An unusual present!

Today Lachie bought me an ostrich egg from his aunty's farm!  Wow it is huge!  It was vey heavy and the shell was so thick!  Lachie told me that you can eat them and make cakes with them and use them the same way that hens eggs are used.  

Lachie said that one ostrich egg has 22 hens eggs worth of egg inside!  He uses a drill to open them up and pour the egg out.  That's one huge omelette! I can't wait for Saturday's breakfast!  

I wonder what other facts we can learn about ostrich eggs? Can we compare them to hen's eggs?  

Friday was an exciting day! 

Ki O Rahi Tournament

Yesterday all the Year 5 and 6's went to the Inter-school Ki O Rahi Tournament.  The tournament was at Gisborne Intermediate School and there were 25 teams! 

The day began well with Round 1 and 2 but the weather wasn't on our side!  Around 9.30 the clouds started moving in and it became very cold!  We were worried that it was going to rain!  Funny thing was the bus driver had warned us that the forecast wasn't good!  He was right!  It began blowing and icy cold rain came hammering in!  Brrrr!

The organisers were worried and began to say we would call it off if it didn't clear in 15 mins.  Well schools started packing up and leaving!  I guess the decision was made. The tournament was called off! 

What a shame!  We were just getting in to it and having fun!  the rain did stop but it was still very cold.  Mrs Hall called the bus and we ate our morning tea until the bus turned up.  Disappointed we headed back to school to warm up!  It was a great experience while it lasted!  Hopefully we can attend the tournament next year.

Watch out for our Ki O Rahi myths coming up on Blogger!

Kia Hiwa Ra - a moving production!

This term Makaraka School staff and students embarked on a big project!  A whole school production! The story was about Cook's first navigation to New Zealand and retracing his first steps. 

Students were involved every step of the way from writing the script to making props and costumes and choreographing the moves to dances! 

Each class had a scene to work on which was a different local story:

Year 1/2 portrayed Maui's Fish - the fishing of the North Island

Year 3/4 portrayed Paoa and Kiwa - the establishment of Turanganui a Kiwa

Year 4/5 portrayed Paikea's arrival in Whangara

Year 5/6 portrayed Kupe and the naming of Aoteaoa

The little 5 year olds were the time travel portal which Captain Cook and his crew travelled through and portrayed the Great Pacific Garbage patch through oil, plastic, sea creatures and water. 

Each class also had an added project to contribute to their scene by incorporating plastic props!  This symbolised the presence of plastic in our lives and highlighted the need to be responsible about the use of it!  The plastic props were all lit with LED lights which made them look fabulous! 

Everyone who came enjoyed the production and we even got a letter to the editor!

Here is the whole video! 

Site dances

In Friday Programme we were looking at our special school places.  We really love to show off our school and we decided in groups to create a dance using these special places.  
We used the Pou which are for all our classes, the playground which we love to play on and the cycle track posts to play leap frog on. 

We were learning to include all our group members in our dance and use unison, canon stillness and movement.  We think we did great at all of this! 

The music was added in last to give it a really good feel.  This was so much fun and here are our videos: 

Pou Atua

Playground Fun

Leap Frogs

Youth Environment Ambassadors visit

On Thursday we had 5 Youth Enviro Ambassadors visit us to talk about fossil fuels, NZ's proposed law changes and to write a submission to the Government with our ideas on this.  Maya, Alice, Toby and Pearl and Sofia spoke to us about what they have been doing and how they developed their group.

After watching a video about fossil fuels, we then had a discussion about what we could do about it in NZ and put them together in a submission to parliament.

The submission process is an important way to have a say on what is happening with our law changes.  You can have your say without being 18 years old and having to vote. 

Here are some of our submission ideas: 

• Take alternative transport like biking or walking where possible.
• Buy Electric vehicles.
• Purchase products that are made by companies that are environmentally conscious. 
• Buy less plastic.
• Use reusable straws and bags. 
• Eat less beef and more chicken and lamb. 
• Write letters to politicians telling them how you feel. 

Be united and aim for the same goal!

PJ movie party

Today we were fundraising for Barnados through the Aurora Leadership in Action programme.  Isla and Max organised a fantastic morning with popcorn, lollies and a movie in our Pyjamas. 

June is the month for Jammies and that is why we chose to wear our PJ's and bring our snugglies.

We made approximately $400 to this worthy cause!  

Thanks Everyone! 

Yearly Nuhaka Exchange

Last Wednesday we went on our yearly sports exchange to Nuhaka.  Every second year we go there and on the other years they come to us.  It is a fun day which ends with a shared lunch. 

The scores were: 

Netball: 13 - 7 to Nuhaka

Chess:  26 - 14 to Nuhaka

Rugby:  57 - 24 to Nuhaka

We really enjoy catching up with our friends down there. It is also really neat to see the Year 7 and 8's who help with refereeing and judging the chess.  Thanks again Nuhaka! 

