NEWSFLASH

An update on Henry – our class Bear.  Inspired by the adventures Patches McPatches in PNG, Henry decided it was time for him to go on an adventure too.... although not feeling so brave he decided his first trip wouldn't be overseas.

Henry hitches a ride with Jill – off on his big adventure!

We have had a card from him too.  He even got to go to Parliament!

Henry writes

“Dear Children of Room 6 and Mr Corlett

I’m on a trip to wellington today and I am having such an awesome day J.  I will tell you all about it soon when I get back to class.

Thinking of you.

See you soon,

Henry

Term 1 Week 7  The Yr 6 children went on camp to Palm Grove.  It was a fabulous camp - great parent helpers, awesome kids, well organised (thanks Michelle), and a camp site which gave children a great number of fun but challenging activities, which we share with you through this video.

Check out the Year 6 children's individual blogs for their views of the camp.

Room 6 and lots of other children from the school discover the simple joys of creating their own entertainment - sliding down a grassed slope on a piece of cardboard.

"It was great to see you having fun with the cardboard boxes on the top field" Waikanae School principal, Mr Bevan Campbell, told the children, after watching their antics.

However as all things come to an end, the bare grass patches giving testimony to the number of children who joined in and the grass needed time to recover before the arrival of wet weather the area was likely to turn to mud.

Patches McPatches the wandering lion teaches us about life in PNG

The final chapter  - until he writes again :-)

By then it was time to make dinner. We use a lot of coconuts for our cooking here. When a coconut is ready it falls off  the coconut tree, but it looks different to the ones you see in the supermarket because it still has a husk on it like the ones on the ground in my picture. Aunty Rosa taught me how to use a sharp stick to rip the husk off. It takes lots of muscles but she’s very good at it. 

 Once the husk comes of we break it open with a big knife, scrape the coconut out of the shell and make coconut cream with it. We cook things in the cream a lot, but we don’t eat much of the coconut. Most of it goes to feeding our chickens.

After such a busy day it was time to hang out on the balcony of my house with a big glass of juice.

I love my life here in PNG in the tropical sunshine.

Mr Corlett told me that you’re going to be taking my good friend Henry on some interesting adventures too so I’m looking forward to hearing lots of great stories from you all.

  

Bye for now

Patches Mc Patches xxx

Patches McPatches the wandering lion teaches us about life in PNG.
 Chapter 6

After that I needed a rest so I went and sat under the shelter on the bridge next to my house. My neighbours Bob and Lucy made it all by themselves. The roof is made from leaves and it helps to keep the rain off of the wooden bridge so it doesn’t rot. PNG doesn’t have 4 seasons like NZ does, it only has 2. Wet season and dry season, so sometimes it rains here A LOT!

After that I felt a little bit sick, maybe I ate too many green guavas, so I went down to the hospital. Nurse Grace said I had a high temperature. She gave me some pink medicine to make me feel better.

Come and read some more tomorrow and hear the final chapter of my letter about every day life at Kapuna..

Several children are exploring using Movie Maker as a way to share their learning and show the activities they have been involved in at school.  Here are Meghan and Dylan's first experimental movies.
Well done!  Great new learning!

Patches McPatches the wandering lion teaches us about life in PNG.

The next McPatches post will be here tomorrow - check out the next episode of his adventures.

Chapter 5

 Patches McPatches the wandering lion teaches us about life in PNG.

After that I needed a rest so I went and sat under the shelter on the bridge next to my house. My neighbours Bob and Lucy made it all by themselves. The roof is made from leaves and it helps to keep the rain off of the wooden bridge so it doesn’t rot. PNG doesn’t have 4 seasons like NZ does, it only has 2. Wet season and dry season, so sometimes it rains here A LOT!

After that I felt a little bit sick, maybe I ate too many green guavas, so I went down to the hospital. Nurse Grace said I had a high temperature. She gave me some pink medicine to make me feel better.

Chapter 4

When I got home I put my rice away and went to check on my garden. A lot of the food we eat here we grow ourselves. 

First I went and checked the pineapple patch. You have to be careful because the leaves are really spiky. 

