Tramp and Camp

Next week the Room 1 students will be participating in a tramp and camp with the other Cluster Schools as part of this years Tuia Challenge. On the first day we will walk for one hour and then stay at Mangatepopo for the night. On the second day we will walk five hours straight until we reach our final destination. It is going to be great fun and im really looking forward to it.  

Kung Hei Fat Choy

 This term we have been learning about the Chinese New year.

The Chinese New Year is an annual 15 day festival for the Chinese people. The festival includes exotic foods and celebrations for each of the 15 days. Of all the New Year celebrations, the Chinese New Year is the most different to ours.

The Chinese New Year is the main festival for the Chinese men, women and children in the year. It consists of 15 days packed with celebrations and traditions. The lunar calendar is used so that the dates change from year to year. It is usually held in late January or early February. The first day of the festival is held on the first black moon (new moon) of the year.

There are 12 different signs of the zodiac, each one having its own individual qualities. There are monkeys, tigers, dragons, rats and horses, to name a few. You get judged on which animal you are by your D.O.B. Although, if you are a certain animal it doesn’t mean you have the same qualities.

In China there are celebrations and customs that would be looked upon by us as strange and out of the ordinary. They always hide the knives in the house because they believe you should not cut your good luck off. Another of their customs is that of painting the entire door red to ward off the evil Nian. They also give out Hong Bao (a red envelope with gold streaks on it) to the children. These usually contain sweets or money but it is considered rude to open them in front of the person who gifted you with it. At dusk they set off their fireworks and firecrackers to scare off the evil spirits.

Most of their meals in this 15 day period consist of fish, spring rolls and glutinous rice. The most traditional food that is cooked are dumplings. They cook their dumplings in the shape of bars and they hide a coin inside one of the dumplings. It is considered good luck to find the coin.

The Chinese New year is a sacred 15 day celebration. You may think that all of these customs and traditions are strange, but to them it is the most important time in the year.

Leadership Camp

Last Tuesday the Room 1 students departed from school for a fun 2 days at Green Pastures. To start the day off we did kayaking, classroom work, and team building with the other cluster schools. But you cant forget the mud run. Waist deep in mud, the wet brown liquid finding places you didn't even know existed. It was great. Soon after that the other schools left leaving us with the entire camp to ourselves. To finish the day off we had a great game of spotlight and got the kayaks out again. The next day we were onto raft building with ours failing miserably. But we still had a good time. Overall we had a fantastic camp.

 

Sevens Final

On the 24th of August the Fordell rugby sevens team set out to Cooks Gardens to play Ohakune, the Northern division champs. It was a tough game and in the end we lost 7-0. It was a great game and Daniel played like a machine! Even though we lost we were still the winners of the Southern division. Everybody had a great game and Jourdan got flipped and smashed many times.  

Welcome

 

Welcome to my blog. We have a lot going on this term so you have to be sure to keep checking it out.