DIGI AWARDS

Congratulations to our finalists and place-getters in the Digi awards which were held last night at the Hawkes Bay Opera House.
Hine was highly commended for her graphic design.
Alex, Michelle and Hine were awarded third place for the short film they made called "Rangi and Papatuanuku."
The audience was able to see the work on an enormous screen on the stage. It was a night full of Porritt Pride. Well done guys!

 Unfortunately the whole movie file of Rangi and Papa is too big to upload to the blog, but we will think of a way!  In the meantime, here are some shots from the film:

Brayden's Big Two Weeks

Tomorrow I'm going to America with Koru-Care.
Canteen people have raised heaps of money to help child cancer kids.
 A long time ago in July I got mail from Koru-Care. It said I have been accepted to go with them to Disney land. I was really excited.
One kid from Camp Quality that I know will be going to America with me.
I will stay in a fancy hotel, and when I have breakfast it will a big buffet.
I don't have to pay for anything. The companions will buy our lunch, and we are allowed to take $250 spending money to spend on what you want.
We will also go to Police Academy and Knoxbury farm while we are there. There are heaps of other surprises to be revealed.

Pukemokimoki Marae visit by Cairo.

Last Wednesday room 13 and room12 went for a visit to the Marae.
We saw all sorts of things. When we arrived we hopped in rows, elders in the front, girls behind them and the boys out the back of the girls and last of all the men.
Whaea Piri told us that the nanny of the marae was going to call us on the marae. Whaea Piri said the Karanga.
We slowly walked on the Marae.  As we walked on to the Marae  we all saw some awesome carvings at the front of the marae.
When we got to the front of the Marae we took off our shoes and walked into the wharenui. The wharenui is called Omio, which means "vibrations", because of the earthquake.
As we walked in everyone gasped. Everyone was amazed by the wonderful art work. It felt like it was a really special place.
When we went in we sat down on left side of the tangatawhenua who are the boss of the Marae.
Before we started talking the kaumatua said a karakia.
When we finished the Karakia we all sat down and the kaumatua did a whaikorero.
After that Mr Hemi did a whaikorero as well. After Mr Hemi spoke to us we stood up and sang  a  waiata.
We sat down and Ben gave the Tangatawhenua a  kaka beak plant.
After that we were allowed to look around. We saw korus, tukutuku panels, carvings of the ancestors. They all looked magnificent and very professional.
After we finished looking around we went to the dining room to have some morning tea. We had crackers, biscuits and mandarins.

Term Three

This term we are learning about Maori myths and legends.
We are learning how to retell these stories, and we are doing lots of dance and drama and ICT around them.
Here is Michelle's retelling of the Creation story, which we are using at our assembly this week to perform a Reader's Theatre piece.

Rangi and Papa: the story of Creation.

Long long ago, before light was made on earth, there was darkness and chaos. Rangi, the sky father, and Papatuanuku, the earth mother were embraced.

Rangi and Papa had sons. Their names are Tanemahuta, the strong and endurer, Tawhirimatea, the one with the mighty voice and who is jealous of Tane, Tangaroa, as wild as the sea, Tumateanga, the warrior, then Rongo who loves kai.

The brothers were cramped and had no room to move around between Rangi and Papa. They had a dream for the  freedom to move, so the brothers said,‘We should separate our parents!’

Tawhiri said, ‘NO! we should leave them alone!’ Tawhiri departed.

Tangaroa was the first to try to separate them. He pushed. He heaved. But he couldn’t separate them.

Then Tane said in his head, ‘I can do it! I can do it!’ So he leant his shoulders against Papa and he put his feet on Rangi, and pushed, and pushed. Then suddenly Rangi started to slowly float away from Papa.  Rangi said, ‘ What are you doing down there! Leave me alone!’

Tawhiri came back and said ‘I will rage storms and ferocious winds on you all, especially you, Tane.”

They fought for days and nights. But Tawhiri suddenly became tired, and joined his father, Rangi, in the sky. Before he went, he said, “This fight will continue some day.”

