The Future

As a follow on from the discussion about transport now and in the past I suggested to the children that for writing that they might like to write a story about what kind of transport they think we might have in the future.
Amelie: What is the future?
Thomas: Everything is all silver. Everything that grows, a man comes along and sprays it silver.
Eva: That’s on Sponge Bob
Hannah: It is a place that’s up in the sky.
Vida: It’s a long time ago.
Lily: The future is when the car was first invented.
Connor: The future is all in the water on Sponge Bob.
Claire: It is a piece of art that never breaks.
R: It is a time portal and you go through back to the future. It’s a scientist thing.
Charlie: It happens in Ben 10.

From this discussion I drew a diagram on the board and we talked about the past, now/present and that the future is all of things that have not happened yet. We will need to look at this further.

They Came On Ships!

Today Charlie came to school and brought along some pictures of his ancestors and a painting of where they used to live. One of the things that Charlie shared with us was that his ancestors came to New Zealand on ships, 150 years ago.
Miss B: Why did they come on ships?
R: Because their feet were sore.
Eva: because they had no cars and they were poor.
Charlie: Because they wanted to get to New Zealand.
Miss B: How do people get to New Zealand now?
Amelie: Cars
Eva: In planes
Campbell: Maybe in a train.
Thomas: Trains can’t go in water.
Charlie: It was over seas.
Claire: They didn’t feel well.
Charlie: They didn’t feel good on ships, someone died on the ships because they were really, really sick.
Campbell: I spewed up on a boat before.
Hannah: there was only water around to get to New Zealand.
Miss B: so they could only come to New Zealand by water.
Charlie: Because they didn’t have aeroplanes.
Miss B: How did our ancestors move on land?
Lily: Walked
Amelie: Cars
Claire: Pretend Legs.
Hannah: They might have run
Amelie: Sprinted.

We wrote a list of all of the ways we move around now and then wrote a list of how we thought they moved in the past.
Now: car, plane, scooter, rollerblades, taxi, train walk, tram, boat, bike, rollerskates, van, bus, trucks.
Then: Feet, ships.

I then read the children a brilliant book called the Tree by Bob Darroch, where each page shows the tree in another era of New Zealand history. The children

The Haast Eagle

Today our Haast Eagle was hung up from the roof. It is made out of cardboard and the children have painted it and cut out feathers to stick all over it. It has a wingspan of about 2.6 metres and as per the children’s instructions it is swooping down to attack the moa.

Ancestors!

As a result of our What am I? pictures and the revelation that the Maori were still alive and that some of the children in our class had Maori ancestors, the class has begun asking questions of their parents about their own ancestors. We have put a world map on our window and are showing where children’s ancestors come from as they bring their information into the class. So far our class has ancestors from

England
Scotland
Ireland
Northern Ireland
Lithuania
Germany
Spain
France
Lebanon
Wales
along with Maori Ancestors

We are learning that some of our ancestors did interesting things like Claire’s ancestors were the first people to bring Clydesdales to New Zealand all the way from Scotland. There are other stories to come as the children continue to bring their family stories in.

The Maori are alive?

After our discussion during ChIL time the other day I had asked the children to talk to their parents about their ancestors and where they came from. Today we made the revelation that the Maori are still alive. The discussion started at the beginning of the day.
Vida: Miss Bell, I’m a Maori!
Miss Bell: That is great, did you find out last night?
Vida: Yes
Miss B: There are other children in here who are Maori, has anyone else found out if they have Maori ancestors?
Dakota, Tyra and Deepak raised their hands
Miss B: That’s right, Dakota, Tyra and Vida all have Maori ancestry. Deepak you are Fijian Indian.
Eva: I love Indian Food.
Miss B: So are the Maori still alive?
Mixed response of yes and no.
Miss B: If Vida, Dakota and Tyra are Maori, are the Maori still
alive?
Whole class: Yes!!!
We talked briefly about some of their original ideas, about the Maori living in deserts, and being very old and the fact people with Maori descent are New Zealanders, and live like everybody else.

What am I?

In a previous discussion Thomas asked the questions What am I?
in relation to some people in the class having Maori descent. So today I asked the children to draw a picture of themselves, I then wrote I am a… and noted for the children all of the things they were around their picture. It took a while to get all the ideas flowing but this is a list of the ideas they came up with.

Daughter, Lincoln person, Good dancer, Cousin,
Sister, Good singer, friend, Girl,
Artist, Rolleston person, New Zealander, Brother,
Ripper Rubgy player, Good writer, Good reader, Son,
Swimmer, Uncle, Spanish, boy,
Good channel changer, English Person, Painter, Drawer,
Child, student, ballerina, Princess,
Christchurch Person

Are the Maori still alive?

Today we began making a giant Haast eagle to hang up in the room at ChIL time, while the children were cutting and sticking a discussion began.
Eva: Are the Maori still alive?
Claire: No, because when we weren't alive, they were alive.
Connor: Yes, cause I think they live in a different land.
R: They're not alive, I went to New Zealand and didn't see any.
Connor: Thats because Maori live in deserts.
Amelie: Yes they are alive because people can talk Maori.
Lily: The Maori are alive but there aren't many left but I don't know why.
Vida: Theres not many left because they are very old.
Deepak: I saw a Maori in a museum.
R: Was it alive?
Deepak: It was a statue.
Amelie: When I went to the museum, I saw coloured people of Maori, trying to kill a moa. They were in a forest.
Dakota: They are still alive because some Maori people are on the news.

This was an interesting discussion and it is interesting to note that a couple of children in this discussion have Maori ancestry but have not made this connection.

In a discussion a few day earlier the words ancestors came up and we discussed how our ancestors are our family from a long time ago. I told them that some children in our class had Maori ancestors but they obviously did not make the connection that, that means they are Maori. When we were talking about this Thomas asked the question, What am I?, which may lead us onto some interesting learning about ourselves.