When I announced that we were going to make kites this morning the kids were all yelling wahoo and yay. We have been planning this for the last few days and today there was time to make them! The mentor teacher that I am working with is Miss Eadie and her students are amazing. Miss Eadie and I tried to make one first and then when we tried to make it fly sadly there was not enough wind :( it was a winter day with blue skies. The kids got in groups of two and began working together to make a kite out of the materials that were available to them including straws, table cloths, and string. We walked through step by step on how to make a stable kite. After we explained each step the students got to work. It was fun to see how different each kite came out based on how they worked together as a group. After completing kites the kids wanted to fly them but we walked right outside and talked about how we need wind to fly kites. I will take pictures of them flying the kites as well as constructing them tomorrow morning they are all at the school. Tomorrow is my last day with the students and I am sad to say goodbye but I keep telling them I will be checking their blogs, writing to them, and will have my students from America send letters to them. On my last day we are promised the kids we would get out on the bike track to ride bikes as well!
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I have been lucky enough to be welcomed back into a grade 3 classroom (2nd grade at home) after Queens Birthday weekend. They were so happy to see me! Within in this classroom I have been able to teach a few lessons for the teacher so that she could finis all the students math testing. Reading groups are so fun to lead because the students are grouped into their reading ability. We all sit together and read the story for the day. The kids change stories every other day! I then walk the students through the EE (Explain Everything) that they are to complete within two days. If students have questions they ask them and then they have time to work on their own. I got to go to jump jam today with all the grade 3 students, it was so much fun! The students dance to popular songs that they love. They have all learned the dances and perform them once the music is playing. A teacher then asks students to go up on stage to dance if they are doing a great job! The kids were so excited to go and made me dance with them! Today I got to read an Oregon book to the students and they got to ask questions about what school is like in the states. We then brainstormed a list of what they experience at school at day. After we brainstormed I asked the students to write a letter to a student in the states! Each student wrote who they are, what language they speak, what they do each day at school, what sports they participate in, and what they love to eat. It was fun to see some of the comparisons and then what is very different. The students here could not believe that the kids don't have to wear uniforms to school or that they don't have tea time to play outside. Students then drew a picture about what they wrote about. A few of the students want to make animations and or videos for me to take back so we are going to work on that tomorrow! I am also getting to teach the kite lesson tomorrow to the students. They are going to try and create a kite out of limited supplies. We will test them out and then decide how to make them better! I will take pictures tomorrow and write about it tomorrow evening. This past weekend was Queen's Birthday Weekend. Schools were closed on Monday. We left Pt England on Friday during tea time to beat the traffic, because we were told it is terrible. It is worse then traffic in Portland because they only have one motorway (highway). The area of New Zealand is only 13,881 square kilometers bigger then Oregon and they only have half a million more people then Oregon has. We went up north to the bay of islands and stayed in Paihia right across the street from the beach. The Queens birthday is celebrated twice a year. Her actual birthday is on April 21 and her official birthday that is celebrated is the first Monday in June. On Saturday it rained all day. The rain didn't stop us! We found a local farmers market and explored the food as well as good that were being sold. It reminded me a lot of Saturday Market in Portland. I tried a persimmon and loved it. Persimmon's are a fruit that has seeds in the middle but you can eat the whole fruit including the peel on the outside. It tastes like a mix of cantaloupe and an apple. It is crisp like biting into an apple but then on the inside has a consistency of cantaloupe. After the farmers market we walked across the street to the chocolate factory, which was amazing! We got to watch different chocolates being made and also got to sample a few. On Sunday we walked to where the treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. This treaty resulted in the declaration of British sovereignty over New Zealand. On that day various Maori chiefs as well as the British Crown were present to sign the treaty. At this treaty grounds the Lions (professional rugby team) were welcomed to New Zealand to tour and play different New Zealand rugby teams. The Maori performed a traditional welcoming ceremony that included the Haka as well as many different prayers. After we watched this ceremony we took a ferry over to Russell which was the first permanent European settlement and sea port in New Zealand. There are a ton of cute shops and it was also fun to just sit in the sun on the beach. On Monday we drove back down to Auckland and met back up with our host families. Before meeting back up with host families we had an hour to walk around their mall. It had a few stores that we also have but it was also fun to walk