That’s why sometimes throughout the day there are ferocious winds. The brothers were gods. Tane- god of the forest; Tawhiri- god of winds; Tangaroa- god of sea; Tu - god of war; and Rongo – god of kai. When they floated away, Tawhirimatea decorated Rangi with rainbows and clouds and rain-clouds, so you can’t see Rangi’s sad face. Tane decorated Papa in bushes, ferns and tall trees. Then the sons had made their dream to reality, so they could walk around and swing their axes and weapons around,

All because of Tane.

Wellington storm From Cairo

In Wellington there was a strong storm.One of the photos we saw houses destroyed, trees falling down, the sea had come right up to shore. There was a dog in the photo. The dog looked very confused and thinking what a mess. What can I do? Who's going to clean this up? Then I think the dog is going to try find it owner. But how can he find his owner in this huge mess? First I think he is going to look around and sniff. He might even find other dogs trying to find their owner. The dog will have to go though lots of trouble  because there is water on the ground, logs everywhere, people trying to fix there house, wind blowing very hard. But I hope the dog will find its owner.

Tuning Forks by Lashana Chloe

                                                                            Tuning fork
We have be learning about sound.This is how it works. Sound is caused by vibrations. The vibrations pushes the air particles and that will swing the ball.We are not tapping the ball, the vibrations are pushing it.

Echoes by Sylvia

If you talk into a room with carpet it won't vibrate because it absorbs the sound. But if you talk in to a cave or tunnel the walls are hard so the sound vibrates so it has nowhere to go. So it bounces off the wall and echoes but gradually the sound gets smaller. And that is how echo works.

Purerehua From Cairo

What is a  purerehua?
A purerehua is a maori instrument.Sometimes it is played to welcome a new day or a new born baby.
How does it make sound?
A purerehua is a type of wood shaped like a surfboard tied to a string. When you swing it, it pushes the air particles out of its way. When it is going round and round it pushes the air  particles and it makes sound, which  makes the vibrations.

Whisper Dishes By Maya

When we went to the Faraday centre we had  been learning about sound. When we had finished in the first room we went to the second room. Our group had been doing the whisper dishes. It was cool and I was on one side and sylvia was on the on the other side. I think how the whisper dishes work is your voice goes in the circle and rebounds back to the other one.

Telephones by Hine and Alex

How do string telephones work and how do they relate to olden day telephones?

We did this experiment to see how our voice turned into vibrations.
The string has to be straight so the vibrations can travel through the string, and if the string isn’t straight or someone’s touching it, will absorb the vibrations. And if it’s around a corner it still want work.

We decided to have a four-way conversation to see if it worked. We tried to wrap one string around the middle of the other string. It didn’t work because it cut all the other vibrations off to the other people.

After a while we softly put one string gently on top of the other, so it touched a little too. So the vibrations could go in every direction, so the others could hear.

So we found out that four-way conversations could work. We want to find out if six-conversations could work too.

Olden/Modern day telephones.

Olden telephones work different to modern day telephones. Olden day telephones have changed past a century, you used to move the big dialling circle to make a call. Olden day telephones take up more space than modern telephones.

Olden/Modern telephones transmit your voice as vibrations into the other persons telephone, but it’s not actually your voice that has ended up on the other telephone. Your vibrations travels through the wires and changes your voice.

Modern telephones are slimmer and have improved the age of the shape of olden day telephones. Now the modern telephones have changed not having an antenna on top of it, to get a signal.

So now you know how, Olden day telephones and modern telephones compare against each other.

How do you play bottle music and how does it work?

You have to have a bottle to play the music. You blow on top of the bottle so it makes a sound and it makes a huge vibration that bounces off the glass and comes out the top.

Some people in our class decided to fill bottles up with different amounts of water to make different pitch’s.
We used some metal strikers to hit the bottles and jars to make a tune even a rhythm.

Some people changed the amounts of water for the pitch to work and it was fun at the same time.

By Hine and Alex

Record player by Michelle

Record players were made in the olden days but these days we have DVD players. DVD players can show videos and sound but record players can only play sound.How does sound work on a record player?

The record player is a rectangular prism and there is a record in the record player. The bumps in the grooves are like a gravel road so when the needle hits the bumps the needle vibrates then the vibrations travel up the needle into the horn then the horn amplifies the vibrations so then we can hear sound.

So now you know how a record player makes sound.

