Term 2 began today and as I shared yesterday I have made some videos for my students, to review te reo Māori work we’ve done so far this year. I wonder if any of the students have seen them yet! As I don’t have my own class I didn’t have any zoom calls with anyone today… So I did what any responsible teacher would do and researched the Ministry of Education’s offerings on Home Learning/ Papa kāinga TV!
After my body balance class on TV 1 I switched to TVNZ 2+1 and caught the Te Reo Māori lesson for juniors at 10am. This is an immersion class (i.e. no English was spoken) and I’d say it’s more suited for senior primary students who can read the subtitles… unless parents are with the kids to help them make sense of it. This was way beyond your numbers, colours and greetings type language folks!! I’d be keen to hear from any parents whose children watched it as to whether it held their interest. Hard when it’s all in a language most kids won’t understand, but I quite enjoyed it.
Next was Suzy Cato – beloved TV host from the 90s teaching junior maths. What I loved about this lesson was how many Māori words were used throughout it… colours, numbers, body parts, instructions (wash your hands) etc. This is how our classes should be – with Māori integrated like this. Wonderful to see the Māori language being used by presenters on all the shows and the guy doing the overall hosting/ linking too.
Not only was there Māori language but also lots of New Zealand history. One of the junior stories that was read was about Parihaka and then there was the brilliant RNZ produced ‘Aotearoa History Show’ on at 12.15. It is great for 8 years up, including adults, also available here. Today was the first episode on Prehistoric New Zealand. I might make a point of having a lunch break every day, starting at 12.15 watching this.
I got busy doing some other things in the afternoon so wasn’t watching everything keenly but did see part of the Te Reo show aimed at high school students – it was also an immersion class, similar to the ‘junior’ one in the morning with a story read and a sentence structure in focus. What I saw of the show on inquiry process relating to Pacific peoples movement in Aotearoa and the Covid-19 finding fact from fiction session were also well done. I learned a few things about Oamaru!
The art teacher did a great job I thought with the ‘Daily Diary’ section that rounds out the school day on TV at 2.40pm. The theme is Ko wai au? Who am I? and today they were looking at designing a cool name badge… tomorrow making a logo for themselves I think. These things all go in students’ Lockdown ‘Time Capsules’. Cool idea. I liked how she showed us her art journal too.. with pictures stuck in and sketches and thoughts. I think our year 7- 8s would enjoy this programme, even though it may be aimed more for year 9-10s.
I was pretty impressed with what I saw today – including the 10 minute slot for parents (of teenagers) at 12.05. Nathan Wallis is excellent – he communicates neuroscience and what he’s learned from years of experience and study in ways that are very down to earth and relate-able. Today was about connecting with your teenager – validating their emotions before offering advice. He does a slot at 9am for parents of younger children too which is no doubt really useful as well.
Tomorrow I might check out the other channel the Ministry of Education has started – which is for students in Māori immersion and bilingual schools. Be great training for my own reo no doubt!
As a consequence of watching tv straight after balance I never ended up having a shower or getting out of my gym clothes today! I just put on some nice warm pink socks after the barefoot class 🙂
After ‘school’ finished I did some TimeBank work and wrote this post. Next I better think of something for dinner… not feeling very motivated. The sun has gone down so the kitchen will be cold. I have kumara salad leftovers from last night (yum!) but not sure what else I can come up with…
Tonight I hope to chat to my parents and do some travel blogging or maybe some more TV watching – we shall see. Antony has been in his office all day, then came out for his usual after 5 golf practice into the practice net we so wisely bought the day before lockdown. Now he’s on a training ride (on the stationary bike using the Zwift programme)… a daily routine he’s really enjoying.
See ya’ll tomorrow!