through different shops that I have never seen. I found a new favorite shoe store but I came to find out they don't ship out of New Zealand! Today I got to spend the day with year 3 students which is 2nd grade in the states. I had such a fun day with them. I got to run reading groups. The way reading groups work is that students are placed into groups that are named after the planets based on their reading level. Students can be bronze, silver, and gold. Each group anywhere from 2 through 8 students come to the small group table and read their story for the day. Students would read all together or take turns reading a page to the group. After reading the story I would go over their EE (exploration expedition) which is an interactive activity. Some students were working on text evidence while others were working on inferences. I then got to watch math and was blown away with how much they participated and loved this time. All the students laugh at me because it is called maths and they say, "Miss you say it funny". During this time it is all interactive on their IPads and the activity is switched up every minute. Students are working on fast addition skills, multiplication tables up to 2, and subtraction. I got so many ideas to make math fun and interactive for students! At the end of maths time Ms. Eadie has each student stand on their chairs, she goes around and asks each student a question that is at their level. If they get it correct they get points for their team and if they get it wrong they get another question then sit down. After lunch I got to make my own animation. The students were walking through the process step by step so I followed along. One of the little girls wanted to tell the story of the fish in the coral reef that I had created. I let her tell the story and she was so excited that she also shared it with the class. I will upload this tomorrow as it is still on an IPad at the school. At the end of the day I got the chance to play soccer with the kids it was amazing! The boys are so fast and can kick the ball really far. They did not play easy against me at all. I am excited to see what tomorrow brings in this classroom! Today was an exciting day in grades 7/8. Pt England hosted the launch for the Digital License. There were executives from Google, Alannah & Madeline Foundation, Netsafe, and Dominic Bowden. Dominic Bowden is famous in New Zealand he hosts the Bachelor and E entertainment each night. Alannah & Madeline foundation was founded in 1997 after two little girls Alannah and Madeline lost their lives in a shooting. Their parents did not want any other parent to go through this so they set up a foundation to help children in need. The foundation has now funded the Digital License to keep students safe online. It is a program to provide online safety for kids, educating them on what to do if they are exposed to unwanted, inappropriate and offensive content; encounter cyber bullying; or consequences of putting their privacy at risk when interacting in an online environment. To start the assembly the students all sang the New Zealand National Anthem in both Maori and then English. Two students were in charge of introducing everyone, they did it all in Maori and then English. This was amazing to see because all of the students were proud to do this. 9 students in grade 7/8 block were selected to participate in a gameshow game to test their knowledge on what they had learned. The groups were asked four different questions. Before the team would answer the students in the audience got a chance to participate as well. After the gameshow all 9 students that participated were given a google chrome-cast so that they can cast their chrombook screen onto the TV at home. I was also fortunate enough to get a tour of PT England along with information on all the technology that they use. A group of 6 students ambassadors (grade 5/6) talked about their blogs, animations, and how they use the chrome books in class. After we got the chance to walk around the different grade blocks to see what students were learning. I saw so many new things that I want to try in my own classroom in the future. The students complete a ton of literacy comprehension. For example in grade 3 students would read a story then look on their IPad at the question, circle a thumbs up or thumbs down showing it is either true or false, and then take a picture of the text evidence. This spoke to me because it is a way for students to be engaged at all times. I also got to experience a year 1 classroom where I was blown away. One little boy was using a web of words on the IPad to write a story about a tiger and a rabbit. While observing him I noticed he was able to write and form a sentence on his own with just the use of single words in the word web. The little boy was shy but I could tell he was so proud of his work. Today was the first day at PT England School. I got to observe and work with students in grade 7 and 8, (that is grade 6 and 7 at home). The students are completely one to one technology across all grades. The 7/8 block is one pod with 4 smaller classrooms and in the middle is an area for them to join together. When the bell rings all the students sit in straight lines and they begin all together with announcements for the day which includes schedule changes. During literacy block the students switch teachers within their block. Once they were in class they logged onto their classroom website. On this website there are directions and the students follow them step by step to complete their assignments. I got to work in a small group and we were focussing on identifying 5 useless inventions and then writing about why they are useless then how we could turn them into inventions we could use. Next students have a morning tea time which is a