Our Taonga

Yesterday afternoon we saw the last of the teachers sharing their taonga with the school.
Mrs Williamson shared her greenstone. She talked about how the greenstone needs to be blessed. She also shared how a greenstone is special to individual people. If the greenstone is not meant to be then it may break or be lost.

Mr Frank shared the story of his Grandfather and the whistle that he used during WWI.

Mr Sefton talked about the wedding rings he wears. He explained that they were important to him because of the meaning behind them. 

Taonga - Family Memories

During the last two afternoons Teachers have shared their special "taonga" with students that are special to them.

Here are some of the examples of the "taonga" they have shared with the students:

Mr Lodge and his old home movie footage from over 30 years ago.

Mrs Weir shared a painting of her family her daughter made when she was 7.

Miss Hale shared a sketch book that her Grandfather started. Her father and Miss Hale have also added drawings to the sketch book.

Mrs Potroz shared a fossil that her Grandfather sent to her from England when she was a little girl. The fossil was from a mine that her Grandfather worked in.

Miss Churchman brought along a violin that was her Dads. She told us that the violin was about 300 years old and has been handed down through her family.

Miss Churchman even played the violin for us.

Miss Ogle shared her Scrapbook and Ancestry App that shows her family tree. 

Today the whole school has been involved in a number of co-operative learning activities as part of our new unit. We are learning about how the past influences who we are today. We started by learning about archaeology and how archaeologists can make predictions about what happened in the past from fossils and artefacts. Artefacts are objects that have been created by humans. Teachers have shared special "taonga" with students that are special to them. They brought the artefact (object) along to school and have shared the story that makes this object special. In the next week we will be asking students to bring a special "taonga" (treasure) along to school and share the story behind the object with their class. 

As part of today's work students pretended that they were archaeologists. They will be given a packet of puzzle pieces that they have to put together. Once they have put their puzzle together; they will have a pictures of about 15 artefacts. They have to make inferences about how that group of people may have lived based on the artefacts in their puzzle.

Please follow our blog to learn more about what is happening each day in the unit.

Camping with PRIDE at Opunake Primary School

We made it into the Opunake & Coastal News