Holiday Highlights

Check out what our Waka Whanake children have been doing over the holidays.


 

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ANZAC day learning

At the end of last term, the amazing children of Waka Whanake learnt all about ANZAC day. We discovered that ANZAC day is for remembering the soldiers who fought in World War One so that we can live in a safe and peaceful country today. We felt very lucky that we live in a beautiful and safe country like New Zealand.

Check out the work we did to remember and celebrate the ANZAC's...

We read a book called The Anzac Puppy by New Zealand author Peter Millett. We thought it was a fantastic book and it made us think about the importance of pets in our lives. They make great companions! Some of Waka Whanake wrote letters to Mr. Millett telling him how much we loved his book and why we agree pets are important to us. Here are a few...

Dear Mr. Millett

We read your story. It was amazing. It made me feel worried. You got me hooked into it. The puppy was brave. I'm proud of the puppy. I bet Lucy was really glad to see the puppy. My aunties puppy barks at people to keep his family safe. Her puppy always wants to play. If you don't play with him he will get all sad and lonely but if you do play with him he will follow you.

Thanks for sharing your book with us. I would be sad if my dog had to go to war. It would break my heart into pieces.

By Holly Fo

Dear Mr. Millett

We read your story The Anzac Puppy and we loved it. It made me feel so sad! We also looked at your story on the internet and saw a picture of you holding your book. The book gave me a good feeling in my heart. My dog helps my family live. It is very important in my life. My dog helps my family because it hunts for us. He gets pigs, deer and goats. When he gets an animal, I feel excited. My dog always wants to be with me. He is so important.

By Luke D

Dear Mr. Millett

We read your story, the Anzac Puppy and we loved it. It made me feel happy we have a pet dog that is brave. If my dog was in the war I would be very very miserable and scared. I would miss it lots. Your story came to life and gave me a feeling of how the dog feels.

My dog makes me happy because when I am sad it cheers me up a lot.

My dog is a lovely friend because she plays with me all day.

My dogs comforts me which makes me feel warm inside.

Thank you for sharing your book with us. We are happy that our dogs do not have to go to war because my dog is special to me.

By Ruby

Some other children in Waka Whanake were practicing the reading strategy 'inference'. This means reading between the lines. We thought about how the main characters would feel at different points in the story. We also used our 'green hat' creative thinking to come up with different ways to keep Freda the dog safe in the war. Check out some of our work below...

 

 Others in Waka Whanake read a journal story which told us why ANZAC day is special and where the idea of eating ANZAC biscuits came from. Here are some current events webs we created with the new information we learnt from the article.

Once we had learnt the history of the ANZAC biscuit, we made some. YUM! Our biscuits were a delicious wet day treat. We even had to put our fractions knowledge to good use as we had to double the recipe to make sure there would be enough biscuits for everyone!
 



To finish off our ANZAC day work, Whaea Tracey helped us to create beautiful vases of poppies.

What was your favourite part of our ANZAC day work? Did you learn something you didn’t know before? What was it?