Confidence Course, by Jasmine

At year  6 camp theres a confidence course which is really cool.
 My favourite is the wire line that you walk on. It was hard to jump over the wooden wall, so lots of people just walked straight past it.
It was funny on the rigging - some peolple were trying to get up but couldn't. We were neally falling off the rigging - it was so fun. It was scary one night when we played fright night in the bushes. It was dark, it was quiet, it was SCARY! Beyonce and I were so freaked out for a while. Then a teacher came and it was time to go and get ready for a shower. Oh no!


From Jasmine

First hockey Game of the Season! by Alex

20.5.13
Last Saturday we had our first hockey game. When I got there I saw our team watching a game. When we got on the turf Lee hit the ball.The game was on.
I got the ball quite a lot but Brook scored all our goals.The score was five to us and 8 to Taradale Primary. I play centre back and Brook got player of the day.
By Alex

Porritt Bear, by Manaia

Today we had to say good bye to Porritt Bear, and give him back to Mr Ginns for assembly.
We had Porritt Bear for a week. On Wednesday it was "Wacky Wednesday"  and Porritt Bear wore Jasmine's wig and wore his top the wrong way round.

Ngamoko By Cairo

OMG! I'm so tired. We all went  down to have breakfast. Then we got into the bus and drove to Nga moko mountain. We saw that it was so big. Bigger than a giant's foot. Hurry take the photo already.
 We started to walk up the hill.
"I got sore feet!" shouted  Sylvia. Really, Sylvia.
It took us hours to get to the top but we saw  trees, rocks, mud and last of all lots of slimy dirt. Yuck. Finally we got between the mountains and we found out that we had to climb another one. We all gasped. Hours later we got to the top. YAY! We all shouted. Now its time to eat our lunch. After we ate our lunch we went back down the mountain. What an awesome day. Oh no my feet hurt!

Starting out

Lunch at the top

Looking at the view

Girls Cabin!

Last day of camp. I woke up at like 6:30 am. It was loud. Me and Cairo started talking then everyone woke up and said"Morning to everyone". Then suddenly we heard the boys talking, because some people went to the toilet maybe that's why.
Mrs McLean came in the cabin and said" Morning girls, hey look people are still trying to sleep so keep it down". It was akward because I thought of an idea! I said, "Hey guys why don't we pack our bags so that we can get ready to go". So we quietly went to do that in an excited way. Then we heard the BOYS. Someone said, "What are they doing?"
I said, "They must be having a disco ball in there."
 Each and every one of us got up, and rushed out the door. OMG! They're dancing. That's the first time I've seen a boy dancing. Well its not, but it was a crack up. While they were dancing they saw us outside.Oh no! They saw us, oh well. By the time we stopped laughing it was 7:00am. Mrs McLean came rushing down the hallway and said" Girls you can get changed and have breakfast after you have dressed."
Yay finally we all ran out and went to the bathrooms. It was dirty.... but who cares.

We got dressed, then we got called into the dining room, so that we knew what we had to do today. After our breakfast, everyone went to do their jobs (oh no everyone was rushing to get it over and done with)
We went to our cabin it was a MESS. Do you know why?  Because there were clothes, bags and pillows. Then Sylvia stepped on something. It was her HAIRBRUSH!  It was broken into pieces because it had NO handle.(hahaha)It was so funny everyone was laughing because she held it up and said in a mad and angry voice, "Where is the  handle to my hairbrush?" It was awkwardly silent and someone giggled. Sylvia got MENTAL well, a little bit! It took us a long time until it was clean and spotless. Our bags were heavy as some people weren't strong like ME.

