Dance Darlings

Dancing Like the Stars 2019

In term two, we have been working with Shawn from Bollywood Dreams to prepare for Dancing Like the Stars.  Here is a bit of a snippet of how our dance journey has gone.  We are still working through it and getting ready to perform so will add the relevant clips as the times come up.

Our Te Reo Māori Assessment-Example of blog post expectations for Whakamanawa

Our Term Two Te Reo Māori Assessments

In term two, we have been using Digital Learning Objects to see what we know and what we need to know in Te Reo Māori.  We did as much of the task as we could and Miss Waho highlighted the ones we got correct.  We then did some research and learning to find out for ourselves, what the correct words were.

Here are some of our learning objects.

OBJECTS

At first, I didn't know many but now I know half of them.  

My next step is to use these words during the day at school.

DAYS OF THE WEEK

We use the days of the week every day but I found that I don't know all of them.

My next step is to be able to say these without reading them or using a chart.

ADJECTIVES

We use adjectives a lot when we do our morning roll so I was confident with this.

My next step is to learn the words for sweet, new and warm.  

Takitini Gardeners

Gathering in Our Great Garden

This year, Kaitlyn our Pikorua Youth Worker has been working with a group of students from Te Ara Takitini in our school garden.  Over the years it has been a struggle to keep on top of the workload having a garden creates so it has been wonderful having Kaitlyn and this group of students working out the back on a weekly basis.

This week, we organised for the garden crew to share their work with Te Rōpū Whakamanawa.  They gathered from across the hub and explained what they had been doing and what they have been growing.  We have also been lucky enough to have their chives seedlings on our windowsill so we have noticed the sprouts popping up this week.

The crew then took us out the back and explained what they had been working on and what their plans are.  We are all now anticipating the growth of the purple carrots.

We also wandered down to the school orchard and had a look at what was growing there.  We saw a few feijoas growing and since they look a little scrawny at the moment, the garden crew got set up with a watering can with our beautiful worm wee to help give them a bit of a boost.  

Our next step is to see what we can do to help create this space into an area where kids can enjoy and help our garden crew along their pathway as they refresh this area, learn about conditions for planting and grow some edible treats along the way.

Collaborative Art

He aha te mea nui o te ao?

In term one, Te Rōpū Whakamanawa created a collaborative art work showing what we value the most, which is people.  We felt like this represented who we are and what our school encompasses.

Finally in term two, there was a window of time that allowed Miss Waho to mount and display it.  Check it out...

Group Work

Getting Going with Group Work

Each we we have a school wide behaviour expectation to focus on and learn about.  During Samoan language Week, our focus was on group work.  

In Te Rōpū Whakamanawa, we did a Samoa Information Hunt in groups.  We discussed our expectations and how we could make a group task successful.  In groups that were selected by Miss Waho, we had information cards and puzzle pieces to complete using the information on the cards.  We needed to use communication and organisation skills in order to complete the task.  

Here are a few pictures of what we did:

The resource we used for our activity.

Each person has a section to complete.

Students had to work together to find relevant information.

Some sharing of resources and information.

Miss Brown checks out some of the work happening.

Heads down and into the activity.

One group managed to complete their puzzle and mounted it to coloured paper for display in our learning space.  We will continue to work on these until they are completed and ready for display.

More Samoan Language Week

Sharing and Sampling Some Samoan Food

To celebrate Samoan Language Week, we decided to try a few Samoan foods.  We ordered some panikeke, sapasui and Dominick's mum made up some koko laisa.  At lunch time, we shared the panikeke with all of Te Ara Takitini so everybody could try some.  Whakamanawa added some sapasui to ours.  After lunch, Dominick's mum brought in a pot of koko laisa for us to try also.

Here are a few pictures:

Oh my yum!  Panikeke!

Beautiful manners as we serve.

Sapasui and panikeke went really well together.

Thumbs up all round.

Sapasui sampling.

Here's to koko laisa at school.

Enjoying some koko laisa as we read.

Sapasui time.

Kian made sure we all said 'Fa'afetai' as he served our kai.

Dominick and Cayleigh did an amazing job of serving and cleaning up.

Whakamanawa feasting time.

Koko laisa time to wash down all of the panikeke I ate.

For next year's Samoan language Week, we will get enough panikeke for all of the school to try.  They were divine.