Final week of Holiday

This past week the four of us girls went down to the Catlins along the southern coast and did a couple of walks and went to see Nugget Point. We saw several more Fur Seals and there were even some baby pups that were very entertaining for us to watch. We then continued to drive down to Bluff to stay for the night before heading to Stewart Island in the morning. We didn't realize that there would be no where to get cash out in Bluff and many of the places would only take cash so we had to borrow from each other a little bit but we made it all work out.

The ferry ride over to Stewart Island was very choppy and several people got sea sick. Luckily the four of us got by with just slight headaches and queasiness. It ended up being a very rainy day on Stewart Island which made it pretty difficult to do much, because everything to do is outside. We did one walk and got soaked and pretty cold so we stopped by a cafe in the little town and got some hot chocolate to warm us up. We decided that we would take the earlier ferry ride back to Bluff and head to Alex to spend the night. After a quick game of checkers between Tasia and I at the playground we made our way back. The ferry ride again was really choppy and the drive was pretty long.

The next morning Tasia, Emily and I set off towards the West Coast. We got to see many waterfalls and stopped to walk out to both the Fox Glacier and the Franz Josef Glacier. They were fun to see, and we were glad we were able to get so close the the Franz Josef without having to pay for a tour. We then drove on up the Punakaki to see the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. This was my favorite part of the West Coast because I found it a lot of fun to wait for the water to come rushing in and then shoot out of the top. We then decided that rather than staying another night on the coast somewhere, that it would be nice to get back to Alex again so we drove the 8 hours back. We were glad to sleep in our own beds last night and now we have today and tomorrow to get things organized and ready again for school.

Travels

After our canyoning adventure and cruise of Milford Sound we headed north to Mount Cook. We were a little disappointed when we got there because it was very cloudy so we couldn't see any of the peaks and didn't even know which one was Mount Cook. We did a short walking trail just before it got dark, and although the views were still neat they would've been even more beautiful had the clouds been gone. The next morning we decided to do one of the longer tracks to see more of the area. The clouds were still around but they moved enough for us to get some views of the amazing peaks. I'm very glad we stuck around that morning to get to see these because the night before we weren't even sure where Mount Cook was and we were pretty unimpressed with the size of the mountains until the clouds cleared and we could actually see them.

After this we went to Christchurch for the afternoon and spent the night there. We just walked the town a little and got to see most of the Town Centre. It is a much larger town, but the town centre still felt small townish. We left the next morning to head to Hamner Springs to check out the sulful spa. It was very relaxing to spend some time here, but there were a lot of families and couples in the pools so Tonya and I felt a little awkward. We found some chairs to sit in the sun for a little while, but I soon found out why they have "beware of honeybee" signs around the pools because I got stung by one of them..

We've been trying to keep our costs on food and housing pretty cheap, so we have been staying mainly in hostels and backpackers. Some of these have been nicer than others and it just depends on the place. Some of the rooms are coed, but when we checked into our room in Christchurch, the man looked at the room info and then looked at us and said, "Oh no there boys in that room, we can't have you staying there." He then gave us a two-person room for the same price as the cheaper rooms. We both thought that was really nice of him and decided that he must have daughters of his own.

In Kaikoura we did a whale watching tour and got to see Tiaka, a large sperm whale that dives down into the water for about 45 minutes and then surfaces for 5-10 minutes. I took many pictures while he was on the surface and then they let you know when he goes to dive again because that is when you can get a good picture of the tail. My pictures were both terrible and blurry though. We also got to see several dolphins (100-200) and many of them were very playful and would jump in the air and do flips and somersalts. They were a lot of fun to watch.

We decided to drive straight back to Alex that afternoon, which was an 8 hour drive. Each day we had to drive for around 4 or 5 hours also, so we have had lots of time in our van. We rarely get a good radio station in and we had some interesting ones on this trip. Our favorite had the line "Your fishnets and nose ring are making my heart sing." Pretty sure it's going to be a hit.

