The atmosphere was filled with discovery in Tautoru on Tuesday, as it was a full day of Inquiry! We spent the day learning about all the things we were still wondering about the Moon, Sun and Space.
We learnt more about Solar Eclipses, Meteorites, Asteroids, Comets and how stars are made!
We then did some Solar Eclipse Art using chalk
Created our own stars and named them after ourselves
and experimented with miniature meteorites - by crashing them into the earths crust (which was actually cocoa powder).
Tautoru has been learning about the meaning of hope and optimist. We started by discussing the meaning of hope and how having an optimistic outlook is important for our wellbeing. It can also help us to have a growth mindset when working towards our goals. We then began to dream big.
We had three questions to think about:
What do I hope for in my future?
What will this look like?
What will I be doing?
Here are some of our ideas:
Now we are building a Hope Quilt. We have been making a quilt piece with what we hope for in the future. We will put this up in Tuatoru to remind us to look forward with optimism and hope.
As part of our inquiry into day and night, the phases of the moon, and the sun, the students have been learning how they can share and celebrate their learning in different ways. We have had groups writing songs, working together to create mini movies, and dance.
Groups have been working with Cat and James to show their learning through dance and movement.
They have been improvising and exploring movement in response to music and their new learning.
There has been a huge amount of team work and support evident in these activities and bravery when sharing their moves with others.
In maths we have been learning about measurement. Over the last couple of weeks Scott's maths group have been investigating weight.
We have been comparing objects of different weights, talking about things that are heavier and lighter and using scales to compare different sized objects such as toys, glue sticks and plasticine creations.
This week we started to investigate measuring with non-standard units. Students selected objects to measure their buddy with.
Some of us were 55 blocks long and some of us were only 12 glue sticks long. Next steps are to use non-standard units to measure areas of the school.
Our Learner Attribute for this term is I am a goal setter. We've spent time thinking about where we would like to take our learning next and what we will practise to get there. Reaching a goal involves practising specific skills like writing more sentences to write longer stories, but we also thought about what character strengths might help us. We often talk about how character strengths are like superpowers that we can use to help us achieve our goals.
Some of us have been using rākau music patterns as a Wake Up Your Brain activity and we wanted to challenge ourselves and perform at our school assembly. This was going to be a real challenge because we only had 3 sessions to get the item ready! What character strengths might we need?
Teamwork would be useful because we were working as a group and had to collaborate and share ideas, as well as contribute- everyone had to do it! Bravery would be very useful because we were performing in front of the whole school! Love of learning would also come in handy. We spent extra time practising at lunchtimes and some of us even took rākau home to practise because we were challenging ourselves to do even trickier moves with the rākau. Some people also used their Judgement because we had to think carefully and choose the challenge level that was best for each of us. Leadership helped us to understand that even if I am not at the front I can also be a leader from the back and support my group by helping to keep the rhythm.
How did we feel afterwards?
Sasha- I felt proud and happy because I had done the performance and last year I was too scared to get on stage.
Anneke- I felt excited because I had never played rākau before.
Nicolas- I felt happy and brave because I had practised and I did it!
Darragh- I felt proud because I felt happy that I went up in front of the whole school.
We have been doing lots of learning about how the sun, moon and earth work from space to create the changes that we see on earth like day and night. We are now sorting our learning and creating using different languages like dance, movie making and music to share what we've found out.
While some of us are rapping to a great tune about the moon or using dance to show day and night, others have been making movies. Here are some example of how we are growing our understanding about day, night, the solar system and how to share our new learning using movie making.
In Tautoru we've been letting our creativity shine.
Inspired by the story of the The Beautiful Opps, we've been practising turning random things into pieces of Artwork. This involved us using our imagination to think of all the possibilities for Art.
Such as Blow-Dye-Blob Art with Scott
Stick Creatures, Bark Barkers and Leaf Monsters with James
And Scribble Creations with Ximena
This showed us that anything can be turned into something wonderful if we use our Creativity and Appreciation of Beauty. Even our Mistakes!
