Festival Frenzies

"Kshhhhhhh" The doors to the orange and green bus doors closed dramatically as the last person slipped out of its clutches. As the last drops of early morning dew dried up I walked nervously across the Gisborne showgrounds. Today was not a normal Wednesday morning, it was the Kapa Haka festival and Wainui Beach School was performing. A buzz of excited chatters contagiously spread across the large group of children. The crowd of kids soon became a blur of piupiu, matching costumes and greenstone taonga. "E hoki mai ra-" kids sang loudly as people tied up the last strands of their piupiu and mad last minute adjustments to their shoulder straps and skirts, "-pupuhi ai e te hau" they continued happily.

"Go, go" Miriam mumbled quickly from behind me as I marched proudly on stage. I looked of the stage to see a huge room filled with excited parents and the smiling faces of Wai syndicate. After the rest of us shuffled on to the back half of the gigantic faded black stage. We started our first transition song which is 'Tu Mai Ra'. Hunter recited the words in time to the guitar and started to step forward. The rest of us followed until we were in the shape of a triangle. The first two rows of boys knelt down as everyone joined in for the second verso of our school song.

"A round of applause for Wainui Beach School" the commentator bellowed over the microphone. We had been through three other songs in our bracket and we were on to our second transition 'Utaina'. Matiria our kaea yelled our instructions and we went through the song. "Utaina mai nga waka, nga waka o te motu..." soon after we had been through once and we had started to move. I walked backwards around the outside of the group and ended up behind the large group of boys. Next was the haka.

Overall I really enjoyed the experience of the Turanganui Kapa Haka Festival because it was a fun time and I tried my hardest.

Marae Madness

Last week our nui syndicate stayed a night at our school marae; Te Poho o Rawiri. We learnt a lot about our ancestors and were told a lot of interesting stories. We arrived at the marae by car early in the morning. We were fidgeting like we had ants in our pants by the time almost half the kids had arrived. After everyone came and we finished our kapa haka practice we were ready to enter the marae.

"haere mai, haere mai, haere mai," Aunty Buba and Aunty Charlotte called to us from across the rough concrete. They walked backwards and we followed until we were deep inside the marae. I noticed these amazingly detailed carvings and tukutuku panels embellishing the walls of the wharenui. This was where we would be sleeping. The carvings on these walls were more than just art and I was excited to hear their meanings. After we sang our school song; tu mai ra, Papa Albie spoke some words in te reo and Aunty Bubba taught us about kowhaiwhai and tukutuku. We then sat on the grass and had some yummy kai. Finally were sent out to teachers to learn about traditional maori games and crafts. We first went to harakeke weaving where we learnt how to make placemats. 

With the sun setting over the Kaiti Hill it was time for dinner: chilli bean nachos. Mmm reka. I entered the dining hall and almost bumped into the bench because I was so starstruck by the delicious aroma from the nachos. I exited the kitchen thinking of why dinner was always before desert. I sat down next to Maddie and Lily and dug into the steaming pile of scrumptiousness. The room was a buzz of loud chatter, forks clinking their glasses and the horrible noise of plastic chairs scratching across the polished concrete floor. I knew that soon after dinner it would be showtime so I wiped the nacho sauce of my face with a napkin and and walked into the kitchen reading indeed for an ice block. I was already excited for what was up their sleeves for tomorrow.      

Quality Comments

Lately I have been looking through my blog for comments. Some of these comments could really use some touching up (especially parents ones)!. so, I would like to tell you how to write a quality blog comment. This might help other people improve their posts and comments and maybe they could help me learn something new too. Here is some pointers. 

Auckland Islands Presentation

Hi there, today I am going to tell you about The Auckland Islands. They are located 465 kilometres south of the South Island, NZ. We did a Maths activity We had to use maths clues and road tips to help us solve several problems and equations. We had to learn about different parts of the island and mark them down on a map while we worked. It was really fun.

We learned about failed settlements, castaways and shipwrecks and subtraniac islands. I learned to use morse code. Morse code was used in war times when countries were worried that their letters and battle plans might be take by enemies. Each series of dots and dashes mean a different letter or number. I pretended to write a letter to someone using morse code. 

One of the  New Zealand penguin species are the Yellow Eyed Penguins. Which live on the Auckland Islands. We had to use the math clues, which was an algorithm method. We had a multi choice answer =
      
      2000 ✔️    1900       1850       1950 

Pablo Picasso's Past

This week I finished a scientific report about a famous person who had dyslexia. I chose Pablo Picasso as he did some amazing pieces of artwork. This shows that he only had learning differences and not learning difficulties. He showed that he was no worse or better than anyone else.

This Week's Word Work

Hello there, today I would like to tell you about this week's word work. Every week we have to finish a word work. We have the choice of a poem or a kiwi kids. I chose kiwi kids. To do this we enter a site called Kiwi Kids News and choose an article. We then complete the recall and thinking activities and questions, take a look.

My Favourite Fictional Writing

This week for our final quickwrite we did a piece of fictional writing about a girl living in a jar. Each week we have 2- 4 quickwrites to complete about a unique topic or subject. here was this weeks third.

I saw me… Ya know the cat, my reflection was staring back at me as though I was watching the TV. The moment was then broken when I saw another face. This time it was not mine, but instead it belonged to the little girl in the mason jar. This girl, as you can guess, lived in a mason jar. She had ginger hair and piercing eyes, as though staring into a black hole. In the jar there is a table, this table is home to a tray. On this tray there is always the same thing: A teapot, a teacup and 4 custard coloured lemons. But behind those leaves and lemons there is a sad secret. She had never left that jar and never drank that tea. But most importantly she never had any friends, or family at that matter.

And then it happened. I knew how she could get out. But only I didn’t know how to tell her. If I could just… I then scampered over to the honey coloured oak doorway. I later came out carrying between my razor sharp teeth a scrap piece of newspaper and a red felt. I dragged the old stationary lazily over  so I was close enough to the jar. I took the felt in my teeth and angrily started to try pull the felt lid off… 30 painfully stressful minutes later and I had the lidless felt wedged inside my small mouth. I put the front on the felt on  paper and started doodling. Use the Tea and the sun … Hhmm, good enough.I  showed her the writing and I’m almost absolutely sure she can read, but she hasn’t moved, as though deep in thought. She must be able to read because soon after she grasped the teapot tightly and climbed carefully step by step up the plant until she was standing just above the sun. she cautiously poured the tea over the sun releasing a group of smoky sort of bubbles, with her on them. She floated up, up, up and away. And from all the way up there I somehow knew she was smiling.