Our trip to the Howick Historical Village

When we first got there we had our morning tea and put our bags away in special cupboards that had locks.

We got put into our classroom groups and we went to four different classroom activities. First we went to experience what school was like in the past. The chairs and tables were incredibly small. The boys had to let the girls go first all the time. Our teacher’s name was Mrs Mills. We started off with handwriting and we ended school by learning how money was and how much they were worth. We also had a spelling test and the boys won. The equipment we used to write with was ink and old fashioned ink pens.

Our second activity was when we made a mini Raupo Whare. Thanks to Mrs Parker-Tofa we were almost finished. The materials we used were flax, rope and sticks. The girls won because our one looked the best.

In our third activity, we learnt how to make bread and how they kept food good. There was a special cupboard on the side of the house where you could put your butter, milk and all your cold food accessories to keep them nice and cool. The oven was put in a fire place and there were special metal sticks that you use to open up the oven when the oven was hot. The oven and stove was working by fire and there was a huge barrel where they stored the wood. She said that if you wanted to made bread it took quite a long time to make in the past.

On our last classroom activity we got into groups of four and we had to try and make a trolley. Mrs White said the first team finished got to ride on it. The main key we used was Team Work. My team won because we were the first ones that were nearly finished. Eparama was the first one to ride on it but most of the pieces fell off!
After that we had our lunch and had free time to walk around but only where the teachers could see us.

After lunch we went with a teacher in groups to explore the Howick Historical Village. We had a partner to work with. Each pair had a booklet they had to work on. There were houses where two families had to live in. Upstairs was where everyone slept and downstairs was the everything room where you had to cook, iron and do much more work. There was one house where only one family could live but you would have had to be very wealthy because the house was HUGE! The Raupo Whare could only fit one family because it was really small. There was a small white tent that soldiers lived in. They were promised the tents by Queen Victoria.

Finally it was time to leave. Vaegaa’u said thank you on behalf of Tamaki Intermediate. We all went on the bus but the people who could not fit had to go in the van. When we got back to school, school was not finished just yet. We packed up and we enjoyed our DELICIOUS bread.