Marae Noho

On Thursday and Friday the Nui syndicate went to Te Poho o Rawiri Marae to stay the night. First we had to get welcomed into the marae or we were not allowed into the wharenui until we got welcomed into the marae. To get welcomed into the marae you need Tangata whenua (people of the marae) and manuhiri (us). After doing that we had morning tea and went into some fun rotations with the teachers. The first rotation that I went into was string games and rakau with Koka Sophie. We were lucky enough to have some people from the museum come to help us with some rotations. My next rotation was Maori games with a lady from the museum. We did some poi and knucklebones.

After lunch we did some more rotations. My group walked up Titirangi (Kaiti Hill) and it tired me out. after that we had some afternoon tea and then some free time. Dinner was a loud and busy affair but the meal was delicious it was Nachos and almost everyone wanted seconds. After dinner we had ice blocks and apple. Then we had a kapa haka performance and the ukulele groups performed too. Then we went to get into our PJs and get ready for bed, this was a bit hard, as we all had to go get changed in the bathrooms cause we were all sleeping in the wharenui. Getting to sleep was a long process but waking up was easy. We had some free time and then breakfast, I had spaghetti on toast and a milo.

Soon the wai syndicate arrived and we went through the powhiri process but we were the tangata whenua and they were the Manuhiri. Te Waka was our first song and then we did Haramai a Paoa. Morning tea was next and then we did some more rotations with wai. Our first rotation was with Koka Ngaire doing something called honga where you had a partner and you have to put a piece of cabbage tree between you and your partners forehead. Then we had lunch  which was frankfurters and got ready to go back to school. Over all is was a fun time and would like to do it again.

Tree Planting at the Farm

Last week we went tree planting at the wetlands at the Land's farm. We donated all of the plants that we planted from the school's shade house and donated and planted around 290 trees. Some of us decided to try and make their way across the wetlands and everybody came back with water in their gumboots! I'm pretty sure that everybody learnt a lesson that day, do not attempt to cross wetlands when you do not know how deep the water is. Luckily enough there was a hole digging drill thing that helped us dig the holes so we just had to put the plants in.

After we finished planting we got to do some docking. If you don't know, docking is taking the tails of lambs. This may sound gross but you can eat the tails. We also clipped the lamb's ears to mark the lambs so you know they are from that farm. There were some sheep that tried to run away and jumped over the fences!

To sum it up it was a really fun trip and I loved it. I liked it because we could have fun, get wet and be crazy. I wish we could go again!


                      

Because of Winn Dixie

This term in class we read Because of Winn Dixie by Kate . She got nearly 400 rejection letters from publishers but did she give up?, No she did not. I would like to grow up to be  like her. "I decided a long time ago" DiCammillo says "That I didn't have to be talented, I just had to be persistent". I really enjoyed the book and recommend it to others. It is about a girl called India Opal but everyone just calls her Opal. 

Her mother went away when she was very small and her father is the preacher of the local church. She found a dog in the Winn Dixie supermarket and names it after the supermarket. The dog has a pathological fear of thunderstorms. Because of this dog she met lots of people including, Otis the pet shop man, Miss Franny block the librarian, Gloria Dump the witch (not), Sweetie Pie the cute kid, Stevie and Dunlap Dewberry and Pinch faced Amanda.