Celebrating Maori Language Week

To celebrate Maori Langauge Week, the Mapua Middle Syndicate invited one class from Mahana, Dovedale, Upper Moutere and Tasman Bay Christian schools,to come and hang out with us. We welcomed our visitors with a waiata (song), then we had lunch and a play together.

In our mixed school groups we went to cool activities to help us learn and celebrate te reo Maori (the language) and tikanga Maori (cultural).

Rakau: We learnt smooth moves with the rakau and then we got to create some of our own moves.
Waiata: We sang Haere Mai and Tutira Mai.
Koru Art: We looked at different kowhaiwhai patterns and then created our own with chalk on the ground.



Weaving: We created ika (fish) with coloured paper. We followed simple weaving techniques.


Bingo: We played "Whare Whare!" Bingo with Maori numbers.
Hei Tama Tu Tama: We played this Maori game to find the World Champion.
Maori Legends: We acted out the legend of "How the Piwakawaka got it's tail."

It was fabulous to meet new people. Whaea Aroha's challenge was to meet at least one person from a different school. Most of us achieved this. Kia Ora (thanks) everyone for coming to our school. Let's do it again.

We are learning about Fairytales. Today we were Fairytale Jumpers. We were able to jump from one fairytale into another and another. We could jump as many times as we wanted. Our secret mission was to find things that are in MOST fairytales. This is what we found:
There are castles.
Happy ending.
They start with, "Once upon a time..."
Good versus Bad
Kings, Queens, Princess', Princes, Knights...
There is often a special message. (Little Red Riding Hood: Don't talk to strangers)
It's in a land far, far away. No specific place names.
Animals (horses, bunny rabbits, cats,...)
The characters could be not real (Beast)
All different kinds of feelings.
Evil sidekicks.
The good people always win.
There is often a rescue.
Romantic parts.

Safe As...

Our topic this term is about Keeping Ourselves Safe. We talked about feelings. We talked about how we would feel in different situations. We talked about:
1: How would we feel if we were going on a big holiday tomorrow?
2: How would we feel if someone we didn't know came up to us on the street and said our name?
3: How would we feel if we got a certificate?
4: How would you feel if you had to jump off the highest diving board?

We tried to come up with lots of different words to describe our feelings. Now we have a whole lot of words to help us describe how we feel in different situations. We can use these words to explain how we feel in real life. Then we ordered these words on our Feelings Thermometer.

Creating Maths Games

Over the last week of Term 2 we got to create our own maths games. We used adding and subtracting, and multiplication and division in our games.

Mad Scientists

Today we started MInd Bending Friday. We have to think interdependently and flexibly to solve problems. This group carried out some Scientific Investigations about invisible ink and music.