Chess Tournament Winners

Yesterday we had a chess tournament for our last session with the Eastern Knights.  The tournament was 6 games of 10 mins each.  It was fun and we all got to play different people.

We had 3 clear winners:


1st - Timana
2nd - Isla
3rd - Angus

We are all super star chess players now!  Nuhaka Exchange next week.  Yay! 

Students beating their parents!

Wow our class is getting good at chess!  Using these strategies our parents don't know what we are going to do next!  Keep up the great work!  

Here's what we are up to: 

Timed games change the pace and put you under pressure.  It is also a good way to make sure you finish up in a set amount of time for those who are in a hurry.  

Today we went over:

Scholar's mate: (Four move check): 

White:	King's pawn E2 to E4
White	F1 to C4
White	D1 to H5
White	H5 to F7 - Checkmate

  

Can you find out how to defend against it? 

Italian opening - focus on the white pieces: 

White	E2 to E4 (Pawn)
Black	E7 to E5 (Pawn)
White	G1 to F3 (Knight)
Black	B8 to C6 (knight)
White	F1 to C4 (Bishop)
Black	Moves into the game

• Control the centre 4 squares. 

Stalemate:  

When you can't move anywhere without going into check.  Game is a draw. 

Italian Opening

The Italian opening is good for beginners and gives you a good start controlling the centre of the board and allowing you to castle. 

Cooking in Chess...

Forks Pins and Skewers... 

Fork - attacking 2 or more pieces at the same time.

Pin - when a piece is stuck because if they move the king will be in check. 

Skewer - king in front another piece is behind it.  Person attacking gains something of great of greater value.

This is a Pin...

Here is a useful website:  http://www.usefulchess.com/tactics/forkpin.htm

Are you like your star sign?

We went on a trip to the museum to the star lab and learnt about how our ancestors navigated the seas with the stars.  We saw all the different shapes of the constellations.  The reason we are learning about this is because this year is the Sestercentennial - 250 Years since the first landings of Europeans.  Tairawhiti was the actual first landing!

 

Here are some photos from the Museum.  A bit blurry but shows us in the star lab learning about our ancestors.

This was really interesting.  The constellations are right above us at certain times of the year.  One of the things wWe had a look at our star signs and did some writing about them.  We learnt was that they are named after Greek Gods and characters of the myths.  They also have personality types which we compared to ourselves to see if they were true!

Check out our blogs to see our writing and artwork!

Is there any other uses for knowing the star constellations?
What do you know about navigating and our first encounters?

Here is Miss McIntosh showing off our cool art! 

Chess update #2

Baileymate (a game to help them learn how to check and what pieces do what)

Have to put me in check 

Have to use big pieces and then the pawns 

Once you use the big pieces they are stuck 

If you leave one unprotected I take it 

En passant 

Only can do it on the pawns 

When a pawn crosses half way it deserves respect 

You have to give the pawn a chance to respect you by moving just one square to the pawn who is across half way 

If you choose to disrespect that pawn the pawn that has moved past half way can still take you by moving across the diagonal and taking the disrespecting pawn.

You can do it with every pawn on the board 

It must be the two pawns either side of the pawn who deserves respect 

It must happen straight after the pawn has been disrespected, the very next turn. 

Aurora Drama Programme Final Play

The Aurora Education Trust is an organisation that provides learning experiences to students who have talents in certain areas.  This year one of the projects was a Drama project that involved 7 days of researching, writing and performing a script about the first encounters in Turanganui. 22 students from 12 schools participated and did a great job working with each other and learning a lot about our history. 

Community leaders were involved and came in to talk, teach and work with the students around this topic.  

• Chris Green worked with us for 2 session on Drama techniques.
• Todd Sheridan worked with us on the first landing at Turanganui and the tragedy of those that were killed. 
• Kata Ngata worked with us on the story of Tupaia. 
• Albie Gibson from Turanganui Ararau provided cultural advice on the script. 

Here is the programme:

Link to the Herald Article

Chess Session #2 - Castling

Games are silent.

Revision: 

• Get out of check - move, block or capture the opponent.
• Ladder checkmate or lawnmower check.
• When you take a piece look at the value of it so that you aren't capturing the powerful pieces.
• When pawns get to the other side you can swap it for a more powerful piece.
• Who goes what colour - hands behind back and one person choses.  Next game swap over.

Chess is at least 4000 years old. En passant and Castling is a relatively new move.

Castling:

Is an important move.  Only move in chess that you can take 2 pieces and move them at the same time.

King side castle:

1. Kings pawn moves 2 spaces. 
2. Move your kings knight.
3. Move king 2 spaces right
4. Rook jumps over the king.

Castle by the 8th move. You cannot Castle if the king or rook have moved before in the game. 

