Hue season!

Do you know what Hue are?  Some people may know them as gourds.  The year 5 and 6's went down to Brendan Barker-Quin's house to harvest some to  use in our art and production!  

Hue are a kind of pumpkin which grows on a vine.  They are harvested around the end of summer when the stem goes brown.  

They were used by Maori people to carry water and store other kinds of food high in the trees as the skin goes super hard when they are dry.  Hue can also be eaten but more likely when they are young as they are sweet and moist then.  

We are hoping to dry our hue and then paint them up and decorate them for our production!  

Thanks Brendan we learnt heaps about cultivated kai and bees also looking at your garden!  I didn't know that foxgloves are a good companion plant because they have a long tap root that brings up nutrients from deep down in the soil. 

Hot Cross Buns Makaraka Style!

Today we made hot cross buns together with the whole school.  We were in groups with all different age groups. It was really cool to learn about yeast and different types of flour.  

The group that was with Koka Michelle made Gluten Free buns because we have some students who are gluten free (including Koka Michelle).  The recipe was a little different because gluten free flour doesn't have gluten which is the stuff that makes it bind together and stretchy and we needed more eggs and butter to bind it. 

After 1.5 hours when the dough rose, we glazed the buns and put crosses on them ready to bake.  Thanks to the Makaraka Dairy for their prowess in baking the buns for us. 

After lunch we met together as a school to eat them!  Yummy! 

Tuakana Teina and Mapping

Today our senior learners buddied up with the juniors and videoed them talking about their maps.  They then filled in the data on the form for the class teacher to analyse!  What a great bunch of students!  

They were so positive with comments coming out of them like:

"Wow they are so great at talking about their learning!" 

"You know how to make your learning better!"

"I really like how you have included all the parts on your map!' 

Tino Pai Rawa atu Tawhirimatea!  You are such a supportive group of rangatahi!  We are growing young leaders! 

Which value will you improve on for the first term?

Today we started thinking about our school values and which areas we might need to grow to enhance our learning.  

You will recognise these values and the criteria from our school report back page.  We  believe that learners should be able to understand these dispositions and actively work to get better at them.  

So today we made freeze frames about these values and discussed what we would see or not see for each one so we could understand them better and prioritise which values are important for us to progress our learning!  Have a look and see if you can recognise any dispositions in these photos! 

Kia Manawanui: 

Kia Kaha: 

Kia Maia: 

Tuku Patai: 

Term 1 2021 Curriculum Evening - Learning Maps and Structured Literacy

Many thanks to all the parents who came to our curriculum evening in Level 2!  We did have 1m spacing! 

Here is the presentation from Mary about Makaraka's journey with learning maps and where we are heading this year. 

Here is the handout that was sent home from Janice about structured literacy.  This will also go home in the school newsletter on Monday.  Any questions don't hesitate to ask!