Camp Day and Rotorua

Kia ora everyone! The past two weeks have been eventful!

At school we had a camp day last week, which involved all year four students, their teachers and some of their parents. The students started off their day learning to put up a tent, followed by five activities: cooking damper (bread/pancake/bisquit made with flour and water) on hobo stoves, learning about navigation using robots, swim safety in the pool, building bivouac shelter using sticks, tarps and nearby play structures and trees, and of course playing with the big parachute. The students had a blast! I mainly helped out with the hobo stoves, keeping them lit, helping the students mix their dough and cook their damper. It was a great day, spent in the sun and I have a big tan line/burn line to show for it!

Learning to put up a tent

Hobo stoves, making damper

Robot navigation

Bivouac building

Surviving in water with just a plastic bag

Parachute!

Last weekend I went out with a friend who is a first year teacher at Frimley, named Sophie. We had a good time down at the loading ramp drinking some beer from the Monteith Brewing Company. It has been very nice having Sophie show me around town a little bit and I even got to see one of her netball tournaments this past week, which was pretty neat!

Sophie and I, Happy St. Patty's Day!

 I have now had two observations from my supervisor and I am happy to say they have both gone very well! I have received valuable feedback from her and my cooperating teacher, so I'm very thankful for that! This past week I have been doing my full control teacher, teaching my class full time! Monday was a bit challenging with all of us adjusting to the new arrangement but since then things have gone much smoother. My students are all so lovely and I will truly miss them, when I leave Frimley in four weeks... It's going by so fast!

I spent this past weekend in Rotorua with Kate and her parents who are here visiting for a couple of weeks! Rotorua is known for it's hot springs, mud baths, hot pools, hot water beaches, Maori culture performances, and for smelling like sulfur. Although the smell wasn't great, we still had a wonderful time. We drove to Lake Tarawera (known as the most beautiful lake in New Zealand) and took a boat across to a hot spring pool and a hot water beach. I never would have guessed the water would be so hot!! If your feet went to deep into the sand or you didn't mix the hot water on top of the lake with the cold water below, you were sure to get burned. However, once we got the hang of it, sitting int he water was amazingly peaceful and such a unique opportunity.

They weren't kidding!

Hot hot sand

Black swans

Hot pools!

That evening we went to a Mitai Maori Village and learned about how the Maori lived many years ago. It was really neat to see how the younger generation appreciate their native culture and still practice some of what their ancestors did years ago. We saw the Maori Warriors paddle in unison into the village on a waka (a Maori canoe) looking fierce with intimidating faces and tongues stuck out. We later learned during the Maori performance that the warriors bulge out their eyes and stick out their tongues to look intimidating and to let us know (or challenger) we are going to be a tasty meal... luckily Maori people no longer take part in cannibalism :) The performance was outstanding. The Maori tribe performed about 5 different dances and chants and the history and story (legend) of each was told throughout. Before any of this fun could be had, however, our chief (Guy from Whales, picked at random) had to take the piece offering from the Maori chief and give a little speech. He did amazing, considering he was picked randomly. We saw how the Maori chief would approach the unknown person, offer something and then react depending on if the chief from the other tribe accepted the offering or not. My favorite dance was the Haka, which my students do at school in the Kapahaka club.

Hungi

Boiling mud

Maori Performance 

Waka

After the performance we ate the Hungi that was prepared in the ground. There was lamb, chicken, potatoes, kumara (sweet potato), stuffing, a variety of salad, bread and dessert. The food was pretty good and it was really neat to see where it had been cooked, buried in a pit with hot stones. After dinner we went for a walk and saw glow worms! Rotorua is a great place with lots to do! I will maybe have to head back before I come home (in only five weeks)!

Yum!

A few last things! This week a Monarch butterfly hatched in our classroom! We all "quietly" huddled around to watch it crawl from it's cocoon, it was really cool to see!

A butterfly hatched in room 15!

Also, I went to dinner at my supervisor's house and her and her husband took Kate and I up to a lookout nearby. This is where I learned that New Zealand has a huge logging industry! (Mandy I hope you're reading and checking out how all those logs are just hanging out... :)

Logging, a huge industry here in NZ

Happy Birthday last week to my mom and sister!!  I hope David is having fun in Germany and my dad and stepmom are having fun in Hawaii! Missing you all!

