Thanksgiving in New Zealand

Thursday was Thanksgiving!

I had a blast with the students doing different Thanksgiving. We started off the morning discussing America and traditions we have for the holiday. The students were very interested in finding out about the different foods we ate as well as about the weather that we have. It is so very different for them because their Christmas holiday is summer, whereas for us Thanksgiving is the big mark off for winter and snow to begin! We discussed being thankful for everything in our lives and why we should stop and give thanks. I did not get into the whole discussion of the history of Thanksgiving. I figured the students would get lost and confused with the discrepancies of our Pilgrim and Indian Feast facts and fictions. So we skipped the history lesson and discussed the values of Thanksgiving instead.

The students then each made "Thankful Turkey's"! These were adorable turkeys with five items or people they were thankful for written on the feathers. I absolutely loved some of their items: Their families, their friends, money, Miss May and Miss Scheibe, and games were some of the popular answers. However my personal favorite was the student who included: hot chips (french fries) on his list of items he was most thankful for! haha!

We took a great picture of our class with their turkeys and then headed outside for a game of Capture the Flag. (I figured this was close enough to the American tradition of playing football on turkey day!)

That afternoon I shared with the students a lot of pictures I had from home. The ones they were most interested in were my photos of winter in Wisconsin. Most of these students have seen snow, but not to the extent that we get each year in WI. They have seen maybe only light snows which melt the next day. So when they saw pictures of 3 feet of snow, sledding, and all the snow suit gear we have they were astounded! It was fun sharing all these stories and chatting with the children.

My thanksgiving dinner here was not quite up to par with traditional turkey dinners. We had had a rotisserie chicken, salads, asparagus, and potatoes. A little different from the usual turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, and cranberry dinner but to my benefit I could still wear my pants comfortably at the end of the day! haha

I baked two pumpkin pies as well! They turned out so perfectly! I made the pie crust from scratch and then found a great recipe for the pie filling. They were delicious. David wanted to make decorations on the top of the pie with the extra crust dough. So one of our pies has a little man walking down the beach with a sun in the background. The man is complete with the New Zealand Movember Mustache ("Movember" is mustache November, a promotional event for raising money for prostate cancer. The men all grow mustaches and get sponsored by their family and friends, then the money goes to the prostate cancer foundation). The pie tasted amazing if I do say so myself!

The next day (Friday) I brought in the second pie for the class. A lot of the students had never had pumpkin pie. In fact most of them were confused by how my pie looked. To them a pie is a meat pie (mince meat cooked inside a pastery -similar to a chicken pot pie without the veggies). So when I brought in my Pumpkin Pie I had to explain that it is a dessert and would taste sweet. We cut the pie up into 28 little slices and everyone had a taste. Afterwards we took a vote on who liked it and who didn't. A lot of them loved it and the ones who didn't said they liked it at the start but then felt sick from eating it too quickly, so I guess that's still a compliment to my baking skills! Only three weeks of school left!

Wellington - My Future Home!!

My wonderful weekend in Wellington!

Saturday morning Rachel and I packed up our suitcases and headed off to the airport for our weekend getaway to Wellington. Wellington is New Zealand's capital city. It is at the southernmost point of the North Island. A fun fact I learned from Rach is that when at the southernmost point at the North Island you are actually further south than the Northernmost point of the South Island. The top of the South Island is actually further North than the bottom of the North Island!

My first wow of the trip was actually our time spent in the airport. A grand total of 20 minutes before boarding the plane. We arrived, got our tickets and checked our bags: 5 minutes. Went to the bookstore there so I could buy postcards and Rach could get a book for George (her older son): 10 minutes. Went through security and boarded the plane: 5 minutes. Yes we arrived at our gate and got through security in just 5 minutes, something that could never happen nowadays in America! Their security checkpoint is just a metal detector and an X-ray machine. You place your bag on the conveyor belt (no need for a Ziploc with 3oz. containers all inside) and walk through the metal detector - with your shoes on! I am not a very seasoned traveler, only flying about 3 times in my life, all during college years, before hopping on the jet plane over here to NZ, so high security airports are all I've known.

We got to our seats and a very kind man gave me his window seat. I was very happy because it was such a beautiful day so I was able to take pictures of us flying over the rest of New Zealand as well as us flying into Wellington. Now, Wellington's airport is mildly terrifying! The runway is a strip of land that sticks out like a little peninsula. So as you fly in you get lower and lower while still over water. It looks like you will crash into the water when suddenly you realize there's a little strip of land that's come out from underneath you. Also, Wellington is the windy city! It blows Chicago out of the water. The winds here are coming directly from Antarctica with nothing in the way to slow them down. So there's also heaps of turbulence as you're coming in for the landing. For those of you I have flown with, you can imagine I didn't handle this part very well!

