Mr M's Blog: Week 9!

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. Here's a long awaited (and incomplete) blog post about what we've been up to recently.

On Friday 1 October the whole school is doing a trip to Wainui. We'll be needing some parent helpers. If you're able to come along to help out for the day please be in touch. At this point Room 2 still needs some more parents.
This week, we're going to start a character portrait about someone who is special to us. It could be a parent, grandparent, sports coach, music tutor or someone of significance. Friends or siblings aren't encouraged as topics for this one as I find that the quality of ideas can be too dependent on their latest interaction. Please have a chat to your child and decide on a person of significance to them whom they would like to write about. Students sometimes like to bring in photos of their special person (which I can photocopy) to put on their desk as they write. If you'd like to sit down with your child to jot down details and ideas about their chosen character that would be a great resource for generating writing ideas at school.
Homework books to school on Monday please!
Book bags have become very thin on the ground of late, please help your child remember to pop their book bag in their bag daily.

Last week was Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. On Tuesday the school came together to celebrate the Māori Language Moment - an initiative to try to break the work record for the most people celebrating an indigenous language at one time. At Motupipi, we got together to sing one of our favourite waiata, Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi, which the students sang with enthusiasm and pride. In classes, students continued their te reo learning, karakia and waiata. On Friday we did a te reo scavenger hunt where the students worked with their tuakana teina buddies to hunt down and match up te reo numbers and colours which were hidden around the school. As always, the older buddies did a wonderful job of making the activitiy fun for the younger ones. Ka mau te wehi!

Rock On,

Mr M