National Anthem of NZ

Today we sang the NZ national anthem in both Maori and English. We plan to sing it heaps over the term. It is called 'God of Nations'. Here is some information about our national anthem.

Thomas Bracken wrote his poem in the early 1870s, and offered a prize of 10 guineas for the best musical setting. This was won by Otago schoolteacher John Joseph Woods. In 1940, on the recommendation of the NZ Centennial Council, the Government declared God Defend New Zealand to be the National Hymn, and bought the copyright. In 1977, with the Queen’s consent, God Defend New Zealand was given equal status with God Save the Queen as one of New Zealand’s national anthems.

NZ Flag

The New Zealand Flag is New Zealand’s national symbol. Its royal blue background represents the blue sea and sky surrounding us, and the stars of the Southern Cross signify our place in the South Pacific Ocean. The Union Flag recognises our historical foundations and that New Zealand was once a British colony and dominion

Mapping NZ

We have been mapping this week. We put the host cities of the World Cup onto a map and then added some important geographical features. Today we began looking at the provinces where the Webb Ellis cup is going on the road trip. We looked at Northland, Auckland, Hawkes Bay and Bay of Plenty. We think it is important to know about our own country. Tomorrow we will look at Taranaki, Manawatu, Waikato and Wellington. As part of this study we are looking at main cities, things to do, main geographical features and the provinces rugby colours. We also learnt about using key words when searching for information on the internet using Google. Also, we revised capital letters for names of places. Presentation was very important and most of us are getting very good at presenting our work neatly.

Kiwiana

We asked the question, What is culture?
This a definition we liked ...
All the knowledge and values shared by a society
Everything a group of people think, how they behave, and what they produce that is passed on to future generations.

We wrote and drew the things that were important to us in our own cultural wheel. We then got together, in groups of three and talked about similarities and difference between our wheels.

After that we drew things that make us 'Kiwis' and discussed 'Kiwiana. We pasted them onto a chart.

The Oxford N.Z. Dictionary defines kiwiana as “Any of the many 'collectable', items redolent of New Zealand life and culture."

Go to Kiwiana Town to see some of the things that are important to us as KIWIS.







We then completed a cultural wheel that reflects the things that are important to us as New Zealanders.