It is with a bittersweet feeling that I begin my first "last" post for NZ. This weekend was our last weekend here in New Zealand. We visited the beloved Auckland City Centre again on Saturday. This time around, we took in the views from a sailboat. Frankie lifted the sail with some new friends from Illinois. Our boat, the Courageous, was a 50 foot sailboat. The skippers gave us some history of the other boats in the marina. We sailed under the Auckland Bridge and free range of the boat. We climbed to the front where we were splashed with salt water from the never ending afternoon wind. When the skipper told us to stay up front as we turned around, we were not prepared...it was a SHARP turn.. we held on for dear life and were laughing so hard at how dramatic we were being. Shortly after, one of the skippers thought we felt stranded so he came up and saved us...hahaha. Once we were back on the stable part, we were very slanted which is to come with being on a sailboat but it felt like a roller coaster ride. The day was so beautiful that I was happy to be out on a boat enjoying the sun and the water. Once back on shore, we went to our new favorite (and cheap) Mexican restaurant, Mexican Cafe. A lot of people have been asking, "what is New Zealand food?" and my answer is always there really isn't any food that is strictly Kiwi besides sausages and pies. The pies are very good but the sausages aren't my favorite thing in the world...I think its a texture thing. ALSO, we met SANTA!! Sunday, we spent the day with our host sister, Teresa, and her boyfriend, Dan. First, we went out to this cute cafe in a plant nursery. Oh my goodness, did I have some envy of the way they decorated the cafe and the decorations you could buy at the store! They took us to the Hillary Trail which overlooks Bethell's Beach and O'Neill's Beach in the Waitakere Range. This view never gets old and the hike up definitely got the heart rate going. *Also realized how out of shape I really am...oops. Time to start running more when I get home!* We saw lots of Pohutakowa trees sprinkled throughout the bush. The red Pohutakowa flowers were blooming. These flowers tells New Zealanders it is Christmas time (or summer)! Typically, the flowers don't come until later in December/January. We have been ever so fortunate to have such beautiful weather the last few weeks. Apparently this is not normal December weather and doesn't come until February typically! Anywho, after taking in the views of endless beach front from the point of the Hillary Trail, we made our way back down. It began to get humid so we decided to take a quick dip in the ocean. It was a bit chilly but it felt so unbelievably refreshing. The pulling and pushing of the waves is so strong which made it fun to float and get carried with them. After we cooled off we headed back to our car and home to a yum barbecue (aka grilling out).
I would say we took advantage of the nice weather as much as possible this weekend. I can't believe it is our last week of school tomorrow. The week is busy with end of the year and Christmas activities. Hopefully I'll have time to post our staff singing and dancing to Surfing in the USA and Christmas in the Summertime for the Christmas Concert on Tuesday.
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No longer are the days of Duck, Duck, Goose...although I did play this game with my students...man are they fast! Haha. There are ducks all over the place and they often like to make their home on the fields, courts, and even in the classrooms. When we were doing athletics, the ducks were on the field. The kids were not concerned throwing discuses near them because they knew the ducks would move. During morning tea and lunch, the kids casually walk along the courts with the ducks by their sides. There have even been baby ducklings venturing around. One made its way to my classroom thanks to two of my lovely students rescuing it from the sewer. It was safely returned to the mother. But it is definitely not an uncommon occurrence for the ducks to wander into the shared space for our classrooms. We also had a bird join our class on top of the projector wanting to listen to more stories.