The Wee Differences

I've decided to create a list of some of the differences I have noticed between the US and NZ... I know its best to focus on the similarities, but oh well here goes:

1. Their accent and some of the vocabulary such as wee. They use the word wee all the time as in I have a wee lamb at home or put a wee line under the title of a book. Also, a bathroom is a room with a bath, toilets is a room with a toilet. Don't call a toilet and bathroom or they'll laugh. Garbage is rubbish and it belongs in the rubbish bin. Sandals are jandals, cookies are buiscuits, and tea is supper. Also, their e's and a's are pronounced a little different which is usually when I notice the accent the most. Some of my students still pronounce certain words. They also spell many words differently such as programme and centre.

2. Many people have asked so I will answer... The toilets here do not actually spin in the opposite direction. They actually don't really spin at all, you just push more of a button and the water kinda gushed out.

3. The cold water from the faucet takes a little while to actually get cold. It starts cold, gets warm, gets really hot and then is cold again...

4. Everything tastes a wee bit different as well. Even name brand things such as Twix and Snickers taste a little different. Ketchup is rarely used and ranch seems to be unheard of. The portion sizes are also much smaller (something I wish I could bring back with me, but I doubt it) They also have a lot of chicken flavored things such as chips and cracker and barbeque sauce is also really popular.

5. They have religious education in school. It was so weird for me on our first Friday to have the religion teacher, Debbie, come in and starts her lesson off with a prayer and then talks about Jesus and God with the students. It seems to be very nondenominational and there are still a few students who do not participate, but it's so strange to have this in school.

6. They use the metric system and temperature is in Celsius-I'm still not used to either.

7. Mullets and rattails are really popular with the boys here. Most of the boys in my class have one or the other.

8. There are more sheep than there are people. They are everywhere. Seriously.

9. It is really important to have good penmanship and they encourage all artwork to be very neat and tidy as well. My teacher tells the students that if their work isn't neat, he'll tear it up. He explained that he usually only does this to set an example, but then it helps them feel a sense of pride for the work they complete. They also put all of their artwork on display in the room somewhere. So neat to have art lessons right in the classroom.

10. The teachers are generalists so they teach regular classroom subjects such as reading, math, and writing, but they also teach art, PE, music, and fitness. They also encourage using some words from the Maori language which leads to my next one...

11. They have strong ties to the native culture of Maori. All of the students have a Maori language lesson once a week and there are also several who go to Kapa haka once a week to learn more of the songs and dances from the Maori culture.

First Week of Holiday

Tonya and I have almost completed our first week of holiday, and it seems like the time has flown by. We have gotten to do and see so much this week. We started off by going to Queenstown, once again, to try our hand at canyoning. It was a blast! The trip lasted about 2 hours and included a little rappelling, 2 ziplines, a few slides, and some exciting jumps. I'm not a very great swimmer though and this showed a little compared to Tonya who was on her high school's swim team. I was also a little more scared of the jumps than her, which you can see in some of the videos they took. I tend to do a little half jump or stutter step off the ledge, whereas most people just jump right off. My fear of heights got the best of me I guess

The next day we drove to Milford Sound. The drive there was very scenic with a lot more trees and green grass. We were told at the beginning of our trip that if you don't like the scenery in the area in NZ, you just need to drive 50K in one direction and everything will be different. This trip has definitely proven that. We did an overnight cruise of the Sound, which turned out to be very neat. They took us out through the sound and then back to a little cove where they let us choose from three options: kayaking, going out on the tendercraft, or swimming. Tonya and I both chose to do kayaking, which was a lot of fun. We learned quickly that we aren't very good at it though. Many people took off really fast and we kinda just let the current take us nice and slow. They served us some supper and then had some board games and cards to play for the night. We ended up playing Scattegories with two guys from Germany and a girl from England. After our game Tonya and I decided to go back outside to check out the stars for a little while. It was really cold, but the stars were beautiful. They were so bright and there were so many of them. The cabins we stayed in were tiny, but actually pretty comfortable and I slept really well. The next morning they served us breakfast and then took us around the sound again, but this time they got really close to the different waterfalls to the point that the water was hitting the deck and we all got sprayed by the mist. We also went out to the opening of the sound and saw the Tasman Sea and the coastline.

We then spent a day in Te Anau, which is the only town near Milford Sound. We decided that as our Easter present to ourselves we would stay in a hotel for the night, rather than the cheap hostels and backpackers. It was nice to have a room and bathroom to ourselves and we ended up sleeping in pretty late too which was great.

