As Jill Eggleton was introduced prior to speaking at Endeavour School we were forewarned that the level of inspiration would be such that the next day we would be throwing out our teaching plans and instead spending the day focusing on poetry- how true this was for me. Jill’s “Power of Poetry” Presentation (-see what I mean? That alliteration was entirely accidental!) had some very powerful messaging about the importance of exposing children to short bursts of poetry every day, across all levels, as a means of improving both engagement and literacy skills. The following morning I was rummaging through the resource room dragging out anything that resembled a poem. I found a few old ones, but I was now seeing them with fresh eyes. Rhyme, rhythm, word order and other elements of poetry now meant something to me. There was also a great article about teaching Poetry (the word now has a capital letter so I’m reminded of its importance) in our most recent edition of Literacy Forum NZ, which has links to some great online resources- it is written with a teacher perspective so is worth looking at, if you haven’t read this already. On a side note, we have been advised by NZLA (New Zealand Literacy Association) that, all going to plan, our next Literacy Forum will be digital.

Also at a national level I would like to congratulate the recipient of the Marie Clay Early Career Award & and the three Waikato teachers who won the Experienced Teacher Award. We look forward to seeing them in the sunny Hawkes Bay at this year’s NZLA Literacy conference. By the way, I highly recommend going this year- as always the line up of keynote speakers is fantastic (there are one or two wineries in the area if you’re that way inclined).

We are currently organising our amazing line-up of authors and illustrators for our Young Authors & Illustrators Conference which will take place in September at Berkley Normal Middle School. This student event is a favourite, so sign up early.

Enjoy the rest of your term and I am sure I’ll see some of you in Hawkes Bay at our National Conference.

Todd

This is Manawaru School’s third year of participating in the National Simultaneous Storytime. 2021’s book was called “Give me some Space”, written by Phillip Bunting and read by Shannon Walker, (an actual astronaut who read the story in the international space station. - Pretty awesome!)

In this spacetacular tale, a young girl named Una has always loved space. She has so many questions about the solar system and wants to become an astronaut to find out if there is life on other planets. So Una decides to get the equipment to solve this cosmic mystery by gathering the protection that she would need. She borrowed a snowsuit and ski gloves from her cousin Carl, ugg boots from her mother, and her pet fish Neil's fish bowl (as a helmet). After she had gathered her equipment she attempted to get into space three times! She finally got a rocket and catapulted herself into space to begin her adventure. She passes Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune but not a single planet has life. After a while of exploring the solar system she abruptly finds a planet glowing and orbiting around its star. As Una moved closer she realized that this captivating planet was Earth! She finds out that there is life in space, we are life in space. We personally thought that this book was an interesting take on life in space. It's filled with facts about the solar system and a book that is suitable for all ages. Even our teacher learned facts about Space (and she's old- sorry Miss S)

Scholastic did a great job at selecting this year's book and reading it at the same time as other children in New Zealand and Australia is kind of cool. If you haven’t been involved before we thoroughly recommend you give it a go next year.

Elayna, Yasmin and Katy

Room 1 - Manawaru School