A Trip to Ancient Mexico

 

Check out Daria's amazing artwork and story, published in Toitoi Connect. You can listen to her story in English, or in Spanish. https://toitoi.nz/story/a-trip-to-ancient-mexico/

A Trip to Ancient Mexico

Words and pictures by Daria Morales, age 8

¡Hola! My name is Isabel. I was born in Mexico. If you boarded a train that took you back through time to ancient Mexico, you would see a beautiful shiny city called Mexico-Tenochtitlan.

In the centre of the city there were two tall pyramids dedicated to gods. The busiest place in the city was the market. There you could buy crunchy chapulines (grasshoppers), slobbery nopales (cacti), sweet tunas (prickly pears) and refreshing lemon water.

Would you like to try them? To pay for your purchase, you would need cocoa beans which were used for money.

The ancient Mexicans were great mathematicians. They invented zero before anybody else! Look at how they wrote numbers in my picture.

Can you use those numbers to write how many prickly pears, grasshoppers and cocoa beans there are?

Humming Lama | by Leo Yang

 

Humming Llama

long, stretchy neck

big flat ears

thick, strong legs

white wool, like snowflakes

humming, like me when I’m tired

Leo's fabulous poem, 'Humming Llama', was published in Toitoi's special Latin American edition. You can visit Toitoi's website, or download the Toitoi app, and listen to a narrator read Leo's poem in both English and Spanish.

There are also some writing and art activities to do, inspired by Leo's work.

https://toitoi.nz/story/humming-llama/

Authors and Illustrators Published

It has been an exciting start to 2020, with six Russley students seeing their work published!

The following students are part of the special Toitoi Connect project.

Daria Morales
A Trip to Ancient Mexico was published in Toitoi's Latin America Special Issue. Daria wrote about Ancient Mexico, their amazing mathematicians and the Maya number system. Daria wrote in English, and her story has been translated into Spanish by translators at the University of Waikato. Daria also illustrated her work, using drawings and collage.

Leo Yang
Leo wrote a poem titled Humming Llama, after researching animals of Latin America. His poem was also published in Toitoi's Latin America Special Issue and has been translated into Spanish.

Franklin Yuan
Franklin researched South East Asia, and wrote a poem about the spotted cuscus, from Timor-Leste. Spotted Cuscus was published in Toitoi's Southeast Asia Special Issue. It has been translated into Tetum, the language of Timor-Leste.

RJ Manalac
A House on a Hill / Isang Bahay sa isang Burol, was inspired by the book 'In a Village by the Sea', and makes the reader think about what it would feel like to leave family and friends in your home country, to move to a new place. RJ's poem has been translated into Tagalog, the language of the Philippines.

Toitoi #18

Parker Knight
Parker was chosen as an illustrator for Toitoi. He was tasked with illustrating the poem titled Trampoline, which appears on page 23 of Toitoi #18. Parker used watercolour pencils and the result is outstanding.

Reuben Veenstra
Reuben's poem titled Spinning Through Time, was published in Toitoi #18 (page 53) and was inspired by the playground roundabout at Crosbie Park.

Congratulations to all our writers and artists, you are awesome ambassadors for the arts at Russley School.

Toitoi Connect Special Project

Congratulations to the following writers, who will have their work published in special editions of Toitoi, later this year:

Franklin, Room 2, for his poem titled Spotted Cuscus

Leo, Room 6, for his poem titled Humming Llama

RJ, Room 4, for his poem titled A House on a Hill

Daria, Room 7, for her story and illustration titled A Trip to Ancient Mexico

These special editions of Toitoi are part of the Toitoi Connect project, which celebrates the cultures of Latin America and Southeast Asia. 

One special aspect of this project is that all of the writing in the journals will be published in translation, in both English and a language of either Latin America or Southeast Asia. Toitoi are working with the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington to translate the students' work. Editor of Toitoi, Charlotte Gibbs, said, "What a fantastic way to celebrate all the different languages that are spoken by young New Zealanders!"

We will have a long wait for these journals, as they are being worked on during the remainder of this year, and will be released in the beginning of week one in 2020!

Thanks to the Centre for Asia-Pacific Excellence for Southeast Asia and Latin America, every primary and intermediate school in New Zealand will receive two copies for their school library.