See our duck friend joining in on the Essential Spelling List fun below: Our second to last weekend was spend in Queenstown! Check out the slideshow below for a quick blog about Queenstown! There is hardly any words to describe the beauty! I tuned out the tour guide for most of the four hour ride there and back.... 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND GOING TO QUEENSTOWN! And also the video Milford Sound If you take the kids outside for free play, they will likely crawl on metal containers and into rubbish bins. Don't believe me... check it out here : Free Time on the Playground This was the first day working on alliteration: We didn't get through all of the students...there are 28 kids. More to come as we work on this! The students are excited to start replying to their pen pals in Wisconsin! We have been finishing up the essential spelling list assessment. These kids love coming up with sentences with me and I have learned so much more about them through it. Swimming and cricket have come to an end! I took the kids for their last day of swim... I think I was just as wet as the kids were from being splashed! I will attempt to play a game of cricket with the kids sometime next week since they just started to get the hang of the game towards the end of their last practice. Next week, we are focusing more on individualized tasks for basic math facts, reading, and writing. We began studying sun and water safety. The kids enjoyed this youtube video during their milk: Friday, MacKenzie and I went to Da Vinci’s again (the gnocchi was just too good the first time!!) and I purchased a pair of Oakley’s to help protect my eyes from the intense NZ sun. A yellow spot appeared on my eye and it was really red. I have been putting plenty of eye drops in and a warm patch on my eye. The redness is gone but I am still looking forward to going to the eye doctor as soon as possible once I am home! The night was short as we were exhausted from another day in the sun for Athletics. Saturday, MacKenzie and I grabbed breakfast at Swanson Station Cafe. I had the Brioche French Toast. Every breakfast place serves their french toast with warm bananas and bacon. It is delicious. Shortly after, we met up with Frankie’s mom, Ann, and some of her friends. They are here for an extended trip through their church. We took the ferry from downtown to Waiheke Island. Waiheke Island is known for the many vineyards and wine tastings, so that is what we did. Not too concerned about how we were getting there, we asked a worker at the bus stop. She said the first winery would be about a 10-15 minute walk. Well, let’s just say we learned to not listen to people’s time estimates...probably 40 minutes later (with a little hiccup in directions) and a hike up a long hill) we ended up at the first winery, Mudbrook. The views of the ocean and Rangitoto Island were amazing! There was a spot right about the wine tasting space where a helicopter could land. It felt like a scene of the Bachelor to be honest. We had fun taking candid pictures and making the most of our time after the walk. After a while we ventured to our next stop, Stoney Ridge. No worries as we took a taxi to get here… thankfully we did because we were tight on time for our next adventure. The taxi driver called the zipline company and scheduled for them to pick us up there which saved us practically an hour of pointless driving and expensive taxis. Kiwis are so very kind and helpful! Anyways, the views here were of rolling green hills and a few horses grazing. It is hard to say which view I loved more because they were equally stunning in their own ways. Finally it came time to zipline!!! WOOOHOOOO! Oh my goodness, was this fun! To start off my time, I thought I got locked in the bathroom before gearing up for ziplining…. Thankfully I was with people that could speak for me and get me if I actually couldn’t get out...I eventually did lol. Anyways, we got all strapped in and I made sure everything was tight. Our guides were hilarious and made the preparation not so frightening. The three T’s we learned were touch, tuck, and tight. Touch: don’t touch anything metal. Tuck: tuck your legs and lean back. Tight: grab tight onto the rope so you don’t drift back onto the line and become stranded. Now that we were expert zipliners it was time to do the real thing. We were attached to the zipline and 3, 2, 1, away we went. It was intimidating at first but it was hard not to enjoy with the views and the freeing feeling. The first zipline was easy compared to the other two but it built up our confidence. I was most nervous about catching the rope at the end so I didn’t become stranded. When the guide asked how it was, I said “intense”; to which he replied “I thought camping was only in-tents”. I thoroughly enjoyed this pun. The next two ziplines were a breeze, although I still was not confident enough to let go completely. I was worried about not facing the right way and how much time I would have to turn around to properly pull myself in. The last zipline had a great view of the city and the greenery underneath us. Afterwards, we went for a mini hike back to the top, through their bush. We learned about the native trees and the secondary growth there. We all hugged a tree and ate a leaf that had medicinal properties to it (it made your tongue tingle a little bit). Watch us scream and see some amazing views here: Ziplining!! I would definitely recommend ziplining to anyone and anywhere. You get to see amazing views while also getting a little bit of adrenaline pumping through the veins. I can’t wait to do this again in the future on a different adventure. We ferried back to Auckland and grabbed a bite to eat at Velvet Burger as recommended by Frankie’s co-op. On Sunday, MacKenzie and I went to Mission Bay for a beach day. On the drive there, there was a bit of rain which was a little concerning. We crossed our fingers that the sun would break through as this was our second attempt at a beach day. When we arrived, there was a bit of cloud cover but it felt nice out. We found a spot on the beach and relaxed for a little. After about an hour and a half, we walked around looking for lunch. We decided on The Coffee Club as we have seen it all over the place. The food was pretty good and they had a lot to choose from. The weather was starting to clear up after lunch so we found another spot by the water and laid out--this time putting on sunscreen. There were kids playing in the water fountain and putting bubbly soap in it. We listened to country music and talked about concerts we’ve been to. Before we knew it, it was around 3 or so. I took a dip in the water because I would have been mad at myself if I didn’t go in the ocean at least once while I was in NZ. The water was a bit cold but very refreshing. This is when I noticed I was a bit burnt. MacKenzie noticed as well, so we called it a day. We may have called it a day too late or should have been more cautious with the sunscreen earlier because we were fried...live and you learn? We caught the next bus to Britomart...only to find out it wasn’t going to Britomart because all of the roads were blocked off for the Christmas parade. We were dropped off my Auckland University which is a very pretty campus! We also saw the Pullman hotel were Dr. Kirst was staying while visiting us these next few days. We made our way into the city to find food but ended up running into Frankie and her mom out of coincidence. The city seems so small when you run into people randomly! We didn’t have wifi so we had no way of knowing she was there. We said hi and went our separate ways for dinner. MacKenzie and I found Mexican Cafe...a cheap tex-mex place where we got $5 quesadillas. It was exactly what we were missing about food from home.
