Friday - The day before 'Happy Birthday'

The 99th Birthday Celebration Cakes - 2013

Here are the cakes from 2013 when our school celebrated our school's 99th birthday! The two new teachers to EPS, Matua Brett and Whaea Lesa, got to cut the cakes along with the newest 5 year old person to start school. What a neat way to end the school day with a 'Happy Birthday' mini-celebration and a piece of cake!

Fast Forward to 2014! Our Helpers

Before we look at what everyone was doing on Friday, here are just some of our Year 7 - 8 helpers. We had many helpers on the day doing many jobs like escorting visitors around the school, helping in the kitchen with adults making cups of coffee and tea, helping to prepare our school like putting out tables and chairs or being 'runners' delivering messages around the school.

Helpers showing visitors around EPS were dressed in our sports uniform t-shirts and were assigned to visitors as they arrived and registered. They worked on Friday and Saturday. Their jobs were to:

• Escort our visitors around all the classrooms and buildings at EPS
• Explain who the teachers were and what year level the children were in each classroom
• Explain the events that were occurring around the school
• Answer any questions our visitors might have
• Make sure our visitors knew where they could get cups of coffee or tea, light refreshments and where they could find the toilets

All our school helpers were from the Year 7 - 8 classroom in the Lockwood building. The following pictures are of only a few of our wonderful helpers.

Macy and Nethia took a moment to pose for Whaea Lesa when they brought visitors to Room 7.

Here are Shontaye, Leilani and Ngawai. These girls are very helpful around the school too, especially when they are looking after our younger students.

In the photograph below is Katera, Taipari and in front are Dominic and Tayen from Room 7.

Katera's Mum is Naumai, our B.O.T. Chairperson. His brother Maihi, was in our 'Discovering Edgecumbe' story from 2013 and his sister Te Aniwa, got to speak to our visitors at the Saturday events. Taipari's Mum is Whaea Joelle, who works in the Lockwood Building with the Year 7 - 8 students.

Taipari spent Friday and Saturday putting out and putting away furniture as well as other jobs.

Friday the 7th of November 2014 arrived very quicky!

This was week 4 in Term 4 and now we get to 'show off' our school, our classrooms and our learning.

Everyone was 'buzzing' around the school. Mr Brebner and his helpers, Mr Burke, Mr Haimona and other staff were getting things ready around the school...

...like putting out tables under the shelter...

...putting tables with umbrellas around the classrooms.

Mr Burke was doing last minute cleaning.

What was Room 7 doing?

On Friday, our class was getting ready to greet our visitors as well as finish activities and practise what we would say to our visitors when they came (especially, if our visitors spoke to us!).

Before school had started, Whaea Niki with the following people made popcorn:

• Ethan (Whaea Lesa's son from the Lockwood)
• Kobe (who was in Room 7 last year and was also in our 'Discovering Edgecumbe' story)
• Isaac and Rhys (Isaac is Kobe's little brother and Rhys is Joshua's little brother).
• Joshua (Rhys's big brother and who was also in our 'Discovering Edgecumbe' story) helped to put the popcorn into paper brown bags.

Our children were giving these out to visitors to say 'Welcome to our class'. Hayley-Rae is here with our popcorn sign.

We got our notice board and welcoming area ready for the visitors. Hayley-Rae and Mariah are practising what to say. They have pens and label tags ready for our visitors to sign to say they have been to our room. Hayley-Rae (on the left) has a letter ready for visitors to sign, asking if they would like to be part of our Living Heritage story this year!

We had two people away on this day so we used their t-shirts to show our visitors what one of our art activities were. All Room 7 children were wearing the t-shirts they had made. They had designed their pictures with their families or at school with Whaea Niki and Whaea Lesa. Our children had tie-dyed their shirts with Whaea Niki. Whaea Lesa printed the designs the children had created and ironed these onto the backs of the t-shirts.

When the bell rang ready for school to start, all the children were back inside the classroom finishing off our 'Time Capsule' letters while Isaac, Dominic and Makszi were busy decorating our 'Time Capsule'.

