The last days in New Zealand, 9th of April to 26th of April of 2011

More than my last days is more like my last weeks, I spend all these days travelling around the South Island (also know as Te Wai Pounamu), much beautiful than the North Island. I travel like 5 or 6 days with the others Spanish students and then just by myself!

We started in Picton, and I went to Kaikoura, Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Wanaka, Nelson… I saw almost everything but there wasn´t enough time! I met amazing people, I do a lot of tracks, a lot of activities, I swam with dolphins, I did skydiving, puenting… It´s difficult to describe the beautiful views so it´s easier with pictures:

4th of April to 8th of April of 2011

The last week of my training in Pomare School, I´m going to miss them!
On Monday I read with my two boys and then I do another Spanish class, and I can see that they all remember everything so I teach them some news Spanish words, and with the group of 6 and 7 years old I read a book and I explain an activity that they have to do with the book that they just read. And in the afternoon I go with the children of 5 and 6 years old to do mathematics.

On Tuesday I spend the day in the Samoan kindergarten, I never been there before but they were really kind with me, and I spend the day playing and singing with them.

On Wednesday I go again to the Maori kindergarten and they prepare to me a kind of surprise with typical food, and I made a crown with the children for me. And in the afternoon the Assembly and two children of the kindergarten bring me the crown as a present, and I teach to all the school how to dance “La Macarena”.

On Thursday I go to the hospital and when I come to the school I read another book with my group of 6 and 7 years old and I explain another activity to do. And in the afternoon with the children of 5 and 6 years old doing the PMP.

On Friday, the last day, I bought some rugby and soccer balls to each class, and they made an especial Assembly for me, where I give it to them the balls and they made me some presents.

28th of March to 3rd of April of 2011

On Monday in the morning, like always, I read with Josiah and Roland and then helping doing the exercises to the children of the two groups of vocabulary, and in the afternoon playing games and doing mathematics with the children of 5 and 6 years old.

On Tuesday I spend all the morning reading with children of different ages , and in the afternoon they have PMP, that it is perception motor program, with activities such a jump rope, catch the ball…


On Wednesday I go to the Maori kindergarten and I spend the day playing and singing with them, and in the afternoon like almost all the Wednesday we have Assembly.
On Thursday my teacher let me do a Spanish class, so I teach them where is Spain, where I live, which is our coin… and I teach them some Spanish words and sentences. And in the afternoon I have Maori class and we play some games. And after the school I go to the park to see the competition of Touch rugby of my children.

On Friday I spend the morning reading with the children of different ages and in the afternoon Assembly.

And I spend this weekend in Wellington; we just do a small tour to see some things of a famous film.

21th of March to 27th of March of 2011

I came back on Monday tired of the long weekend, but my teacher gives me the opportunity of teaching a few things to the children of 5 years, so I spend the day with them.

On Tuesday I spend all the day in the room 4 with the children of 8 and 9 years reading, writing and in the afternoon doing math; every day I’m going to all the different classroom and I can see the different ways of teaching.

On Wednesday I spend the day in the Maori kindergarten, I asked if I can go to see how they work and they let me go even thought they don’t teach English, the teachers speaks Maori but at least most of the children speak English so I can speak with them. They teach me some Maoris words and I teach them to count to ten in Spanish and some Spanish songs also.

On Thursday, in the morning I went to the hospital to see how my arm is and they told me that I can start doing exercises, and when I came to the school I went to the room 9 with the children of 5 and 6 years old and I help reading with all the kids. And after school I went to the Fraiser park to see my children how they play Touch rugby.

On Friday we went again to Wellington to see the other three plays with the children of 7 to 10 years old, and we spent all day there.

At the weekend we travelled around the east coast, we saw beautiful places close to the coast, we saw a huge colony of seals that they were sitting in the middle of the road and we saw Rivendell.

14th of March to 20th of March of 2011

On Monday I read with my two boys, and then helping doing the exercises to the children of the two groups of vocabulary, and in the afternoon I go with the children of 10 years old and I helping them with their spelling.

On Tuesday reading with Roland and Josiah, and helping doing the exercises during the morning. And in the afternoon I go with the children of 5 years old and I do mathematics, they are now working with the number 1. And in the afternoon I go to the hospital because yesterday I was running and I fell and I think there is something wrong with my arm, and they actually tell me that I have a small part of the bone of the elbow broke.

On Wednesday we have an all day excursion in the swimming pool and the children love it!
On Thursday I go to a school Rippa rugby competition against others schools, Rippa rugby is a type of rugby. And Pomare School wins!

On Friday we have an all day excursion in Wellington, and we watch three plays. Boats, that is a crafted story of to mariners fleeing their past and embracing adventure in the sea; Passing Wind is Linsey Pollak a brilliant composer and musician that show us how to create instruments with really strange things, like a globe or a carrot; and Grimace is a fairy tale with princess and witches.