We got into the Wellington and met Rach's eldest son, George, and his girlfriend, Sasha. They are wonderful people! George has a great sense of humor and is also rather cynical about many things so we had a lot of laughs. Sasha is a very sweet girl with a laid back nature. She's welcoming and easy to talk to. I enjoyed their company very much. We headed out for lunch on the beach, and then took the bus up to Upper Hutt to meet the rest of Rachel's family. Her niece was having her 21st birthday party, so all of the family was going to be there, with a big BBQ and party. Unlike in America where many 21st birthdays are not remembered by the celebrants due to our legal drinking age, 21st birthdays here are typically a family event, celebrating the persons coming of age.I met many of Rach's siblings and other relatives. They are a very nice family. They all keep in touch and get together pretty often. It was great fun hanging out with them and celebrating Poppy's 21st. Poppy is a very talented writer. She has won many awards for her poetry and playwrights.

That night we took the train back from Upper Hutt to Island Bay where George and Sasha have a flat. (We experienced a lot of public transportation because Sasha's car has just broken down). The next morning we got up and had breakfast in the backyard before taking a walk down to the beach. George, Sasha, and a bunch of their friends get together every Sunday to play Ultimate Frisbee. They invited me to play with them as well that weekend. So we headed off to the park. At the park, we were greeted by two Ultimate Frisbee Club Teams practicing! We all joked about being a little amateur and embarrassed but quickly cheered up when Adam yelled out "dang and we forgot the beer this time!" So we ran around and played for fun for a while and tried hard not to watch the "pros" next to us!

After that we hopped the bus into town and started exploring. George and Sasha took us all over downtown. Wellington sort of reminds me of San Fransisco. It has similar architecture and the same steep hills with narrow streets. We went down Cuba Street where we saw the Bucket Fountain. This fountain is hilarious, it is supposed to be a series of buckets that begin to fill up with water at the top and then pour into the buckets below until finally reaching the lowest and biggest bucket which fills and then pours back into the base of the fountain. However, when it was constructed there were a few errors. Instead of the water pouring nicely into the lower buckets, it misses and splashes all over including splashing the people walking past it. They were going to fix the Bucket Fountain but everyone loved it so much that they decided to leave it. We stopped and got lunch at a cafe and took it down to the waterfront. We ate lunch relaxing on some grass and people watching, then headed into Te Papa Museum. Te Papa is a big museum that's a little overwhelming to walk through. They have so much and no clear layout of how to walk through it that you can get lost for days and still come out with needing to see more exhibits. Its free and has loads of exhibits though. We went through the Maori exhibit and also through an exhibit about everything that's made in New Zealand. It was very interesting and fun.
Our next plan was to get ice creams at coffees at Cafe Ice just down the wharf, but when we got there we saw there was about a half hour wait! Much to George's disappointment we just grabbed coffees from a different little cafe. George had been raving about Cafe Ice since the moment we'd arrived. Next we headed to the Cable Car. We rode up to the top and oh what a view! Wellington is beautiful! I have some wonderful pictures from the top there. We then walked through the little Cable Car Museum and then off into the botanical gardens. It was getting late and we were all getting tired so we didn't go far. Just sort of strolled around for a bit.
Finally it was time for us to head back down the Cable Car and hop a bus to the airport. We said goodbye to George and Sasha and headed off to catch our flight. (only another 20minutes in the airport till we were on our way.) We lucked out again, getting me a window seat. I took some beautiful pictures of the sun setting over the South Island Sounds. Its gorgeous!
Unfortunately, I can't post many pictures on here right now because the Internet at our house has cut out. I am posting all of these from our school computer lab. Hopefully soon I'll be able to load the pictures up so that all of you can enjoy seeing what I've just talked about.

