I am Connected through writing

This week some of us got to visit Autahi to share our writing and to practise being connected learners. We were keen to share our stories about getting to school.. with a twist.

We had used this story about children in Colombia who use a zip line to get to school as a writing prompt. We imagined what it would be like to have to do that every day!

Then we went to Autahi to share our stories and some of the things we have learned this year to help us become great writers. We all remember our early days as writers and we feel proud of how far we've come. We shared tips like:

- Re-reading our reading to check for meaning and full stops.
- Sounding out words and writing all the sounds we can hear.
- Adding more ideas to make our writing longer.

We really enjoyed connecting with our Autahi buddies and sharing our learning!

Whanau Day with Scott and Hayley

The Whanau group working with Hayley and Scott created shields to represent themselves in different areas. Their shields represented themselves as an animal , a character strength , a symbol of nature, and something of their own choice.



Students shared with one another what animal best represented them and their character strengths. We had brave lions, curious monkeys and even a couple of loyal dragons.



There was a lot of support and enthusiasm for this activity from the students in Autahi through to our Year 6 stars. The Seniors showed lots of teamwork and empathy for others when helping to cut out shields , develop ideas, and when providing feedback to others.

Whanau Day

Thursday was Whanau Day at Worser Bay

The learner attribute in focus was 'I am Connected!' along with looking at Resilience and Perseverance.

Here's what a few of the groups working in Tautoru got up to while making Perseverance Pixies and Resilience Rocks

!

Art in Tautoru!

We've been starting some new art projects in Tautoru!

We had the choice of three options:

Patterns and colour mixing with James, Sketching and shading with Ximena and Silhouette Art with Scott.

Heres a peep at the early stages....

Ball skills and Skipping

Tautoru's Physical Education programme this Term is all about developing ball skills and our fine motor skills.

Soccer is one of the sports that we are using to develop ball skills. Students have been learning about trapping the ball and passing into space. We have a very keen group of footballers and it has been great to see so many of our students giving it a go.

With the Spring and Summer vibe what could be better than a bit of tennis! We worked on balancing a ball on the racquet rolling it around and keeping it level. It was a challenge but we also practiced bouncing the ball onto the ground and back again.

Skipping is making a come back! We have had a students across the school skipping in groups, individually and with their besties.

In Tautoru skipping is helping to develop fine motor skills, lift our heart rates and learn how to jump. Lots of fun and so great to see it all in action.

Humility

Today we were joined in Tautoru with the students from Autahi , their big buddies from Mahutonga and the learners of Tautoru.

We spent the afternoon unpacking the Character Strength of Humility.

A very important character strength that helps us to feel proud of our efforts but also to identify the strength and power in others.

We spent time discussing what we are proud of in ourselves. We came up with lots of ideas around the sports we play, games at school and of course, our learning.
















We also shared ideas about how to give others compliments and to acknowledge them for their efforts.

We then created scales for our Rainbow Fish with compliments for the people we appreciate in and outside of the classroom.

Our Backyard, Our Voice Inquiry- I am Connected

Our Inquiry this term is all about connecting to our place and finding problems to help create solutions.

I am Connected is our Learner Attribute for this term:
- I can build relationships
- I can communicate -contribute and collaborate- be part of a team
- I can connect to my place, environment and globally.

We had some ideas about about some problems we’ve spotted around the school but we wanted to develop our thinking further and connect with others. Part of the Learner Attribute I am Connected is about building relationships and communicating clearly with others.

We have found problems do with the plants around the school and how people use them for games. Are there ways we can help the plants and also help people be creative around them? We've also found problems with people using spaces in ways that make it hard for others to play there. How can we share spaces so that everyone gets to use them in a fair way?

We interviewed some of the different people in our community to find out their views and to help us gather more information. Here are some of us doing the interviews in our school community. Next we will design solutions. This will help us grow our problem-solving skills and contribute to our community.