Matua Rihara

Turning Room 9 into a Native School

We've turned Room 9 into Tahiti. We built whare from wood, that we chopped ourselves, searched for and grew our own food. It was getting crowded in Tahiti so we built a waka and sailed to Aotearoa. Aniket was the chief, Ahmed was the priest and navigator. There were also warriors, gardeners and babysitters and babies and lots of rowers. 

We made it to New Zealand and set up a new village. Then more people came to New Zealand and set up the Native Department. They said we have to speak English. And we said we don't want to but they forced us to. We had to give up some of our land  to build our school.

Then we had a very special visitor to our class. His name was Matua Rihara and he taught us for the morning block. Because we really know how to speak English Matua Rihara only spoke in Maori. This was so that we could feel what it was like to not understand what the teacher was saying. Aniket, Zahaad and Micheele remember what it was like to be at school and not understand the teacher.

 

This is us waiting for Matua Rihara. We had to line up in three straight lines. He used a big ruler to get us to move.

He put five lines of seats and we had to say a long karakia and repeat what he was saying a lot

Matua Rihara made us say a poem about a dog and a person. He was scary, and he looked like Harry Potter with the cloak and glasses he had on. 

What we learnt from Matua Rihara's visit:
More te reo- a poem, how to count in Maori
That speaking Maori is hard
Native school was not good, because it was very hard

How we felt when we were at Native School:
Sad because you could only do what you were told, which is boring
Controlled because we had to give upo our land

Matua Rihara was also funny because he was so different from our teachers.

We are learning to think critically by looking into NZ history and thinking about both sides of the story.

Cyber safety recap

In Room 9 we have the privilege of working on chromebooks and with GAFE technology. We recapped the ways we can keep ourselves safe online and continue to learn using this techonology.

Can you leave us a comment about what cybersafe or cybersmart means to you? We would appreciate your feedback. 

Learning to write a blog post

Writing group:
Micah, Ben, Dakota, Detroit, Phoenix.

Micah - First I walk from the right to the left microphone and say "spend it in the Summer and you'll die in the cold".

Ben - I go on the stage when everyone sings. I go to the middle of the stage.

Detroit - We sing while we are on the starts.

Dakota - First I go to the stairs. Then when it's our turn we go on stage when it says "and yet we go on searching so we search in vain". We do the gold mining action which is pickaxing.

Phoenix: Our actions are pickax, rocks, gold pan then running man off the stage and outside.

Reflection: We are learning to be creative by doing our actions, by singing and dancing, by doing different goldmining actions, by doing different moves.

Geometry stations

Add caption

We are learning to use a range of thinking tools.

This is our timeline.of New Zealand 26 million years ago.there was a place called murderers bay .captain Abel Tasman and his crew were there . murderers bay is now called golden Bay.1840 Cheifs signed the treaty.

Timeline of New Zealand’s History

26MYA

LOTS OF VOLCANOES WERE MADE BY THE PLATES OF THE EARTH. THEY ERUPTED AND MADE THE LAND. THIS MADE LOTS OF SMOKE COME FROM THE GROUND. YEAR AFTER YEAR MORE VOLCANOES ERUPTED.

1000 AD

New Zealand before people. There were moas, adzebills, bush wrens, huia (with a long curvy beak), laughing owl, ferns, Tane Mahuta, Haast Eagle and dinosaurs

1200

People came from Tahiti to have a new life and the warriors of the tribe helped the people of Tahiti. People from tahiti arrive in waka and settle throughout new zealand and maori tribes.

1642

Abel tasman and his crew are the first people from Europe to see new zealand and meet Maori people at murderer's bay. Murderers bay is called golden bay now.

This is the murders bay

Murderer’s Bay  had a lot of murdering thats why its called Murderers Bay.  I wonder why they murdered people?.Now it’s called golden bay because people found gold. the firt setlers came to muderers vbay and five moari people died in 1642

1769

James Cook had a ship. It sailed to New Zealand.   This is James Cook ship.

368 tons, just 32 metres long and 7.6 metres

This is how James Cook passed away.James cook was on a stamp.

1867

When the Native schools opened- Maori villages had to donate  land for a school to be built and they had to help pay for the teacher and books.

1880-1900s

Te reo was banned in school and it was thought  that Maori students needed to learn things to help them faming (boys) or nursing or keeping house (girls)

Welcome Whaea Maria

Welcome to Whaea Maria. She is the Master's student teacher who is working in Room 9 for the next 7 weeks. We looked at the history of New Zealand as it will happen in the Turangawaewae Operetta. We started to wonder...

and think... and wonder some more. 

Oral language learning

We are learning to work in pairs to think, pair and share ideas about our poems on Monday. On Friday we practice and then present them to the class. 
IMG_5060 from Ham East on Vimeo.
The Tui from Ham East on Vimeo.
Poetry from Ham East on Vimeo.
The Letterbox Cat from Ham East on Vimeo.
IMG_5059 from Ham East on Vimeo.

We are also working in new pairs and groups through out the week to build our speaking and listening skills. We talk about current topics, or the Hamilton East School toolkit.