My First Week in Full Control

Monday, November 12th: My first day in full control over the classroom! I am so excited and have had such a wonderful week! I took control on Monday and I am feeling very confident and happy!
Monday started off with a bang. I had the students right away to myself in the morning; it was a little hectic simply because this was the first day that I was in the room and Rebecca was not. The kids were a little crazy about not having Miss May in the room, but I kept them under control and was able to answer all of their questions and control the behavior as well. It went very well. We had Weekend News, Library, Fitness, and Writing all in the morning. During the middle block, Miss May came in and worked with our two lowest students in Maths. She took those two out of the room to work, and I was in control of the rest of the class. Maths time is difficult because there is a lot of work to be done, but the class is also separated into three different groups. Therefore I have one group on the mat with me being taught and the other two groups are responsible for getting their work done independently. The difference with having various reading groups and various maths groups is that during reading the students are all able to read silently, whereas during maths a lot of times they have questions. I have put the rule “3 Before Me” into place; the students are to ask 3 other students from their group before they come ask me. This has helped alleviate me being interrupted when trying to teach the group on the mat, but it inevitably creates more noise around the room. Monday afternoon was by far the most exciting! Our tires and soil arrived for our Veggie Garden! We split the class into various jobs, some rolling tires, some shoveling dirt, others manning the buckets, some being photographers, etc. All of us went out and worked together to move the tires to be right outside our classroom door as well as move the dirt to fill into each tire. Everyone worked very hard and we all worked so well together. We have heaps of pictures to be put into a photo story and there were a lot of red faces from working so hard moving everything around. I am very pleased with my students!
Tuesday we began our vegetable inquiry learning. I split the class into seven groups of four students each. We also rearranged the classroom to have seven groups of four desks, and each group came up with their own group name. The groups will each be responsible for a different topic of study dealing with plants. The groups then work together to research and present their information to the class.

The Carrots
Plant Defenses
The Fruit Salad
Why Plants are Green
The Dancing Bananas
What Plants Grow in Different Seasons
The Red Ripe Radishes
Edible and Non-edible Plants
The Gnomes
How Plants Grow and Biggest Plants
The Gherkins
How Animals Effect Plants
The Dancing, Jumping Peas
Plant Life Cycles

The students got together and began planning out and discussing their various topics. In fact these topics above were not all assigned by me, I laid out seven topics that I had thought of and assigned them to the class but also gave them the option that if they could agree upon a different topic they could propose it to me and switch. I believe three groups came up with and switched their topics to ones they wondered about themselves. I am very excited to see what the students are able to come up with and how they work together.
Wednesday was a quite fun day as well. We began writing poems about summer using onomatopoeia. The students in Room 28 are amazing poem writers! We brainstormed together various words to use for onomatopoeia and also came up with different topics about summer they could include in their poems. When they set off to work I was so impressed, if I had closed my eyes I would not even have known they were in the room! Each one of them set out and began working diligently on their poems, there was not a sound to be heard other than pencils against the paper. They have since edited and begun to create their final copies of their poems to put on posters with illustrations. I am loving their poetry work! During the middle block today, Mr. Holt, the deputy principal, came in to observe. Rebecca left the room and left me in charge. I was all set! That morning I had laid out everything I would need for Maths and Handwriting. We had all brand new Maths group books with all the information sheets set inside, everything was laid out properly, and I’d double checked to make sure we had enough supplies to get through our lessons. I safely put all these supplies and information under my chair in front of the room. It should have gone perfectly. Well of course, it didn’t. Rebecca had kindly decided to tidy up the room before leaving me to teach. She tidied up all the papers on the floor and organized everything in the room. She did a very good job; I couldn’t find a thing! So here I am with Mr. Holt observing and I’m running around trying to find everything I need for the lesson. I couldn’t find one thing! So finally I threw up my hands and laughed. I told the kids things were missing and we’d just have to wing it. So I organized the Maths groups and sent them off to work. Everything went pretty smoothly, until I got to handwriting. The poems I had printed off to have the students copy and illustrate had also been tidied up by Rebecca. The kids and I had a good laugh about it again and I said, well I guess we’ll just have to read a story instead. So we all gathered on the mat and I read aloud to the students instead. In the end everything really did go pretty well, but all I could think was why did this have to happen on the day when Mr. Holt was in the room! Haha
Thursday and Friday were tough days. They were both rainy days so the kids were inside for most of the day. Having a bunch of 10-11year olds inside all day long is hard. They all have loads of energy and we don’t have a gym for them to run around in. Behaviors were up and it was difficult to focus, but I was able to keep control of the room. I am happy that the students are realizing that I am here to teach and my rules will be the same as Rebecca’s have been. With only 5 weeks left in the Term I found there was no point in me trying to implement my own rules. Instead I just picked up the rules that Rebecca has been using and have kept them all the exact same. Its far easier for the students and for me.
I am very happy with the classroom and enjoying the class better now that I have learned strategies for keeping control over the behaviors. We are able to joke around and do lots of activities, especially with our Veggie Garden! The kids are taking a lot of interest in our garden so cross your fingers that all goes well!
Next week I will be in the room by myself for almost all of the day rather than just in blocks, so wish me luck! I’m loving it!