Camp Kaitawa

Over the past week I have been with 32 nine and ten year old girls, their teacher (Mrs. King), the principal of Frimley (Malcolm Dixon) and some of their parents at Camp Kaitawa! Camp Kaitawa is about three hours north of Hawkes Bay and is surrounded by various lakes and beautiful forestry.

On the way to camp on Monday we stopped at a little lake called Tutira for a break and a snack and then stopped again in Wairoa for lunch next to a beautiful lighthouse. As we continued driving I thought it was quite humorous as we came across a large group of cattle in the middle of the road. People take their cattle onto the road every once in a while to eat the grass growing along the side of the road to prevent it from growing too tall. What a great resource for both parties here!



When we got to camp it was a mad dash for each girl to find the bunk that suited them best. I remember those days, always trying to be away from the window but next to my best friend at the same time. There are two bunk rooms at Kaitawa and we had 16 girls sleeping in each. I decided on a little "hut", pretty much just a little room, where I would stay with one of the moms. Little did I know I picked the squeakiest bunk of all. Regardless, it was a nice room and I was grateful to sleep in there and not in a bunk room most nights.

Cute little huts

My room was Kereru

The student bunk rooms

After everyone was settled we went for a walk with Mr. Dixon, who showed us around the area at the different lakes that feed into one another providing electricity to a good sized town nearby. We walked up the pipeline (very steep hill made for many moans and groans from the girls) that has water from the lake above it flowing very fast through that leads to large turbines at the bottom that spin very vast to make electricity. At the top of the pipeline we got to the lake that feeds the water down the pipeline, which was very beautiful so the kids decided to go for a swim, although the water was pretty cold. 

The Pipline

Hiking

After dinner the kids played a game that involved Malcolm hiding in small patch of bushes and the kids trying to find him. It was dark by now and some of the students were really scared going into the bush. This was the start of the crying for the week... However, I'm sure at their age I would have been scared too, so I don't blame them!

Tuesday:

By Tuesday morning my phone was dead and my charger was nowhere to be found. I was bummed because I was relying on my phone to take pictures but thankfully Mrs. King lent me the classroom camera! We started off the day with a huge breakfast, that I found would be the same each day of camp. We had a choice of cereal, toast, fruit, canned spaghetti (I guess it is a camp thing) and some morning pip and squeak, which is a casserole made from leftover food from the day before. It sounds unappealing but it was actually pretty good.

It rained almost all day but that didn't stop us from doing many activities. In the morning the kids played sumo wrestling. Mr. Dixon had two girls at a time stuff pillows in their shirts and try to push one another off the mats using their stomachs. I gave it a go, but unfortunately didn't win. Next, we had a bunch of different paper airplane competitions, I didn't win at that either!

After lunch and after it had stopped raining as hard we decided to the weather was OK to go CAVING! We went in about ten different caves. Each cave lasting no longer than five minutes. I thought it was fascinating and really enjoyed them. However, not all of the girls thought it was so great... some of them were terrified! Luckily, toward the end they started feeling more comfortable caving and most of them came around to really enjoy the adventure.

That night we all had to fill out the New Zealand census. It took a while to do so with all the girls but I thought it was pretty neat I got to be in their census!

Wednesday:

At about 10:00am we all set out to walk to Lake Waikareiti. It was a pretty long walk, about 4 hours total but definitely worth it. The lake was beautiful and ranked one of the nicest lakes in New Zealand, with very low levels of pollution. On the hike up Malcolm had all sorts of tricks up his sleeves. We left camp that day thinking we would try a sugar leaf and a pepper leaf. Little did we know we would get tricked not only once, but twice into eating a pepper leaf that we thought were sugar leaves. In order to taste the strong pepper in the leaf you must chew the leaf for a little while and then all of the sudden you get slapped with pepper. The girls proceeded to call Mr. Dixon "liar, liar, tongue on fire". One of the funniest parts of camp was on Thursday when the girls asked the adults if they could make our sandwiches and stuck pepper leaves in them! I ate three pepper leafs in my sandwich without even knowing because I was that hungry!

