On Tuesday and Wednesday the museum had the pleasure of hosting Makarewa !

Makarewa School were here this week for their annual two day visit. On Tuesday afternoon we had a strict 1880s goldfields class session. The rowdy boys weren't quite as good as the girls at memorising the poem. However most of the ladies had ghastly nail polish on their fingers! Fancy painting your nails? Unacceptable!!

The next morning we had a bunch of fresh faces ready to join in our 'hands on with artefacts' activity and a brief look through the museum left the students wanting to keep looking but we had to press on -on to Chinese village with the weather looking like it was going to take a turn for the worse. Luckily for us it wasn't too bad and Makarewa are a tough bunch of kids!

The afternoon involved a historic walk (where we locked the naughty children in the isolation cell at the old gaol) gold panning and even though the river was FREEZING (so I'm told, I had gumboots on) EVERY single student managed to find gold! This is an unheard of success rate! You guys are AWESOME!

And then... home time!

For anyone who had awesome questions that had me baffled comment them below and while you're at it see if you can remember the answers to some of my questions!

• What was the Māori word for greenstone?
• What's the other way to spell 'jail'?
• How many pennies in a shilling?
• What was the wine making industry called?
• Why was the long drop so wide in the Chinese Village?

BONUS SUPER SCHOLAR QUESTION:

• who can remember the poem we repeated to death in Miss Grey's classroom?