Then I checked the Ma’a tree. There were no ma’as today but the tree had lots of pretty pink flowers instead of yummy pink fruit. 

Then I checked the guava tree. A guava starts out green and turns yellow when it’s ready to eat. This one is just right.

Some of my friends saw me in the trees and wanted to play.

In some parts of the world people are subsistence farmers  - they grow what they eat and live on whatever fish or bush animals they can catch. If you had to grow, harvest or catch your own meal what would it be?

Activity.

Design and make your own swing for your back yard.  Does it work as well as the one in the photo.

Life as a child in PNG

For further reading use this link or the tab at the top of the page.

http://2014waikanaeschoolroom6.blogspot.co.nz/p/more-from-papua-new-guinea.html 

Chapter 4  Patches McPatches the friendly but well travelled lion teaches Room 6 about life in Papua New Guinea.

Next I found some of Grandma’s Kapoks. Kapok is a plant that grows here. Its seeds get all fluffy like wool. Once they’ve gotten fluffy enough you pick them then take all the seeds out of the soft wool. We use it to make pillows but it takes a long time and a lot of work to get all of the seeds out.

What did sailors once use kapok for?    

Ask your grandparents if they ever had kapok pillows or mattresses.  

What else could you use kapok for?

MORE FROM McPATCHES

Chapter 3 McPatches teaches us about life in Kapuna, a small hospital in a remote part of the southern Papua New Guinea jungle.

On the way home I stopped off to have a look at the jetty. It was low tide so all the canoes where resting on the mud. But when the tide comes up they’ll all be floating again. The people put long sticks on each side of them to stop them from floating away when the tide rises. These canoes are how the people get to hospital. Sometimes people have to travel for 2 whole days rowing down the river to get help because there are no roads here and some of the villages are far away.

Compare how people get to hospital in Kapuna with how New Zealand people get to hospital.   Did you know that in the Kapuna Hospital the patients are looked after the patient, while the medical staff look after the medical needs?  

Look at the canoes in the background.  What are they made of?  How many people would be needed to power it?  McPatches has some grey patches - could that be mud? Look at the plant life around the canoes .... how muddy is it?

Why is the wharf such an important to the hospital and villages as part of their  transportation infrastructure?

A letter from Patches McPatches - Chapter 2

We are learning about the different countries in the world.  Patches is teaching us about life in PNG.

Shopping at Kapuna.

After school I went to the shop. There’s only one little shop at Kapuna. I brought some rice with my kina. Kina is the kind of money they have in Papau New Guinea. The shop isn’t like a supermarket where you fill up your trolley. You stand behind the counter and tell shop keeper Anna what you want and she’ll get it for you then tell you how much it costs. Anna let me help her serve the customers. It was really fun!

What do you notice about the style of shop is in the photo? 
What is for sale?    
Compare the quantity goods compare to the place your family shops. What do you notice?  What does this tell you about the diet of the people in Kapuna?
What sort of money do they use?  How much do things cost?  What is that in NZ money?

Read  more tomorrow!

McPatches Travel Log

Hello Mr Corlett’s class

My name is Patches McPatches the Travelling Lion, but you can just call me Patches. I’m from Wellington in New Zealand, but for nearly 2 years I’ve had a new home. I live in a small rural village in Papua New Guinea called Kapuna. It’s a hospital in the middle of the jungle next to a big river with crocodiles in it and we help the people who live in the nearby villages when they get sick.

I like my new home and there’s lots of interesting things to see and do here.
This morning I went to school just like you do. The children were doing science. Their river is a tidal river. That means that it has fresh water from the rain but also salt water from the sea in it, so the river has a high tide and a low tide just like the ocean does. They have done an experiment measuring high tide and low tide in their river and taught me how to draw graphs to show what they found out.

WAIKANAE SCHOOL SCHOOL COUNCILLORS

There is a special role that two children from each class fulfil in the school as school councillors.  They represent the class and bring ideas and suggestions for ways of improving the school - they represent "student voice" in the school decision making process, and help run events and school assemblies.