In the middle of Hawkes Bay, a tiny figure stirred in his bed. His name was Kawekakea. He woke up; he walked over to the windowsill and peeped out.  

It was raining dismally, but all of a sudden his face lit up. “I know! I can go to the aquarium!” He hopped into his Mini and drove. Quarter of an hour later, Kawekakea stood outside the huge doors. He slipped through them and looked around. “Wow! This is awesome!”

He ran over to the enormous jaws of a Megaladon and stepped inside. He inspected the ginormous teeth. “These would be a handful to keep healthy!” An attendant said” Well, actually, they wouldn’t”. “Sharks’ teeth fall out quickly, about one a day, so there isn’t time for decay.” “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Sid, and I will be your guide for today.”

Sid and Kawekakea moved onto the discovery room at the top of the stairs. Kawekakea looked at all the fish . He liked the angelfish in the community tank the best. “Why do these frogs have flippers on?” he asked. Sid responded “They aren’t flippers. These African Toads have webbed feet to help propel them through the water.”

Kawekakea peeped into the piranha’s tank. He shivered. “I wouldn’t like to be in there!”, then he spent some time gazing at the Double-Hinged Turtles before moving quickly past the crocodile to gaze at the brightly coloured tropical fish.

Kawekakea paused by the tuataras. He knelt down and stared in, studying the tuatara. “Even I’m not that good at keeping still!”

They crept down the stairs and peered into the gloomy cage of the nocturnal NZ icon - the Kiwi.  

They came out of the darkness to arrive at  the ‘Rocky Shore’ displays. Kawekakea took turns sitting on the rocks and the wharf to look into the clear water below. He saw a big starfish, gurnard with glorious wings, sea anemones and all sorts of other creatures.

Kawekakea and Sid  walked over to the oceanarium, and stepped onto the travelator into an aquatic world. He saw lots of pretty fish, scary sharks (look at the photo…)  and cool stingrays.

All too soon, it was time to go. The sky had cleared and he could play tennis with his friends. See you for your next adventure, Kawekakea. Ka kite! Goodbye! 

Kawekakea is Room18’s class mascot. Kawekakea is a combination of two names.

Kaweka is the name of the learning team that Room18 belongs to. Kaweka’s team colour is, of course, Yellow. Kaweka is significant to our school because it is the name of the mountains that surround where we live.

Kea is a very inquisitive bird, native to New Zealand. The kea is also a very mischievous, curious and cheeky bird. We thought this might be a very appropriate name for our class mascot and we hope his adventures match his name.

So that is how Kawekakea got his name.

Welcome to our Class Blog. We will be using this blog to document the travels of our class mascot and our learning journey in our digital classroom.

If you’d like to know what else is going on in Room18 please visit our Portal Blog site - Doing IT Differently.