Women's Native Tree Nursery Visit

We are a Green/Gold Enviroschool - the first city school in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa to become one. Years ago, we started planting a native reserve which is now quite big. Today we went and collected seeds and cuttings because autumn is a great time to do this. Kauri, from The Women's Native Tree Trust, showed us how to get the seeds from the pods and strip a cutting off. We were careful not to take too many from one tree.

We also learnt quite a lot of other things. We all knew that the Māori Battalion fought courageously in the war under horrendous conditions. But did you know that their whānau back home picked the tips of the koromiko leaves, dried them and sent them to their fathers and sons? The soldiers chewed the leaves which cured them of dysentery and this most likely saved their lives! Ngaio is an insect repellent. Rub the leaves on your legs and the mosquitoes won't come near you. Karamu leaves are for your sore puku. Take the leaves at the tips. Try and take multiples of 12 because that's being kind to the tree by not taking too many. Put the leaves in a cup and pour boiling water over them. By the time it's cool enough for kids to drink, the magic is done. Just drink the cup. Don't eat the leaves. 

While we were down at the Rerenga Awa, we spray painted an Australian native that was accidentally planted. We did this so our caretaker will know which ones to remove.

After we had collected the seeds and cuttings, we walked to The Women's Native Tree Nursery to learn about propagation. It was a hot 30 minute walk but we decided not to bus or use cars as we were thinking about our carbon footprint. Once we were there, we planted the seeds in a cutting mix and the cuttings into small pots. It was so hot, we kept going under the sprinkler system to cool off. 

Next term we will go back and re-pot them into bigger pots. The Women's Native Tree Trust will then gift them to other schools and organisations who want to plant native trees like us. This is a great act of service.

My Culture and Me

This term we have been learning about our own culture and other cultures from people in our classroom. On Thursday we had a Culture Celebration Day. Everyone shared information about our culture. Some people dressed up in their traditional costumes. Everyone brought some traditional food for a shared kai. We tried things we had never eaten before. There was a huge selection. We had boxty, blini, Chinese peanut cookies, dumplings, Canadian maple syrup cookies, milk tart, cheesy eclairs, macarons and lots more. It was a great way to celebrate who we are.

Marae Noho

All of the Year 5 and 6 students enjoyed a fantastic noho marae experience at Takipu Marae near Te Karaka. The purpose of the noho was so we could experience local marae tikanga and kawa in a real context. The noho also provided the opportunity to build whānaungatanga, responsibility and teamwork skills.

We had a great couple of days. We had a Korero from Matua Antony about Takipu marae, and the kaiako from the Tairāwhiti Museum and Matua Luke from Turanga Health came out as well. We enjoyed learning traditional Māori games and looking at how  the Horouta Waka navigated to Aotearoa in the star dome. We ate lots of amazing food and had a big sleep over in the wharenui. It was a highight of our term.

Have you ever slept at a marae before?

Te Kurī a Pāoa

We have been been learning about Pāoa and Kiwa through art. When Pāoa and Kiwa came to Tairāwhiti, Young Nicks Head looked like Pāoa’s dog so they called it Te Kurī a Pāoa. Over time, soil erosion has made some of the rock erode. It wasn’t until Captain Cook came that it got called Young Nicks Head. 

A New Zealand graphic artist called Warren Pohatu was an author and illustrator of four books about Māori stories. We looked at his art and created our own Te Kurī a Pāoa. We had to overlay pastels, blend them and make colours we didn’t have by experimenting and mixing pastels. We also showed movement through detail.

Using Mote

 Lately we have seen a purple icon appear on our laptop screens. 

It's called Mote. It is a wonderful tool that lets you add audio to your google slides. Today we practised using it for the first time.

What do you think you could use mote for?

Learning Goals and Learning Dispositions

This week we have been thinking about our learning goals and what we have to do to achieve them. We used our school Learning Heroes. These Learning Heroes are the people who were on the Horouta waka that ended up in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, and Jesus. They all had different personalities and learning dispositions. What's a learning disposition? It's your attitude to learning. We thought about what we needed to change in our learning disposition to achieve our goals.

Have you ever set goals? What did you have to change about your attitude to learning to achieve them?

Our Favourite Toy

This week in Writing, we have been learning how to describe. Some people were learning how to use specific nouns, adjectives and juicy verbs, and others were learning how to use metaphors. Metaphors are similar to similes but instead of 'like' or 'as' we replaced them with 'is'. 

We first read a story from a person called Yasmin, then we used her template and wrote about our own favourite toy that we had when we were in kindy or preschool. In the first paragraph, we described what our toy looked like, and the second paragraph was about what happened to it.

We used Canva to publish our stories.

What is your favourite toy? Is it a teddy? Perhaps a toy car or doll? What did you do with your toy when you were little? 

Here's Camille's final piece...