Here are some of Room 7, busy publishing their letters to someone in the future who might open the Time Capsule! Their letters or stories are describing what life is like now, what they might be doing, things they like and what these children had been learning about at school. Room 7 children got to choose their topic.

The boys are busy decorating the Time Capsule.

Here are two samples of our Time Capsule letters.

The Time Capsule

As well as the children's letters and stories they had written going inside the Time Capsule, Whaea Lesa also added to the Time Capsule the following things once the celebrations had finished:

• Newspapers featuring articles of the Jubilee celebrations and photographs
• Whaea Lesa's staff tag and Jubilee ticket
• All of the pictures and charts Whaea Lesa had used during Room 7's inquiry unit
• The visitor-signed tags from our visitors' noticeboard
• A 2015 calendar showing ANZAC commemorative photographs of World War 1
• Copies of Tayen's mum's old class photographs from when she was a student, from when her Nan or Grandad were students and Tayen's mum had also sent in a copy of the 75th Jubilee celebrations photograph which had her mum's grandparent featured! Thank you Mum!
• A copy of Room 7's class photograph
• The internet addresses to this Living Heritage story and the 2013 'Discovering Edgecumbe' story!

Room 11 came for a visit!

In the morning, we had Room 11 (our NE - Year 1 class) come and visit us with Whaea Maia and Mrs Johnston. They were walking around the school visiting all the classes before we got too busy.

It's playtime! Our visitors will be here soon!

After playtime, we packed our activities away and made sure our classroom was tidy just in case visitors came early and then we went for a walk around the school.

We visited Room 11 (NE - Year 1), Room 14 and 16 (Year 7 - 8), Room 9 (Year 3 - 4), Room 8 (Year 3 - 4), Room 6 (Year 5 - 6) and Room 4 (Year 5 - 6). We saved visiting Room 1 for last because this was the 'Historical Room' where lots of old things (we learnt about the word 'artefacts') were on display. We called it the 'Memory Room'. Our class thought the 'Memory Room' had lots of interesting old objects from different years.

Let's start our journey around the school!

Room 11's Classroom

We began our visit with Room 11. The NE - Year 1 children work in here with Mrs Johnston and the practising teacher student, Whaea Maia, who was lucky to still be on practicum during our Jubilee celebrations.

Mrs Johnston was in 'fancy dress'. She looked cool and Room 7 children thought it was neat she got "...all dressed up!".

Look! Room 11 students also had a time line but on their time line, they had photographs of their own families from when they were going to school. Mrs Johnston also had photographs of EPS classes at different times on the time line.

Room 11 also learnt a little bit about what life was like in 1914, the fashion, transport, technology, education and about other things. They also looked at how life has changed over 100 years.

Here are some more of their thinking and learning!

Room 14 - 16 (The Lockwood)

Our oldest students work here. The Year 7 - 8 students and their teachers are Whaea Joelle and Ms Beattie. Ms Beattie is the Deputy Principal and Whaea Joelle is a Senior Teacher.

Here are some of the Lockwood's learning about Edgecumbe over 100 years as well as samples of work from this year.

Brandon's rugby All Black poster has information about rugby from 100 years ago. This was his project.

Here is an information board about facts and information the students found out about and some projects the children had created.

Our children really liked looking at the construction projects. There were lots of different 3D projects like this one throughout the Lockwood.

Here is another rugby project but this time, this project shows a photograph of each of the 'present day' All Blacks with information about that All Black on the back of their pictures. WOW!

Whaea Niki was also collecting photographs of all the learning around the school.

Dominic is looking at another project made in Term 3 by Ethan. The projects were based on structures around the world and then the students had to create their own structure plan which could be used in the rebuild of Christchurch. They had some very lovely looking projects.