School

I decided I needed a little update of how things have been going at school. I took over the class this week on full control, although full control probably isn't a good way to describe this class for any teacher. One thing that has not changed from teaching in America is that there are always a few students that try to push the limit. I do really like my class, they are a lot of fun to work with and they are really good about sharing their ideas with the class. I have found that it is very difficult to get anything done though. They have so many extra things to get done in the week, that it has been very difficult to stick to a schedule. On Mondays we do News Buddies, where the students get to share about their weekends and we use it to work on their oral language skills, but it takes up a pretty big chunk of the day. On Tuesdays we go to the library for about an hour and then the computer room for about an hour. Wednesdays stay pretty normal and I've been getting a chance to teach some art and PE lesson. I haven't had a go at teaching music yet though, but we'll see. Thursday mornings, about half of the class goes to Junior Kapa Haka where they learn Maori songs and dances. I was able to go watch this once and got a little video of one of the songs they have been practicing. Friday afternoons are also full because we have an assembly where the teachers present certificates to any students who have done something exceptional, share artwork with the school and celebrate birthdays for the week. After this we have a teacher come in our room and teach religion for the last hour of the afternoon. As you can see with reading, maths, fitness and writing also, our week is pretty full. I have learned that it is very important to be flexible with the schedule. Just last week they told us Friday morning that they would like us to go watch the year 5/6 students in the school triathlon, so we just took out writing for the day and went to cheer on the older students.

My class has 25 students. About half of them are year 4 students and half are year 3's. There is also a pretty even split between boys and girls. They are a very competitive group of kids and like to play lots of games during out fitness time in the morning. The school has a mandatory time for about 15-20 minutes where the class has to go out and do some sort of activity that gets the kids running. Lately, I've been introducing them to some of the PE and camp games that I know and they've been enjoying playing them.

Let me know if you have any questions about the school here and I would be happy to explain more.

Kapa Haka Practice

Another weekend of Fun

This past weekend we decided to go to Queenstown which is the tourist center of New Zealand. There are so many things to do there. We decided on a few activities for the weekend, knowing that we will be headed back there before our stay is over.

We started by going on a chilly Jetboat tour of Lake Wakatipu and the Shotover River. It was a little cold, so they had us wear big raincoats because we did get wet on some of the turns. The boat went really fast and it was a lot of fun. Our guide pointed out a few things along the way, including the Remarkables. This is the only mountain range to run true north and south. They are also the peaks that were used in the filming of the Lord of the Rings for the mountains of Mordor. We got to sit right in the front of the boat which we thought meant we were going to get the wettest, but we ended up staying pretty dry compared to some of the other passengers.

Later in the afternoon we went on a ziptrek tour. We started by riding the gondalas to the top of Gondala Hill. Our tour consisted of a series of four ziplines through the trees and a little talk about keeping the environment healthy. We got a few pictures of us in our harnesses that were used and realized that we have gotten pretty used to having weird harnesses and helmets on for several of our activities. Our guided showed us how to flip upside down and ride the zipline. I was able to do this for one of the lines. The final line went the fastest and lasted the longest, but since it has the best views they told us it was best to ride this one normal. Our one guide also told us that the line would probably spin us around to the right but to just let in go and it would spin you on around. After I took off I spun to the right, but then just kind of stayed there pointing the trees rather than the beautiful views of the town and lake. The guide on the other side asked how the zip went, and I told him I just saw a lot of trees. He responded well why didn’t you just look to the left, he was supposed to tell you that! I did get a short video of this zipline, but it just shows mainly the trees.

Sunday morning, we headed back up Gondala Hill and got some amazing pictures of the view from the top. We then did the Luge where you go around this track in a little cart that has bicycle handles. They made you do one trip on the slow track so we did a second one to do the faster track. It had several little hills and sharp turns that made it a lot of fun.

We also walked around the town and did some shopping and tried a Fergburger for lunch. We were told by our ziptrek tourguide that it would be the best burger we would ever have. Of course, being from Iowa, we didn’t believe this for a second but thought we should at least try one. It was actually pretty good, but definitely not the best. We also spent a good amount of time feeding some very friendly ducks along the edge of the lake. On Saturday a lady came by with a whole bag of little cookies for us to feed to a group of ducks. They would come up and eat them right out of my hand, and there were so many of them! They were awfully greedy though and would try to steal them from each other or our bag. We also fed them some of our fries after each meal we had in town.

