Learning about Science and our History

We have been behaving like scientists and learning about our past and about how magnets work. Scientists ask questions and collect information, so we have been using different concepts to help us practice these skills.

Science: How do magnets work?

We collected information about what we knew about magnets and generated questions to find out more:

Ximena explained about how magnets work by creating a magnetic current that attracts electrons pointing the same way or repels electrons pointing in the opposite way. We were curious about how different a materials would behave with magnets so carried out experiments and tested different materials.

This is what we found out:

History: Our Place

In addition to our learning about Te Whetūkairangi Pa site, we have been inquiring into what happened to Aotearoa, specifically our schools site after British arrival. We looked at a range of historical sources which showed us that a man named James Worser Hebley lived in what is now Worser Bay, and named the area after himself! 

You can see the historical property he lived in from the look out by our school. Here's a picture of us having a look.

  

The farm that occupied our schools site was called Watt's Farm. We created images of what we thought this farm would have looked like. 

Positive Purpose: Doing Good to Feel Good and Manaakitanga

Positive Purpose is part of our Positive Education curriculum, and Tautoru year threes have been dialling up their Leadership while learning how to "do good to feel good". Science research (Froh et al., 2010 and Post, 2005) shows that altruism and doing acts of kindness benefits our physical and emotional wellbeing, as well as teaches us to contribute to our community in positive ways. 

As part of showing Manaakitanga and Positive Purpose, Year 3s in Tautoru have been teaching playtime games to year twos and ones so that they can join in games, too. They've taught games like The Floor is Lava, Fruit Salad, Fishy Swim, Lava Monster, and Duck, Duck, Goose.

Now everyone can join in different games! We are very proud of how kind and supportive our year threes have been to their younger peers by showing so much Manaakitanga. They have also now chosen different Positive Purpose projects to finish their time in Tautoru with strong Leadership skills. Ka rawe koutou!

Te Whetūkairangi Pā

With it being the 125th (Wow!) Anniversary of Worser Bay School this year, we thought it the perfect time to dive into the history of our place. Knowing the history of the land we stand on is crucial for our tamariki, promoting the idea of something bigger than themselves. To begin this inquiry we created a timeline of what we already know about Aotearoa’s history. Our kids knew a lot more than we thought! They documented influential people and events such as “Mr Cook” and “people fought for more land.” We’re going to be building on this timeline as we progress in our inquiry.

This week, we focused on Te Whetūkairangi Pā, which occupied our school's land from 12-1300 up to the early days of colonisation. Te Whetūkairangi was the principal Pā on the Miramar peninsular, due to its view vantage points and access to resources. We have been investigating what Te Whetūkairangi Pā would have looked like, imagining our school site with plenty of whare, food storage areas, blockades and a large range of natural resources. After exploring our environment and imagining a different time, we have been creating pictures of what Te Whetūkairangi looks like to us.

This inquiry has been a necessary first step in implementing the new, New Zealand Histories Curriculum. We have been focusing on the Understand themes of Māori history is the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa New Zealand and Colonisation and settlement have been crucial to Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories for the last 200 years. If you’d like to check out more about the New Zealand Histories curriculum, have a look here.

Forest Explorers- Science learning outdoors

On Monday we walked to Centennial Reserve to enjoy some learning in the outdoors. We used a lot of Resilience and Perseverance to get there!

At the reserve we practised our scientific skills by using our senses. We did careful observations of what we noticed in the bush. Scientists can tell how healthy the bush is by observing the environment. We listened to the birds to find out if there are lots of birds. Most of us could hear four different bird calls and even some cicadas. Scientists can tell the different types of birds that live in the forest by listening, too.

We built nests with materials and tested them to see if they would work. This was lots of fun and we enjoyed learning about what things birds might be looking for when they try to build their nests.

At school, we wrote about our experiences. Here are a couple of our stories:

I hiked to Centennial Reserve with Tautoru and Autahi. We passed some houses with Halloween decorations and rain started to dribble. When we got there, we put out the tarps and put our bags on them. We said karakia and the ate morning tea. We made some nests out of sticks. I was so excited and happy. It was much quicker to come back. It was still spitting when we were hiking back to Tautoru. We passed more houses with Halloween decorations. By Callum.

On the walk, we saw a bird's nest in a tree. We saw the mummy bird sitting on the tree looking after the eggs. We enjoyed looking at the wetā hotels. Also, there was another bird's nest with no bird and no eggs. When we were walking I felt tired, hot and my feet hurt. We heard the birds chirping as crunched through the leaves. I really liked the walk because we got to go to the forest and get out and about. When we got there, we split into groups and I went with Jess and Hayley. First we built nests out of twigs, leaves and mud. Then we tested them with toy birds.  By Ava-Jean.