Learning about Kaitiaki tanga

As part of our inquiry in Tautoru we have been discussing and sharing ideas around Kaitiaki tanga. We are investigating what and how we can make a change in our classroom and at school.



"We could plant more trees for the birds."

After our visit to the zoo we have begun exploring the school grounds to identify what we could do to improve our school environment for not only the students but the wildlife.



"We could fill in the holes at top grass so that it is safe for playing games."

The students have come up with a list of amazing ideas that we will investigate further in the coming months. Here is just a few

Growing grape vines to make juice.

Bringing hives to make honey.

Pond for tadpoles and fish and for birds to drink from.

Bird houses and feeders.

Use the planter boxes for flowers or things for animals to eat.

More sand in the sand pit.

Toys to play in the sand pit.

Paint more games on the concrete.

Swings on the trees.

Tree huts.

More equipment like sticks and tyres to play with.

Bush Builders - Zoo visit

Tautoru and Autahi visited the zoo on Tuesday. We took part in the bush builders programme which was a great introduction to the creatures in our environment and how they are all inter-connected.



We were very lucky to meet a Tuatara who was only 13 years into his very long life. We learnt that Tuatara are no longer living on the mainland but are doing well on off shore islands in various areas of New Zealand, including Matiu/Somes Island in the Wellington harbour. Well worth a visit.

We worked through a number of activities that highlighted how to take care when walking through the bush and how to search for and identify creatures living in the bush.



Many of the students loved digging around in the dirt, under rocks and through leaves to find spiders, worms, and ants.



Groups also created a web linking different birds, bugs, and trees to highlight how they are all connected and how we can care for them.



We couldn't leave the zoo without exploring the animals and having some fun. It was great to see all of the children sharing their ideas, working in new groups, and enjoying the good weather!

Powhiri

Today we had our Powhiri where we welcomed all the new students, families and staff to our school and community. We warmly welcome Ximena to Tautoru and hope her time here is rewarding and full of fun and laughter. 

The powhiri is a time to show manaakitanga to everyone, and it certainly looked like that was happening here today. And we know it will continue to happen as we talk about it and keep it alive in our programme and activities at school.

 

Chinese New Year

Last week was Chinese New Year. 

We got together with Autahi and learnt what happens for Chinese New Year.

Emelie explained some of the things that she does at home for Chinese New Year and her Mum came and helped us make some lanterns.


Then we had fun choosing activities making Chinese dragons and lanterns. Come and see some of them in our room.

Kaitaiaki Inquiry.

We are learning what we could do to be kaitiaki of our school and community. This week we have thought about all the living things we have at our school and now we are thinking about what we need to find out so that we can care for these things. There is lots of thinking going on in Tautoru this week- which is great, because that is the focus for our Learner Attributes this term.

We are looking forward to finding out more about living things and what they need when we visit the zoo next week.

Positive Health

Each morning in Tautoru we start off our day with Wake Up Your Brain - a quick 20 minutes of activity to get our brains going, heart pumping and our bodies moving in preparation for a day full of learning! Not only is it FUN but this opportunity for exercise has a positive impact on our physical health.

The activities to choose from this term are Dodgeball, Dance, Boot Camp and Rob the Nest. We have been enjoying the opportunity to cooperate with and meet new friends. We have shown manaakitanga by sharing and taking turns with equipment, encouraging each other through challenges and finding opportunities to compliment each other.

Many of us have recognised that we feel more alive, happy and awake....energised and ready to learn with a big smile on our face! All these positive emotions that we experience at the beginning of the day set us up for a great, productive day at school.

Global Play Day

On Friday 9th February we celebrated Global Play Day by spending a whole day PLAYING! Most of us brought in a favourite toy to play with too. 

We all had the BEST day! We started the morning playing with our toys. Lots of us used creativity to make up new games with our friends and we showed manaakitanga throughout the day by sharing, taking turns and listening to each others ideas. 

The children were able to identify many ways of how other people had shown kindness, fairness and gratitude towards them during play and they could not stop talking about how happy they felt throughout the day. 

 

 

In the afternoon we joined up with a senior buddy class. It was great to spend some time with the seniors and find out the games they like to play too. 

Growth Mindset and Maths

We have all (teachers included!) been learning about how we can use a growth mindset to face new challenges and develop a positive attitude toward math. We have discussed how changing the language we use can help us overcome challenges and that making mistakes is actually a good thing because mistakes help us learn!

According to Carol Dweck, growth mindset is all about "building the understanding that abilities and intelligence can be developed". We have talked alot about how using our characters strengths of perseverance, bravery (taking a risk) and teamwork (sharing ideas with others) can help us to improve our understanding in maths.

We are growing our minds in math by using Number Talks to share our ideas about how a number is made up of other numbers. Each base group has been exploring different dot patterns and sharing strategies of how we found the total number of dots. 

-How did you see the dots?

-Can you count them in groups?

-What does the equation look like?

By recording our thinking we can learn new strategies from our peers that we might try to use on the next number talk.

Showing manaakitanga

We have begun the year discussing and sharing ideas around manaakitanga. Students have been working together on a variety of activities in order to better understand how working together, sharing ideas, and problem solving helps us all to achieve our group and individual goals.



Base groups took part in a team building exercise called "The River of Lava." They had to cross the river without touching the lava with a limited number of safe zones along the way.



This activity involved groups holding a hula hoop by their fingertips and slowly lowering to the ground. It involved a lot of careful movements and great communication.



We also used team work, trust, and communication in this activity called 'Circle Sit'. Each base group had to rely on the person behind them to support them when carefully sit down.

Waitangi Day

What is Waitangi Day about? We began to work in our literacy groups to learn about Waitangi Day. There were lots of ideas about the day is about. Here were some of our first ideas:

We learned about how the Treaty of Waitangi was signed to help Māori people and those who had settled in Aotearoa to agree on how to share and look after Aotearoa New Zealand.

We then began to think about rules. Why do we need rules? How might having rules for certain things helps us? We tried to play games without rules.

 It was pretty tricky!

Then we played the games using the rules and it was much easier!

Tautoru first day for 2018!

Our theme for the next two weeks is Manaakitanga: enhancing the wellbeing of others.

Our first day at Tautoru started with 'Waking up our Brains' that includes yoga, boot camp, dodgeball and dance. This will be our way to wake up our brains in the morning for learning and trying different ways to grow our wellbeing together 

Practising yoga stretching

Then we did different activities to learn about managing the resources in Tautoru like the art supplies, dress ups, and the digital equipment.

Some of our thoughts about our day: