The Lion and the Little Red Bird.

Today we heard the author of The Lion and the Little Red Bird read her story to a young girl in who was in hospital. Have a look at the video. In the story the lion and the bird become friends, even though they can't speak to each other.

The story is all about making new friends. It tells us that being kind and smiling helps us make new friends, even if we can't speak the same language. It tells us that our body language, what we say and how we act are all important when we want to make and keep friends. We practised using our faces (and no words) to show people how we are feeling.

And we showed how we could get people to understand us by using our hands and not our words.

We focused on our thinking to remember what the message was that we got from the story.

Habitats

We have been discussing and sharing ideas about habitats. We have identified that there are many types of habitats - forest, marine, freshwater, alpine, dry, and wetlands. 

We have also identified some of the animals that live in different habitats and what they needs to survive.

We have been learning to be scientists. To do that we have developing our observation and drawing skills.  Here are some examples of our forest habitats.

Kids led learning

We have continued being "thinkers" this week at Kids led learning. 

We have thought how to build castles, make marble runs (Alex was very proud of his!) and be authors of joke books.





We also had the choice to do buddy writing and to create mosaic art.
There has been lots of thinking, sharing, negotiating and creating going on in Tautoru this week.

Open Morning Scavenger Hunt

Tautoru kids had a wonderful time sharing their learning space and activities during our open morning!

There was lost of animated chatting and sharing of the space and some of the things we've done so far.

I Am a Thinker- Kids Led Learning

How many different kinds of learning are there? What if kids can lead their learning?

Our learner attribute for this term is 'I am a thinker.'  Part of being a thinker is solving problems, having and sharing ideas, and organising my ideas. In Tautoru we have periods of Kids Led Learning when we are not in a learning workshop. We can choose different kinds of learning to do to practise our orgnisation of ideas and problem-solving. This might include different challenges, choice writing or creating with our imagination.

Here are a few of the Kids Led Learning from this week.

The Marble Run Challenge: Create a marble run using a paper plate.

The Paper Bag Puppet Challenge: Design and make a puppet using a paper bag

The Buddy Writing Challenge: Create a story with a buddy.

Visual Maths and Dot Talks

How is a number made up of other numbers?

This term we have begun to learn about Number Sense using Dot Talks. Number Sense helps us to understand and explore the possibilities of breaking up numbers and putting them together (proportional reasoning).

Dot Talks are a visual way to represent numbers. The importance of making mathematics visual is discussed in this article from Professor Jo Boaler at Stanford University link here.

We have been learning about how everyone can see numbers in different ways as a way to help us understand different strategies for addition and subtraction, recognise patterns of numbers, able to describe our thinking (mathematical logic and reasoning) and to learn from each other's strategies.

We also learn how to correct our mistakes by making our thinking visual (and we know that mistakes help our brain grow!).

Here are some examples:

How did you put the dots together?

Kaitiaki o te Ngahere- Forest Guardians

 Why are native plants important? How are they connected to native animals?

This week we have been learning about native plants and how they are important for native animals like insects and birds.

Last week at the zoo, we learned that insects, birds and trees are connected because some need others for food or as a place to live in. This is a web we made at the zoo showing the connections.

This week we explored Worser Bay School and found lots of native plants like harakeke (flax) and kowhai that the tui like (they drink the nectar from the flowers). We also found rata, pohutukawa and cabbage trees. 

Cabbage Trees

Harakeke (Flax)

Kanuka bush. Native bees like the nectar from the flowers.

We have done some writing about our learning, and also written poems about some of the insects we've discovered.