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!