Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera

Whale Rider tells the tale of Kahu and her family's struggle to bring balance back to their Maori tribe. Check out Witi Ihimaera's touching novel.
This is another good read and on DVD too.

Paul Jennings - Unbearable

LITTLE BLACK BALLS

'What are these little black balls?' said Mum in a loud voice.

She was standing there holding a pair of my jeans in one hand and the little black balls in the other. I wasn't sure what to say. She wasn't going to like it. Mum usually checks the pockets before she puts my jeans in the wash. I should have emptied them. But I forgot. Now the jeans were all stained. "Well......' I began.

'Come on, Sally' said Mum. She thrust the little black balls under my nose. 'Out with it'.

I just looked at my toes for a bit. Then I took a deep breath. It was no good stalling. 'goat poo,' I said.

'Goat poo,' shrieked Mum. She threw the droppings on the floor and scrubbed at her hands with a towel. Then she turned on me with flaming eyes. I could tell that she was just about to do something silly. Like ground me for a month. Or stop my pocket money.

'I can explain,' I said. 'You won't be mad when I tell you what happened. Just give me a chance.' I took another deep breath and launched into my explanation.

Get into reading!!!!

Check out this site of Paul Jennings

http://www.pauljennings.com.au/

Book Suggestions For the Holidays

Under The Mountain - By Maurice Gee

While vacationing with relatives in Auckland, twins Theo and Rachel discover that they are endowed with special powers to oppose mysterious giant creatures that are determined to destroy the world.
This is a great Kiwi book and recently it was made into a movie....a wee bit scary but a good read.

Matariki Lantern Walk

Keep to the left please. Happy Matariki!

Hangi For Tea

Wow! Our tea cooked in the ground, well nearly all of our tea. We were cooking for 300 people. There were a few on the top not quite cooked so we wrapped them up and took them home to finish cooking in the oven and went for the lantern walk early.

Matariki Assembly

Kia ora Emma and Danielle for organising the Matariki assembly.

Hot Work at the Hangi

Fire! Fire!

At 6am Miss Mason, Miss Nixey, Mr Power, Miss Williamson, Sam, Margie and Tala all met at school really early to light the fire. We saw Matariki....wow!!!

Nayland Hangi Preperations

Thank you Mr Taylor for all your help. The Matariki Clubs Group and Miss Whitehead got stuck in too. Tu meke! We had all the kai prep done by 3pm.

Matariki Art Compertition

The Wikaira whanau won the Matariki whanau competition this year. Kapai to all those that entered.

Matariki Celebrations

http://www.matarikievents.co.nz/

This weeks e - learning is to visit this site.
Find out more about Matariki and share this new information with others at home and at school.

Matariki Celebrations - Hangi

Make sure that you get your hangi order in to the office ASAP to ensure that you don't miss out!!!!!
Hangi meals are $5.00 or you can get a whanau pack for $18.00.

Hangi meals include:
Chicken drum
Meat chop
Potato
Pumpkin
Carrot
Cabbage
Stuffing

Many hands make like work so if you can help out on Wednesday 16th wih food prep please let Miss Mason know. We also need helpers for the hangi......look forward to seeing you there!

Steps to preapare a hangi pit

Steps to be Taken Before Lighting the Hangi - Nga mahi i mua i te tahunga o te hangi

STEP 1 Place dry paper and kindling in the bottom of the hangi pit.

STEP 2 Place three layers of manuka logs on top of the dry paper and kindling.

STEP 3 Select enough stones or iron bars to completely cover the base of the hangi pit and place carefully on top of the manuka logs.

STEP 4 Firing of the hangi pit.

STEP 5 Final stages of burning manuka logs.

STEP 6 Remove red hot embers and ash from hangi pit (this reduces the excessive smoky taste in the food).

STEP 7 Place hot embers and ash on a corrugated iron sheet and remove from the hangi pit to a safe place. Hose the embers and ash to cool.

NB Supervise the fire at all times.

Placing of Hangi Baskets in Hangi Pit -Te whakanoho o nga rourou kopaki ki roto i te pokorua mo te hangi

STEP 8 Carefully place the hangi baskets on top of the hot stones, stacking no more than two baskets high and ensuring that the baskets containing meat are on the bottom layer.

STEP 9 Place the wet cloth sheet(s) over the hangi baskets.

STEP 10 Place the clean wet sacks over the wet sheet.

NB Wet sheets and numerous sacks create the steam required to cook the food. More water can be used if necessary. However, it should be applied sparingly as too much water can cool the stones too quickly, which can result in undercooked food.

STEP 11 Place a tarpaulin cover over the entire hangi pit and place soil around the edges of the tarpaulin to seal in the steam.

NB Once the hangi pit has been sealed it must be supervised throughout the cooking time (2.5-3 hours). This safety measure is to make sure that no steam escapes from the pit (escaping steam = escaping heat).

If steam leakage occurs, seal with soil immediately.

Removing Hangi Baskets after Cooking - Te tango o nga rourou kopaki mai i te pokorua hangi

STEP 12 After 2.5-3 hours, carefully remove the soil from the edges of the tarpaulin.

Carefully roll the tarpaulin away from the hangi pit.

STEP 13 Carefully remove the sacks one by one from the hangi pit.

STEP 14 Carefully remove the large white cloth sheet.

NB When removing the tarpaulin, sacks and sheets ensure that soil does not fall into baskets.

STEP 15 Remove the hangi baskets from the hangi pit and take them to the kitchen. Kai time!

E Learning This Week

Have a look at this site. You can select a story and have it read to you.

http://www.storylineonline.net/

NZ Music Month

Well NZ Music Month has finished but that does not mean that we don't stop promoting and listening to kiwi music. What a great month we have had in R4 listening to music and researching our favourite artists.
Stan Walker was R4's best artist.

E Learning

Kia ora
This weeks e learning task is to explore WORDLE.

http://www.wordle.net

Have fun!

Advertsising - Knowledge Net Activity

http://dlo.knowledge.net.nz/dlos/L6172/index.html

This is the advertising activity that we did during the week. Have a go and tell me how you got on.

Key Competency - Managing Self

Term 2 Goal - Managing Self

This competency is associated with self-motivation, a “can-do” attitude, and with students seeing themselves as capable learners. It is integral to self-assessment.

Students who manage themselves are enterprising, resourceful, reliable, and resilient. They establish personal goals, make plans, manage projects, and set high standards. They have strategies for meeting challenges. They know when to lead, when to follow, and when and how to act independently.

Akomanga Wha - Room 4! Have you shared your goal for this term with someone at home?

Motu Wha - Variety Show 1st Dress Rehearsal

Today at school we made a video of our variety show performances. This is the first time we have had to perform in front of an audience. We are going to give each other feed back so we know what our next learning step is.

6 Thinking Hats

Use the Six Thinking Hats to improve the quality of your decision-making, look at the decision "wearing" each of the thinking hats in turn.

Each "Thinking Hat" is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:

• White Hat:
  With this thinking hat, you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.
  
  This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.

• Red Hat:
  Wearing the red hat, you look at the decision using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.

• Black Hat:
  When using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see why ideas and approaches might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan or course of action. It allows you to eliminate them, alter your approach, or prepare contingency plans to counter problems that arise.

  Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans tougher and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance, leaving them under-prepared for difficulties.

• Yellow Hat:
  The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it, and spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

• Green Hat:
  The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas.

• Blue Hat:
  The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, and so on.

So next time you make a decision.....think what hat do I have on today?