Celebration

Happy Matariki Ilam School!

What a beautiful community evening tonight.
Our lanterns lighting the way. Beautiful Room 3 children!

Our Cultural Mihi

We belong!

We all live in New Zealand. But, there is much more to us. We are also part of other cultures. 

Kua Whai 

Turangawaewae au

Our Olive Tree!

Last week we had Sarah, mother of Ron in our class, in to talk to us about a Jewish holiday. She also planted a beautiful Olive tree with us here at school to celebrate this festivity. Read the spiel below that Sarah has written, explaining this celebration.
Thank you Sarah!!

Tu Bishvat is a Jewish Holiday that occurs on the 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat (this year that was on the 11th Feb). It used to be minor date on the Hebrew calendar, relating to trees, that was commemorated in Europe by eating dried fruit that had come from Israel (considering it's the height of winter there at the time), but in the past century and a half - was picked up and turned into a national Tree Day in Israel, to encourage the planting of trees, and among other things, to help regenerate the native forestry. The original holiday emphasised fruit trees, but nowadays all sorts of trees are planted. In Israel, classes are often taken on an outing on this day for tree planting (where each person plants a tree, not one for the whole class :)), and the importance of trees and the connection they bring to the land and place are talked about.

The Almond is the staple tree of the holiday. Israel being too warm in most parts for growing cherry trees - this other member of the Prunus genus, which is native to Israel, comes into full bloom just around the time of this holiday, to hail Spring which is just around the corner, and that sight is welcomed by all. This is why I have chosen an Almond tree for planting with Room 12, and I was going to get two of them, but as I explained to the class - when buying a fruit tree to plant by your house, it is important to find out whether the variety you have picked is self-fruiting (or self-pollinating) or not. The all-in-one Almond variety is indeed self-fruiting, and this being a bit out of season planting here in NZ - I could only find one last almond plant in the nurseries now. So I picked another very typical fruit tree to Israel, to plant with Room 3: the Olive tree. It is very characteristic of the Israeli landscape, being able to grow in dry and sometimes poor soil and produce olives for eating and oil-making. Here, too, I have chosen a self-fruiting variety (I think it was a Greek one - close enough to Israel climate-wise and landscape-wise). They are notoriously slow-growing trees, but I hope that eventually Ilam school kids will be able to learn about picking olives and their preparation (pickling or oil making).

As planting a tree is a special bond with a place for years to come - I have encouraged the children to stand besides the newly planted trees and see how tall they were now compared to the trees (they were all taller than the olive), and then revisit the place in years and decades to come and try that again. Thank you Room 3 for planting with me. I really like planting trees!

Sarah

What's my story?

The patterns of my country.

My personality and my passions.

Words important and meaningful in my culture.

That which I value.

Meaningful words...

Room 3 have been answering one of their big questions this term; "What's my story?"

We have looked at the patterns, colours and shapes of our cultures, what we value, thought about who we are and what kind of personality we have, looked at our motivations and passions and thought of words that are important to us and our culture.

Courageous

Share

Tomodachi - friend

dad

Honest

Peace 

Help

Hope

Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

Matua Adrian and Whaea Linda visited Room 3 during 

Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori – Māori Language Week.

We learnt many things about traditional Māori culture, sung songs, learnt games, did a karakia, harvested flax (learning about how to cut it and why), looked at traditional Māori instruments made of wood, shell and bone AND wove putiputi from flax. We also learnt how to make a knot, commonly used by traditional Māori to fish with.

We asked a whole heap of questions too!

kete

Matua Adrian on the guitar teaching us a song

conch shell with wooden pipe attached

bone pipe - traditional

carved wooden pipe - traditional

putiputi (flower)

Matua Adrian and Whaea Linda teaching us to weave harakeke

harakeke knot

Created with Padlet