Room 9's Classroom

Next on our list of classrooms to visit is Room 9. This is a Year 3 - 4 classroom and the classroom teacher is usually Mrs Clark, but Mrs Clark was cycling around France and parts of Europe for four weeks with Mr Clark! Mrs Reid was the acting teacher during this time and Mrs Reid is also on the Jubilee committee.

When we visited Room 9, they were all quietly working on an activity but some Room 9 children were happy to come and talk about what they had learnt about, during Term 4.

Here is part of Room 9's topic wall.

They learnt about the same types of things we had been learning about! On their walls, they had information about transport, fashion, technology, games and other things.

Here are some of their pencil drawings of different types of transport.

Room 7 children really liked this part of the topic wall. Room 9 children had brought in photographs of themselves at different times in their lives. In some of the photographs, they were by themselves, some were of the children playing sports or doing neat things with their families like going to the beach.

Room 8's Classroom

Only next door is Room 8. The children here are Year 3 - 4 and their teacher is Whaea Carol but in Term 1 and 2, Whaea Daniele was the teacher here. She had to leave for a little while to have her baby. He is very cute. Whaea Daniele will be back next year.

Room 8 were also learning about the same things we had been learning about.

You can't really see but, on this wall are small people. Room 8 children cut these peoples' bodies out of the fashion magazines to show what kinds of clothing people wear today but then Whaea Carol took photographs of Room 8 children's faces. The children cut out their faces and attached them to the little people's bodies. They look really cool!

Here are stories of what life might have been like during World War 1, 100 years ago.

Here are some pencil drawings of different types of transport.

Room 6's Classroom

In this room are the Year 5 - 6 children and Whaea Jeanette is the teacher here. Whaea Kristy (her daughter) is a Teacher Aide here and Support Person for other teachers at this school. Whaea Jeanette is also the Senior Teacher for the Middle School Syndicate.

Here are some of their work activities showing their learning for the year and especially what they learnt about Edgecumbe / Life 100 years ago.

When you see Room 6, these panels greet you. They were finished the week before the Jubilee week. All the children in Room 6 and the teachers created a panel. Other classes would go pass and spend time looking at the panels to try and figure out 'Who was who?' and the teachers even had a go trying to guess which child had created which panel. This was a lot of fun to do!

Mr Burke installed these panels just the week before. He had to create a wooden bracket to hang on the wall and then he attached the panels to the bracket.

Room 6 had a 'Periodic Table' of activities the children had been working on for a while.

One of the activities Room 6 had been doing was this DVD activity. They turned DVD covers into laptops. The children found pictures of apps they liked using for learning and entertainment and stuck these on the bottom part of the DVD - this was to show what learning is like today. On the top part of their laptop, the children had written explanations describing what learning was like 100 years ago.

Another cool activity they had done was to create a 'Timeline' for themselves. They drew pictures on a long card of what they might have looked like every year of their life and something they may have done. Most of the children in this class are 10 or 11 years old.

Here Room 7 children are looking at a 'Time Table' showing objects and games from the 'Present'.

The children in this classroom also had a 'Time Comparison' project where they had to show an aspect from today and compare it to 100 years ago (eg clothing, what home might have looked like, transport, classrooms and learning).

Here this person has created a classroom scene from 100 years ago and one from 'present day'.

Room 4's Classroom

Room 4 is at the end of the Multipurpose room and opposite Room 6 (almost). There are Year 5 - 6 students in this class. Matua Brett is the classroom teacher here. Matua Brett came in 'dress ups' too!

Here is Nicholas. He is a student from Room 4 who has prepared himself for greeting our special visitors!

Here are some examples of their learning from this year.

This is our journey around the classrooms and we hope you have enjoyed viewing how Edgecumbe Primary School children learn. We hope you enjoyed viewing some of the cool activities they had been doing to prepare for our celebrations too.

Look how our children celebrated our day!

Our school gathered together to have our lunch under the shelter. When most of us had finished eating our home lunches, Mrs Carter and her helpers brought out the 100th year birthday cakes. They were all in 'fancy dress' and looked really cool!

