Buddy reading.

We have done a great job with buddy reading and reading to ourselves since we got back to school this term. All that holiday reading has paid off. 

Great attitude everyone! And thanks parents for all the support with keeping the reading going.

News from Singapore

The Body

As part of our inquiry into the power of our body the students have been learning about our major organs.



We have watched videos, read some books, and have identified other places or people we can ask for more information.



There is a lot of excitement around the inquiry and we are looking forward to a term of action!



Scott's base group have started to created models of the body using a variety of objects to represent the heart, stomach and other organs.



More to come.

We got a bit muddy....Soil Experiment!

On Monday we did two soil experiment with Wanwan's reading groups.
We did it to find out whether our soil is healthy for planting.

In the first experiment we found our soil has a pretty good pH level.

We dug some soil out and mix with a little water and baking soda - this is to find out whether the soil is acidic or not. If the mixture fizzes it is acidic.
We mixed the other one with vinegar; if it fizzes then it is alkaline.
If there isn't any fizz well it's balanced!

Experiment 2 we wanted to find out what kind of soil we have.

We dug out some soil and rolled them up (like play dough) we tried to bend the soil into a doughnut shape.
It the "dough" fell apart that means there are too much sand in the soil. That's not great for the nutrient when it comes to growing plants.
It the "dough" is to sticky like a clay, that's not great for growing plants either. We want a loamy dough!
Do you know why?






Both experiment above were from the book Play in the Garden by Sarah O'Neil.

Arts Celebration

Wow. What a wonderful way to celebrate the end of a term and all our talented Tautoru artists! 

 

   

Our Arts Celebration held on Tuesday and Wednesday nights was a great success. Tautoru was filled with  all sorts of beautiful artworks - dioramas, masks, weaving, lanterns and many other collaborative art projects.

Everyone was impressed with the hard work and effort that all of the children put in toward creating their piece of art. The weather was perfect, the music just wonderful and with all of the sculptures and artworks outside and around the school, it truly was a magical two nights.

Thank you to all of the families and friends that came to our Arts Celebration. We loved seeing you admire our work and that you took the time to visit all the spaces around the school. 

A BIG thank you to all of the wonderful parents who helped us get ready for the celebration. We couldn't have done it without you!

There's No MATH Problem That We Can't Solve!

This term we have been doing LOTS of problem solving in maths! 

We start off each math session by getting into groups of our choice, and working together to solve different types of problems. Our problems are usually based around activities we do at morning tea. We come up with the problem together.

In our groups we discuss and compare our ideas and STRATEGIES to try and solve the problem. Our goal is to see if we can come up with at least three ways to solve each problem.

All of this talking and sharing helps us to think about HOW we get an answer. We also learn new strategies from others in our group that we may be able to try next time. We are enjoying collaborating with each other and our confidence in math is definitely improving every day. 

Celebrating Matariki and Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence Day: Suz and Anna's whanau group

We had a fantastic day in our Whanau. We did lots of different things with our main focus being around appreciating the environment around us. We also had a focus on Tuakana Teina. Tuakana Teina is the idea of an older sibling helping and guiding a younger sibling. 

It was so cool to see so many people ‘adopting’ siblings and helping them out. 

Our first activity involved print making. We chose our favourite leaves and made prints of them onto fabric. We are going to turn these into mini tents so keep your eyes peeled for them at the Arts Celebration!

Our second activity involved the remnants of Seatoun beach constructed into dreamcatchers. We used wool to make a spider web effect to attach different bits and bobs onto. 

The last activity was some rock painting. We brought some rocks to life by painting a base colour, and then adding black, white and red. Everyone did a range of different patterns and they all look really unique. 

Overall we had a great day! Looking forward to see everyone at our Arts Celebration to see the awesome work we made.