Hupara Design with Harko Brown

During term 1, Rooms 19 and 8 had the opportunity to work with Harko Brown, a traditional Maori games expert from Northland.

Harko is helping design playgrounds for the redevelopment of Te Auaunga Awa (Oakley Creek), which will be a great resource for our community when it is completed later this year.

But he isn't just making any type of playground - they will all be made from huge, old, native tree stumps and logs, also known as "hupara". Our children have helped to design some of the patterns to make the hupara garden look really good!

Later this year, we will also be designing our own hupara garden for Owairaka School.

Thanks Harko, it was great to have you as our expert teacher!

Puriri Pupuhi Nui (The Big Splash!)

What a great day for a Big Splash! On the first day after Easter, the Puriri team got together for our annual swimming sports. Children chose their ability group, and raced in a lot of different events against their friends.

Some of the events were freestyle and backstroke, but others included pulling a buddy with a noodle and diving to the bottom of the pool to collect rings!

Thanks all the children for showing great competitive spirit and sportsmanship, and thank you parents who came along to support.

Caught Being Good: Parker

As part of our work on the Te Auaunga Awa (Oakley Creek) stream clean-up project, Room 19 and Room 8 are helping to design hupara garden (traditional Maori exercise area using logs).

We have done some exciting work and learning with Harko Brown, a hupara games expert from Northland.

Parker showed some really creative and thoughtful ideas for his hupara design, by using pictures to show what earth would look like if we care for it in the future, and what it would look like if we don't!

Ka Pai Parker, great work.

Our Duffy Books and Special Visitor!

Owairaka School was very lucky to have Daniel Faitaua come to speak to us about the importance of reading, and how reading has helped him to be a great newsreader today.

Thanks Daniel for coming to speak to us, and thank you so much for the two Duffy books we each received, we loved reading them over the Easter break!

Puriri Outdoor Education 2018

Here are just a few of the photos of Room 19 in action, at our recent Outdoor Education days. We had so much excitement and challenge, outside of the classroom. The best part was the overnight stay, we got to sleep in our classroom!

Thanks to all the awesome parents who helped get children ready to stay the night, and especially the parents who stayed with us.

In case you missed it... Our "Richie's Milk Run" entry