Celebrating Sign Language Week

This week we celebrated our third official language in Aotearoa New Zealand: Sign Language!
We started by learning the alphabet in sign language and how to sign "My name is ...". We have also been learning how to say "Hello," "Good Morning" and "Goodbye." Some of us have even learned how to say how we feel.  On our blog, we have a page dedicated to learning Sign Language so have a look at the videos so you can join us at home in learning a few easy signs.

Learning Sign Language is a great way to challenge our brains and grow our joy of learning! Learning something new helps our Positive Accomplishment and Positive Emotions.

Working on our Goals in Kids Led Learning.

Goals and KLL



This week we have been discussing and thinking of our goals from Term 1.



We would like the students in Tautoru to keep their goals alive and along the way develop more independence around how they can work on aspects of their goals.



Students selected one goal from last term and using Kaizen Steps identified what things they can do during KLL (Kids Led Learning) time to help them to achieve their goal.



We have students developing their creativity or teamwork. This can be students drawing pictures or creating dances and it can also be groups of students playing board games or playing soccer outside.



A number of students have selected reading bigger words or writing longer stories. Students have set kaizen steps around reading to a buddy, learning from experts in the class and finding time to create stories during KLL.



Please ask your child or children about their goals and how they can work on them during KLL.

Cross Country Training

In preparation for our School Cross Country next Wednesday, 9.30 am be great to see you all there, we have been building our stamina and developing our muscle power for the big race.



We have spent time working on our starts by making sure we push off on our strongest leg, keeping our eyes and head straight and not being bothered by my friends and fellow competitors.



We are slowly increasing the laps we can do around the school and making sure that we pace ourselves. It is hard not to take off at top speed but we hope by Wednesday we will have our enthusiasm harnessed!

More posts to come and please remember to put Cross Country next Wednesday on your calendar.

Inquiry Learning: Parent Workshop

On 4th April, we held a parent workshop on Inquiry Learning.

Purpose of workshops:

• to show that Inquiry is authentic and is about deep thinking

• to unpack the Inquiry process

• to encourage conversations about learning to continue at home.

Maths Celebration Day

Maths Superpowers

What's your maths superpower? What is a strength is maths that we could use to help others? What helps us to be successful in maths? We spent the morning finding out about what are some of the strengths that we have in maths and creating our maths superheroes.

We know that it's important to challenge ourselves so that our maths superpowers keep growing, and we will work on this next term too!

Some of our superpower strengths are:
- Writing equations
- Measuring
- Skip counting
- Drawing ideas
- Solving problems using perseverance
- Using a 100's board to solve problems
- Using number lines to show our thinking

Come and have a look at our maths superheroes wall and talk to us about our strengths.

Maths Celebration: Plotting Coordinates

We also enjoyed a day of learning about maths and using coordinates in lots of different ways.

We used block coding to animate and move actors around a grid using the activities from Hour of Code (hourofcode.com/nz). This helped us to learn about left and right turns as well as how to use different functions when coding. Have a look on their website for more fun coding activities we can do at home.

We played Battleships on paper to learn how to plot items on a grid using letters and numbers

Character Strengths Amazing race: We had a treasure hunt using a grid map to find the different character strengths tiles around the school.

Growing a Gratitude Garden

How can we make our gratitude grow? As we head into the final days of Term 1 and look towards Term 2, we made gratitude cards for people who have helped us this term. We also began to grow our own Gratitude Garden. This will help us to always think about all the positives in our lives and the many people that make our lives special.

Writing our Gratitude Cards

Making gratitude petals for the flowers in our Gratitude Garden

Cross Country - May 8th 2019

Cross Country 2019

Our annual Cross Country event is to be held on Wednesday 8th May at Worser Bay Beach. All students will participate in the event, from the newest new entrant to the wizened old Year 6s. The starter’s pistol will fire its first shot soon after 9:30 am. The runners with the shortest legs will be underway!

The course for the younger students is not too demanding: one lap along the beach, up the track to the changing sheds and back along the grass to the finish. The rest do progressively longer circuits.

The emphasis for this part of the day is on participation. It is also for our kids to set a goal for themselves and to run as much and as well as they can. In the name of collaboration, we have been thinking about what we can do to support others. Some students have chosen to run alongside a buddy so that they can cheer each other on. Nice idea!

If the weather is extreme (probably not too hot), we will postpone the event. A call will be made early in the morning, date to be confirmed.

We have started building our stamina and strengthening our muscles for the race and will continue our training from the start of Term 2.

We hope to see you there with your cheering gear on.

Team Sports