Talking to Dee about being in Hurricane Irene

While we were coming back to class after morning tea, Mrs Vincent told us that we were going to
be talking on line (by messaging) to a woman called Dee from the other side of the world in U.S.A. She lives on the border of New Hampshire and Maine, in an area affected by Hurricane Irene. We asked her where she was when the hurricane hit. She was at home on a Sunday

She told us that some of her friends close to the affected area have no power, and one of her friends from New Jersey had been hit badly. Four hundred thousand people had no electricity.

One of our questions we asked was “What is the time where you are?” It was 07:10 p.m. on Monday and we were 11:10 a.m. on Tuesday - making her 16 hours behind us. We had a little laugh because she said, “ What were the lotto numbers haha?” We worked out that it is summer and very soon will be autumn in the U.S.A.

Dee said there were 35 people dead from the hurricane but there are now about 40 people to date died.

One of our other questions was, “ How were you affected?”
Dee said, “ Not too badly. They down-graded it to a tropical storm and a few branches fell on her roof.

We asked her on a scale to one to ten how scary was the hurricane. Her answer was “ About an 8 when a branch hit her house but 4 for the rest of the time because she was prepared. There had been plenty of warning and people had removed any loose objects from their yards so they wouldn't fly around and cause damage in the wind.

When we asked her if she felt the recent earthquake near New York, Dee said she had, and that it sounded like a big truck going past - for a long time. She was familiar with earthquakes after she lived in Taranaki for a while. We told her about Geonet so she can keep track of earthquakes in NZ as well as U.S.A.

Dee also said that while she was living in New York, the first winter that they experienced included a free ice storm and power-cut for 6 days ."It was like I was in Narnia,” she quoted.

We are going to try to keep in contact with Dee to ask her questions about current events in the U.S.A .

By Hunter and Sarah J.

Stunning Sunset Art

Renae

Danny

This art used old bits and pieces of pastel- the ones that have got mixed up together and it's hard to tell what colour they were originally. The paper was completely covered in the pastels, then smudged away with a piece of sponge rubber. After that, the silhouette was added using a clean black pastel. (It can also be done using black crayon or black ink)

Tegan

Caitlin

Sarah I

Krizelle

Jessica

International Languages Week

People in Huia 1 who speak or understand languages other than English (and a bit of Spanish) try to locate the countries of their languages' origins. This wonderful floor-to-ceiling world map is in our school .

In New Zealand, this week is International Languages Week.

Within our class we have speakers of several languages as well as English and, of course, we are all learning Spanish:

Terence has learned a bit of Maori, Japanese and Mandarin and understands some Cook Island Maori.

Ben understands some Maori

Fili speaks some Samoan

Jackie speaks Vietnamese, Mandarin and Cambodian

Donny speaks Cantonese

Nikhil speaks Hindi

Krizelle speaks Filipino

Sarah I speaks Urdu and a bit of Punjabi

Danny speaks Hebrew, a bit of Russian (and understands more) and used to be able to speak a bit of Romanian but doesn't remember it any more.

Karnjeet speaks Punjabi and Hindi

Bhaban speaks Punjabi and Hindi

Callum understands some Nuiean

Matthew has learned some French


and we all speak English and some Spanish.


We love this comedy video clip called The Offensive Translator which shows how we perceive the sounds, and stereotype the speakers, of different languages. It was interesting to share this with our class because we have some native speakers of those languages in Huia 1 and we wanted to know if we shared the same understanding of what is funny.

Bhaban said,"The Indian guy looks like my Dad." He said, "She sounded nothing like Indian language. I thought it was funny- but in real life, I think if an Indian did get offended, he would get all 'hyper' and start swearing bad language. But first he would be polite and would say, 'Please don't do that.' " Bharban said that he would have recognised that she was trying to speak Indian if he hadn't seen the man or his flag.

Jackie said,"She sounded like she was drunk - and she sounded nothing like Chinese. I thought it was funny because she looked and sounded as if she was confused. She was trying to make the noise of the Chinese language. If someone really spoke like that, a person might be offended but I understand the joke in the video clip." Jackie said he wouldn't have known she was trying to speak Chinese if he hadn't seen the Chinese woman in the video.

Karnjeet said, "I actually found it pretty funny because she didn't know what she was speaking and was using random words because she doesn't know how to speak Indian. I didn't recognise even a bit of what she was saying. I probably would have picked that she was trying to speak Indian."

