We're Proud of our Reefton Area School Kapahaka group!

Korbyn, a Year 2 from B4, is a member of our school 

kapahaka group. 

With the help of coast iwi, community members and some teachers, the students have trained hard to learn 
haka, poi and waiata ringa ringa (action songs).

The boys have even given their time some weekends to learn some haka.

Recently the group took part in the Tai Poutini Kapahaka Festival in Westport. 

(video courtesy of Martini Kira)

Leave a positive message for our kapahaka group telling them what you enjoyed about their performance.

Our New Zealand Christmas song Playlist

Our friends in Mr Avery's 6th grade class in 

Massachusetts, U.S.A. have created their

 Christmas playlist 

and have challenged other classes to add a playlist 

to their blogs.

While we enjoy many traditional Christmas songs, we're going to put some uniquely New Zealand Christmas songs on our playlist!

Te Harinui

Pohutukawa Christmas Tree

Aotearoa Christmas 

Christmas in the Summertime

Kiwi Christmas Carol

What songs would you include in your Christmas playlist?
If you post, please make a link to both our blog and Mr Avery's blog!

Our World, Our Numbers: Topic 5 - Animals

The 5th topic on the Our World, Our Numbers project 

is all about animals.

We enjoyed learning about Canadian animals from 

Mrs Watson's K/1/2/3 class 

and about kelp forests from Mrs Yollis' class.

We've put up a post about two of our iconic 

New Zealand animals.

The kiwi is a bird native to New Zealand. It is a flightless, nocturnal bird.

What does nocturnal mean?

Attribution: dancedancewerefallingapart

One of the nicknames for people from New Zealand is ‘kiwi’!

Five species of kiwi are found in New Zealand, but all are endangered due to predators such as ferrets, rats and cats and dogs.This is because kiwis live on the forest floor.

Did you know that kiwis can not fly?

You might like to read this legend 

– ‘How the Kiwi Lost its Wings.”

We have some number facts about the kiwi:

In the wild kiwis can live for up to 20 years.

The kiwi egg is the biggest of any bird in proportion to the female’s body.

The average weight of an ostrich egg is 2% of the female’s body weight whereas the average weight of a kiwi egg is 20% of the female’s body weight. 

The kiwi has a long beak and amazingly the nostrils are at the very tip! That’s a very useful adaptation as the kiwi probes in the forest floor for grubs, insects, earthworms and other food.

The kiwi’s beak is about 1/3 the length of its body.

If the bird’s body was 36 cm long how long would the beak be?

The kiwi weighs about 3kg.

How many pounds would that be?

The kiwi is about 45cm tall.

How many inches would that be?

The average body temperature of a kiwi bird is 38˚C.

What is the body temperature of a human?

Another special animal native to New Zealand is the tuatara.

The tuatara is an ancient type of reptile.

Photo credit: ajft / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Read the links about tuatuaras here and here then head over to Our World, Our Numbers and leave us a comment with a number fact that you found out about tuataras! 

The World Cup Rugby competition is Starting

For the next six weeks the Rugby World Cup competition will be happening in New Zealand.

The teams have arrived, with the opening ceremony on Friday 9 September. 

Rugby is one of our favourite sports and our national team is called the All Blacks.

If you don't know about the game of rugby, you can find out more here.

Over the next few weeks the haka will be performed many times.

In Topic with Mrs Webb this term 

we have used the Rugby World Cup as a catalyst for thinking about 'Heroes and Role-Models'.

What qualities would a good role-model need?

For some more information and activities about the Rugby World Cup check out the links on our Topic Links page.

Does your country have a team playing in the 

Rugby World Cup?

Which two teams do you think will play in the final?

Who do you pick to win?

What are the popular sports in your country?

The Kiwi

This week JiaJia and Tristan have made their very first glog. We hope you will learn something about the Kiwi.
They read and researched about the kiwi at reading time this week. I think they have done a great job, and they co-operated well with each other to get the task done..

Click here to read it