E Papa - Maori Stick Songs (tī rākau)

As part of our cultural learning we have been looking at Maori stick songs.
Here we are trialing E Papa.

 What co-ordination we showed.

Indian Culture

Did you know that Nayla's ancestors come from India and that her mum was born in Fiji? Well, on Friday we were lucky enough to have her (Nayla's mum Sanjana), come in to tell us all about it. 

She was born in Fiji and came to New Zealand as a young girl.  She told us that to say hello in Fijian we say "Bula" and to say thank you we say "Vinaka"

She shared with us the traditional Indian costumes that Nayla and her brother wear for special occasions. We were even allowed to try them on if we wanted to. They were very colourful and had lots of jewel-like details on them.  I liked Sanjana's pink sari the best, it was very soft and sparkly.

She also brought in some henna and drew patterns on our skin. It took a little while to dry, and some of them got smudged but we still enjoyed getting our "tattoos". Traditionally henna is used for weddings and special occasions. My pattern is still on my hand, is your's still there?

Thank you sooooo much Sanjana for coming in. I hope you didn't get too far behind with your work?

We learned SO much and really appreciate you taking the time out. We are continuing our learning about Indian culture this week so hopefully we will have some cool art to show you at the end of it.

x

Sri Lanka

On Thursday Sayuni's Daddy came in for a visit. 

He showed us a powerpoint and answered all our questions about Sri Lanka. 

We are very lucky to have two people in our class who come from Sri Lanka; Sayuni and Anoji.

This is them in their traditional dress

Did you know that there are 3 different languages in Sri Lanka (Sinhala, Tamil and English)? Sayuni and her family speak Sinhala and Anoji and his family speak Tamil.

Here is Sayuni's Dad holding the Sinhala alphabet

He told us, that to greet other people in Sinhala, we need place our hands together, bow and say "Ayubowan"

Sayuni's mummy came for a visit too, she made us kokis to try. She had made them in the shape of Sri Lanka. They were sweet and crunchy.

Anoji's mummy also joined the party and brought us some Kesari to taste. It was yellow and was also nice and sweet. 

Here we are eating all our traditional Sri Lankan sweets (lot's of us went back for seconds ;-)

Thank you so much mummy's they would have taken AGES to cook and they were soooo delicious!

To finish it all, On Friday we talked about all the things we had learned. Here is our wall display that we made together. Can you remember what the Sri Lankan native bird in the picture is called?

Thank you so much to Sayuni and Anoji's families for coming in and sharing your culture with us. I say it all the time, but Team 8 is so very lucky to have such a supportive whanau like you.

x

Chinese Culture

We are incredibly lucky in Team 8 to have such a wonderful group of parents, who support us in all that we do. Mrs Grant and Mrs Turner couldn't do it without you. Thank you! :-)

On Friday, Lillian and Jerry (Anastasia's parents) took time off work to teach us about Chinese culture.

It started with Lillian teaching us some of the language. 

Mrs Turner thinks that Lillian should quit her day job and come to teach us everyday in Team 8! The kids were enthralled with her knowledge! 

She taught us that...

Ni Hao - means Hello

Zai jian - means Goodbye

Zaoshange Hao - means Good Morning

Then she played a game with us. We had to guess what we thought the Chinese Characters were that she had written on the board. 

Could you have guessed them right? 

After that, Lillian showed us the very special paper, ink and brushes that she had brought in for us to use. We all had a go at copying the characters. This is called Chinese Handwriting. Here are some pictures of us having a go;

We think we did a pretty good job. What about you?

By the time we had finished all that our tummies were feeling a little bit hungry. Lucky Jerry was there to show us how to make fried rice. 

Can you believe how lucky we are???

I can not thank Jerry and Lillian enough for taking time out, to come in and teach us. Please if you have a moment, take the time to leave them a comment via our blog. We love getting your comments.

Also, if you, or anyone else you know, has something they would like to share with Team 8, please get in touch. We'd love to have you. :-)

Zai jian

x