With only three weeks left, I cannot believe how fast the weeks go. This week is busy with Dr. Kirst visiting and our big trip to Queenstown coming up. Another spur of the moment decision to go on an adventure! Teresa and Dan were so wonderful to offer to take us to Bethells Beach on this lovely day. Praying that the weather keeps acting like this! We saw amazing views: black sand beaches, bright blue skies, and lush green landscape, and mesmerizing ocean. They also took us to the MOON! yes, you read that right. Not really, but the landscape seriously felt like it. There were black sand dunes and parts that had hardened to form rock, which gave the landscape a crater type look. I know some people like to see photos but I feel videos capture the sense of everything so much better! I apologize for the amateur video shots (*cough cough* Chase). So here are some pictures and a link to the video :) Bethells Beach Afterwards, we worked up quite the appetite and stopped at one of their favorite burger places: BurgerFuel. It was delicious! The burger was huge. It had bacon, avocado, beets, mango, lettuce, onions, tomato, and so much more...I loved every bite especially with the added flavor of the beets and mango.
This week we have started working on writing letters to our pen pals from a class back in Wisconsin. Today, I attempted to set them all up with their google accounts. This was kind of a struggle with the students having to buddy up on laptops, some of the laptops not loading, and all of the other kind of madness that comes when you try to organize 7 and 8 year olds on laptops. Instead, I scratched that idea, and did all of the logging in for them and created log in cards after school. Tomorrow, letters should be close to completed. Thankfully, we are a day ahead so our Monday is really Wisconsin's Sunday. The students are really excited to write to people from America and are anxiously waiting to begin typing. Hopefully we can get as many letters written as possible in these next four weeks so the kids can learn about one another and where they are from. I have also reintroduced GoNoodle with the kids because they are starting to get antsy at this time of year with Christmas and holiday (vacation) coming up. I love brain breaks and the kids have been begging for me to include them. My teacher even suggested sending some kids out to run around the field for a few minutes if I can tell that they just need to get some energy out...perks of a free play school! Favorites include: Also, I love how often the kids have breaks between brain food, tea time, and lunch. They get to use a lot of energy but also have plenty of energy to learn. Here are my kiddos attempting to smile during brain food time (with a few snippets of the park from our Stardome trip).
