Avebury House Celebrations (past and present)

Today, on the last day of term, the children of Richmond School got to share and celebrate with the people of Avebury House, before their official re-opening tomorrow (Saturday). Just like Richmond School, Avebury House is an important part of our community. It was built by a man who was instrumental in the opening of Richmond School over 100 years ago.

Today we celebrated the past and present of Richomnd School. We presented Avebury House with the old school bell (past) as well as our Tapa-inspired Quilt made by the (present) students of Te Rito o te Harakeke, Richmond School.

It was a special morning, with beautiful singing and ukulele playing by Richmond tamariki surrounded by the lovely flowers, trees and garden in full spring bloom! Ka pai and as Matua Pete said "tu meke!"

Strum, Strike, Blow - Ukulele Festival

Wow what a night! Last night 800+ Tamariki and their whanau filled the CBS arena. 23 Te RITO kids were are part of that and we even got a special mention by the MC for our fun-filled smiles and awesome attitude. I was so proud of te RITO kids as they listened carefully and danced in their seats to the ukulele (strum), marimbas (strike), and recorders (blow) during the night. We loved being a part of the massed items and the big ukulele pieces - we even shared our new talent by signing one of our favourite songs of the evening 'Paradise.'

A big thank you to all the parents who joined us - it was very special for the children to share their hard work with you on such a professional stage (even if it was past our bedtime!)

We plan on continuing our ukulele learning and sharing our love of playing and singing with more people in our community, starting with the pre-opening of Avebury House next friday morning.

Here are a few photos from the rehearsal and evening performance, hopefully there will be some video to share at some point also.   Strum, Strike, Blow on PhotoPeach 

Expanding Vocabulary

One of our CAFE reading strategies is to 'find and use interesting words.' Lately we have been using post it notes to record these words when we read to self. Today we continued working on a narrative we have had on the go (the retelling of The Frog Prince Fairy Tale) and I was blown away by the vocabulary that te RITO kids were using! As a class we are starting to see the connections between our reading (and word work/spelling) and our creative writing!

Ngaikiha finding interesting and disgusting words!

A screen capture of Tai's draft retold Frog Prince - Great Vocabulary and detail!