won't survive because it is the witch's house. She walks into the backyard and she sees a lady feeding him Peanut butter by spoon. She gets to know Opal and soon they are great friends. Opal goes to the library to find a book to read aloud to Gloria Dump. She reads it aloud so she doesn't hear the past.

Mrs Franny block works at the library. In her desk draw she has a stash of littmus lozenges they taste sweet and sad. In the book that she gets for Gloria dump they have a barbecue party. They decide to do the same. Oatis brings his guitar, Mrs Franny block brings littmus lozenges and Opal brings Winn Dixie. Mrs Franny blocks announces that she wants to put littmus lozenges back in business.