Character Strengths

We have been talking about Character Strengths. We made some posters showing what they mean to us at school.

Bravery in Tautoru means trying new things, standing up in front of the whole school, answering questions in a big group and being strong when you fall over.

Perspective means thinking "I can get better at this some day" and when you think you're not good at something, just thinking that you will get better.

Perseverance means sticking at it, never giving up, not stopping and trying to keep doing your best.

Our students have been writing their own end of year reports linked to character strengths

Lily Ji

Lily’s key character strength is bravery. When she hurts herself she is brave. She loves to do computer maths. She loves to do cartwheels and flips. Hand stands are her goal. Lily is very creative. She loves to do art. She can weave a heart. Lily loves to read, it is one of her favourite things to do. She likes to read Alice in Wonderland. She thinks that the story is magical. She thinks that it is the coolest book in the world. Lily loves playing on the iPad and playing games. She loves hopscotch, climbing trees and planting. Lily loves playing outside with her friends.

Molly 
Molly's key character strengths are love, kindness and creativity. She loves to learn and she is helping her friends when they are hurt. Molly loves to write she is creating new things every day. Molly likes playing with her friends every day. Molly likes helping her teachers.

Ginas report

Ginas key character strength is zest and a bit of bravery. She enjoyed the kitchen science and tasting of the athlete snacks. She loves to read. She has got a lot of friends. If she could play all day she would. She is a big Minecraft fan. Gina has 2 bunnies and she loves animals. She is sporty smart and ... awesome!  

Marnie’s year in Tautoru!!

Marnie’s key character strengths are kindness and creativity, Marnie likes reading and doing art. She likes learning new things and playing with her friends every day and helping them when they are hurt. Marnie always likes helping teachers too.  

Jupiter

Jupiter’s character strength is creativity. He enjoys walking, sports, lego and video games. He is very joyful he has a lot of friends that he likes to play with. Jupiter shows resilience when he is sad. Jupiter sets goals. He is very smart. He like’s maths.

Nela’s report
Nela’s best character strength is a sense of humour. Nela’s favorite subject at school is reading. Nela likes helping anyone who needs help like students and teachers. Nela’s best subject is writing.
she loves animals because they are cute and awesome. She loves sport. Nela has lots of friends and family and she loves them too. She has also a lot of teachers that she loves!

Violeta

Violeta’s best character strength is creativity. She likes to read and draw. Violeta likes hatchimals. She has lots of friends. Violeta likes to be helpful. She enjoyed a trip to Island Bay to teach Spanish. She loves soft toys. She writes two pages in quiet time. She likes to play with her friends. Violeta likes to climb trees. Violeta enjoys doing handwriting. She uses a lot of bravery. She loves cute animals. Her thing to calm her down is climbing. She usually goes to the library every day. She uses resilience when she gets upset. Violeta also likes writing long stories. She doesn't like avocado.

Transition: Autahi to Tautoru

It's transition time. Autahi students are coming through to work with our Year 1 and 2 students in Tautoru because they will be working together next year. We drew superheroes and gave them character strengths. 

Getting ready for next year...

Today we got together with the Year 3, 4 and 5 students to start getting to know each other and work together. Today we started by looking at what character strengths animals have.

Character Day: Chrissy and Gillian's Base Groups

To celebrate Character Strength Day, we got together and explored what gratitude means, discussed what we are grateful fro, read stories about being thankful and made our own movies.

Here they are: 

Character Day: Nic, Kaths and John's Base Group

Today was Character Day!

Nicola, Kath and John's base group worked together to create some art and music. We made kindness and gratitude cards. We also made some trees for someone that we love.

We made music to go together with a story that we read about bravery and courage:

We learnt this song:

Character Day: Shona and Hamish's Base Groups

Today was Character Day!

In Shona and Hamish's base groups we did all sorts of things to learn about character strengths. We made buscuits for a friend in the group to show kindness. We wrote stories based on character strengths. Ask us what else we did...

Character Day: Scott and Gabrielle's Base groups

Today was Character Day

Scott and Gabrielle’s base groups worked together today. We started the day with a bridge challenge. Groups were given materials to build a bridge suspended between two chairs.

It was great to see students forming new friendships, taking the lead, showing bravery, and there was loads of creativity in the air!

I really liked working together to build our bridge. - Greta

I enjoyed working with the seniors - Gina

I liked how we could work with people we don’t really know - Tommy

I really liked doing something with new people - Charlotte

The quiz about character strengths was good fun - Tommy

International Dot Day- Art- Starting From A Dot

Tomorrow is International Dot Day.  Schools across the globe will be reading, "The Dot" by Peter H Reynolds. The author has challenged us to make our mark. This story links to the character strengths of bravery and creativity...

"The Dot is the story of a caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe."

Read by Lily V

The story inspired us to do some artwork. We started from a dot and used our strengths of creativity and bravery to create these: 

By Clem

By Lily V

By Nela

By Marnie

By Ridley

By Greta

By Ruby

By Molly

By Emelia

By James

By Eloi

By Jupiter

By Hadley

By Ari

The Dot- Planning for Writing

Drawing by Eloi

On Thursday, it is International Dot Day. International Dot Day is named for the classic Peter H. Reynolds storybook The Dot. Today we read the story and retold the story in pictures. What character strengths does Vashti have?

Letter from Aamir, thanking us for our Peace Poems

Dear Chrissy, Nicola, Scott & Shona,

Thank you for this lovely work. Our children really enjoyed it. What is the age group of the children who worked it out? It's amazing. Please say our thanks and love to the children who worked on this. 
We are in the process of printing these poems. We will keep one copy in our school's library and will provide a copy to each child of the poem sent for him or her. We are working on our end to make poems and drawings with our children for yours. It will take a week or two. Is that fine? 
Thank you once again. 

Much love and peace

Regards,
Aamir 

Character Strengths

We have been exploring character strengths and specifically looking at character strengths Olympic athletics need when they lose a competition. Please take a look at our video to see some of our ideas about what we think about the top 6 needed: Bravery, Forgiveness, Kindness, Perseverance, Perspective and Hope. We hope you enjoy the show. 

Created with Padlet

Bullying

This is shared writing by students in Nicola and Chrissy's base groups.

What is bullying?

Bullying is being mean to someone over and over again. It can happen online (cyber bullying) or face to face (either physical or mental). Examples of bullying are laughing at someone, punching someone or swearing at someone.

What can we do about bullying?

If you see others being bullied you could stick up for them or you could defend them. It is really important to say stop! When you are being bullied you could walk away. If the bullying continues you should tell an adult. Make sure that if you see someone being bullied you help them. It is not ok to be a bystander.

Be a proud person, not an easy target.

We did some role playing about what to do if we see bullying.