Interview with Principal, Bruce McLachlan

Last week Thursday I held an interview with our principal at Swanson, Bruce McLachlan. We began our discussion talking about the new curriculum that has literally just been released two weeks ago by the Ministry of Education. The new curriculum is 50 pages long and encompasses all years of school from 1-13 (Kindergarten through senior year of high school). It’s actually quite amazing that their curriculum is only 50 pages; it’s able to be so short because it is a broad curriculum which leaves the majority of the standards up to the classroom teacher. There are only general standards or benchmarks which the teachers have to achieve; the rest is left up to the creativity of the teacher. “The New Zealand Curriculum’s principal function is to set the direction for student learning and to provide guidance for schools as they design and review their curriculum” (The New Zealand Curriculum).
Teachers here are known for their creativity and knack for teaching students life skills rather than knowledge facts. Because of the technological advances the world has made, teachers no longer teach one body of knowledge. It’s always been thought that knowledge is power. This is because in the past, people who had the knowledge or were able to quickly recall information were the ones in charge or actually held the power. Nowadays, that knowledge is accessible to all by way of the internet. If you can read, type, and access a search engine you are able to obtain knowledge. So we as teachers need to change the way we approach education. No longer are we teaching from a body of knowledge. Instead we are teaching students the strategies needed to ask the questions, access the resources, and utilize the knowledge. We are teaching them how to go out in the world, get their hands on information, and then helping them figure out what to do with that knowledge. New Zealand has recognized this and has adapted their curriculum to allow more of the inquiry learning to happen in the classroom as opposed to memorizing facts. I am very lucky to have met with Bruce at this time, because he actually was able to give me a copy of the New Zealand Curriculum straight out of the box. I will be bringing it home and of course anyone who is interested may have a look at it!
The next topic which came up was testing. Of course we all know that standardized testing is a big topic in America at the moment. New Zealand has standardized tests as well, but the difference with theirs is that they are not required by the government. Therefore, they are not high stakes testing but rather are assessment tools. They have the test ASTTLE (Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning). ASTTLE is a standardized test which educators can request for their students. They ring up the company and tell them what subjects and levels they’d like their tests to be at. Then the company creates them and evaluates the results. Just like our tests they produce a greate cohort for teachers and administration to view, but they also have another aspect that is invaluable to the teachers. There results which are printed out not only state what the students were successful with, but also clearly states what they struggled with as well. They layout what their needs and gaps are. Teachers are then able to use this information to plan their curriculum for the term around what the gaps of the students are. It is a very useful tool!
Next I asked Bruce about Special Education here in New Zealand. Similar to our systems in America, there are three types of schools in New Zealand: 1. Schools which cater only to special needs students (similar to Sybll Hopp in De Pere) 2. Mainstream Schools and 3. Mainstream schools with attached units for special needs resources. Swanson School is a Mainstream School. We have only a limited amount of money and resources which are given to the school to assist with students with special needs. There are programs such as Reading Recovery available, as well as teacher aides in classrooms which need the extra help with students. However, we do not have a great deal to offer in assisting students with special needs. Bruce is aware of our schools situation and will discuss it with parents if necessary. “I [Bruce] would never turn a child away from our school, but I am honest with the parents about the availability and quality of our resources, and suggest that they may have better education assistance at another school.”
Krissy Lukens, my advisory, prompted me to ask about technology issues here in New Zealand. She was curious about issues dealing with social software; if the students here are as interested in blogs such as My Space. I found out that Bebo is a bigger site here than My Space. It is used by a lot of the children and has come up as an issue with bullying. There were a few situations where the principal or deputy principals had to call in students and pulled up their Bebo page to discuss what had been written on there about another student or teacher. It hasn’t been a huge issue, especially since it is now taught that anything which is placed on a blog is actually accessible to anyone who has the internet. This has surprised the students who didn’t know that their page could be seen by others. Students have for the most part become more discreet or selective about what is placed on their blogs.
It is very interesting discovering the differences between the schools I have been in and the Swanson School here. I am excited to be taking over the class next week and most likely noticing many more differences once I am in control of the class.

