Wainoni School

Once upon a time,

not so very long ago,

at the end of the world,

I met Tiger Lily.

He was sitting at his desk in his classroom at Wainoni School. Even though he had a girl's name, he's a boy and the kids loved him anyway.

Tiger Lily was a very special teacher, in a very special classroom, in a very special school. His students were ages nine to twelve. That meant that some of the kids would have Tiger Lily for their teacher four years in a row. Lucky kids! Jayden, here at the entrance of the school, is one of his students.

Sometimes the students worked hard at school, like when they were working on Math problems. Since the children were different ages, and had different abilities, they got different sheets to practice their Math.

Other times, they got to try out cool programs on the the school's new computers. Fisi took a photo of himself on the computer. At the click of a button he turned it into a "drawing".

Tiger Lily, like all dogs, had a master. Her name was Miss Scott. Sometimes, he let her teach a lesson. The kids liked her a lot. She was funny, and kind, and fun-loving. She was also very strict with them, so they knew she cared about them and wanted them to do their best.

Their classroom was called Totora. A totora is a native tree growing in New Zealand forests. Miss Scott reminded the kids to stand tall, like the totora tree. They should behave in a way that they could always stand tall and be proud of themselves. They promised they'd try.

Wainoni School students were a wonderful blend of Maori, Pakeha, and Samoan. As you know, from the other postings on this blog, the Maori people were the first people to inhabit these islands that make up New Zealand, just as the Native American Indians were the first people to inhabit what is now called The United States. Te Rata (the boy on the left) is Maori. Dylan is Pakeha. That means his family was originally from a European country (maybe England, or Ireland, or Germany). The Samoan children, like Fisi in the photo above, have parents or grandparents from the island of Samoa, which is not too far away from New Zealand. You can find it on Google Earth. You will see that it is north of New Zealand.

Sometimes, when a student was very well behaved, Tiger Lily took him out for a quick walk around the school yard. Michael was the lucky one this day. All the kids liked to have this privilege.

During my two weeks at Wainoni School I spent most of my time watching and learning. However, I did get to teach some reading skills, and I got to read to the students. I wasn't sure which book to choose as a read-aloud, so I emailed Mr. Freeley at Cottage Lane, and described the kids in this class. He encouraged me to read Holes, a book read by several of the 5th grade classes at Cottage Lane. Good choice. Tiger Lily's students loved it. Thanks Mr. Freeley!

Every Friday, for the last period of the day, all 150 students in the whole school (5-year-olds to 12-year-olds) got to choose an activity. Every two weeks the options changed. This week they could choose one of the following: gardening, make-up and jewelry, sports, playground time, computers, arts & crafts, cooking, or water play. Kids from different classes and different ages were mixed in together so they got to know each other. Older kids helped the younger ones. Which activity would you choose?

Didn't the girls do a good job on my make-up and nails?! (Click on the photo to enlarge.)

Look at the beautiful necklaces they made!

Cooking was a scrumptious choice!

The kids had a blast during the water activities!

Tiger Lily's students LOVED the Culture Books from my Cottage Lane students so much that they wanted to create Culture Books to send back to America. They had fun thinking about their culture and what makes it special.

They asked lots of questions, such as, "Do the American kids play rugby and cricket at recess?" and "Do the American kids eat Hokey Pokey?"

They made wonderful Culture Books. They would like to visit the United States some day, and hoped the Cottage Lane kids would visit New Zealand some time.

What about Tiger Lily? Well, it had been a busy week, and by Friday afternoon, like teachers everywhere, he was exhausted!

The Wainoni students lived happily ever after....