Parks and Brain Food Other than that, we are focusing on probability in math (using fidget spinners!) and recounting for reading. In addition, I want to try working with spelling using sounds which we observed from a reading specialist. Oh and did I mention we have athletics day Friday? All day spent at the stadium doing track and field activities! I'm excited to enjoy the weather and see the kids show off their skills they have been working on over the last few weeks! On Friday, we celebrated Mackenzie's Birthday!! Her parents flew all the way here to celebrate. For dinner we went to an Italian place called DaVinci's. OMG WAS IT AMAZING! I have never had gnocci before but I gave it a whirl because it had pesto, mushrooms, and chicken. I was blown away and have been looking on Pinterest for similar recipes to make back home! We went out danced and celebrated heaps. It was a wonderful night which ended in returning to Lord of the Fries for their amazing fries (side note...found out Lord of the Fries is vegan which explains the nasty hot dog). We stayed in the Rydges hotel. Saturday morning came quick as Ellen and I woke up to get some breakfast and find take away lunch for our day trip to Hobbiton. We ate at Gloria Jean's Cafe. The iced chai I had was very refreshing and the cinnamon roll was hinted with chocolate-- a great start to the day! We hopped on our bus for the three hour trek. The scenary was amazing as it was sprinkled with cows, sheep, and horses. I loved the views of the mountains and rolling hills. The drive alone was worth it! We were stuck in a bit of traffic which made us only a few minutes late to catch our tour bus. They don't wait for you so we were pushed back to the next hour tour. This was fine as there was time alloted when we returned from the tour to walk around anyways. So before hand, we ate some lunch and wandered to find a sweet treat. We settled for a classic Subway cookie. Subway is one of the few chains here that are also in America. It reminds me of home and I am totally okay with that. We walked through a small farmers market, also. The plants and fresh fruit and vegetables are always tempting but I remember that I cannot bring plants home to Wisconsin. Finally it was time for us to board the Hobbiton Bus. We would travel another 15 minutes to get to the actual farm it was located on. We began on the curvy road to the movie set and there were speckles of white in the grass everywhere! On the farm there are over 1,300 sheep!!!! I got my fill of New Zealand sheep and was more than happy with that. The tour guide talked about how hush hush the land owners had to be about the movie being produced there. However, the secret was broken only a month in, as the director invited the neighbors over for dinner. There were several other places selected to be the set of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but as soon as they found this farm they called off all of the other locations because this one was perfect. And yes indeed it was! The hills were breath taking. The amount of detail put into each individual Hobbit house was incredible. And the amount of information we were given was plentiful. I loved hearing about the different scaled Hobbit houses (there is only one that is actual original scale). The actual movie set was tore down as it was made out of styrofoam and plywood and such. However, they decided, after a few years of giving tours of the property, to rebuild the set permanently. All of the Hobbit buildings are permitted even though there is nothing really in them and barely any room. Towards the end of the tour, they let us try some cider, beer, or ginger beer the was brewed specifically for Hobbiton. I do recommend going here if you can, even if you haven't seen the movies...although that does help follow with the tour guides information they give. It was a long day of traveling but the rain missed us so it was definitely a win! See the views in yet another video (GoPro Quik is a lifesaver!) Hobbiton! Sunday, we ate breakfast at a cafe. I had french toast which was must needed after not eating dinner the previous night. I also had some tea in my own personal tea pot...I need to find one and bring it home! We did some souvenir shopping and saw more of the city than I have the whole time I have been here. Then, once again visited our favorite Mexican place, Frida. Our waiter was there yet again and was super sweet! We walked past the ferries to another area that was filled with restaurants. There is too much food to try and not enough time. Still in search of American ketchup and a place where I can have seafood and sushi (not that there isn't any, just haven't went to any places yet).
Also, SURPRISE! New addition to the family!! Meet Weston! Can't wait to meet him when I come home! This week, the students started cricket practice/class. Swanson School brings in cricket players to work with the kids once a week to get them interested in the sport. On the first day, they worked on batting. The students learned about bat safety and how to properly hold a bat. They had two teams and "played" against each other. The batters were more concerned about where there ball went rather than scoring runs for the team which was entertaining to watch. The winning team came ahead by three runs which came down to the last batter scoring for their team. They all did great and can't wait to see how they improve over the next few weeks! For those who haven't played cricket, there are two people who run (one of which is the batter). The batter hits the ball to the defense and alternates running back and fourth to score runs with their partner. The defense has to catch the ball and run it back to a certain area or spot in order for the offense to stop scoring. ***At least this is how we "played" the other day. I will update in future blogs if things are slightly different.*** Watch my kiddos in action here: Cricket, Day 1 Don't worry, there is plenty of other learning going on but as an extension to the solar system unit the students are working on, we went on a trip to the Stardome. The Stardome is a planetarium which was about a 30 minute bus ride on a coach bus (step up from those "big yellow buses" we have in the US). There was some free time before we were scheduled so the kids played at the park close by. This park has so much to offer! There was a hillside filled with sheep which I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of (....maybe in hopes of walking through it during my time here and stopping at the cafe on the other side of the hill...). It had a "flying fox" which is like a mini zip line for a playground. It was very long and funny to watch the students fly down waving and yelling things like "adios" and "I believe I can flyyyyy!" When it was our time to go in, we listened to a presentation about our solar system which kept the students engaged by having them share some of the knowledge they have learned so far and with a question and answer time at the end. Then, the students used iPads in teams to answer a quiz to explore around the small museum area. Last, by certainly not least, we headed to the planetarium part and got a tour of the stars and our solar system. The graphics were very detailed and I got to learn about the night sky that New Zealand typically sees. I remember going to a planetarium in grade school and learning about the Little Dipper and Big Dipper which was not a constellation that we talked about today because it is not one they see often. But none the less, the planetarium still makes me feel tired and slightly light-headed like it did when I was in grade school. When we got back, we played a trivia game with some of the fun facts we learned today. Did you know if you hopped on an airplane and flew it to the sun (if possible) it would take 20 years?! I promised there was work being done! Look at these awesome film strip fans my students made recounting what happened in a book we worked with throughout the week!
