Tangaroa

 You may have noticed some changes in Tautoru in the last few weeks. 

We have been busy learning about Tangaroa the Atua of the oceans and all of the sea creatures.

"According to Māori creation traditions the god of the sea and progenitor of fish is Tangaroa, the son of Ranginui (the sky father) and Papatūānuku (the earth mother)" Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

We began by making some fish and creating an under water world in our classroom

Our classroom was set up for us to learn all about the oceans and sea creatures

We have been thinking like scientists and creating our own Tanagroa fact file

including observational drawings of fish

designing a fact file with information about different types of fish

Learning about the different zones of the ocean and how they influence the sea life within each zone

 Creating a mind-map with everything we can think of that links to the sea - 

including environmental issues too

And we looked at the what a clean ocean versus a polluted ocean will look like

With all this new information in mind, we wrote some ocean inspired poetry and displayed it with our fish as water droplets

We have also written an argument piece titled "How can we be kaitiaki of our oceans?" 

Keeping in mind we are young - what can we do to help? 

We had some very interesting ideas and thoughts about what all tamariki can do to stop over fishing and pollution of our beautiful beaches and oceans.

Please come in and have a closer look!

Meditation and Mindfulness

Meditation has been a strong focus for Tautoru this last couple of weeks. We have been looking at mindfulness strategies we can to bring us back into the 'Ready to Learn' zone. Two stand out activities are are 5,4,3,2,1 and 5 finger breathing. 

Our 5,4,3,2,1 strategy is simple; we firstly look for 5 things we can see around us. Then we focus 4 things we can feel such as the ground on our feet or the wind across our bodies. Thirdly we identify 3 things we can hear, followed by 2 things we can smell and 1 thing we can taste. Sharing our answers isn't the important part of this strategy. It's all about reconnecting to our environments, rather than being caught up in our heads. 

Five finger breathing focuses on regulating our breathing. This helps calm our bodies down if we have a lot of energy, and ensures our brains are receiving enough oxygen. We simply move one finger over each finger on the opposite hand, breathing in and out as we go up and down.

Our remaining strategies focus on clearing our minds, whether that be by getting some fresh air or immersing ourselves in a book. 

Check out this mindfulness poster we have been using to find our calm. We are already seeing the benefits of mindfulness, and using it as a strategy whenever we need. 

Our meditation has been supported this week by our friend Sensei Anthony. He was with the seniors last week but came into the junior school this week to teach us all about karate. We saw the importance of discipline in karate, slowing down and breathing. It really helped us to learn about personal discipline and find our calm.

Check out these photos from our karate session. Hope you enjoy!