Dunedin and Rugby

This weekend was packed full of sightseeing adventures. We started by traveling to Dunedin, the second largest city in NZ. The “downtown” area of the city is arranged in an octagon and we spent most of the afternoon walking around to see the different shops and restaurants. After this we decided we needed to find a place to stay for the night. We had all agreed that we would keep in cheap this weekend and stay in a hostel, so we searched for one with vacancies for the four of us to stay in one room together. We finally found one that we shared with two girls who were traveling from England and one guy who they had nicknamed “Mr. Drunkard” because he had stopped by to drop off his stuff (which consisted of a cooler and a toothbrush) and tried to tell them about the awesome party he was going to, but then just left. Then Saturday night we went to our first rugby game. Although we still do not understand the game hardly at all, it was still really fun. The team we cheered for was the Otago Highlanders, which we found out don’t actually win very many games. After the game there was a concert with a band called the Black Seeds. It was fun to get to see the crowds and walk down on the field, but we decided it wasn’t really our type of music and headed back to the hostel.

Elephant Rocks

The next day we headed back to Alexandra stopping to see some Mauri rock paintings and the Elephant rocks. These boulders are named for their massive size, but we noticed that many (with a little imagination) actually resembled elephants. After these brief stops we headed home by taking Dansby’s Pass, which turned out to be a very, very narrow gravel road that led through the mountains. Although it was very scenic and cut our travel time in half, I must say I was very glad to not be driving for this leg of the trip.

On Sunday we decided to head out to the Otago Peninsula to finally see the ocean and hopefully see some wildlife. We got lucky and stopped by The Penguin Place and were able to book the first tour out to the Yellow-Eyed penguin colony. They told us we may only see one or two penguins because they are very territorial instead of staying in big groups like most penguins. They are also the most endangered penguins, with only around 4000 left total. We were lucky that we happened to be there during molting season where the penguins loose their feathers and grow new ones. They are unable to leave the land during this time. We got to see 5 Yellow-Eyed penguins and 2 Blue penguins on our tour of their natural habitat and then saw five more in the penguin hospital at the visitor center. This area is also home to a seal colony so we got to see many of these, even very close up. There were many sunbathing and a few playing in the water.

Later that afternoon we made our way up to coast to the Moeraki Boulders. These are bunch of huge spherical stones found along the beach on New Zealand's Otago coast. We were hoping for some nice weather since we were on the beach, but it ended up being cold and windy. There were still some very amazing views though. We then made our way to Oamaru to stay the night and get some supper. We ate at a little place on the harbor called Portside that was right next to the Blue Penguin Colony. Blue penguins are the smallest of all penguins and come in from the ocean at dusk. We were again lucky because one little penguin had come in and was trying to get across the road right near where we were parked. We went down to watch him. At one point he got very scared and hid under a car. A lady standing near watching started yelling at everyone to give him some space, and finally he came out from under the car and waddled only a few inches from me and made his way across the road.

Three Days of Relievers

At my school the teachers periodically get release days where they have another teacher come into their room for either part or the whole day and they get to go plan or work on other things. The teachers do not have to leave sub plans or any sort of schedule, the reliever that comes in just brings something for the kids to work on and any other plans of their own. You also do not have to leave any plans if you take a personal day. Well, this makes it very difficult to keep any sort of routine in the classroom. It wouldn't be bad for just a day or two, but because of my co-op teacher's schedule, I have had 3 1/2 days in a row of this. Children love routines, and mine are going crazy without theirs. We have done heaps of art projects and even baked buiscuits (cookies) today, but haven't done any reading groups, maths groups, handwriting, or free writing yet this week. It's been crazy!

Yesterday, we decided it was a good day to walk to school. We were all ready a little early and it was pretty nice out, so we didn't take our van. Well when we got to school a couple of the teachers informed us we were crazy because apparently there was supposed to be a big storm later that afternoon. As the day went on, there were some pretty dark clouds forming so we got a little worried. Turns out it sprinkled for about 5 minutes...thats their big storm going through. I even went home and did some laundry and hung it outside. It did get pretty windy later that night, but still nothing compared to some of the storms we see in Iowa.