Swanson School and Room28

My wonderful classroom! I realized I have not explained a whole lot about our classroom and the structure of my teaching here at Swanson. So here we go!
Schools are set up here in Years (Grades). Swanson is a Primary school with Years 0-8. For Year 1, there is no first day of school for everyone. Instead each student begins on their birthday. The first day of school is in early February, but only students who are 5 years old by that time will start. If they are not 5 they will start on their birthday later in the year. So the Year 1 classes are always growing throughout the year. Now if a student doesn't turn 5 until after the 1st of July they will be considered a Year 0. This means that they will go through the rest of that year, from July till December, and then return the following school year as a Year 1. To make it easier to understand here is a little chart:
Year 0 = 5 years old after July 1st
Year 1-2 = 6 -7 years old
Year 3-4 = 8-9 years old
Year 5-6 = 10-11 years old
Year 7-8 = 12-13 years old
When you graduate Primary School you are typically 13 or nearly 13 years old.
New Zealand schools are looking at closing the mystery gaps between teaching and learning. In other words they want everyone to know what is expected of them and what it will look like when they succeed at that expectation. They have created WALTs and WILFs. WALT is We Are Learning To and WILF is What I'm Looking For. For every lesson planned for the students we create a WALT that is written up on the board for the students to read. In the upper grades such as in Koromiko, the students are expected to write the WALT at the beginning of each lesson. A few examples of a WALT would be: WALT separate our ideas and information into paragraphs or WALT measure the volume and mass of 3D shapes. Basically it is the objective of each lesson written out clearly for the students to see. Another big difference between American Schools and New Zealand Schools is that: THERE ARE NO TEXTBOOKS OR STANDARDIZED TESTS IN NZ! The curriculum book that the Ministry of Education has set up is approximately 50 pages long for all of Year 0-8. That's it. That's all teachers and schools are accountable for. New Zealand has no nation wide curriculum which states what each student learns each year. Instead the individual schools develop what they feel students should learn at each level and the teachers determine how to go about teaching it. They have so much freedom! This is why NZ teachers are known for their creativity! This is obviously quite different from the United States where we have all our standards and benchmarks to meet. As for testing systems, the schools tell the testing companies what they want to have on the tests and they create it. Testing is also done according to the ability of each student. If two students in the same year are at different levels they are tested according to their level rather than a regualted level for that grade. Likewise, if two students at different grades are at the same level, they will take the same test. This offers a better view as to what their capabilities are. Rebecca and I looked at some of the tests the students took for Maths last term. I love the way the results are posted because it lists the areas they achieved at as well as listed their areas that needed work or had gaps. Rebecca is then able to take the test results and plan her lessons according to the gaps of the children.
At Swanson the classroom teacher is responsible for every subject taught to the students. We cover Reading, Writing, Maths, Physical Education, Library, Art, Digital Classroom, Handwriting, Maori, and Inquiry Learning. So unlike my last placement where we had separate teachers for Music, Library, and Physical Education, Rebecca and I plan it all. Though we have to teach each subject a number of times each week, we have a pretty flexible schedule in that Maths can be taught at 9am one day and 11:30 the next day. Its nice to have that flexibility because it keeps you from feeling as though you're doing the same thing day after day. Here's whats going on in our classroom:
In reading we are doing a novel study. We have three leveled groups of readers at this point. One group is reading The Twits, another group is reading The Killing Sea, and the final group is reading The Whale Rider. Each group has their own set of questions, activities, and other varying assignments which pertain to their group.
Maths also has three different groups. We have Tahi, Rua, and Toru which are Maori words for One, Two, and Three. Maths is organized very different here than in the States. In Green Bay most schools have just switched over to the Everyday Math program which is a cumulative program looping all years of school. Swanson School has just gotten rid of their program like that. Now instead of having a book to follow and teach from the teachers plan the Maths according to the skills of their students. They use different Maths resources and activity books for each group. When discussing and planning Maths with Rebecca I was surprised at how long it takes to plan Maths just for one week. We have three different lessons to write for each of the four days we teach Maths. So instead of planning four lessons, we plan twelve. It is very time consuming and requires a lot of planning and observing of the skill levels, but it seems to be far more effective and personalized for the students.
Inquiry Learning is the model of teaching children how to investigate the world. The Staff Meeting I did last week with Rebecca and Julia offered some tools and strategies to use during Inquiry Learning. Our class just finished a unit on Global Warming when I arrived and we are now beginning one that I am planning on Gardens and Plants. Our lessons will be centered around the students questions and interests. The final product of this unit will be a Veggie Garden Room 28 will be caring for. Right now our Inquiry Learning is being linked with Writing. I am assigning groups of students different areas to investigate about plants. They will research these topics and then write a speech/report to inform the class about their discoveries. So in writing we are practicing creating proper paragraphs as well as attractive titles for our reports.
Physical Education is focusing on Summer Sports Skills and Athletics at the moment. We are doing a lot of ball skills such as throwing, catching, fielding, kicking, etc. Our Athletics consists of Track events. We are doing a rotation between all Koromiko Teachers where each teacher is in charge of a different event. There is High Jump, Long Jump, Discus, Shot-put, and Sprints/Relays. Rebecca and I are in charge of the sprints/relays. I am very excited and I know my students will enjoy being out in the summer sun running around!
In Handwriting we are learning about poems. The students are given a poem which they must copy with beautiful handwriting as well as illustrate their page with a beautiful picture related to the poem. Maori will prove to be most difficult for me to teach. The students right now are telling time in Maori. He aha te tiama? Ono Karaka. (What is the time? 6 O'Clock) The difficulty comes when trying to pronounce the words properly. For example Maori is actually pronounced MO-dr-Ree. (Have you been saying it correctly?)
Friday afternoons in the Koromiko team are fabulous! They have created a time called Homework Club. The teachers assign team homework, meaning all five classes are assigned the exact same homework and it is varied for the learning levels. The homework is given out on Monday and they have until Friday to complete it. If the students did their homework at home then they have the option of choosing to spend the afternoon from 1:55 until the end of school at 3:00 in the Digital Classroom, the Games Room, on the Field, or doing a Special Project with one of the teachers such as cooking or paper projects. If the child did not complete the homework for whatever reason they go to the Homework Club room where there is one of the Koromiko teachers there to help them complete the homework. This is making sure every student is learning and getting all the help and support they need to be successful.

