Balloons over Waikato Festival

Early on Friday morning some HES families turned up at Dawson Park to watch

the inflation of an enormous hot air balloon. Some lucky people also got to take off

in the balloon as well. Luckily it was tethered (held down with a rope) and we returned to earth in timefor school and positive assembly. There was also a Night Glow event at WaikatoUniversity that many of us in Room 10 went to, in this movie there is also footage and photos from the Night Glow which was beautiful to see all the balloons lit up at night.

Some interesting facts about hot air ballooning the pilot shared with us at 
positive assembly:

• the balloon can only go up to 2000 cubic feet because the aeroplanes might hit it and you get low on oxygen to breath
• you don't need a license to fly a hot air balloon 
• it can reach 500,000 feet but it's not allowed to
• the most amount of people you can hold in a basket is 35
• the pilot has been flying hot air balloons for 7 years, he has clocked up 100 hours of flying time
• it takes half an hour to pack up the hot air balloon after deflation

Powhiri at Te Kohinga Marama Marae, Waikato University

Q & A Time

Who? The whole school 

(children, teachers, Migrant mothers, 

parents and Tangata Whenua (local people/hosts)

What? Powhiri (welcome) for the manuhiri (HES visitors)

Where? Te Kohinga Marama Marae, Waikato Universtiy

When? Week 9, Thursday 27 March, 10 am

 Powhiri 

Kaumatua (elders) say speeches
We sing waiata (songs) to support the speeches

The tangata whenua and manuhiri hongi 

(press noses and mingle breath)

 Sketching time - look, draw, look at the carvings and wharenui.

Practicing our Mihimihi for the marae trip

Room 10 is looking forward to visiting Te Kohinga Marama marae this week.

Niaana has been our kaiako (teacher) this week 
leading us in our Mihimihi recording.

Alaa's mihi is extra special because she says 
hers in Te Reo and in Arabic.

We will be doing more recording in Week 9.

Race Relations Day - Friday 21 March, 2014

New Zealand is multi-cultural which means there are a lot of different people from different countries who are living in Aotearoa. They bring with them their special culture, language, clothing, religion, food and ways of doing things.

On Race Relations Day we looked at a world map to see where some people are from in Room 10. 

We found Fiji, China, India, Korea, South Africa, Sudan, Nepal and Egypt. 

12 people in Room 10 can speak another language than English and some go to a special school to learn in their home language. Other languages they can speak are Arabic, Afrikaans, Korean, Nepalese, Chinese, Hindi and Fijian.

We were lucky to have some Japanese students come and visit us at school. Here are a few photos of our afternoon.

We are learning calligraphy and origami with our
Japanese visitors.

Do you know what the Japanese writing means?

Badminton with Amy and Rm 10

On Wednesday in Week 8 we played badminton in the hall with Amy, who was a professional badminton player. Some of us didn't know what badminton was and we found out that it is a racquet sport like tennis and squash but you don't use a ball you use a shuttle cock.

Some of us thought a shuttle cock looks like a tee you use in rugby others thought it looked like feathers or a spider web. On the end of the shuttle cock is rubber/leather part like a ping pong ball that is heavy and makes it glide down. It doesn't go down fast because of the shape and the feathers.

We found out a tennis racquet shot was slower than a badminton shot - tennis is 150km and badminton was 420km!!!! OMGoodness.

Some people already knew how to play and they could hit the shuttle cock easily.

It is impossible to hit these things 
10 times in a row!

Listening carefully to the instructions...

You had to make a tick when you were holding 
the racquet for forehand shots.

Looking at yourself in the mirror
with the racquet.

The boys are showing us the backhand 
grip technique 

Careful concentration goes into making the first shot.

This is an action photo and she is moving so 
fast that the camera can't keep up with her.

Here we are practicing hitting the shuttlecock up and 
down 10 times in a row with backhand.

We are working on our hand eye
coordination tracking the shuttle cock.

"It was fun and sporty playing badminton with Amy"
"It was annoying because I kept missing it when I was trying to serve it"
"It was fun but I kept missing it but that's okay because 

you just keep on trying and we don't give up!"

Look, Draw, Look

Room 9 has been collecting cicada shells. We borrowed them to look, draw, look.

Miss Suze collected these shells from the Coromandel for us to look, draw, look.

Kauri Swimming Sports

Matangi pool 

"I came 1st on my first race and 2nd on my second race. 
I only did freestyle. How deep was the pool?

It was cool! " said Ngaere.

HES school pool

"The HES pool was awesome I came 1st, 2nd, 3rd and then 3rd again. I liked the free swim. It was cold when I got out and then when I got back in it felt warm" said Ryal.

Noodle races - on your marks....get set....go!!!

Matangi pool 

"Matangi pool was awesome because the pool was long and deep. The pool didn't have leaves or pee in it. The water was freezing cold. People had to get in and out and our towels were soaking wet. The races were freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, breast stroke" said Alaa.

HES school pool

"HES pool was fun because in the first round we did flutter boards and my Papa said "go!" and banged the 2 blocks together. We did noodle races on our front then we did it on our back and then we did our ball races where you had to push it with your nose and some of us were cheering" said Scania.

HES flutter board races

Matangi pool 

"Matangi pool was so awesome! because the water 
was crystal clear and very deep. 

My favourite thing to do was breast stroke because 
I came 1st! 

but my dumb goggles came off at freestyle final!" said Elizabeth 

The spectators cheering on the swimmers!!!

HES Pool
 "I came first lots of times. Now I'm sleepy. I want to go to bed" said Kelly.

Matangi Pool "It was fun to cheer for the kids. It was very deep you could dive in the water. It was Year 6 boys first then it was Year 6 girls" said Niaana.

"At HES pool I liked the dolphin dive and the noodle race because I came first and I even liked the free swim because I learned how to do handstands" said Platnim.

"At Matangi pool I came 1st place at freestyle and I was really nervous but I came 1st" said Alice.


"At HES we had races. I won 3 times. These are the names of the swimming sports with noodles - front stroke and back stroke, dolphin dive, flutter board. My favourite swimming sport today was flutter board backwards!!!!!" said Izabella.