break for students to play outside and the entire staff meets in the staff room to chat with one another. The staff makes tea or coffee and then sit around and talk for 30 minutes. Once the bell rings students go to the pod meeting area and they watch the news for the day. Each classroom takes times making the morning news. This morning news shows animations that students have made, talks about sports after school, and students forecast the weather. Students are then dismissed for math block. During math they are divided into four groups and are on a rotation schedule. When they are not meeting with a teacher they are working together on the assignment that is given on the class website. Lunch is an hour long where all students play outside. They can bike on the bike track, play sports, and talk with one another. I walked to a local bakery and had an amazing sandwich. When the bell rang the students joined again in the pod meeting area where they went over digital citizenship. Tomorrow students are helping launch Smart Digital License. This is a site that teaches students the importance of digital citizenship and how to keep them safe online. I am excited to see how this unfolds tomorrow, it will be all over the media and an exciting time for students. Day 5 we spent wondering around the city of Rotarua. It rained all day so we spent it checking out the mud baths, mineral pools, and sulfate spa. On day 6 we went to Hobbiton! Hobbiton is the number one tourist destination in New Zealand. When we got there we got on a bus and were whisked away to the movie set. The movie set is referred to as The Shire. It is a village of 44 hobbit holes that are dug into the hillside, surrounded by hobbit gardens, cattle, sheep, and orchards. The movie set in 12 acres. The farm that it is set on is the Alexander family farm, it is still running today as a sheep and cattle farm. The family has 13,500 sheep and 350 beef cattle. While driving into the Shire from the main road sheep are wondering all about, at times the bus driver has to stop and wait for them to cross the road. Each of the hobbit holes have a 1 meter ply wood backing on them, there is not any furniture inside. They used the set as outdoor props. It took 70 set builders to build all 44 hobbit holes over the 12 acres. All indoor filming within the hobbit holes was done at a second location. There are 8 gardeners that work everyday to keep the grass green, the flowers blooming, and the gardens overflowing with vegtables. After a long walk throughout The Shire we ended at the Green Dragon. Today I got the opportunity to go zip lining in a native New Zealand forest. I got to walk across two different swing bridges, one of them had a rail to hold onto and the other one did not. The one that did not have a railing was also the one that you can hang off of to get your picture taken, it was a weird feeling but totally worth it. The treetop platforms were 22 meters or 72 feet high up in the canopy. When you look down it is like looking straight down in a forest. The longest zip line was 700 feet long, on this one I went backwards and it was so much fun! One of the native fern species that they have is the silver fern. When you look at it head on it looks like a normal fern or can also be in the shape of a palm tree. You then turn it to the other side and it is bright silver. These were used to create a path for warriors leading up to battle. When the last warrior in the group would start he would turn them all over so that the silver side was not reflecting in the moon anymore. Half way through the zip lining/canopy tour we stopped to learn about the conservation efforts they are using to make sure that New Zealand does not loose their native bird population. The three animals that are killing 40% of the native bird species are possum’s, rat’s, and stoat (in the ferret family). The possum’s are wanted for widespread destruction of New Zealand native forests. The rat’s are wanted for the widespread elimination of the New Zealand’s native birds. Stout’s are wanted for the mass killing of Kiwi. The stout like to dig down into the Kiwi nesting dens and steel the eggs that have not hatched. To protect the native birds Rotorua canopy tours has been setting out to trap these pests so that they can introduce Kiwi back into the forest as well as help the native birds flourish. This evening we had the chance to go to a native Maori Village. This village is run by the Mitai family. When we got to the village we got to see the unveiling of the tradition Hangi. A Hangi is cooked in traditional style, it is a dirt pit filled with wood, rocks, and food that is cooking. We got to eat lamb, chicken, sweet potatoes, stuffing, garlic bread, and a few types of salads. We then walked to a small river where an ancient warrior canoe (waka) came down the Wai-o-whiro stream lit by torches, during this time the warriors were chanting and paddling at the same time. Next we got to experience the cultural performance. It started with pohiri (welcome ceremony) during this time the chief of our tribe of many nations was given a peace offering, he had to uplift the token off the ground and then back away. During this time the chief of the Mitai tribe allowed him to make a speech about why our tribe of nations wanted to come into the village. After this took place we got to see many spiritual dances, weapons display, and learned about the facial tattoos. My favorite part was watching the men and women perform the Haka. The Haka is a war dance and when it is translated it means “breath on fore or words of fire”. At the end of the cultural performance we got to go on a bush walk to see Fairy Springs as well as glow worms. Fairy Springs (Te Puna tapu o Tuhoe) is where the chief lived. The rainbow when seen over the spring was a