It was about time we got everything in the bus. The inspection had happened, and we were back from our little walk up to the lakes behind the camp. We all ran down to our bus seats and started to, you know, TALK. I played the ukulele on the way back, me and Cairo had turns. My papa Orcades that helped passed us in his vehicle. People were having a great time and I didn't even know that we were in Wairoa. Beau-dean said, " Did we have our Fish'n'Chips?"
I said,"No." We got out of the bus and rushed to our lunch by the river. Yes Fish'n'Chips waiting for me on the table. I odered a Hot dog and it came with chips. I ate my hot dog and went to the playground, then I saw the most beautiful puppies ever.(Which were pitpulls) We got to hold them and pat them. I liked the boy dog. It was a real dog not the Hot dog that I ate! It was time to go then we left Wairoa it was an hour or 2 hours back to Napier. We passed Lake Tutira and then we were in Bayview. I said" We're nearly there Cairo". When we got onto York Ave and passed the corner we saw Porritt School Road patrolers. Finally we were there and it was good to see my mates again.
But Camp Kaitawa was AWESOME though and a good exprience for me and others. I hope Room 15 and 12 have a great time too.
By Hineawe

The waterfalls, by Kaleb.

We went to the waterfalls. The waterfalls make a big noise like a giant storm. They sounded like rain flooding the path. Shhhh.
On the waterfalls I saw white foam like the waves at the beach.
Some water is deep and some water is shallow.
Mr Ginns took our photos at the waterfalls.

CAVES

OMG! Its so dark in here.
"Hine where are you? This is so dark!" shouted Emily.
I ran out like a wild animal. Wow! this is better. We saw lots of ferns,trees and lots of diffrent things I have never seen before. We saw pinky,orangey mushrooms and lots of red berries. I think they were poisonous. Yuck when we went into one cave we saw lots of yuck wetas. When we went into another cave there were slippery rocks and slimy mud. There also was an ugly looking beetle. Wow! I all most forgot we saw a green lake. We could see right though it. It was incredible.
By Cairo


To day room 13 and room 14 went for lots of walks in the maori bush then all of room 13 and 14 went in to some wonderful caves. We went to 8 caves and then we saw a green pounamu lake. Also the rata vine was strangling the tree and Mr Ginns was telling us to pose and jump.
by BeauDean

This is us when we had finished all the caves.

Wednesday: Lou's Lookout, by Cairo

Wow! It was awesome. We looked down at the bus. It looked like a toy bus. With mini Mrs McLean, tiny Cedric and even tinier Adam. We saw small arms waving around. They looked like mini fingers flying. OMG! the lake is so huge. And the mountains are so tall.It looked so awesome. The lake looked like a bowl of soup for a giant's dinner. Wow! I wouldn't like to be in that bowl.
"Next!" shouted Mr Ginns.
Oh! Oh - why do we have to go down? Its just so awesome.

(The photo at the top of the blog is the view we saw from the top of the lookout.)

The bus looked a long way down!



What an awesome view!



The View from the top of Mount Ngamoko

Awesome! First Day at Camp Kaitawa

Today was awesome. When I woke up I peeked out the window. I could see a wonderful view but the only thing was that I had to climb it. I gasped in shock! I did not believe I was going to climb it.
Later on that day I was on the top of that view, Mount Ngamoko. I had no idea what I just climbed. Being about 1500 metres in the air and not noticing it is pretty out of it.
Jasmine.

Year six camp by Sylvia

The year sixes in room 13 and room 14 are going to Lake Waikaremoana to stay at Camp Kaitawa next week. I'm excited to go. My Dad is coming. And Mrs McLean and Mr Fitzsimons and Mr Ginns are coming too. We are going on a six hour walk.We are staying in dormitories on bunks. There are other walks too. We will see lots and lots of beautiful scenery, and there are caves too. I'm a bit scared about the caves. We get to make our own stew for tea.
The year fives from our class will be staying behind in Mr Versey's class.

KIRI TE KANAWA: My Role model By Jasmine

Kiri Te Kanawa is a New Zealand singer who is world famous. She sings opera. Did you know she sang at Prince Charles and Lady Diana's wedding, and 600,000,000 people watched it worldwide on television?
She was born in Gisborne in 1944. When she was twelve her family went to live in Auckland. In 1965 she entered an important singing competition and came first. She is mother to two children and has a husband.
She has been travelling the world for many years with her singing but is returning to New Zealand soon to sing.
Kiri Te Kanawa is my role model and I love her talents.

Camp and Yachting slides

At the end of last term we had our assembly. Here is some of what we shared.