When we got back to camp we went kayaking and practiced the races that would be on Thursday. I happy to let everyone know I won both races :) Oops... I probably shouldn't have done that but my competitive side came out full force and a had a bit of an advantage over the 9 and 10 year old girls.

After dinner we went on a night hike on Lou Dolman's trail. It was very different from the night walk at Camp Orkila back in the states because on that hike we weren't allowed to talk and there were only probably ten people at a time. On Lou Dolmans Trail the girls did really well and enjoyed calling out what was coming ahead to those behind them. "Tree, steps, roots, big hole!" When we got to one part of the trail we went under a cave like rock and the girls had to turn off their flashlights and count as many glowworms as they could. It was really cool to see glowworms and most of the girls did this without freaking out. That is until Mr. Dixon had the girls turn around and shine their torches (flashlights) on the wall behind them. The quiet and dark called for wetas, which are spider/cockroach like bugs the size of your palm maybe, on the rock behind them! That scared the living daylights out of some of the girls but they all kept their cool and were happy to move on. At the top of Lou Dolman's trail there is a lookout, where we could see across the whole lake and Malcolm pointed out different things around the lake. I loved this hike!

Thursday:

This was the day we went tramping (hiking) the longest. We went up to Panekiri Bluff that was absolutely beautiful. It was a pretty steep climb but the girls did fantastic. I think they were pretty use to hiking by now, so there were less groans and everyone did really well. The only bummer was when we  got to the top of the bluff and we were in the clouds... we didn't have a view at all! However, being in the clouds was a pretty neat feeling and I really enjoyed the hike up. The different colored mushrooms, trees and moss covered everything were beautiful!

The kayaking races were next and without much practice the students did really well! It was great to see the teamwork and good sportsmanship involved. I raced in the adults race were we all picked one student to race with. We came in third (another kayak team hit our kayak!) but we had so much fun and I was really proud of my little partner!

One of my favorite memories from camp was at dinner this night. I was sitting with some girls who were watching me eat. They couldn't believe how I was holding my fork and knife! I knew that I ate different from most people here but was shocked to see that even these girls knew how to properly eat with a fork and knife. Thankfully they taught me how to do it and in the process we laughed so hard, it was so great! Even though the whole things ended with one of the girls having to do dishes for laughing so loud we continued to laugh about it the rest of our time at camp. I won't be surprised to see them on Monday mocking, with great exaggerated moves, the way I used to cut my ham... :)

That night we played a game called In The Bag. The students answered questions abotu came, picked a bag and then Malcolm would offer them "money", which were lollies (candy). The girls could take the money or mystery prize in the bag. All but two picked the bag and thankfully did because some of the prized were horrendous. Girls could win a various selection of easter candy or dud prizes like a dead spider, a toilet paper roll, a candy wrapper, a weta, a pepper leaf or even a pair of lost underwear! The girls and adults all had a great laugh. It was a neat way to end camp.

Friday:

After packing up and cleaning we were on our way home. Helen (their teacher) and I were really looking forward to a quiet ride home, assuming the girls would be exhausted. However, our car full of girls were so tired they were quiet delirious and giggled the whole way home.

I am so glad everyone had a fun and safe camp experience. I am very grateful I got to go with this group of girls, the principal, their teacher and some of the parents. Seeing more of New Zealand was excellent and I absolutely love it here. One of my favorite parts was coming back to school and having people say "welcome home" to me. It brought the biggest smile to my face! I am happy to back to Cheryl's and am enjoying a nice quiet weekend.


Pics will follow soon from other camera!

Te Mata Peak, Relay for Life and Life at School!

I forgot to mention in my last post that I got to go on the Flying fox at Beach Day! Here is a video :)

Over the weekend Kate and I climbed Te Mata Peak which is about 8 Kilometers I would say because we went on all of the beautiful trails! It was so much fun but I was pretty tired when we got to the top. After having a quick little lunch at the top and taking pictures we ventured back down and thought it would be a good idea to walk to, what we thought was, a nearby winery. I have never been so excited to see a tasting room open sign! After an additional 40 minutes and 4 hours in total of walking, it was well deserved! (More pictures on Facebook)

We made it!

