Update on our FRIDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2020 Blogpost "Letters to the Editor"

We were amazed to arrive at school and discover a bobcat was removing the blackberry down at the Rerenga Awa. That night, we saw Mya's letter to the Editor in The Gisborne Herald with a footnote saying the newspaper had contacted the Gisborne Disrtict Council and they would be removing the blackberry today. The council said they agreed that the job was long overdue. 

We are feeling proud of our efforts and the Rerenga Awa looks great!

Camp Goal Setting

Next week are are going on camp to Tui Ridge which is near Rotorua. It's an action packed camp and we will be doing lots of exciting activities like the flying fox, high ropes, indoor rock climbing, riding the gondolas, going on the luge plus many more.

Today we sat and thought about what goals we might like to set ourselves and then talked about what this might look like, sound like and feel like while we're at camp. We have also left a space for our goal setting reflection which we will fill in after camp when we come back to school.

Here's Noe's:

Letters to the Editor

We are frustrated with the council who are not responding to our requests, emails and use of their 'Fix It' app. They are no longer spraying the blackberry by the Taruheru Awa which is having a major effect on our conservation efforts.

Ten year olds have a voice too!

Dear Editor,

Saint Mary's is a Green-Gold Enviro school, and we want more fresh water river creatures in our awa. But there is one problem; there is long grass down near the Rerenga Awa and big blackberry bushes have grown. Some of the people from our school have emailed the council, been to visit the council and used the ‘Fix It’ app to tell them about it but they didn’t reply. The school has already cleaned up the awa, and we need to plant more native trees there. But we need the council to mow the grass and take out the blackberry bushes. Our school has already done our part so now we need the council to do theirs. We want more fresh water creatures in our awa, and native birds in our trees. Freshwater creatures only like the rivers by shady places. Because the sun just beams onto the river, it makes the water hot, right? The creatures don't like places that are hot. They only like shady places like under trees. So come on council - do your bit!
Yours sincerely,
Selina

Dear Editor 

We are trying to attract native birds and insects to our Rerenga Awa. We are planting native plants down by the river to give it shade and to make it clean so native freshwater creatures can swim in it. But we need to plant more. Unfortunately there is a ginormous patch of blackberry in the way. People at our school have tried to contact the council using email and the Fix It app to ask them to spray the blackberry and they haven't even replied. We can't do anymore planting and we are fed up with it.

Yours sincerely,

Ezra

Pop Art

We love creating our own masterpieces during Art. This week was a bit different because we created our own art using our chromebooks during our Cybersmart lesson.

First we looked at Andy Warhol's Pop Art and saw how he reproduced the same image but used different colours for each image. This inspired us so we took a selfie on our chromebooks and, using Lunapic, created our own masterpieces. We know that smart learners create original images and media so if we create it - we own it and can use it anywhere.

Have you ever created any Andy Warhol Pop Art?

You can read the steps we took to create our Pop Art on our individual blogs. Here are Morgan's, Josh's, Joan's and Mya's.

September Reflections

We are always reflecting on our learning but every month we also create a newsletter for our whānau and blog readers to read and comment on about our reflections.  We do this because it's great to look at everything we have achieved and think about our next steps in learning. We have found that it's really important to know what we are learning and why. 

Here's Ciara's. 

Have you ever done something similar to this before?

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori

This week is Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week). We use a bit of te reo in our class and thought it would be a great opportunity to share what we know for others to learn. So for Reading we read stories that had some te reo words in them. Then we went on to Book Creator and made our books. We thought about the layout in picture books toddlers use when they are learning to speak. We then created our own, and added audio so people who are wanting to learn Māori words can hear the correct pronunciation.

Here's Josh's. Click on the image below:

Tongan Language Week

Malo e lelei! This week, we challenged ourselves to learning more Tongan language. We are very lucky to have two Tongan students, Noe and Sione, who have been teaching us songs and prayers in Tongan.

This is what we have learnt:

How to bless ourselves in Tongan:

Tamia moe alo, laumalie, malononi. Ameni.

Grace before meals:

Sesu tapuak'i mea kai. Malohi ho mau sino. Ameni.

Hail Mary:
Sioto ofa, Malia, 'Oku ke mohu kalasia. Oku iate koe ae Eiki. 'Oku ke monuia koe 'ihe fefine fua ho manava. Ko Sesu. Sangata Malia, koe fae 'ae Otua. Ke ke hufia akimautaolu angahala 'ihe ahoni. Pea moe aho o 'emau Mate. Ameni.

When we get better at our pronunciation, we might make a Screencastify of us saying them and blog it.

This is the song we learnt. It is called E 'Otua. Even though we mucked up the first verse, we carried on like true professionals!