Weekend in Wanaka

Highlight of this weekend- Skydiving! I must admit I was completely terrified while we were waiting to get ready, but as soon as I met my jump buddy Mack I knew it was going to be great! He was really friendly and explained everything about the jump and told me the two most important things were #1 Stay in freefall position throughout the freefall and #2 Have fun! He walked me out to the plane and told me we were jumping last out of the five groups that would be riding in the plane with us. I was a little nervous to have to watch everyone else go before my jump, but thought it was better than going first. It was a little awkward being literally strapped to a complete stranger and then basically sitting on his lap the entire time in our plane ride, but it was very reassuring to know that he was there. As we flew up to the right altitude he pointed out different things such as Mount Cook, the two lakes and the river that were all in view. He also showed me where we would be landing. From the height we were at at the time, it looked like about a 2 inch area. As we were flying I just kept wondering how high 12,000 feet was going to be, but then before I knew it people started jumping. I didn't even see Tasia jump because she went so fast. It was like one second they were sitting at the edge and then they just disappeared. By far the best part of the jump is the first 5 or 6 seconds when you're falling so fast and its just completely exhilarating. After this they let you open your arms out and fall for about 40 more seconds and then Mack pulled the parachute cord. After he pulled the cord he released a few of the straps on my harness and he told me, "Ok now I'm gonna let you go." Not a very funny joke when we were still that far up in the air. We floated to the ground fairly quickly and then the landing was really easy. The entire thing went way to fast! I'm so glad we all made the jump. It is definitely going to be a highlight from our entire time here. I can't wait to go again sometime!

Moth Massacre

We accidentally left the light on in our house with both of our doors and a few windows open the other night. We had gone on a run/walk and came back and sat outside for a while. When we all decided to head back in, we realized just how many moths and mosquitos had made their way inside. We decided to each grab a newspaper or magazine and just started swatting. It was a pretty hilarious sight as we all attempted to get rid of as many bugs as possible before going to bed, but in the end we just gave up.

My first week is now almost over, and it feels like it is already going by so fast. With our break, we end up only having 6 weeks with the students instead of 8 so it is going to fly by. My kids are awesome. I have 8-9 year olds, which they call year 3/4’s, but it is like our 2nd-3rd grade. I have 26 students and it is a pretty even split between boys and girls. They all think I talk a little funny because their accents are different than ours, but I haven’t run into too much trouble with them understanding me. When they don’t it is usually really cute because they very politely just say, “Pardon me?” Some of our spelling is different as well so I'm always a little worried about making mistakes, especially because I'm not the greatest speller to begin with.

This morning I was able to go watch the Junior KapaHaka group. This is a group that meets with the Maori teacher and they learn songs and dances from the Maori culture. They are all in their language, but the teacher explains what they meant so it was really neat to see. I was surprised by how quickly the kids learned their new song today. One of the other student teachers was able to get a video of this, so I will hopefully be able to add that here too. We also had a Maori language lesson today where they learn many of the words and then learned a legend about a giant and a beautiful girl.

The kids are really great for the most part, but I will have a few challenging ones. Not unlike any other classroom though. I had my first experience with having duty during interval. Interval is like our recess time except all of the students go out and play at the same time and there are 2 teachers that have duty. It still seems strange to me how only 2 teachers are able to keep an eye on 300 students, but it does seem to work. The kids usually play cricket or rugby at interval, both of which I don’t know the rules of, but I’m trying to pick up on some of it.

I shared an alphabet book about myself with the students today and let them ask me several questions about my life. They were very interested in a lot of the pages and wanted to know what my favorite of everything was and why I liked certain things. One of my pages included how I like to watch storms especially big lightning/thunderstorms. My picture on that page was just a simple picture of some lightning, but when I showed it they were all amazed. Apparently they have some thunder every once in a while but never the big, branching lightning. After that they wanted to know all about them and tornadoes and if I was scared of them. I told them that I’ve never really been scared, but my sister Joy is and so we used to always tell her that tornadoes were coming and she would freak out and start crying. They thought this was pretty funny.

