Cross Country 2019

Ready, set, go! Another wonderful cross country day where we practised our perseverance, bravery and zest. The crowds, the sand, the running. It gave us so much inspiration to write! Here is some of the writing we did afterwards.

When I was running my legs got tired. I needed some water at the end of the race- by Cara

At the start of the race I felt nervous and scared like I be last but I was not. I thought like it was going to be noisy but it wasn't noisy.- By Kate

When I started running I felt nervous. I was running like a falcon. When I saw Scott I thought it was time to plug my ears.- By Bryce

Visual Maths- What does multiplication look like?

Some of us have been learning to count in sets, also known as multiplication. But most importantly, we've been learning what these sets look like and thinking about strategies we can use to work them out.

It's important that our brains have a clear picture of the amounts we are working out.  Maths research shows that the visual pathways in our brain light up when we are working out maths problems. 

We can make maths visual by using grids, arrays and number lines.

Here are some of our multiplication arrays that we've been working on.

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.