Mrs Carter had made four huge cakes for the school children and teaching staff. Mrs Carter's special 'Birthday Girl' helpers were all from Room 4. Mrs Carter is such a clever teacher! Well done Mrs Carter!

Our school sung 'Happy Birthday' before Mrs Carter cut the cakes into pieces...there were a lot of pieces! Our official 'Birthday Girls', Kahurangi and Kiani are handing out cake slices to the children as the walk pass. The two other helpers are at another table.

All the children, starting with the Junior children, lined up in four lines to get a piece of cake each. Room 7 were 'delighted' with their pieces of cakes!

Yum! Look at that icing!

Room 7 are in the background waiting patiently for their pieces. Tayen is very satisfied with her piece!

Max finished his piece of cake pretty quick!

A very satisfied class!

"Happy birthday Edgecumbe Primary School! Happy birthday everyone! Thank you Mrs Carter and the Birthday Girls for our cakes!"

After lunch...some more visitors arrive!

Our class carried on with finishing off our activities while visitors came into our class to look around and talk to the children - which many of the visitors didn't like to do because they thought they shouldn't stop the children from working. Whaea Lesa and Whaea Niki had to tell the visitors it was okay to talk to the children because the children were expecting to answer any questions the visitors had.

Here are Te Mauri and Rhys. They are ready to give away popcorn to our visitors. They started inside the classroom but wanted to greet everyone out on the deck like the girls were doing at the 'Visitors Shop', so they moved everything outside.

Here is Whaea Lesa talking to some of our visitors. Our welcoming girls are doing a marvellous job saying 'Hello".

Here is Shirley and Malcolm. Their grandchildren come to our school and they love to support and help the school when they can. Malcolm went to Vanuatu with his grandson Jacob only two weeks before the Jubilee! Their grand-daughter Haley, was in Room 7 last year and was part of the 'Discovering Edgecumbe' story. She also has a tie-dyed t-shirt! Leanna is Haley's twin sister and works only next door in Room 6.

These visitors are brothers and sister! They haven't seen each other for a long time and really wanted a photograph together. They were very friendly and told a lot of jokes! Our children really liked talking to this family.

Check out Te Mauri who is 'photo-bombing' this photograph in the background! It was his turn to say "Hello" to visitors and to hand out popcorn bags to the visitors.

Here is our visitors' board.

These girls were some of our helpers. Whaea Lesa took their photographs while their 'assigned visitors' were busy wandering around Room 7. These girls work in the Lockwood.

At 2:20pm, our class had to pack up all the activities and move to Room 9 for our Friday Junior Assembly, that happens every Friday. It was our chance to see what dances and songs the other classes had been practicing to 'show off' on this afternoon. We had spaces ready for visitors to come along and join us too.

The songs Room 7 sung were "It's a long way to Tipperary" and "Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag" and we danced to "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B". Whaea Lesa chose these songs because the songs we sung were from World War 1 and the music we danced to was from World War 2.

Not very long after the Jubilee celebrations, New Zealand would be celebrating and remembering when World War 1 started.

Whaea Lesa cannot display the photographs of our assembly as the children from the Junior Syndicate are featured along with our visitors and we did not get permission from everyone (that would have taken too long). But here is a photograph of one of our dance practices and a YouTube clip of the video we listened to.

Room 8 presented a Rap song, then sung 'Tutira Mai' and 'Po ata rau'.

Room 9 presented a Maori waiata (actually, they did this as we walked into the room to greet everyone!), then they sung another song.

Room 11 then invited everyone to join in with the 'Bird Dance' and the 'Limbo' song. Visitors and Parents were invited to join in too!

School has finished for the day!

Our children were very tired at the end of the day and so were the teachers and parents who had been busy preparing for our big day. Our children had a wonderful day interacting with our visitors and listening to some of their stories. They also had a wonderful time getting to serve people from the shop and they referred to our visitors as 'Customers'.

Room 7 children hoped our visitors were impressed by everything they saw and heard too!

Happy Birthday EPS!