Friday, November 3rd, we wandered down to Henderson and went to the movie theatre. We were all craving popcorn and a movie seemed fitting. The theatres aren't much different here although the lines for tickets and refreshments were combined. They didn't have dream loungers like we are starting to get in the US but the seats were still spacious and pretty comfy. We saw Bad Moms 2: Christmas. They were very concerned about our age with it being a rated R movie which is similar to the states but I think it was mainly because there were quite a bit of children running around at that time. But anyways, that movie was beyond hilarious and we laughed a lot. It was pretty funny when we were the only people laughing at some of the American things like "every kiss begins with Kay" and such. We definitely missed home after watching that movie and look forward to spending Christmas with our families back home. I have already looked at Pinterest, trying to decide on how I want to decorate the tree and what Christmas cookies to make! Saturday, despite the rain, we ventured to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto was a bit longer of a hike compared to Mount Victoria which we did the previous weekend. It typically is about an hour walk up it. It probably took us a bit longer with the rain. We jammed out to Frankie's playlist and made the best of the whether. There were plenty of people to help us along the way. We ventured 15 mintues off the path to the summit to find some caves. We found them and thought they looked cool. Then, a couple came and started walking through them....that's when we realized we could actually crawl in them and stand up farther down into the caves. So despite a little bit of fear of the unknown that lay below the surface, we ventured in. And you really could stand up in the one we walked through...getting out was a bit of a squeeze and a little steep...and maybe a little bit of spider webs stood in the way, but we managed and got out safely. Once we made it to the top, we celebrated with some champagne to brighten up the rainy day. There wasn't much of a view at the top but I'm sure we got enough of the same view on Mount Victoria. The way down Rangitoto was a lot quicker per usual it seems. We had the chance to talk to someone from Atlanta, Georgia and also some bird friends. We made our way back to Auckland via Ferry and had some Mexican food at Frida. This will probably be one of our favorite restaurants of the trip due to the friendly staff...one of which lived in Michigan or Minnesota, I can't quite remember. To see this all in action check it out here : Rangitoto Island Sunday, we went out for brunch down the street at the train station cafe. It was super cute inside and reminded me much of my beloveded OTR back home the way it was run. The eggs are from free range chickens which is big deal here...and I'm pretty sure its actually free range with the amount of farms and space the animals have there.
AND THEN, Mackenzie, Frankie, and I made a SPUR of the moment decision to go to a Jason Derulo concert at the KFC Fest. It's amazing how popular KFC is over here when at home it is sort of becoming nonexistent with stores closing every where. Since today was bright and sunny, we thought we would make the most of the day wandering downtown yet again a few hours before the concerts began. We stopped for a healthy snack of an ice cream donut at Melt and made another stop at Frida for a shared drink. Then, it was time for a concert festival. I was so surprised at how small the venue was and how close we were to the stage! There was a VIP pit in front of us, but other than that there was maybe two or three people standing in front of us in our section. We had a great view and plenty of room to dance. We screamed at the top of our lungs, reliving some songs that were popular in middle school and some newer songs that came out this year by Jason Derulo. It was a great end to a once rainy weekend. ***also major appreciation to our host family for picking us up downtown when we neglected to check the train schedule before purchasing our tickets. they are seriously the BEST*** |
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