My teacher is really funny and uses a lot of humor in his classroom. The kids all respond to him really well. They seem to really enjoy being in his classroom, which is fun to see. I have noticed that some of the things he says with the students wouldn’t probably be acceptable in Iowa, such as talking about students who have gotten in trouble at interval in front of everyone. We usually don’t do this so that the child isn’t embarrassed in front of the whole class, but they just talk about it at a group and its not too big of a deal.

Everything is really pretty similar so it has been fairly easy to catch on to what he does with his teaching. I was able to take one reading group today and am taking over one next week as well. I’m very excited to start doing more in the classroom because a lot of it has been just observing right now.

Kiwi Crossing

I had my first day of New Zealand student teaching today. It was a lot of fun getting to know the kids, teachers, and schedule for the day. Our day started with a welcome ceremony that is traditional to the Maori culture in NZ. It is customary that only men speak, so my teacher had to do part of the ceremony. After he speaks it is also customary that his highest level of friends would sing and dance, so my class also had to do a song and dance in front of the whole school. They were all very nervous for this in the morning but it went very well. The whole ceremony was done in Maori language, so it was very difficult to know what was going on but it was still interesting and did make us feel very welcomed at the school.

When we returned to our classroom we did a short lesson of maths- not math, it has to have the s- but because of the ceremony it was cut short today. After maths, we have fitness, which is when the teacher takes the students outside to do some sort of activity which forces the kids to run around and do other physical activity. Today my class did a relay race and then played a game similar to 4 corners. During this part of the day, all of my tag related camp games will probably come in handy. This only lasts for 15 minutes before we go inside and have reading for an hour. The students then go to interval, which is similar to recess except that all of the teachers go to the staff lounge area and they have tea, cocoa, or coffee and cheese and crackers or fruit.

Much of the day is very similar to schools that I have worked in. It is still strange to see most of my children without shoes on, but I’m sure I will get used to it. I, of course, was already asked how old I was, if I had any pets, and if I have a boyfriend. These always seem to be on the list of things children want to know about someone new. I also had a few students swear in the classroom today but this is apparently ok. This will also take some getting used to, but for now I think its kinda funny. Overall, day one went really well and I am super excited to get to know the kids better.

Upon Arrival

We made it! After some 30 hours of travel time we made it to Auckland, New Zealand. We also noticed the difference in security here when going through customs and security, because it is so much easier than in the states. We didn’t even have to take our shoes off. A few hours later, we arrived in Queenstown New Zealand and were greeted by the vice principal from our school, Mick. He immediately picked us out of the people getting off the plane. I am unsure if this is because we stick out that much or because a few of us did happen to have Iowa State sweatshirts on, but he was very friendly and worked really hard to remember our names right away. It was sprinkling a little when we got off the plane, but by the time we finished having a little lunch it had already cleared up. Riding in the van to Alexandra gave us our first experience of driving on the opposite side of the car and road, something that we were all a little nervous about attempting ourselves. Mick’s only words of advice: “Keep left!” The scenery really is beautiful-there are mountains everywhere, and it is so nice to see green grass already. We were shocked by the color of the water in the rivers. It is a bluish-green color, unlike the murky brown water in Iowa rivers. Mick also let us stop at the bungy bridge and watch one girl take the jump. It didn’t look as high as we were expecting, but it was still pretty terrifying watching her jump and seeing how close she got to the water. We decided that this definitely needs to be on our list of things to do.

We then got to drop our stuff off at our house and visit the school. Both our landlady, Denise, and the school provided us with some food and drinks to get us started off. Some of it we aren’t really sure what to do with, such as the vegemite and marmite, but it was still very generous of them. Our house is much better than we even expected and it is very “homey.”

We were able to wander around Alex today and get to know the town a little. We did some grocery shopping and also visited a few of the shops in town. It was still strange to see many children and some adults walking around without shoes, and we decided we might need to try grocery shopping barefoot at some point. We are going to try to hike a little later and possibly go see the clock on the hill, which is one of the things the town is known for. The weather was beautiful today, so we took advantage of this and spent some time by our pool. It was very relaxing to just chill outside and read, but we all did get a little burnt.