Maths Learning

Today one of the maths groups was learning how to subtract 2-digit numbers. They made their own explanation that they can re-watch as many times as they like to reinforce their learning. 

They based it on a story about Bailey and his Dad. Check it out:

Swimming Caps

We have our own special Gladstone School Swimming Caps now! Available from the school office for the nifty price of $6.50 each:

Update

It's time for an update for all of you who are wondering what we've been doing.

On the day before the hangi the whole school went on an escapade in the Pine Tree Paddock. Our mission was to collect bags of pinecones for our fires in the winter and to collect some wood for the hangi pit. We enjoyed going up into the forest:

Tuakana Teina in action

It's a group thing

We all agree the Swimming Sports on Tuesday was fun. Do any parents out there have some good photos from the day that they'd like to share with us?

Asha brought in a frog to put in the tank with our tadpole; we called it Kermit. It was as bright green as the tree outside this morning, but now it's as brown as dirt. We are wondering why?

Hangi hangi hangi!

The prep for today's hangi has seen every student at Gladstone School involved. It has been amazing for us to prep the fire, watch the fire in the pit being lit, exciting watching it burn, peeling vegetables, cutting vegetables, preparing the trays of food and wrapping them up to be stacked in the baskets.

It's 2.00pm now and we're about to go back to the pit to watch the kai baskets go into the ground.

Some of the seniors prepping the wood for the pit

Matua Johni talking about the structure of and plan for the hangi

Some of the stuffing donated from Aunty Mary from the marae

Potatoes donated from the Marae and added to all those donated from school whānau

Peeling the veges!!

Swimming

It's swimming time and that's a good thing because WOW this heat!!

Here's some pics to show some of the things we're learning in the pool:

Noodle Soup

Preparing for a length

Te Tiriti ō Waitangi

Our theme this year is CONNECTEDNESS. There are so many ways we can think about this. We've started by focussing on Te Tiriti ō Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) and Waitangi Day. 

We've begun to look at the 3 P's of Te Tiriti:
* Protection
* Participation
* Partnership

We've been doing some wondering and some research about them.

Today we read this book:

It's the story of the 5th of November - which celebrates Guy Fawkes and Parihaka. Here are some ideas of how we think the story of Parihaka fits with Te Tiriti

Partnership:
"Those people in the village (Parihaka) stayed still and the people that were attacking them (soldiers) told them they had one hour to get out but they stayed still." - Joel

Protection:
"It's a story about the chiefs going to jail because they put fences across the land to stop the government from taking it, but they didn't want to fight. The chiefs protected the other Māori's" - Charlie
"The government weren't protecting Māori so they weren't living up to Te Tiriti" - All

Participation:
The Māori were participating in peace.