Tënä Koutou

Room 28's Recipe for Success!
29 fabulous students all for me to teach!

Tënä Koutou (Hello to more than two people in Maori). Maori is one of the official languages of New Zealand. It is incorporated throughout the society in many ways: the town names, street signs, and the names of the teams at our school. Pohutukawa is year 1 and 2 (equivalent to our Kindergarten-1^st grade), Nikau is year 3 and 4 (grades 2-3), Koromiko is year 5 and 6 (grades 4-5) and Totara is year 7 and 8 (grades 6-7). I am teaching Koromiko, in Room 28 with Rebecca May. So they are roughly 9 and 10 years old. There are 29 children in the class with a good mix of boys and girls. They are a great bunch of kids, with a big range of abilities. We have a lot of independent and self-motivated learners, and then a few children that require a lot of assistance both academically and with their behavior. The class loves doing art and playing sport. They are a very active bunch of kids but also work very hard in the classroom. We teach every subject for the students, so there are no ‘specials’ teachers for music, art, or physical education. It’s a lot more planning and a lot more time with the students but its fun to plan and to integrate all of the specials into our content subjects.

Swanson School consists of about 10 buildings, each with 2 to 4 classrooms that surround a playground and basketball court. There are fields in back used for playing sports, a soccer field, a rugby field, and a junior (or Pohutukawa) field. It's so nice compared to schools in the US because we get so much fresh air all day walking places and keeping doors and windows wide open! There are many small cultural differences that surprised me at first, for example many of the children are barefoot all the time. This is not because they cannot afford shoes or have lost them; it is simply part of the culture to not wear shoes. I also was quite surprised when a few cats popped into our classroom, but soon discovered that they live at the school and it is common for them to pop into rooms as they please. Spelling also sometimes throws me off seeing words such as organisation, cosy, and Mum. Its all very interesting and exciting for me!

I love living here with Rachel and David! David right now is practicing loads for his guitar audition for University (Uni as they call it here). He is very stressed and focused because they only accept 6 guitarists per year. David and I have heaps (lots) of conversations about America, New Zealand, traveling, music, and loads more. He is a great host brother! He and I are trying to plan a trip towards the end of my stay once he’s completed his exams for college (high school).

Tea is everything here! I have drank more tea in the past week than I have in a lifetime! Tea for breakfast, morning tea, lunch tea, after school and staff meetings tea, afternoon tea, dinner tea, tea before bed; heaps of tea! Tea is drunk here far more often than coffee in America. I don’t even think office cubicle workers could imagine putting down as much coffee as we do tea! Much to the distress of my fellow Luna workers, coffee here is no more than instant powder and vending machines.

I already have a flight booked to Wellington for the weekend of November 16 and this weekend Rachel, Sarah, and I are heading off to climb Rangitoto. Later tonight Sarah is coming over and we are going to plan the rest of our weekends here. They are so valuable and will go quickly!! On our list of things to do are Black Water Rafting in the Waitomo Caves, Rotorua, the Bay of Islands, and of course Zorbing! So we are off to plan our fabulous trips for the rest of our stay here in New Zealand! Have a lovely day and enjoy some tea!

First Weekend in NZ!

So after saying goodbye to my Mom and Steven at Chicago, O'Hare airport (only a few tears) I successfully got to my plane, to LA, switched gates, hopped on my second plane, flew 13 hours overseas, and arrived in Auckland! I will admit that I had a little hassle getting through customs.g on a 2 month vacation so I had to pull out the letter from Dr. Delano (thank you!) and show the authorities. They took my passport and id's and told me to go get my luggage then come back for them. I was so very worried but did as I was told. Mind you as soon as I walked away all I could think was I'm never going to get out of this airport and how will I ever contact Rachel or my mom! However I got my luggage, and was handed back my passport with a smile so all is well. I met Rachel and she is wonderful!
Driving on the left hand side wasn't quite as strange as I thought it'd be, the real strange image was seeing speed limit signs with 80 and 100 printed on them. I had to remind myself they were in Kilometers!
We came home and I met David, my host brother, he's great as well. Very friendly and funny, I believe we will get on very well. I also met Ken, Rachel's partner. He and I have had many great chats about America and politics. I also walked down the road to meet Sarah and her host family. She's living with a family from the school so it is she, her host mum, Jan, and Jan's 6 year old son, Cory. Sarah and I get on well and are hoping to plan many weekend trips all around New Zealand!
Sunday I went with Sarah and her host family to Orewa, a town nearby. We went to the beach which had a great view of the whole Whangaparaoa Peninsula.

Me standing on a very windy day in front of Orewa Beach, part of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula

We also played on the playground with Cory, it was lots of fun! It was very windy so we came home with lots of sand everywhere! That afternoon Rach and I went grocery shopping and then made dinner. Jan, Sarah, and Cory were coming over for dinner so it was a nice big feast. We had lamb, potatoes, pumpkin, broccoli, and pilaf for dessert. Pilaf is similar to meringue. Sarah, David, and I tried to plan some places we'd like to go to travel around. Cory is so much fun too, he put on a concert for us with David's guitar and found David to be the coolest older brother. We're sure he'll be riding his bike down the road everyday to see if David can play.

Cory and I spinning on this crazy contraption at the park! I was soooo dizzy!

Today, Monday, was Labour Day so no school for us. Rachel, Sarah, and I went on a bush walk up Pukematakaeo. Pukematakaeo is a Maori word. Each part of a word in Maori will mean something, for example Puke means hill. So there will be many places named with the beginning "Puke" (pronounced poo kay). The hike was actually decently strenuous with most of the hike being straight uphill. After the hike we went to Bethels Beach. Jamie has told me about how beautiful Bethels Beach is, so I am really looking forward to going back there often. It is on the "Wild" west coast and has black sand beaches. The black sand is because of iron deposits and its called the wild west because the west has a much rougher current as well as rocky shores. We were nearly blown away by the wind trying to walk out to the beach!

Sarah and I being blown away on Bethels Beach!

A view of the wild west coast at Bethels Beach

It has been unbelievably windy all three days I've been here. After returning home David took me on a walk around a 5K loop which will make a great daily run.

One of the many beautiful views on my run!

There were fabulous lookouts there as well, I seem to find the landscape breathtaking everywhere! You can actually see the city skyline from the walk but today was too cloudy to photograph it.
Tomorrow I meet my teacher, Rebecca, and my class! I am so excited!