During our last ESOL class of the year, we wrote about what we enjoyed in ESOL. As our table of presents was sitting there, waiting for us to finish, our stories reflected this.

In ESOL this year I liked colouring. By Ameerah

In ESOL this year I liked reading, and telling jokes. By Ibrahim

In ESOL this year I liked writing and drawing. By Joy

In ESOL this year I liked when Sebastian came to ESOL. By Antonella

In ESOL this year I liked Anna, and I like playing. By Daeun

In ESOL this year I liked Daeun, and I like drawing. Bye Anna

In ESOL this year I enjoyed making decorations for the Christmas tree and writing and playing games. By Ivan

In ESOL this year I enjoyed reading, writing, and games. It was fun and hard. I will miss ESOL. By Jessica

In ESOL I have been playing soccer because I score one goal and Ivan scores lots of goals. ESOL is the best because I like reading. By Tyson

In ESOL this year 2022 I did games and drawing. I am sad because I can’t go to ESOL. By James

I like playing board games at ESOL. I like learning about bananas. I learned India produces the most bananas and the bananas have changed taste. By Jack

What I enjoyed an ESOL this year.
1. First Language
2. Games
3. Origami
4. Reading
5. Christmas tree
6. Decorations
7. Ornaments
8. Language
9. Colours
10. Diwali
11. Numbers
12. Countries

By Louis

Looking at the elf on the shelf, writing, reading, and playing games. ESOL is fun. By Louhan

What I enjoyed in ESOL this year. This year was a fun time in ESOL like games, writing, art, and MORE!!! I had an opportunity to do First Language. Thank you to Ms. Finikin and your ESOL company for teaching us. By Daniel S

What I enjoyed in ESOL. Thank you, Ms. Finikin, for games, origami, and tug of war. I enjoyed doing First Language and hard work. When I finish doing my homework, I get a prize for free. Ms. Finikin is the best teacher. She is kind, helpful, and teaches us. Thank you, Ms. Finikin. By Darshan

I enjoyed learning and getting presents. I can read and write. My mom is proud of me. Ms. Finikin is proud of me. By Ali

I enjoyed getting prizes. And I liked the First Language. I like drawing. I like origami. I like research. I like homework. By Titus

I enjoyed getting prizes and making new games. And writing the alphabet. I liked reading books. I enjoyed writing in my book. I liked First Language and making origami. By Alexey

I loved learning and other stuff like types of Christmas carnivals, and more. I even like reading. Ms. Finikin is very nice. By Schalk

I enjoyed getting gifts and friends, First Language and drawing and nothing else. Ms. Finikin works me very hard. I appreciate how hard she works. By Ayush

What I enjoyed in ESOL this year. This year I enjoyed ESOL, playing games, doing origami, and more. Ms. Finikin is the best ESOL teacher. She is helpful in learning. Thank you, Ms. Finikin. By Sebastian

We are learning about December festivals. Our homework was to find out about what festivals are in December. We discovered there is more than just Christmas.

We read about Yule and discovered many of our Christmas traditions come from it.

We made Yule cats.

We read about Hanukkah and played dreidel.

We thought about what Christmas is.
Here are some of our thoughts.

Christmas is a celebration in December. Christmas is made up of other celebrations. Christmas is a time to spend time with family. We celebrate Christmas by giving presents to each other.
By Jack

We give presents and hang with your family and we have a feed. Merry Christmas! I don’t like Christmas because when I be naughty I don’t get presents.
By Afokoula

I like Christmas because we get presents and I want an Xbox and Lego. I told Santa I want Lego. Now I am good. If I be naughty I will get nothing.
By Tyson

If you be naughty then you will get an elf on the shelf. Then he or she will tell Santa and you will not get presents.
By Louhan

It is a celebration about Santa giving presents. I want Pokémon cards and a new ball and a drone. We eat lots of food. We go to my grandma’s house.
By Ivan

Christmas is a celebration in New Zealand. People get presents. People decorate trees.
By Ali

Christmas is a celebration. On Christmas we get presents, chocolate and lots of other good stuff.And it’s Jesus’ birthday. On Christmas we have fun. We get lots of yummy food that Santa gave us. In the presents we have an elf.
By Alexey

Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. I get presents for Christmas. On Christmas we call friends over to our house. We eat rice and roast duck. At the end I open my presents. I am going to get a Pokémon folder. In my family we have not put the tree up yet.
By Titus

Christmas is having presents and having fun with your family and eating food with your family and Christmas is god’s birthday.
By Dominic

Is it the birthday of Odin or Zeus, the gods of lightning, or is it something people made up?
By Arusha

Jesus’s birthday
Elves are a part.
Eggnog for Mom and Dad.
Eating food.
Family time.
Grinch
Chicken
You can decorate trees.
By Schalk

Christmas is Jesus’s birthday. It is also snow in the northern hemisphere. If you were bad you won’t get a gift. If you were good you will get a gift. And Christmas is a special festival in New Zealand and gives you candies.
By Darshan

Christmas is the day when Jesus was born and we put lights on the Christmas tree. The main colours are red and green. We celebrate it on December 25.
By Tamira

Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. It also has snow from the northern hemisphere. If you want to meet Santa, go to the northern hemisphere. You can get presents if you’re in the good list. Christmas is in December.
By Daniel S

Christmas is a festival in December 25th. If you’re nice, you could get a present. If you’re bad, you can’t get a present.
By Leon

As part of making First Language, we planned and created cover pages for homework. We voted on which cover to use. Daniel G got the most votes.

If you are a family member and would like a copy of our magazine, please email Ms Finikin. g.finikin@hokowhitu.school.nz

We looked at The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith.
We wrote about him.

One way to learn vocabulary is through things that interest us, such as dinosaurs.

We wrote about our holidays in our different groups with Ms Finikin.
Here are our stories.

We read a book called Sam’s Balloon. We followed the clues in the pictures to make a balloon dog.

We were talking about dinosaurs and dragons. Ms Finikin introduced us to Trogdor and we followed Strong Bad’s Instructions to draw him. Strong Bad changes his mind part way through the video so we had to start again.

Ms Finikin has an on-line student who was at Hokowhitu School when she was 6. She is back in China now. They were comparing Asian and Western dragons. They also drew Trogdor.

We combined two groups due to athletics day. Ayush wanted a lesson in drawing Asian dragons for our big project on celebrations. Trogdor was probably not what he meant, but it is good practice at following directions.

We have been creating our own games, again.
We played a lot of games and thought about what made them interesting.
We created our own games, played them together, then improved on them.

Click on the game to get a bigger version to print.

Here are the stories the older group wrote about the school holidays.
Our expression improves every recording.