Donny said, " I thought it was funny. She tried to speak like a Chinese person although she is just saying random crazy stuff. I wouldn't have recognised that she was trying to speak Chinese if I hadn't seen the Chinese lady."

Nikhil thought it was really entertaining. "She kind of got the accent right but not the words. They were way off. I would have known that she was trying to speak Indian if I hadn't seen the Indian man."


But there can also be many different ways of speaking the same language. Check out the 21 accents used by this speaker. The class recognised the New Zealand accent easily - especially after the speaker said she came from Wellington. We loved the way she changed her age from twenty-five to twenty-six so she could emphasis the way we pronounce the sound 'i'.


And then, we learned different ways to say (and write) 'Hello' in different languages. It was interesting that there are formal and informal ways to say hello in many cultures. Here's another person who has learned to say 'Hello' in 25 different ways. (Please note: these are not all spoken by native speakers but they would be understood - which is the most important thing!)

But, there can be times when misunderstandings DO occur...


There are many good reasons why it is good to speak another language. Here's one you may not have thought about...

¿Cómo se dice "It's snowing" en español?

Shayla with a "snowball" of hail.

Matthew with a "snowball" of hail

Every day we discuss the weather, in Spanish.

¿Qué tiempo hace?

¿Hace sol?

¿Está nublado?

¿Está lloviendo?

¿Hace viento?

¿Hace calor?

¿Hace frío?

However, we have never needed to ask ¿Está nevando?

Today, for the first time in our memory, it snowed ever such a little bit at school. It wasn't enough to get a decent photograph but we did get some photos of the the hail storm just before school started, and again at the end of the day.

Hail in our class garden

Hail on the stage
Hail on the roof of the classrooms

Follow the link for more photographic evidence of snow around New Zealand (from the NZ Herald website).

Dancing Practice

Photos by Mrs Whitehead

Cross Country

Last Thursday, we had our annual cross country race at Totara Park. In the four houses, all students over Year 2, marched to the park, with their flags to lead them. As we walked, we passed the daycare centre - many waved us by.

The track through Totara Park to the starting place for the cross country.

Everyone gathers in their houses:
Kowhai (la bandera amarillo) Rimu (la bandera verde)
Tawa (la bandera azul) Rimu ( la bandera rojo)

Once we arrived, a very determined Miss Griffin, announced that we would be racing in order of year and gender [year 3 girls, year 3 boys, year 4 girls ...] The airhorn signalled the start of the first race and the pattern began.

Miss Griffin

We started of with the year 3s, because they took a shorter route round the track. One by one, everyone else started from different points according to age. Finally it was time for the Intermediate team.

Earlier on in the week, Miss Griffin chose a team of girls, from Huia 1, to take some photos at several stages of the course. The official photographers were Hunter, Sarah J, Ricki-Jean, Tegan and Renae. But before the year 8 students started, due to a slight stroke of brilliance, off went Hunter and Sarah who sneakily walked away and hid in the forest beside the track, to take photos of kids running by - without their knowing!

By the end of the day, after everyone had completed their races, everyone was really hungry and exhausted because it was nearly lunchtime and it seemed like an age since morning tea. But we had to make the short walk back to the school, an impossible task for some, but everyone made it back, somehow.

Jacky and Michael in Kowhai house colours.

Overall we all had a great day out and appreciated the chance to see more of Totara Park [and the opportunity of an entire block off work].



By Ricki-Jean

Nancy Wake

Nancy Wake was in World War 2 .She died in a London hospital on the 8th of August at the age of 98. She was trained as a spy. In 1937 she she meet her future husband and they got married on the 30 of November. In the later years she hid in the forest from the Germans, with French Resistance fighters, and she killed a German with her bare hands, then she threw a grenade into the office were some Gestapo were having a meeting.

Nancy’s nickname was ‘The White Mouse’. The reason she got that nickname was because she was guiding some soldiers away from the Germans. The Germans knew someone was helping the Allies so they sent a warning out saying they're coming for her.

In the end, she had to go, so she left her husband as if she was going to the shops. A while later, her husband was tortured to death because he would not tell the Gestapo her where-abouts.

When the supplies were been ordered for the Resistance fighters and dropped to her by parachute, she always got make-up. When she returned from her spy duties she was devastated to find that her husband was not alive.


Nancy was the only one out of her 6 siblings to become a spy. We think she is a very brave and lip-stick loving woman and we appreciate what she did as an individual.

By Sarah & Hunter