Visit to Te Pā o Moki

We have been fortunate enough to take our whole school out over four days to visit to Pā o Moki and surrounding areas.

Stories passed down over time, tell us of Rākaihautū travelling down the South Island of New Zealand, digging out lakes, including Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) with his kō (digging stick) and raking the gravels of the Canterbury Plains. 

Te Ruahikihiki later came travelling, through Taumutu and claimed the lake as a great food source for his people, naming the lake 'Te Kete ika a Rākaihautū,' (The fish basket of Rākaihautu) also known later as Te Waihora and Lake Ellesmere. His descendant Moki, built the pā as it is today - Te Pā o Moki. 

We also were lucky enough to have Clem show us some real live tuna (eels) down at Fisherman's Point and then travelled to Lakeside Domain - Timberyard Road, to see where logs used to be barged across from the Peninsula, hauled to shore and transported by train into Christchurch. 

Ferrymead Trip

 The Year 5-6 students visited Ferrymead on 11 September. This was part of our Inquiry learning for Technology about ‘Creating Change and Adapting to Change’.

The day began with the students dressing up in olden day school clothing.  Groups moved around different activities learning about different things from the olden days.

We had a lesson in the school house, where the open fire was keeping us warm.  We learnt about olden day home entertainment (radio, black and white tv, film strips, records, etc).  We played with some old fashioned games and toys (puppet shows, viewmaster, plate spinning, Jacob's ladder, marbles, fishing, spinning tops, pinball, etc). The highlight of the trip was baking cookies in the bakery, which we brought back to school to eat.

Thank you to our wonderful parent helpers who helped us for this trip.