An Important Visitor to Our School

On Wednesday 26th of August, the Mayor of Manukau City, Mr Len Brown, visited our school as part of the Principal for a Day Programme.

First he came to an assembly and he sang Po Kare Kare Ana for us. Because Daffodil the lamb is a member of Huia 2's class, she came to the assembly also. Look for her in the photo.


After the assembly, Mr Brown came to Mrs Vincent's Maths swap class just in time for a basic facts test. We have to try and get 100% in less than five minutes. The basic facts are in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Some children in our maths class can get 100% in less than three and a half minutes.
Can you find the Mayor, Mr Brown, in this photo?

We won't tell you what Mr Brown got in the test... but he has some homework to do.
Then he went to visit other classes around the school.

Today, we babysat the little lamb Daffodil because she came into our classroom. She wandered around.... and she left something behind on the carpet.....

Mrs Irwin from Huia 2, next to our room, came to talk to us about fund raising for the SPCA on Monday. She asked us to bring money to buy cakes which her class are selling to raise funds for the SPCA. She showed us a photo from a newspaper article about a dog which had not nearly enough food for about three months. The dog had been dumped at the SPCA overnight. It was horrible and cruel.

by Adryan

A note from Mrs Vincent: Check out Daffodil's progress. Check out the photo of her last week and the photo of her this week. She is certainly growing!

How Do We Know It's Nearly Spring in NZ?

We know it must be spring soon because lambs are being born and daffodils are starting to flower.

Yesterday (Wednesday), our principal, Ms Fowler, brought a new-born lamb from her farm to school because the lamb's mother died in the night. The lamb was a greyish-brownish-white with very short fleece and its ear colour is light pink. We think the colour of the lamb's underneath skin is slightly black. It has a very adorable basket which is covered with newspaper although underneath it has the lamb's blanket. She is a wonderful, adventurous little lamb discovering our school. We think she is approximately 3-4 days old. Her name is Daffodil although we call her Lambie.

The lamb lives in the classroom next to ours, called, Huia 2. The teacher, Mrs Irwin, took the lamb home last night to look after it. It needs feeding six times a day when it is so little. Mrs Irwin says that when it is so young, if you don't care for it properly, it can die.



Here are some pictures of the lamb and a picture of some daffodils in our school office.


The daffodil is a popular flower in spring when lots of flowers grow in gardens and sometimes in fields and roadsides in the country. There is a special date called Daffodil Day which is on the 28th August this year, which is coming really soon in spring. Daffodil Day is always the closest Friday to the first day of spring - which is September the 1st. Daffodil Day is to remember people who have recovered or died from cancer and to fund raise for The Cancer Society to help research cures for cancer.
















By Nikeeta anbd So Yeon

Yo tengo un elefante...

This is a video of us ( some of the Huia 1 students) singing " Yo tengo un elefante..." It means " I have an elephant..." It is a song sung by young children in Argentina. The teachers at the Step school in Paraná gave Mrs Vincent a CD of children's songs and this is on it. Mrs Vincent also filmed a group of students at Step and the CAE school singing this song. We used those to help us pronounce the words and get our accent correct.





Lyrics:

Yo tengo un elefante
que se llama Trompita
que mueve las orejas
llamando a su mamita
Y su mamá le dice,
i Portate bien, Trompita!
Sinó te voy a dar
... un chas chas en la colita.

It means (loosely):

I have an elephant
His name is Trumpet
He moves his ears
He called to his mother
His mother said to him,
"Behave yourself, Trumpet,
or I will give you a little
smack on the ....bottom."

In New Zealand, we can't be like Trompita's mother because it is illegal to smack children.


Feel free to sing along with the video.
We would love you to leave a comment at the end of this blog.

By Nikeeta

More of Our Reports on Argentina

Here are two more reports our class has done on Argentina. We learned about recent history in Argentina, including "The Dirty War" and "Los Desaparecidos". It was really sad to find out about those kidnappings. It makes us feel sympathetic towards the people who lost family members. We learned that there are people who have "disappeared" in many other countries as well, because they spoke against the government. There is an International Day of the Disappeared to remember these people. That day is 30th August. By Aminderdeep and Nikeeta.

The Dirty War

(This is a picture of one of the mothers who is remembering the people that died in the Dirty War.)

The Dirty War, from 1976 - 1983 was a seven year campaign by the Argentine government against people they suspected were against them.

Many people ‘disappeared’ or were kidnapped. It is said some were taken to secret labs where they were tortured and eventually killed. Some people were even put on drugs and were thrown out of planes into the ocean. These people are called ‘Los Disaparecidos’ or “The Disappeared”. The numbers are believed to be from 10,000 to 30,000 people.

After the death of the president, Juan Peron, in 1974, his wife and vice president Isabel Peron took power. However she was not really into military. The military led a coup against her and removed her from office. This way the military could maintain its grip on power by cracking down on anyone who they thought was challenging their authority.

In early 1980s, it became clear to the Argentine people that the government was behind the tens of thousands of kidnappings. The military was facing increasing opposition over its human rights as well as corruption. The government decided to mount a campaign to regain the ‘Los Islas Malvinas’(The Falkland Islands) from Great Britain.

Las Islas Malvinas had been an issue between England, who controlled them, and Argentina who claimed them since 1820. The government thought they could reclaim them and England wouldn’t mind losing them and the government would regain their popularity and control over their people. However the government was wrong. In 72 days after the invasion of the Falkland Islands, the British military won the war, capturing 9,800 Argentines.

This unexpected loss for the military was the last straw. The Dirty War ended when Raoul Alfonsin’s government took control of the country on December 10,1983.