Welcome to our classroom!

One of the most important aspects to teaching I have learned here has also proved to be the most difficult. I have had to learn strict classroom management skills for some of my students. As with all new teachers to a classroom, students act up and try to see how much they can get away with or what you will allow them to do. In my class there are a few students who try to do what they wish with any teacher at any time, they have some behavioral problems which need to be handled properly in the classroom. Upon first arriving I'll admit that I was intimidated by the students acting up against me. I have never been in a classroom where the students spoke back to the teacher once they were caught misbehaving. Rebecca and I sat down and had a big discussion on classroom management skills. The first and most important rule she taught me was to always give 5 positive comments before giving one redirection. It is significantly more important to praise the students for doing the right task than it is to redirect them from misbehaving. We have our class desks separated into 5 groups. The students at each group try to earn points for behaving and working well during the day. We award the students points for getting on with work quietly, doing excellent work, being a good community member, and following direction. We never take away points from a group once they have earned them. At the end of a fort night the group with the highest points wins a treat of some sort. This could be going early for morning tea time or getting a special treat brought into class such as hot chips (french fries) and drinks. The points system works well in the class and the praise helps keep everyone on task.
When a student does misbehave Rebecca has taught me to give them two warnings and then it is a time out.When giving the warnings or the direction to go to time out you always state the behavior that caused them to receive the redirection. (i.e. 1. You're calling out while I'm talking which is rude. 2. That is the second time you have called out while I am talking. 3 That is now the third time you have called out while I am talking, go into the hall for a time out). Time out means the child goes and sits in the corridor for a few minutes. When I come out to get the child from the corridor there is little to no discussion about what happened. Instead we talk about what is to be expected when they return to the classroom. Again this is promoting the positive attitude and not dwelling on the misbehavior. Rebecca has given me some priceless advice for dealing with exceptionally difficult children. She has said "When you come to work each day imagine that you are putting on your white lab coat like a scientist. Work is to be work, it is not emotional. Always remember that you have your lab coat on and never become emotional with a child who is acting up. Know that a child may have a bad day where they are rude and act up; this is not a personal attack against you and it should not effect your perspective. You need to remain calm and deal with the situation professionally." She has also told me that once you are able to manage a classroom you are able to teach anywhere! I am no longer concerned or nervous about managing my classroom. I know exactly what to do in case something does happen, but above all I know that my students are bright and exciting! If I engage them then I know they will meet my expectations and succeed in school.
I am excited to bring back all the useful philosophies and resources provided to me while teaching here in New Zealand. It is wonderful to get a different perspective on teaching from another part of the world.

