#Tumeke Festival - Rongokako #NZreadaloud

Tuesday 22nd of September, Rongokako travelled by bus to the beautiful countryside school of Tutira School. We had an amazing drive to the school which included singing, laughing and a lot of talking! Once we arrived at Tutira we hopped off the bus and were greeted by three students dressed as characters from our shared text. We also dressed up as characters which was cool (Rishi’s mum, Goat man, Mr Vibrant, Eagle Glasses, Dirtman, Galaxy man, Dreadflock, deadlyicedagger and Monty etc) We met on the courts and got into 10 groups with up to 7 learners in each. After we got into our groups, numbers 6-10 made their way onto the field for some outdoor activities.

There were three activities being held, Gumboot throwing, which is an activity when you have to throw a gumboot along a tape measure and see how far you can throw it to win a prize. Sand shoveling, an activity in which you shovel a pile of sand into a wheelbarrow while being timed and last of all, the star of the show... Goat and lamb kissing the cutest activity where we had the opportunity to hold the cutest, fluffiest goats and lambs ever!

Other than outdoor activities, Tutira had a couple of indoor activities based on #Tumeke! These included… Rapping and making complex hand shakes which is what a couple of the characters from the text did. In our individual groups, we had to make one handshake and one rap, while working collaboratively with the same group we were set with! Some of us made it into the finals.

Michael Petherick, the author of #Tumeke! attended our festival and was there for the whole day. He was so cool and quirky with his fun sense of humour. He supported us with developing our raps and fist pumps which was so much fun. He shared information about the text with us and how he became inspired to write about the different characters he created based on people in his community. It was good to get to know Michael Petherick especially after we met him via a zoom where he dressed up as one of the characters from the book. As deadlyicedagger, he showed us some of his wrestling moves including the ‘Russian Moon Landing’ which was fun. He is so energetic.

Michael also shared information about some of the people that helped him to write and illustrate his text. He explained that he loved to write poetry and that his son did some of the writing in his epistolary. #Tumeke was really good because it was based on imagery, New Zealand and it used different types of media.

At the conclusion of our festival we had awards for all events, even the lolly cake competition which Isabella Evans from Rongokako won!

We feel so lucky to have been able to be a part of another #NZreadaloud experience where we get to drive our own learning and follow our curiosities and wonders.

Grace and Keely

Story Hui

Story hui gives everyone a chance to share an exciting or unique learning experience in their own voice. It is talking about what you think a success is not what the teacher thinks a success is. When sharing a story you talk about the beginning, the action and the ending... it is about being successful in different ways. Being successful can be small big or any where in the middle.

You're sharing a success, you share in small groups and the Mana with the storyteller. Your success will never leave the group so pick people that you trust to share your success with. During a storyhui you have a Story teller the questioner, you are all listeners and the drawer. The kaupapa is pretty self explanatory the story teller shares the success, the questioners asks questions. Only at the end do questioner's ask questions, the listeners listen and become the questioners, and lastly the drawer sketchnotes the success of the story teller. We use #storyhui to share our successes weekly.

Wonder Project: ROCKET PROJECT

Rongokako does all sorts of fun things, one of them is the Wonder Project: Rocket Challenge We had to go through different challenges and stages. Before we started the 'Rocket Challenge', we had 2 engineers introduce themselves, one of them was called Richard and the other one was Isaac. First, we had to do lots research on how to launch a rocket, what a rocket needs to fly, and looked into the multiple types of roles that rocket engineers do. Then we had to look at the rules to keep us safe when we are launching rockets. After that, we studied Newton's 3 Laws of Motion. Then we had to find the correct PSI and how much water it needs to create a strong upwards force. The launcher fills the bottle (rocket) with pressured air that pushes the water out which launches it when its released it launches high into the air.

Flax Weaving

Sometimes in Rongokako we do flax weaving because some of us want to learn how to do this. In flax weaving a student that knows how to manipulate flax will teach a group of people how to weave or make flowers. Flax Weaving is a great opportunity to learn something new and it is a fun thing to do because you can weave things for your friends and family. Doing this also helps us to connect with each other in a different way which is good.

Fax weaving is easy because your imagination is your limit. People create many things like head bands flowers and so much more. We use our initiative and ask our buddies or teachers to help us if we get stuck.

French Lessons

Valerie and Chloe

Chloe and I are teaching people in our class how to speak French. Both of us are running a French Workshop because we have both lived in France for a period of time. We are teaching a few people in our class how to speak French. We are teaching them the basics. We are organising some Zoom meetings to teach other kids from different schools as well. Next week we will be teaching our groups how to say the days of the week and the months in french.

Chloe thought about what this experience for Valerie and I was like - to be the teachers. It was hard at first because but we only only had two people at the workshop which helped us to develop our confidence before teaching larger groups.

Valerie’s thoughts on this is that the French Workshop is very fun to teach. "I think that kids being able to teach other kids is very special and that teaching people how to speak another language is easy. It’s just a bit hard to make the people I’m teaching, remember the things I taught them. But other than that I really liked it. Valerie

#Tumeke! festival visit at Tutira School

this term our #NZREADALOUD book was #Tumeke! It is about a Waitangi festival that happened at Newtoun School. So our School, Kereru School and Tutira school had a #Tumeke! festival at Tutira school. At the festival we got split into small groups that the teachers picked, it was good because there were people from the other schools in your group as well. When we got split into the groups we did gumboot throwing, kissing the goat, shoveling, making a rap and making our own fist bump. Tutira also put on a barbecue that you could by sausage's for $2 dollars. And one of the best things was that the author of the book Michael Petherick was there to talk to us about the book.