At the Baptist Church on the 9th of August we had this year's Cultural Festival. We had eight classes from our school present a performance about a culture of their choice.There were also two cultural groups that performed.

Evelyn and Kaela got some year sevens from Whio to tell us about the Cultural Festival. When we asked about their feelings   at first, Patrick said he was Very excited to hear about the performance and predicted that he would be quite tired after the dance.  Eli felt that he didn’t really want to do the dance and he was a little bit nervous. Ella was fully confident in herself and was really ecstatic about hearing the news. Evie found herself confused about the dance - because she was away for most of the dance practice.  We presented a question about what dance they did. Everyone said they performed a cook island dance. All of the group announced that they didn’t participate in bringing the cultural outfits, apart from Ella who brought her own t-shirt, etc.  Mrs.Callingham decided on the costumes for everyone, and the boys felt it uncomfortable as the Cook Island anklet was irritating, The girls found the sarong itchy, but overall liked it. Eli was a little bit nervous and excited at the same time, Patrick felt bored, Ella was all good and Evie was feeling nervous and excited plus she felt a tiny bit sick.

The most complicated part for Patrick was when you put your arms out and wiggled your knees. Eli said the knee wiggling and the timing was hard. Ella also agreed with the timing difficulty,  and the arm coordination was a struggle for her as well. Evie found the most complicated part for her was putting on  the sarong. Patrick told us  moving  a lot was tiring, Eli said that the hardest part for him  was the timing, and the dances. The hardest part for Ella was coming up with the dance moves, Evie had a hand injury, therefore she found it uncomfortable to do the arm & wrist movements. Patrick was happy with the result performance but everybody was out of time. Eli felt he didn’t do much and they were all better than him at their dance. Ella felt that everybody else was out of time. And Evie said everybody could improve on timing.

Here are the thoughts on the dances, first up is Patrick. Patrick liked kakapo’s dance because he thought the Indian dance was a change because most of the dances were similar. Eli and Ella both told us they liked the pepper tree (kindergarten) group. Eli and Ella said they were cute and talented little dancers. Evie enjoyed watching the Highland dancing because she was intrigued by the dance moves. They all learnt the end of day and morning prayers in te reo Maori, for our class Eli,Patrick and Ella would all like to do an Indian dance.Evie would want to do an african dance for the next time we do the Cultural Festival. Eli and Ella had the philippines chicken.Evie had a Mexican wrap and pepsi for the drink. Patrick had rice and a bunch of rice  chicken sausages and orange juice.