Matariki day

Matariki day 

Matariki is a maori celebration in the middle of the year for the maori new year. The sign for Matariki is seven stars also known as the seven sisters and the pleiades.

The group of stars have names. Some people say that the Matariki star is the mother, because it is clearly the most important star because why else would the celebration was name it after that one star? There is also Uru-a-rangi (She is the youngest, because you know how 2 and 3 year olds and always want to be 1st? Well, they say that because that she the first star that you can see), Waipuna-a-rangi, Tupu-a-rangi, Tupu-a-nuku, Waiti and Waita. Something about those two last ones I mentioned, they are actually twins! When the Matariki celebration takes place, the maori farmers plan for the next year to come, and plant new crops. There are a lot of stories of how the matariki stars came into the sky. These are a couple I know. 

The story of Matariki #1

Long, Long ago, There was two gods, Papatuanuku (The earth god) and Ranginui (the sky god), who were separated because of their offsprings. This made the sea god, Tangaroa angry so he tore out his eyes, hurling them into the heavens. Every year, the Matariki stars come up being a present for Tangaroa. 

The story of matariki #2

Long, Long ago, just after the separation of Papatuanuku and Ranginui, there was the sea god, Tangaroa. He was the god of many sea creatures, but the most precious fish were the most beautiful, intelligent fish in the whole sea. There was a bad god Tawhirimatea that was brothers with Tangaroa. One day, Tawhirimatea came to Tangaroa when the fish were playing. Tangaroa was angry that Tawhirimatea made their parents separate, so Tawhirimatea tried to fight Tangaroa. Luckily, the god of wind came and distracted Tawhirimatea while Tangaroa placed the fish, Matariki, Uru-A-Rangi, Waipuna-A -Rangi, Waiti, Waita, Tupu-A-Rangi and Tupu-A-Nuku in the sky so they would be safe when Tawhirimatea and Tangaroa fight.

In Totora Whanau we had a matariki celebration and we had loads of activities. I did carving and Kotahu. I did carving first. We were carving the word TOTORA in a log. WE chiseled the places that we did not need so that the TOTORA stood out. We really stretched our perseverance muscle because it was really hard around the knot areas, we also stretched our absorption muscle so we didn't give up easily. I had to keep on changing my chisel because Lots of people needed straight edged chisels. Lucky I didn't!

Dan and Cam with the mallets

 Why am I always looking away?

It was a big log

 If you don't know what Kotahu is, it is when you Paint one of the stars on the stone and some things that the stars represent around it. I chose Waia and Waiti, the twins, and the represent bugs and insects, so I painted a Tapeworm, The longest earthworm the world has seen, a redback spider, lots and lots of Ants, and the infamous Liam the Lizard. The only other people doing Waiti and Waita were Dan And Cam, so it worked out pretty well. (Even though my brush was WAY to fat for the job). Here are some pics.

Me and Cam

Me! (Looking away again) Focused on my painting

Okay! Bye!

Country life is better than City life - Term Three Week 4

WALT persuade other students to agree with our opinion.  This the purpose for my writing.

Success Criteria:

1. I plan for a writing task
2. I write a variety of sentence lengths with different sentence starters
3. Give reasons with detail - use specific words
4. I write most topic and high frequency words correctly.
5. I use capital letters, fullstops, question marks and exclamation marks correctly.
6. Use persuasive language

Country life is better than city life.

I strongly believe that country life is better than city life because of the following…

You can have more fun

You can have more fun because you have lots of places to go that you don’t know about. If you turn left and go on for 20 yards you’ll get to big save or mighta ten mega store cause in the city you know where everything is. 
In the country you might bump into four new lambs born the day before.You can go somewhere new every day. You usually are by the beach and the beach is lots of fun!

You can have more pets.

You can usually have more pets because there is less pollution to kill them from the factories that the city's have more of. The pollution  is even bad for us. Furthermore, it is a better environment for the animals because there are a lot of places to grow plants and grass. You could even have a farm, its such good environment!

Moooooore… sunshine!!!

Evidence shows that if you concentrated you would notice lots of tall buildings that are blocking the sunshine. For example, the country has less skyscrapers so nothing can block the sun. There are less pollution/grey sky from the cars and factories that cities have more of to block it as well.

Therefore, I believe country life is better than city life. BA BAAAAA!!!

About me - Term 3 Week 2

Hi my name is Liam, I am new at Parkvale School.  I have come from China, I have been in China for five years.  My mum's friend got a really good job teaching as a boss of a school and there was a space for my mum to go.  She was a teacher for a year 2 class, then after the 2nd year she moved down to nursery.  The children in nursery are the four year olds.  She taught there for one year and then went back to year 2 for another 2 years.  
The differences between my school in China and Parkvale is that it has a different name of course - DCSZ (Dulwich College - Suzhou, China).  In my old school we have 3 big buildings, one for senior school, one for junior school and a building for the youngest is called Ducks.  In my old school the football field is made of astro turf and not grass.  There are two playgrounds and they don't have the same equipment as here.  In China the playground has a big slide, some climbing nets and some monkey bars.  The playgrounds are a similar size.  
In China I didn't take a school lunch everyday, we used to have Chinese type meals like noodles with little bits of vegetables and meat.  I liked my home lunches better because I didn't like the school lunches as much.  
The best thing I like about Parkvale is that there isn't a big hallway to walk through to get to the outside.  I like the school lunches that my mum gives me and I love the chromebook and the fact that I have a blog!