Samoan and Tongan First Language Groups

The Samoan and Tongan children have been working hard over the last few weeks learning colours, numbers,  fruits and vegetables and animal names in their first languages. They have also been very busy making resources so that they can teach others. 

Bingo's Adventures in the Playground.

Here is the last of our preposition stories about our friend Bingo. Written by Peiai, Lance and Sovichea, photography by Peiai and Lance. Great work team.

Tongan Language Week

We had a wonderful week. It was great to hear lots of adults and children in the playground greeting each other in Tongan.

• We kicked off the week on day 1 with a list of greetings for the teachers to use in their classrooms. 
• Then on day 2 the children presented each class with a counting poster The children had made these posters using Kid Pix.
• On day 3 the children gave each classroom a ‘Tongan Colours Poster’ that we had made using our own photos.  
• Day 4 the children gave the classroom teachers some more classroom instructions to learn.
• On day 5 each class was given a list of classroom objects. 

The Tongan children all loved being teachers for the week and can’t wait to do it all again next year.

Prepositions - Bingo's Adventure

By Miracle, Marla and Neelofar

Tongan Language Week Day 2

Today we took some 'kid pix' counting posters that we made to all the classrooms. 

Bears in the Night - our version.

We have been learning about prepositions. First we read 'Bears in the Night'. Then we made our own story using our friend Bingo. Great pictures Victory, Wendy and Trissa.

Tongan Language Week Day 1

Today was the first day of 'Tongan Language Week'. The children took the first page of their booklet around to all the teachers. Then they helped them too say the words in Tongan. It was fun hearing all the teachers in the playground using the Tongan greetings they had learnt. Tomorrow we will hand out page 2 and some counting posters.

Tongan - First Language Group

Last Friday the Tongan children got together to work on a resource booklet for our teachers to use during 'Tongan Language Week'.  They are going to teach the teachers some Tongan words to use in their classrooms. 
The children are all excited about taking part in our very first 'Tongan Language Week' project.

Tongan Language Week

We are supporting Tongan Language Week 
4 - 10 September 2011

Pacific Island Readers - Tupu Series

Today the Samoan and Tongan children used some of the wonderful books in the Tupu series to read to the younger children. The children love these readers and we are sad that the Education Ministry has now stopped producing them. They are such a powerful resource for the children. We have some in our school library so the children can take them home and read them with their parents and grandparents. To read something in your first language is such a powerful tool. 

Type Drawing... Give it a go

Type Drawing  'How to Catch a Star

Reading Strategies - Visualising

Fili and Ezra have been learning all the different strategies that good readers use. This week they have been learning about visualising.  Good readers create pictures in their minds while they read. Fili and Ezra read ‘Oops’ then we used Glogster to make a poster to show what they have learnt.

How to catch a Star - Wordle

We used some of the words from the story " How to catch a Star" to make a Wordle.

Wall Display - How to Catch a Star

Check out our 'How to Catch a Star" artwork. 

Kid Pix - How to Catch a Star.

Green Hat Thinking - 'How to Catch a Star'

How to Catch a Star

by Oliver Jeffers

We read ‘How to Catch a Star.’ Then we put on our ‘Green Thinking Hats’ and tried to think of some creative ways  we could catch our own stars. Here are some of our wonderful ideas.

• Get a long, long ladder, the longest ladder in the whole world.
• Put rainbow lollypops in a mouse trap and catch it. Stars should like rainbow lollypops.
• By riding in an airplane.
• Build a rocket ship shaped like a star and the star will think it’s a star and be tricked.
• Go up in a rocket  ship that never ever runs out of petrol.
• Climb up a rainbow to reach the stars.
• Go in a rocket ship way up to the stars.
• I am going to wish a star and I won’t tell anyone incase it doesn’t come true.

Here comes the sunshine...

On Thursday we made a mosaic picture of the sun. First we decided what colours we would use. Then we cut the paper from magazines and advertising mailers into little pieces. 

Next we used our glue sticks to glue the paper into a big circle.

We used red, yellow, orange and dark brown to make our sun because we wanted it to look like a fire.

NASA History Highlights

Check this out... man really did walk on the moon. 

Yellow Hat Thinking

We put on our yellow hats to help us think about all the good things we know about the sun.

Here are some of our thoughts...

• The sun makes us nice and warm.
• The sun helps us see things without lights.
• The sun makes the day time.
• The sun makes things grow like trees and flowers.
• The sun makes me happy.
• The sun makes our washing dry.
• The sun makes things more fun.
• The sun helps flowers grow.
• It makes things nice and warm.
• It would be really really cold if there was no sun

Check out one of our wonderful new multi-cultural puzzles that we have purchased from http://www.pinegrovepuzzles.co.nz/Home. We have puzzles in Samoan, Tongan, Mandarin, Punjab and Hindi. 

Today the Samoan children were teaching some of the teachers colours using the paint pot puzzle.

To Infinity and Beyond...

Our topic this term is ‘ To Infinity and Beyond ‘ a space exploration. 


We began by looking at the differences between Day and Night. Check out the posters we made using all the children’s ideas.