Hokule'a & Hikianalia Reflection

On Wednesday, 26th of March, all children from the Manaiakalani schools came down to sing a Waiata that greeted the two double hulled wakas the Hikianalia and Hokule’a.

Early in the morning over 2,000 children arrived at the Pt England Reserve to see the two amazing wakas the Hokule’a and the Hikianalia. Everyone thought it was amazing and so did I because Paige, Mrs Lagitupu and I had the opportunity to ride and film on the Hikianalia as it was coming to shore.

Everything was incredible, the nice calm water, the people and the waka itself. I thought the coolest thing on the Hikianalia was the two big anchors. To carry it you would need at least five people, four to carry and one to pull the very long chain. Then they would carefully put it into the sea.

As everybody (Manaiakalani schools) on the reserve chanted ‘E oho’ the crew started smiling and saying that it was beautiful and amazing. Then it was time to leave the waka A dinghy came and took us to the beach and that’s where we saw all the children singing a waiata and the children in front dancing and doing the pukana.

This welcome was all for the people who worked on the Hikianalia and the Hokule’a. Then Mr Burt (Principal of Pt England) told all the children to come past the crew members and give them an awesome high five. This took at least half an hour long as there were 2,000 children. After that all the children left except for 3 from each school.

The children who stayed back were the children who got to eat a delicious hangi including the waka crew members (Hangi is food that is cook in the ground). Inside there was kumara, potato, stuffing, and a yummy drum stick.

It was a privilege to meet these people because those people or crew members are really fantastic they didn’t have to come down to meet us but yet they did, all for us our school our community just to learn a little bit about us and what we do. It was so spectacular and I am really happy that this event was so significant and successful.

Life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly

Gently the butterfly lays its egg on a swan plant. After that it leaves and the egg is hanging underneath the leaf. The butterfly lays it egg under the leaf because there are a lot of dangerous insects and animals that might squash or eat it.

 After a day or two it’s ready to hatch, but when it does it comes out and eats the shell. I wonder what the shell taste like? It looks like it’s really scrumshus to the caterpillar. When it finishes eating the shell it moves on to eat leaves.

 While it eats leaves it sheds many of time and changes colours. As it eats it gets bigger and bigger everyday. When it sheds it looks funny but it’s part of the life cycle, it eats about 15 leaves and then it is ready to find a good branch and dangle from it. 

Then there it hangs but first it has to make something sticky to make it stick. After a while it turns into a chrysalis and stays in there for 2 weeks. Then when it comes out there is a beautiful monarch butterfly.

Use your Wits.

Using your Wits means to always do the right thing. It also means you have to follow 4 steps which are W walk away, I ignore it, T talk about it and S seek help. First we are going to talk about W walk away.

 If people are Bullying you, you should walk away. If you don’t walk away then there are many bad things that can happen to you. Even though they are pushing or teasing you just use your Wits. The next step is to ignore it, if people are making fun of you, walk away and ignore it.

Another example is if people are teasing you, calling you names and other things you just have to ignore it. If you talk about it, it will make you happy and it will also solve many of your problems. There are lots of thing you could talk about, like if you pet died or someone is teasing you just talk about it.

 To Seek help you have to find a teacher or an adult and tell them what's wrong. It also means that the person who was bullying you would learn a lesson. Using your WITS can help you by not being bullied. If you use your WITS you'll be happy and you will be able to enjoy the rest of your day knowing what you can do if that ever happens again.

Ambassador Speech

Today some of my friends and I had to say a speech for special visitors. I wasn't really shy because I had practiced many times and I only made two mistakes. There were only 10 visitors who came, that's why I wasn't shy. The people who said the speech with me were all ambassadors including me. We had a lot of help from two really really special people named Mr and Mrs Burt. Mr Burt is the principal of Pt England school, and Mrs Burt is in charge of the ambassadors. They are both like coaches.


 But someone I noticed sitting there was Phil Giller from Samsung. I spoke to him and he was telling me that he played league for Hibiscus Coast . I replied back “I’m in the Mount Wellington rugby league team and I've beaten Hibiscus coast".