Our Poupou

For one of our art projects we learnt to draw a poupou.  Poupou are traditionally a wooden carved Maori statue.  Poupou tell the stories of the meeting house, the local iwi and the iwi's ancestry.  We sketched our Poupou and then painted them using cotton buds and dye.  We learnt about symmetry and proportion.

Celebrating Matariki

We have been learning about Matariki in our class.  We learnt that it is a group of stars that marked the beginning of a new year.  You know it is the beginning of the new year when the first new moon rises after the stars appear in the sky (you can only see Matariki for a part of the year).  To celebrate Matariki we made fried bread, we learnt how to sing "Twinkle twinkle little star" in Maori and we reflected on the year past and the year to come.  Here is a slideshow of some of our learning.

Swimming like a fish!

Here you are in the pool!

 You managed yourself well by getting changed before and after swimming independently.

It was great to see you developing confidence in the water.

Stephen says:  I like using the noodles to help me float in the pool.

Self Portrait

First we had to draw what we thought we looked like. Then we talked about the shape of our face and where all the parts on our head went. We had to think carefully about all the little bits, like the shapes of our eyes and what our eyebrows looked like. We had to really concentrate and think about how to draw the lines for our faces.