I got my information from the internet and a book "Countries of the World - Argentina" by Les and Daisy Fearns.

By Aminderdeep

Los Disaparecidos

In Argentina there is a date, the 24th of March, and that day is to remember some of the most terrifying days in Argentina's history. It is called The Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice . What happened was that people were kidnapped, some of them got tortured and many were killed. This is a fact, it is believed that over 30,000 people "disappeared" between 1976 and 1983. They are called Los Desaparecidos. They were kidnapped because they spoke against the government dictatorship. Some of the mothers and grandmothers are still looking for their children and want to know what really happened. Some of the grandchildren could still be alive because they were taken from their mothers as babies and were given to other families. Not forgetting that some people also had been beaten up and some of them got to serious pain! Some of the people in the following cities in Argentina were kidnapped:

Buenos Aires
Rosario
Córdoba
Santa Fe

This is a really sad thing in Argentina. That time in Argentina was called "The Dirty War". There is a song by U2, which is about the "Mothers of the Disappeared". The Mothers of the Plazo de Mayo is an organisation of women. It started when the women got together to search for their missing children. They wear white head scarves, with their children's names embroidered on them. They meet every Thursday afternoon for half an hour and walk around the Plaza de Mayo, in Buenos Aires to protest. They want to keep the memory and spirit of there children alive.

I got my information from a variety of websites, including:

wicked homepage
Argentina research
wikipedia
factmonster
online encyclopedia
and some books on Argentina

by Nikeeta

Some of our Factual Reports on Argentina

In our class we are all writing a report on one topic about Argentina. We are learning research skills and report writing skills. We are also learning a lot about Argentina. We got our information from the internet, library books and from people who answered questions on our blog last term. (Thank you everyone who helped.) We will be adding these bit by bit. Can you please correct us if we have made any errors in our facts, or, could you please leave a message if you would like to add anything we have missed out.

Bernardino Rivadavia
(May 20, 1780 – September 2, 1845)
His full name was Bernardino de la Trinidad Gónzalez Rivadavia y Rivadavia . He was the first president of Argentina from February 8th 1826 to July 7th 1827. He had African ancestors and his political rivals used to call him Doctor Chocolate.
Bernardino Rivadavia was born in Buenos Aires in 20 May 1780. In 1809 he got married to the daughter of the viceroy of the Rio de la Plata, Juana de Pino y Vera.

He took part in the May Revolution for Argentine Independence in 1810.
In 1811,he became the leading member of the governing triumvirate as Secretary of the Treasury of War.

In 1815, Rivadavia was sent to Europe to improve Argentine relations with Britan and Spain.
He returned 6 years later in May 1821.

Rivadavia died in Cadiz, Spain in September 2, 1845, at the age of 65 years.

by Sheena

This is a picture of Bernardino Rivadavia.

I got my information from Wikipedia and Fact Monster. This was a hard topic for me to research because I had to go to the internet a lot of times because I couldn't get enough information that I understood. The most intersting fact for me was that he had to go to Europe for six years. I would like to know if his picture is on any of the Argentine coins or pesos.


This is not part of my report but, I went to the Auckland Food Show on Sunday and I went to a stall where two ladies were selling mate and the mate drinking cups. When we went there, I recognised the word 'mate' and I told my Mum. Then she told the ladies that I had been studying Argentina and one of the ladies asked me, "Have you tried anything from Argentina?"

I said that I had tried dulce de leche and alfajores and that they were delicious. I tried some mate and it tasted better than the one we tried at school. It tasted like tea.



Eva Peron

Eva Peron is one of Argentina's most successful women.

Eva was the first Argentine woman President. She stood in front of a crowd of 2 million cheering supporters. Some of them had camped out all night just to get near to her. They all wanted Eva to run for vice president of Argentina. Her husband, named Juan Peron, had been the Argentinian President since 1946.


One of Eva's sayings was: “I shall always do what the people wish, but I tell you that I would rather be Vita than the wife of the President, if this Evita could do anything for the pain of my country; and so now I say I would rather be Evita” .

It is said that Eva did not want to be vice president. The crowd shouted, “No, no!” They wanted Evita to announce that she would run for office. No lady in Argentina had ever held such a high office.

Some people thought Evita Peron was low class, hard-hearted and selfish. They told rumours about her past. They said that she and Juan stole money from the government. Some other people saw Eva as their leader, and wanted her to run for vice president. Eva said she would not say she would run for vice-president, so she said to the people:

“Comrades, it's said that I am a selfish and ambitious woman; you know very well that this isn't the case. But you also know that everything I did it was never so that I could have any political position in my country.”

The crowd started cheering and chanting even more. Juan Peron was surprised she was more popular then he was!

Right after that night she felt ill. It was cancer. In 1952 at the age of 33, she died of cancer. Lots of Eva's life was mysterious. Some people thought she and her husband had stolen money from the government but they both regretted it.





Where I got my information from:

Eva Peron - First lady of Argentina by Darline R. Stille I got the picture of Eva Peron from Google Images.


by Caitlin

The most interesting thing I learned was that she didn't want to be selfish. She just wanted to be herself and for people to think she was nice and warm-hearted. Mrs Lee, one of our Spanish teachers has been to Eva Peron's grave in Buenos Aires. She said the graves are above ground and they have patterns on them. (see some of Mrs Lee's photos of Eva Peron's grave below). I'd like to find out who and how many were against her because I learned that not all people wanted her to become vice president. When I am older I want to go to Argentina to see her grave and learn more about her and her life. There is a musical about Eva Peron, called "Evita" . I would go to see it because it is about her and her amazing life and she seems like an interesting person to research.