Rangitoto & Rotorua

Along with having amazing experiences teaching at Swanson, Sarah and I are also busy exploring the country! So far we have been downtown Auckland, Rangitoto Island, and we have just returned from a weekend at Rotorua.
Saturday, October 27, Sarah and I hopped the rail bus into Auckland. Our goal was to see the Sky Tower, go to Victoria Park Market, and then eat at a cafe along the Harbour. We hopped off the bus and got going towards the Sky Tower. I'm not exactly sure how, but we lost sight of the tallest building in the city and wound up walking past it and up a huge, huge hill. We made it all the way to the top of the hill before we realized we'd past the tower and had to walk back town. Finally we made it and got all the way up to the top. Its very fun walking around on the observation deck. There are spots on the floor which are made out of glass rather than concrete; these areas look like holes in the floor and though they are perfectly safe to stand on you still get a knot in your stomach when walking up to them. It was a beautiful day so we took heaps of pictures of the city. Next we headed over to the Victoria Park Market to check out the shops. Its very fun there and reminds me a bit of the Greendale Village. We could see the waterfront from the Market so we just started walking towards it assuming we were near the harbour. Come to find out we were clearly wrong and walked into the ship yard rather than along the cafes and museum. So we backtracked and walked up another hill to get to the cafes. Obviously Sarah and I have a magnificent sense of direction between us!

Looking down through the glass floor!

Sunday, Rachel took us out to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto is a 600 year old volcano, the island is uninhabited and it hasn't been altered by people. I had expected the whole thing to be volcanic rock, but surprisingly a lot of vegetation has grown. All of it has been blown over in the wind and began to grow right on the rock. The trails are steep but well worn. Rachel told us about a man she knows who on his lunch break from work will kayak across to the island, run up to the summit and back down and then kayak back. Talk about being in shape! On our way up to the summit we explored into the lava caves. The first one we came to was very small, Rachel had thought it would open up to be able to walk through, but the deeper we got the smaller and darker it got. We turned around and headed back out only to discover that it was the second cave you can walk though! We went over to that one and had a much more successful crawl through! After hiking to the top and seeing the beautiful 360 degree views we decided to hike down the other side and head over to Islington Bay. It was a beautiful day for hiking! We then looped around and headed back towards the ferry. The hike back was obviously less traversed and wound up being the rockiest part of our hike. All the paths on Rangitoto were made by prisoners who were in a Prison Camp on the island. The old punishment of hammering rocks was a reality to these people! They hammered and moved the rocks to create the paths all over the island. On our hike we came across an old army bunker. Rachel told us this was used during WWII. Some of the military was stationed on the island and had the bunker set up so that if the Japanese ever came to New Zealand they'd be ready. The American army was also there and had set up a dance hall and a training field on Rangitoto as well.

On the ferry heading to Rangitoto Island

One of the hiking paths

Rachel and I hiking up to the summit.

This weekend Sarah and I went with her host family to Rotorua. Rotorua is a geothermal area so it smells beautifully of rotten eggs! Sarah and I booked a trip to a Maori Culture Experience. It was lots of fun, they did demonstrations of Poi dances for the women and the famous Haka for the men. The Maori Poi is a dance performed with balls attached to flax strings, swung rhythmically. It was originally used by the Maori women for keeping their hands flexible for weaving and by the men for strength and coordination required during battle. The haka is a traditional dance form of the Maori men. The haka is a composition played by many instruments. Hands, feet, legs, body, voice, tongue, and eyes all play their part in blending together to convey in their fullness the challenge, welcome, exultation, defiance or contempt of the words.

Ka mate, ka mate
Ka ora, ka ora
Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru
Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra
Upane, upane
Upane kaupane
Whiti te ra.

In English:

It is death, it is death
It is life, it is life
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Up the ladder, up the ladder
Up to the top
The sun shines.

We then ate a delicious meal prepared in a Hangi. The hangi is a pit in the ground which has hot stones in it. You cook the food on the hot stones, usually vegetables and a meat such as lamb. It was delicious! Sarah and I felt like we'd just eaten Thanksgiving dinner.

The next morning Sarah and I went for a walk to the Kuirau Park which is a thermal park in the middle of town. It looks like it'd be a typical grassy park, however there are fenced off areas that are steaming. Its the thermal mud pools which have come up through the ground and are bubbling. Apparently the mud from these pools is collected and sold as a facial mud. It comes up from the ground boiling, so I would not want to be the one to collect it!

The thermal mud pools in the middle of the park

After our walk we headed off to the Luge! Cory (Sarah's 6 year old host brother) and Jan (her host mom) took us with Jan's boyfriend, Rob and two daughters, Caitlin and Maddie. It was so much fun zooming down the hill on these little skateboard/scooters. I was racing Rob and Caitlin down the hill and didn't realize we'd turned onto the advanced route. As we were speeding down after one another I wound up taking a turn too wide and flying over the bank on the side of the road. Just as I flipped off, Jan came down behind me and nearly crashed from laughing so hard at me! It was a blast! Sarah and I then took interest in this thing called the Skyswing. We decided to have a go, this swing takes you up the air on a cable and then you have to pull the cord to release yourself and go flying forwards. Its set up on the side of the mountain so it really feels like you're going to go flying into the town below. We got up to the top of the cable and are facing all the way forwards with just our safety belts holding us in, Sarah yelled to me to pull the cord, I mucked up the courage to grab the rope and pulled, nothing happened. I hadn't pulled hard enough! I kept yanking on the cord and couldn't get it to pull. Finally it clicked and we screamed bloody murder the whole way down! Sooooo much fun!!