"I must not Castle out of Check" - you must block it first then castle on next move.

"I must not castle into check".

"I must not castle through check"

You touch it you move it.

Never touch your opponent's pieces - if you touch it you capture it.

Computational Thinking: 

Binary - 0 = off 1 = on  Looking at Truth Tables to get the circuit going needs to be all on to work.

And Gates:  input and out put. And Gate for Checkmate:  Can we block?  Can we move out? Can you capture?  If all questions are true then it is checkmate. 

thanks Matuas! 

Chess lessons from the Eastern Knight Legacy

Today we were lucky to have Noble and Dan come to teach us the basics of chess.  The first of 8 lessons to get our skill up! 

Here's some things we learnt...  Practice up for next time! 

Chess:  letters across x-axis, numbers up y-axis

White on the right correct way to set up the board.

Notation of chess - co-ordinates

Pawns 1 - one square or 2 squares (First move only), cannot go backwards or sideways.  If it gets to the other side it can be promoted.  Can only capture on a diagonal. Pawns can capture all pieces. 

Rook 5 - straight lines cannot jump.

Knight 3 - L shapes 2 down one across any direction. But always L shape. Can Jump.

Bishop 3- diagonal only cannot jump. One on a black and one on a white square. Good idea to capture a bishop to have safe squares.

Queen 9 - Power - diagonals and straight lines.  As many as she wants.

King 0 - Mr Useless he can only move one square at a time. Needs to stay home.

If you call checkmate and it is not check mate then you have lost because it is not correct.

Practice the 2 rook chess move.

Not for the faint hearted!

One of our camp activities for 2019 was to go eeling!  We were all very excited - some had done it before and others hadn't!  It didn't matter which group you were in eeling is exciting!  You have to go late at night, set the traps and then check them early in the morning.  Eels can't see very well but can sense light so when it is dusk they come out!  Well when we first arrived there was a huge one in the river!  Wow excitement ripples through all of us!  

We set 2 types of traps - hinaki we had mad ourselves out of wire and a fyke net which was lent to us by Mr Farmer.  This one as you will see caught the most eels!  We were astounded to see over 25 eels in there in the morning!  Some had blue eyes which means that they are on their way to Tonga to breed so Jed (our parent expert) let those ones go to keep the species alive!  We kept 7 eels for our learning and put the rest back. 

Today, March 12, we dissected the eels.  It was very smelly and we had to be very self disciplined because the equipment is very sharp.  We learnt a lot about dissection, anatomy and cultural practices.  

The rules were: 

• Be respectful of the animal - no sillyness and trying to scare others. 
• Be responsible with the equipment - it can harm you. 
• Wear safety gear. 
• Take turns. 

The anatomy we looked for was: 

• The 2 types of fins. 
• Eyes
• Mouth
• Ears
• Vent
• Heart
• Gills
• Guts
• Liver - gall bladder
• Brain

Culturally we: 

• Learnt about their habitat and why eels are special creatures to NZ
• Blessed the life we were using to learn from with Karakia
• Buried the remains to give back to the Earth
• Hung them in a tree to deslime. 
• Learnt how to catch them traditionally with hinaki. 

Big thank you to Rachel, Miss McIntosh, Matua James and Jed for teaching us and helping us with this learning. 

Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou
ka ora ai te iwi

With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive

Term 1 2019 Maths Grid Results

Each week we do a maths grid to get better at our times tables.  We are also trying to get better at accuracy in our answers.
Here is my term 1 graph:

Visit from a scientist...

We were lucky enough on Thursday to have a visit from a scientist who is studying eels.  Mr Ray Farmer.  He knows soooooo much about eels and boy are they interesting!

Who ever knew that eels travel to Tonga to spawn and then the babies automatically know how to travel back to NZ when they are only a couple of centimetres long!  Not only that they go to the exact same stream their parent came from!  Amazing!  Nature is so cool.

  

There are 2 types of eels in NZ - the long and short finned eels.  Can you remember which one these pictures are showing?
The circle things on this diagram are showing the rings around their ear holes.  These tell you how old eels are.  The gaps between the circles tell yo if the water they live in is good quality - the closer together the circles the worse the water quality!
Can you remember how old they have to get to before they travel to Tonga?

This is a picture of a different type of eel trap called a Fyke.  It doesn't use bait and channels the eels into it when they hit the flat part of the net.  Mr Farmer lent us his Fyke so we can try it out!  Boy I can't wait for camp now!  Its going to be so much fun!

Hinaki's for camp!

We have been learning about eels.  They are fascinating.  You may have seen some of the readings we have done on individual blogs.  We decided to make hinaki to take to camp so we can go eeling. 

Here are the finished products!  Aren't we clever? We can't wait to use them and possibly even taste the finished product!