Tag: Writing

Yesterday we were lucky enough to come back to Term 4 and have a new experience. Bigfoot Adventures is funded by Auckland Transport and they go around to schools, teaching children about safety on bicycles. Kyla and Kate were our instructors and they introduced the importance of wearing the correct gear for cycling. Cyclists must wear fluorescent bright colours so drivers can see them easily and they must not wear sandals or crocs but only shoes that protect their feet.

At the beginning we all went and lined up shortest to tallest along the fence. We were given bikes that fitted our size and then we learned about fitting our helmets correctly. The children who were confident cyclists went with Kyla to the top court and those who were less confident went with Kate under the canopy.

After that we learned lots of new things like how to stop at a line, use hand signals, weave between cones, remain balanced on our bikes and only use the gears when we are pedalling.

Finally, the most exciting activity we did was having free time to practise the skills that we had already learned. We all enjoyed riding fast and taking our hands off the handlebars.

In conclusion, we are so grateful for the opportunity to learn how to cycle on our very own fleet of bikes. Hopefully, we will get more time to cycle this term.

This year, Matariki was on Friday, the 14th July. We were still on school holidays and the whole country enjoyed a public holiday. Last week when we came back to school we did a few fun Matariki activities.

We learned that the Matariki stars are a cluster of stars called the Pleiades and they rise in the early morning when it is still dark. They can be seen as the ‘eyes of god.’

We were looking at the Gregorian calendar which was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582. This calendar is used by most countries in the world and the New Year begins in January. Matariki is the Maori New Year which is in July. Maori spent time together making memories and thinking about those who passed away. They also think about their goals for the future.

During the week we also learned how to play knuckle bones (ruru), which is a game Maori children played many years ago. We found five small stones each from around the school and learned how to throw them up and catch them on the backs of our hands. Then we had to gather the stones one by one each time we threw them up. We soon worked out it is easier not to throw them up too high!! Later in the week we started developing our own games of knuckle bones. Some of our parents said they played knuckle bones when they were younger. They are called different names around the world – Moa in Tonga, Aki in Samoa and Jackstones in the Philippines.

We made Matariki stars using cardboard circles and coloured wool. At the top of this post, is our new class display.