Next weekend we're off to the Waitomo Caves for Black Water Rafting! We're having a lovely time! Rotorua (Maori for Two Lakes)

Week Two!

My second week at Swanson has been very eventful! We started out the week planning for novel studies. We have rearranged the reading groups and now have only three instead of five. We will be reading the books The Twits, The Killing Sea, and The Whale Rider. I have taken control of The Twits group and have done heaps of planning with various questions and activities for my group to complete. I am very pleased so far with the progress we're making with The Twits book. Two of our students are low readers and find reading to be a struggle and a pain rather than a joy. However they have begun reading The Twits and now I have trouble breaking them away from the book! I love it!
On Tuesday I had a great experience! Rebecca and I took the Touch Team to a tournament at Waitakere College. Touch Rugby is similar to Rugby without the contact. It was a very interesting day taking 25 students, all very roudy and athletic students, to the tournament. There were about 10-12 other schools there all with 2-3 teams each. We split our students into three teams and then entered them into either the A or the B grade. I was with the Swanson Touch Team A all day. They played fabulously! We had 4 games; we won one, had one draw, and then lost two. The students had a blast! At the end of the day we received the award for Best Sportsmanship! I was very impressed and pleased with our students. It was a great experience for them and I'm sure they all slept soundly that night after a full day of Touch. Today had another first for me as well; my first time being insulted for being American. I know that most people are not fond of Americans right now, and Dr. Delano had even prepped us for not being patriotic and not being surprised if you are insulted, but its still rather shocking the first time it happens. This woman had just come up to Rebecca and I and raved about how well behaved and how well mannered our students were. We were very pleased to hear this about our students at Swanson so she and I started chatting. After a few moments she asked me what my accent was, and I said I'm American. She replied, "Oh that's a shame because you have such a pretty face. Well have a good day and good luck to your school!" I stood there silent, not really knowing what to think of the matter. She hadn't said it as a dig or a mean comment, but more so just said it as a well known fact. Later that day I told David what had happened and he told me to tell people that I am from Canada instead, to which I laughingly replied "ya der eh!"
Wednesday night we had a staff meeting which I had the opportunity to be involved in. Rebecca and another teacher, Julia, had gone to a course about Developing a Thinking Culture in the Classroom. They came back to the staff meeting prepping a lesson to the teachers about what they learned. It is an awesome concept of transforming the classroom from being teacher oriented to being student focused. The teachers are seen as facilitators and we encourage the students to ask questions that are not just questions but that are worthy of investigating to deepen understanding. I was able to assist Rebecca and Julia in their presentation which was a good experience for me to get up infront of the staff and present. I enjoyed it and will be bringing the resources back home with me as well.
Now Rebecca and I are working hard to get our worm farm up and running. We have ordered a thousand worms and tonight will be picking them up to add. This worm farm has Tiger Worms which are compost worms. They do not live in gardens because they are not earthdiggers. These worms will thrive in compost with leaves, cardboard, and heaps of fruit and veggie scraps. Though these worms cannot live in the garden, the "worm tea" (worm excresions) they produce makes a fabulous fertilizer for gardens. This worm farm project will be teamed up with the next unit we are beginning: A Room28 Veggie Garden! I am exstatic for this unit because I will be the one taking over and planning all of the activities and lessons we will be completing. Mr. McLachlan, the principal here at Swanson, is donating 3 large tractor tires for us to use. We are hoping to get everything underway by next week and cross your fingers that we will have veggies to eat by the end of the term!
I have found working with the older students is more challenging for me than working with the Kindergarten class at Aldo. However, I believe its more difficult simply because I haven't done it before. Though I love my Kindergarteners, I am enjoying having more class discussions and working on bigger, broader tasks with the older students. They add a new dynamic to the classroom atmosphere since they are more capable than younger students. I am enjoying the challenge and I'm sure I will be sad to leave my students here in Room28.
Sarah and I are off to Rotorua this weekend with her host family. Rotorua is another Maori word, Rua means two and Roto means lake. We plan to go to a Maori Culture Experience as well as check out the thermal pools. I'll have plenty of pictures!