And on the weekend we went to Taupo and Rotorua, and we saw how was the Maoris traditional way of life.

7th of March to 13th of March of 2011

First day in Pomare school!!


The school is 50% Maoris, 45% Samoans and the 4% of the Pacific islands and 1% European. In the school they teach maori and samoan, and there are teachers from different nationalities. The group of the teacher is really kind; they make me feel really good!

The classes start at 8.55 a.m and finish at 2.45 p.m, my teacher is Angela! I´m going to be in the class of special needs and in the afternoon I can go to all the classes!

I have different groups of children, Roland and Josiah came in the morning to read, the first two days Angela read with them but after these two days I read with them.

After reading with them I have a group of vocabulary of 9 and 10 years old! That they are improving their vocabulary, and after the tea time there is a group of 7 and 8 years old that they also go to improve, but there is a small group of 8 years with completely different problems… problems with the memory, reading, in the comprehension, problems at home…

In all the normal classes the children have three different classes: reading, listening and maths, they learn the things that they are going to use in their real life. And a lot of sports, swimming in the swimming pool, touch rugby, rippa rugby, basketball, netball, cricket…

They call me Miss Sanchez, not Celia… really strange, but Angela told me that it´s not really polite if they call me Celia!

And on Wednesday I spend the day in the class of 5 years old, they start the school at 5 years old, the same day of their birthday they start the school! And in the class there are five students, because they only stay there for a few weeks or a few months, and they go to the next class, the class of 5 and 6 years.

On Thursday after the morning I went to maori class, they are learning how to say my name is Celia, what is your name? But I don´t remember it! The most important word that everybody should know is kia ora, which means hello, welcome and thanks! And on Friday I spend all the day in samoan classes! Talofa means hello in samoan!

We spend the weekend in Wellington, we went to the Matiu-Sommes Island, and we went to a festival in Newtown with great New Zealand’s bands! And I went to a rugby match! Hurricanes!!

Second week, 28th of February to 6th of March of 2011

The second week is almost the same, going to WBS and still doing exercises, and text and all this stuff. I am in the Upper-Intermediate level, and we spend one complete day doing exercises with the past simple, and this is really easy but a few girls of class they didn´t understand it! And we spend all the hour with the same…

We still hearing the news all the mornings, and it´s always about the earthquake in Christchurch, they can not find more survivors since last Wednesday but the rescues continues, there is rubble everywhere and there is having a lot of problems, they close the center and there are having problems with flooding.

On Tuesday we had an earthquake in Wellington of 4.5! Was just a small one, only five seconds but was really scared and was at home I went running to the doorframe!

I met my teacher of the Pomare school, she is really kind but I don´t understand why they put me in the class of the special needs! She said that this is my specialty but she is mixed up the information, but the problem is the Spanish organization that they told her that I´m a teacher of special needs instead a kindergarten teacher!

There are sometimes activities with the school, one day we saw a film, and other day we made a kiwi burger with pineapple! And in the weekend we went again to Wellington and we went to the zoo with some Japanese friends!

NEW ZEALAND!! First week, 19th to 27th of February of 2011

My first week… we arrive to New Zealand on 19th of February… what a long trip, two days travelling, in the planes more than 30 hours and waiting too much hours in the airports! This is the farthest place in the world that you can go! It´s call the Antipodes!

Everybody talk about the jetlag…but not at all! I am so excited with the place, and the good weather (now is summer!!) and the people that I don´t feel tired!

My kiwi mum, Denise, is a great woman, and in just two days I almost know all her life! I ask her everything… she was born in Christchurch in a farm, she has eight brothers and sisters, she was married with a Maori… really interesting!

And I don´t know why but I though that Maori are going to be wild, living in the forest and with loincloth, not completely integrated in the society! And in my suburb there are a lot of Maoris, I asked: where can I see Maoris? And my kiwi mum answer me: visit your neighborhood!


I am going all the days to WBS, Wellington Business School, to learn English, but I´m completely sure that I will learn much more going to the school that wasting time here! Our teacher is Rini, she is from Netherlands but she spends all her life in Australia!

And in my class there are too much Spanish speakers, so it´s not really easy to talk in English! We are three from Spain, one girl from Colombia, other girl from Peru, two girls from New Caledonia, other from France and one girl from South Korea.

The first day they just told us how they work, the timetables and that we can not speak Spanish in the school, and with this rule we have more than one warning!

And the only interesting thing at class is listening to the news everyday! But the worst thing was this Tuesday the earthquake of 6.3 on Christchurch, and everything is really sad. And the population of New Zealand is only 4 million, so it´s really easy that everybody have friends or family there! Really scary...

But I spend an awesome week... and the weekend in Wellington! It´s a really cool city, but we are not exactly living in the center, we live in Lower Hutt and we need to take a train to go there!!

We love CHCH!