good omen meaning all is well. The spring releases over 24 million liters of pure spring water every day. Glowworms are a maggot, which attracts insects using its luminescent tail. The insects are trapped in cotton like web hanging from the sides of the bank and covered with the paralyzing salvia of the glowworm. Maori Words: Whai-korero: (Speeches) Poi ball: used by men to strengthen their wrists in order to use the heavy short club without damaging the wrist. Women now use them when they dance. Stick games: for fun, fitness and eye hand coordination Haka: A dance of strength and vigor not only to welcome visitors but also to warn them of strength and readiness should they try to attack the village. Moko: tattoos. The women have one tattoo of an owl on their chin and the men have all four birds on their face. The birds represented are the bat, the parrot, the own, and the kiwi. Day three was filled with lots of driving. Before we left Auckland we went to the Auckland war memorial museum. Throughout the museum there were many different exhibits. The first one we saw was all about Maori culture. I got to walk inside one of sacred houses where the king and queen lived. Within the house there different wooden sculptures that told the story of their journey. A few people from the museum were creating rugs, weaving different color palm leafs together. This was fascinating to watch. They create these rugs to tell unique stories that they have gone through. I also got to see the formal head dresses that they would wear to battle and also as a sacrifice to the Gods. The next exhibit showed all of the tools that they used on a daily basis but also in war. All the tools were carved out of jade. Personal ornaments were worn everyday. It showed other how much power you hold. These were carved out of ivory and today carved out of jade. You can see a picture below that shows how small somewhere to how large others were. After the cultural part we got to walk through and see all the different animals that are native to New Zealand. A lot of them are the same as in The United States. The main animals that we don't have are the Kiwi which is a bird and then Yellow eyed penguins. Kiwi's are not able to fly, they are nocturnal, the females are larger then the males, and they are the only bird to have nostrils at the end of their very long bill. The yellow eyes penguin live for 20 years, they live on the South Island, and is one of a few species that live north of the Antarctic Ocean. The last exhibit was all about the volcano’s that have erupted to make New Zealand an island chain. I got to see what a volcanologist proximity suit. Scientists use this suit when they get close to the lava to collect samples of volcanic rock or to study the lava pathways. Within the volcano video it also showed Mt Saint Helens from Washington erupting. Day two consisted of touring the Maritime museum, getting to sail on a waka, and explore the city of Auckland. The Maritime museum walks you through the first Polynesian explorers to arrive in New Zealand all the way up to the modern day heroes of sailing. The first Polynesian explorers arrived by canoe in the 1300's. After that people began arriving to New Zealand on boats. The museum has an entire room that makes you feel like you are a sailor on one of the first ships SS Puke. You take a fate card that has a persons name on it and gives you background knowledge about their life. You then walk through the sleeping quarters and dining areas to see what it was like all while it feels like the room is rocking back and forth to make it feel like the boat is moving. At the very end you spin a wheel to find out what happened to your character after they arrived in New Zealand. My character was Hilda Hewlett and she was from England. At the end I found out she became a nurse and opened a clinic for children. I also got to see the progression of different size and shape outriggers that people used back in the 1300's till present day. The famous modern day sailors are the crew from the ship NZL 32 also called Black Magic. It is an international Americas cup class yaht that won the 1995 America's cup beating America in a 5-0 victory off the coast of San Francisco. The crew on the boat while racing had to wear helmets, protective gear, and had a special beacon that would flash if they fell over board. After walking around the museum we got aboard the waka and sailed around the Waitemata harbor for an hour. A waka is a traditional Maori canoe. The waka that we sailed on is named Aotearoa One, it was launched in 2003. It has a motor as well as sails. While pulling out of the harbor the skipper used the motor but once we were out in the harbor they let the sails down and we sailed under the harbor bridge. While sailing under the bridge we got to see a man that was trying to set a world record for the amount of bungee jumps within a 24 hour time period. We got to watch him complete his 300th jump. The Aotearoa One has sailed to San Francisco and back with a crew of 100 and they only used the stars for navigation. This took them 2 months to complete. The Captain and Skipper were part of that crew that sailed around the world in it and they were telling us stories. Everyone here is so friendly and nice! It rained for most of the afternoon and everyone here seems to use an umbrella the second it starts to sprinkle. We were the only ones using hoods. It reminded me a lot of Portland. It was fun to walk in and out of shops to see how they are the same and different. For dinner we went to a cute little food court that had 10 different restaurants in it. You order from wherever and you they bring the food to you. It reminded me a lot of Pine Street Market in downtown Portland! |
Queens birthday weekendDay 7 & 8Day 5&6
Day 4Day 3Day 2Day 1 |