My class for 2025

This year I am teaching a Year 5 class. I moved to a different classroom – Room 7. I have to walk up and down the stairs daily so I am getting fitter this year. I have 21 students – 9 girls and 12 boys. My students have a positive attitude to schoolwork and it is a pleasure teaching them. They are keen on other areas of the curriculum, like music dance, drama and sports. Most of my students have shown interest in our school production – Aladdin –  that will be held end of Term 3. On Friday this week we are having a celebration of all the different cultures at our school. Students will dress up in their cultural costumes and bring a plate of their cultural food to share with the class.

Tongan Language Week

In Week 8- Term 3 we celebrated Tongan Language Week at Otahuhu Primary School. On Monday 4 September we had an Opening Ceremony in our school hall. The Tongan students had to wake upreally early that morning to dress up in their costumes. All the students from the Tongan bilingual unit were dressed up so beautifully in their traditional Tongan costumes. They looked fabulous! TV one camera crew came to our school to record the ceremony and interview the Tongan teachers and students. The children sang songs and a group of girls did a traditional Tongan dance. Mempa- one of the DMIC mentors spoke about the books she was writing in Tongan. A few of the students spoke in Tongan and they were very fluent in their language. Our Senior management team and members of the BOT were also dressed in Tongan costumes. It was a very exciting day for all of us and the Tongan Bilingual unit made us proud to be part of Otahuhu Primary School.

76th Indian Independence day Celebration at Otahuhu Primary School

Last Tuesday- 15 August 2023 we celebrated the 76th Anniversary of Indian Independence day. It was very exciting! The School Hall was decorated with white, orange and green balloons. Indian children wore colourful costumes and all the Indian teachers were dressed in beautiful Indian costumes too. Children and teachers were holding up flags of India. Even our principal and Associate principals were wearing Indian costumes. We sang the Indian anthem and our principal welcomed everyone and was happy that we were celebrating this special day. Matua Bobby was the teacher who organised the function and co-ordinated the activities. Mrs Kennedy did a powerpoint presentation about the history and how India got their independence from the British. We learnt a lot from the presentation. It was very sad how Pakistan was partitioned from India after they got their independence. The presentation was followed by a dance with a group of girls who were trained by Mrs Chandra. Mahisha from our class took part in the dance too. She learnt the dance in just two days! We took photos in the hall and after that there was a lovely morning tea in the staffroom with delicious Indian snacks. That was a day I will never forget!

Let’s Siva Dance programme

Last Thursday Otahuhu Primary School took part in a dance programme called Let’s Siva. The dance instructors were Alistair, Mikey T, and Mister Law. The Juniors had to wear green, Middle School had to wear yellow and the Seniors wore orange clothes. Our class wore yellow since we are in Year 4. We did a dance to the music from the song “You welcome” from the movie Moana. The hall was full of people- The children, teachers and parents were there too to see their children perform. The juniors did a dance to the music- ‘Can’t stop the feeling” by Justin Timberlake. The seniors did a Hip Hop dance that had some cool and difficult moves, but they performed so well! The instructors were amazing! At the end they performed a very special dance for the audience. Everyone was blown away by their performance. It was a great day and the weather turned out good too, so we were very blessed. I hope The Let’s Siva instructors will come back again next year to teach us more dance skills.

 

Our trip to the Buddhist Temple

On the 5 May 2023 our class went with all the other senior classes to the Buddhist Temple in Chapel Road- Flatbush. When we got there we were so excited! It was as if we were in some Asian country. The temple was so beautiful. The people working at the temple welcomed us told us that we were going to learn abut the 3G and 4G values. We were put into groups and our group went into the main room and watched a video about the Buddha’s life. We had to write our wishes on pieces of paper and pin them onto the wall.

After that we went into the Calligraphy room and practised writing the letters of the Chinese alphabet. This was really fun and different from how we write in class. The tutor said that we were the best behaved group. Then we went to the entrance hall and took part in the incense ceremony. Next was the 3G and 4G program by the NZ police. A few students took part in a little skit. Then we all went outside and we were given some fried rice and water. It was an amazing experience going to the temple. We all got a pen as a gift to remember our trip to the  Buddhist  temple.

What did I remember?

Kia Orana tatou katoatoa!  Welcome back to Term 2. As a little warm up we were challenged to find our drawings from last term and complete our creation of our dream homes!   Here are some examples from Ameera and Amaris.   We’re almost finised!

What we were really proud of was how we all found our files in the correct folders ready to work on.   Sometimes our lessons are on these skills to make sure we can navigate independently at times if and when our teacher is working with small groups.   Leave us a helpful and positive comment please.

Google draw – what can I create?

We had a little break this week from making our personal profiles for our class blogs. We got to learn about a cool new tool called Google Draw! We started by drawing houses and using different tools to make them look special. Our teacher helped us use colours and shapes to create our own unique houses.

Next week, we’ll keep learning with Google Draw and draw cool patterns that are important to different cultures. This is because we are going to have our very own cultural celebrations next week!

Please leave us a comment.

I take care of my things – Kawa of Care

Namaste – Bula Vinaka and welcome to the start of Room 15’s year with the Manaiakalani Programme.  Today our class had the chance to talk about how we best care for a whole lot of different things.

For example Mrs Tele’a showed us a tub of ice cream, the best way to look after this in our class was to eat it before it melts.  Why you ask?  Well we don’t have a fridge in our class and so eating it would be the best way to make use of it.    Mrs Tele’a shared with us more items from her home.  We talked about how some of the items were not expense in cost BUT valuable.   Valuable because some were gifts from special people, some were owned by loved ones who have moved on, some were to be worn for special occasions.   We talked about how we would store such items, on the floor?  In a cupboard?   On a shelf?

We used these good ideas to talk about the ‘Kawa of Care’ for our chromebooks.   How chromebooks yes do cost a lot but also are very important and not easy to replace.  They are important for our learning and so we must always look after them while we use them, charge them and store them.

A great start to the term Room 15.  Vinaka vaka levu!

Day one- DFI course 6-05-2002

  • What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

  • I learnt about folders and how to load Google docs into new folders that I created.
  • What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
  • I learnt more about Gmail and how to read and understand the toolbars and tabs.
  • What did I learn that could be used with my learners?
  • I know more about how to move their writing docs into the correct folders. and how to insert images from the web on to a  Google doc. It will be interesting to see their reaction when I show them how to use the voice typing tool, especially for the ones who do not like to type.
  • What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
  • The use of Gmail, folders to organise my planning, inserting images from the web  and creating a blog to share my ideas with colleagues.