We tasted at  the Tasting Table, which had wine from 4 to 5 wineries. It was pretty good but the best wine was at Te Mata Estate Winery that we walked to next. It was some of the best wine I have ever had and I definitely plan to bring some home! I especially liked the Sauvignon Blanc and the Chardonnay, yum!

We made it!

After drinking very nice wine Kate and I went back to Cheryl's with a couple bottles of cheap wine and flopped on the couch and didn't walk again until the next day. My feet, hips, knees and my body in general hurt so bad after hiking around Havelock for 6 1/2 hours.

This week at school has been good. I started teaching a reading group and they are responding very well. They are such great readers and are working really hard to make connections from the story to their lives. I have been getting really helpful and good advise from Luke, my cooperating teacher. I have learned heaps of great strategies and ideas from Luke!

This week we also had a Maori lesson by Whaea (mother) Kerri the Te Reo (Maori language) teacher! She is so great with the students and you can tell she really loves what she does. She did a follow up activity with how the world came to be according to the Maori people. The students got to pick their favorite of the six God brothers and draw their version of the God. It was neat how my cooperating teacher (Luke) took the lesson a few steps further, having the student work for extra time to really develop their picture, with characteristics of each God, etc. It turned out looking similar to a baseball cards (Weetbix card here) in the end. It was really neat.

Maori lesson 

I also got to see the Kapahaka try outs at school. Kapahaka is Maori club, of students who are and are not Maori, who learn about the Maori culture and do songs and chants, etc. (I'm sure I will learn more about what exactly they do as the year goes on). Below are two videos of the students at try outs, performing two Maori songs. The think the boys are more concerned about being fierce then they are saying the words, they're so great!

Each day the students have the option to share "news" with the class. We have had students share about what they are doing over the weekend, students brings in articles from the newspaper, One student brought in a caterpillar cocoon that is now living in our class and will eventually turn into a monarch butterfly, and one student brought in a model volcano and showed the class how it worked. It is a neat opportunity for students to practice talking in front of their peers and neat to hear all of their exciting news!

Volcano! 

On Thursday at school some of the teachers (including Luke and I) had a release day to do planning. The men teachers thought instead of having biscuits (cookies) and cheese and crackers for morning tea they would put together Munch, man brunch, for the staff. So, out came the barbies and they cooked up some steak, bacon, hash browns, and we all got to make our very own manwich... :) It was a lot of fun and the staff really appreciated it! Hopefully this becomes a habit for them!

Steak and bacon

Luke and Paul manning the barbie

One of my students brought me my first ever passionfruit. It was so yummy, a little sour but sweet at the same time :)

My frist passionfruit 

On Saturday Cheryl and I went to a festival/fair type event called Cultures Day. It was really neat to see all of the different cultures that are here in Hawkes Bay. We watched different cultural groups sing, dance and perform. We also managed to stop by am awesome second hand shop where I found two great tops for just about 20 dollars total!

Later that day and into the night I participated in Relay For Life with other teachers from Frimley. It was a lot of fun but I am definitely tired today. It was really neat to see that people are fighting cancer all over the world! There was a mystery bag competition, in which each team received a bag of random materials and had to make an outfit or accessory for a person on their team. I was designated as the "model" for the outfit, picture will follow soon. The teachers made me a fabulous hat, purse, bracelet, skirt, and even spiced up my shoes! They were so creative but unfortunately we didn't win... 

The event was next to a river and we were very lucky to have a group of Maori people bring their Waka (Maori canoe) down for the event. I got to paddle a little ways down the river while chanting Maori chants and learning the different moves you do with the oar! It was a really neat experience but a lot harder than it looks. 

Holding up our oars when chanting

The Waka!

I am off to Camp Kaitawa with a group of year 5 girls, their teacher Helen and Malcolm, the Frimley principal, on Monday! I am really looking forward to seeing more of New Zealand and being at camp for a week. If you don't hear from me, it's because I'm at camp! I am really lucky to be working with a principal who really values student teachers to see as much of the country as they can while they are here. I am very thankful and can't wait for this great experience! Look back in a week to see how it went.