End-of-the-week Update

Well, another week down. Nothing too eventful occurred throughout the week. We finally started our guided reading groups at school, so I taught a couple of lessons to a group of all girls. For one lesson, I wanted to emphasize using expression while reading. So we discussed it a little bit and tried it out. The only problem was, with their "Kiwi" way of speech, they already accent some syllables and use their voice intonation for things that I do not. They tried to mimic how I was using my own expression to read the story, but their voices sounded like they were going up and down for every other word. Haha, it was cute.
My classroom teacher said I could take the group down the street to some shops for a language experience. No big deal. Just take the kids and go. I didn't think that was really allowed - at least it mostly definitely wouldn't be in the States. BUT - it is New Zealand. Their system is a little different from what I am used to. Mrs. Tararo was so excited about it. So I figured out a lesson we could do for our little "field trip." When I got to school in the morning, I asked the teacher once again if it was okay to just take the kids. She said she would go check with the office to be sure. And....they definitely needed parent-permission slips before the kids could be taken off of school grounds. I guess since this new management has taken over the Primary school about 2 years ago, they've implemented rules and regulations like this......who knew?
So we did something else instead during guided reading that day. :)

Thursday afternoon Mrs. Tararo taught the kids some new Maori songs and actions. I was right up there with the kids, it was a lot of fun.



Beau's 9th birthday was on Thursday, so we celebrated by going to his favorite place - McDonald's - for dinner and birthday cake. Jules said Beau has been wanting a violin for months. So, I remembered it was his birthday when I woke up to a violin being played at 6 a.m. He wouldn't put it down all day - I'm sure Jules had to pry it out of his fingers so he could go to school. He was counting down the days until his birthday too. He would ask, "How many more sleeps?" Fun stuff. Mekelle and I came home and got some movies from our neighbor. We watched "Freedom Writers" on my laptop. I've been wanting to see this movie since my liaison from last semester showed us a clip of it in class! FINALLY. And I loved it - soooo good. Made me even more excited to be a teacher.

Friday was once again, "Auckland Activity Day." We left pretty early to go to Goat Island. Goat Island is a Marine Reserve that is famous for its snorkeling. In case you were wondering, it got its name from the all of the goats that used to occupy the island. It was so awesome!

We parked our stuff on the rocky beach area, then snorkeled out and around one side of the island. I mostly saw a kind of fish that had almost neon-glowing speckles on them and some zebra-colored fish. The creatures are pretty used to people, so they get fairly close. My favorite was the sting ray one of the girls noticed on the ground. So cool. Swimming back to the beach area was hard against the current, so we were all kind of worn out. Plus it was windy and cloudy and we were freezing, so we just crashed on the mat.

We laugh about it because it's like a "Where's Waldo?" picture. Except, it's "Where's Jayna?" :)

For the rest of the day we just layed on the beach as the sky cleared a little and the sun came out more. It was lovely. Joy brought an awesome picnic lunch - she takes such good care of us.
Bre and Ash came over to our house later that night and we pulled our mattresses onto the floor and had a sleepover. It never gets old, even when we're in our 20's. We have been determined to watch all 3 of "The Lord of the Rings" while we are here, so started watching the third one. We were all so tired though, we only made it about an hour before we shut it off and went to sleep.

Saturday morning, Joy picked us up at 6:30 to take us to the Otara Market. We had been waiting for this day. This is THE market to go to. It was fantastic! There were so many things to buy - from fresh fruit to socks. I bought some things I was pretty excited about, so it was successful. We were there for a couple of hours and then we had Joy drop us off at the Pasifika Festival. I was really excited for this because people had been talking about it all week. There are supposedly 200,000 people who come from all over for this festival. It was held at Western Springs Park - a beautiful area that loops around a lake. It's so pretty. So, all around the lake were "countries" or areas represented for all of the south pacific islands - Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Aeotearoa, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Niue, and the Cooks Islands. There were crafts, flowers, artwork, clothes and things for sale, all kinds of island food, and performances and music happening at each "country." So fun. We each got half a watermelon with heaps of ice cream on it for $5. We took a bus home and finished LOTR #3. Fun couple of days all around...


Sunday morning started off with Jules and Kamaea making us a special breakfast of eggs, bacon, and spaghetti. Yes, spaghetti. It's a typical Kiwi breakfast.