The Circus

Last Friday I went to the circus. It was held at Anderson Park. When we walked into the tent it was dark. There were lots of people talking.
Suddenly two men came out to entertain us. It was really funny. When the show started a lady came out  behind the curtains holding a long purple rope. She tied it to the pole on the tent and started to climb the rope like a sneaky spider.
Suddenly she fell but lucky she had her legs tied around the rope. We all gasped. Then we started clapping.When we finished clapping she reached the top. She started swinging. It was suddenly quiet, like a pen falling down.The lady tied her legs to the rope. She fell again and we gasped again. I thought it was scary but I still thought it was awesome.
The next part was a man coming out behind the curtains with a huge hula hoop and one little hula hope. He did some amaizing tricks with it. It was awesome.
Cairo

My Role Model

Last term we studied role models. My role model is Margaret Mahy. She was an excellent author. She wrote lots and lots of books. She never gave up because she was persistent, and a passionate achiever about books. My favourite book was Lion in the Meadow.
Margaret Mahy died in 2012. And I am very proud I want to be just like her.
Sylvia

Hine's Autumn

   

Leaves changing colour, swirling down onto the green grass

Rotten brown leaves hanging off the deciduous trees

Green leaves on the evergreens

Branches with zero leaves, waving in the wind

Birds singing in the trees.

The sleep over

In the holidays I stayed for the night at my friend Kace's house.
At first we watched Amazing World of Gumball.Then we played on his ps3. We played skate3.
We then started to build a tree hut and then stabilised it. Then we went to our friend's house. Then we came back and had dinner . We built another hut inside.We put two bean bags on the grond in the hut and a small  bed with no mattress for the side and blankets for the roof. We started to play tablet in the hut and we fell asleep.We went back to our friend's house then stated back on the hut again.  
by Caleb

Gisborne

When I went to my mum's house, my little brother ran up to me and hugged me. Then he said, "Who dat?"
 I  said, "It's me, Bo. Its me, big brother Bo."
 Then he said, "Bo."
 At 7:30 me, Adam and my mum, went to go and get some K.F.C. On Monday I went to the pools and I went to the pools six times in a row and all the time when we finished having a swim at the pools, we went to go and get beef and onions. Mum said she will go and put 20 dollars in every week so I can go and get some All Stars.

by Beaudean

Survival Swimming at Onekawa Pools

I stepped into the water, and then I did a big splash. On Wednesday 20th we went to the amazing Aquatic centre. When we got there we went to the splash park at Onekawa pools. I got heaps of pictures on the camera.
Then when we came back to the poool area we learnt how to do the "help" position, and how to get out of a rip current. You swim diagonally to get out of a rip current. Then we put lifejackets on. The first one I tried on was too small so I tried a different one and it fitted perfectly. Then we tried the group huddle, not in the water though. Then we stepped in the water. Not hopped, stepped. Then when the lady, who is called Maxine, blew the wistle we had to do something. Once, it meant to put your hand up straight. That means help when you're in the deep water, and two means to do the help position, and three and four mean to take your life jacket on and off.That was hard.
My huddle  group was Manaia, Sylvia, JmeLee, alannah and me. we did all sorts of things. I loved it, but it was hard work.
then we had a free swim. i went on the slide. it was so cool.Then I went with Sylvia's grandmother back to school. She had a cool car.
I had an amazing day. I loved it.

Michelle

Term One 2013

This term the year 5s have been on camp already, and the year 6s have had a week of Optimist yachting at Pandora Pond.
We will share some of our reflections from these activities.

Alex:
On  the second night of Year 5 camp, we were eeling and the bulls were bellowing. It was annoying. We started to talk "bellow" back at them. So, the night went on with the bulls bellowing and us eeling.
When it was time to go to bed, I couldn't sleep because of the bulls bellowing. I started yelling at them to be quiet. I finally got to sleep around two in the morning.

Michelle:
At camp on Tuesday we went to the river. Manaia was screaming because she didn't like fish. She looked hideous. Mrs Henare took a photo of her screaming. We all laughed.
It all started when alex saw two big trout and they were long. Manaia didn't like fish so she screamed. We were making fun of her by saying, "Look! fish! Manaia there's a fish!"
We were all laughng hard core. It was so funny.

K-Lib:
At camp we went to the beach. It was fun because we caught sea creatures and I saw 5 crabs and lots of kina shells, beside and in the rocks.