Term 2 Home Learning in our Bubbles

Tautoru has started the term doing lots of interesting types of learning. We have been doing some of the tasks shared by teachers but also learning by doing things alongside our whānau like cooking. Here are some of the things we've been up to in our Home Learning for the first few days of Term 2.

Artistic tie-dying. These will make awesome colourful outfits!

Delicious and interesting food making

Science experiments from our home learning plan

Maths in different ways (and people are really enjoying Sumdog!)

And brightening our families and communities day by writing kind messages and showing gratitude.

We are very grateful that we can work together in different ways to keep learning in our bubbles.

What have we been up to?

What have we been up to?

Kia Ora Koutou,

Hello and how are you ? It has been great to see you guys on Seesaw and sharing the fun stuff you have been doing.  Keep it up.

I have been having lots of fun times with the family.  We have spent time in the garden weeding and feeding the trees. . We have been visited daily by a Kereru which has been amazing. We have named him Chewie after my second favourite Star Wars character. Good luck finding him in this picture!




We have even been in the garden as a family !



The weather has been excellent so I have dusted off the old bike and have been riding,  just across the road from our place is a track so I’m not going too far!!

Like many people in the neighbourhood we have also been getting out for walks and enjoying the sunsets and gentle evenings.


 

It has also been great to have regular catch ups with our family.  My nephew in Australia has taken the bubble concept one step further.

                               

At nights (and sometimes through the day)  I have been making some quiet noise.
Keep smiling guys and see you on Seesaw!



Kia ora!

I hope you’ve had a great long weekend and enjoyed lots of yummy chocolate! I’ve really enjoyed seeing updates on Seesaw of what everyone has been getting up to since lockdown started.

I too have been doing lots of baking! I seem to have an issue where I start a recipe and then realise I don’t have all the ingredients. I have to be creative and think of new ways of making the recipe. Some have turned out great! Others not so much.. like my hot cross buns. We didn’t have any yeast so I turned it into hot cross muffins haha! Here’s a pic of one of my yummier creations, peanut butter oat cookies. We didn’t have enough flour, so I settled for adding in some oats.


My partner and I live in a very small one bedroom flat so we are starting to get a little claustrophobic! We are trying to get outside for a walk or do some exercise inside regularly to get some movement to our bodies. I’ve been working on building my strength up. Let’s just say it needed some TLC… I’ve gone from being able to do one full push up to now… 10! Now, that is a big accomplishment for me! Here is a picture of me doing the Easter egg hunt. Someone has been very creative in my area and has made lots of Easter egg paintings.

Remember to check out Seesaw for updates and video lessons. Bare with me while I navigate how to teach through a camera! I look forward to seeing more learning and updates throughout the week.
 
Mikayla



Kia ora!



I've been keeping up my Positive Health by doing my yoga class via live video link (which is very strange), trying different workouts online and going on lots of walks. The weather has been really nice so it’s been good to get some sun.

During the holidays I've also spent some time making cuttings of all my succulents for a Top Secret project (which I can't tell you about because it's Top Secret, of course). I've split them up and planted them in pots to use.. urhm... later...



I've also been learning to weave harakeke. It's been a challenge for me because it takes a long time to prepare the leaves for weaving. These are called whenu and they are one of the first steps to getting the strips ready for weaving. There are lots of steps!



I've also had to use Perseverance and Growth Mindset when I make mistakes and I get the steps wrong then I have to start again, but I'm slowly getting better and faster. I really enjoy making things that I can use. Here are some of the things I've made so far:

   

I've also been cooking yummy things like this focaccia bread from a recipe that Beth gave me. Yum.



And… catching up with Mikayla and Scott to plan together.


We are looking forward to helping you and your parents make the most of Home Learning.
We thought we’d leave you with our school karakia. Even though we can’t say it together at the moment, it’s still our karakia and we can use it to think of us learning together, even if we are apart for now.

Aroha nui,
Scott, Mikayla and Ximena

Worser Bay School Karakia

E tau nei ki runga i a tatou katoa te wairua aroha
kia ngakaunui tatou ki te hapai i a tatou mahi katoa
i roto i te hari me te koa me te aroha ano o tetahi ki tetahi
kia puawai tatou katoa.
Whakakahangia tatou kia mahi tahi kia manaaki,
kia tiaki i to tatou kura, to tatou hapori, a to tatou taiao hoki.
Mauri ora!


Settle upon us the loving spirit
to enable us to work together
in joy and with respect toward one another
so that we all grow and blossom together.
Also strengthen us to work together to nurture and
look after our school, our school community and our environment.

Staying Connected.

There are so many different ways to stay connected. At this time we have the ability to stay connected even while apart, connect to new ways of learning and even connect to things we never really had time to before while we appreciate all the things that we have.

At school, we always talk about Gratitude and Hope being such important character strengths as they tap into Positive Emotions. Like Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, they fall under the character strengths linked to transcendence and meaning. They connect us to each other, our world and also to ourselves.

We are so fortunate- and grateful!- to have ways to keep in touch at this time. Here are some ways that Tautoru has stayed connected through Seesaw this week:

Sharing my home music practice

Using Seesaw from home

Home learning- writing

We realise that staying connected to learning will help while staying at home during the school holidays. As well as the links we shared this week, here is a list of some links that the whole family can use to learn and for fun:

Bedtime Maths-  Daily maths problems for the whole family. There are also technology-free maths challenges. This is an American website so some of the measurements are in imperial units.

Scholastic - reading and writing activities for all levels

Art Projects for kids - loads of easy to follow tutorial.

Easy home science experiments

National Geographic for kids- animals, animals, animals!

NZ Geographic- Together at Home loads of NZ based ideas to explore and easy at home challenges.

Te Ara- New Zeland Encyclopedia Type in your keywords and find out about our history, our stories, our environment. The collection is interactive with stories and videos.

Last of all, don't forget to get some of that daily Vitamin D by going outside and staying active... at a distance. Notice the world outdoors even if it's just when looking outside the window. How many birds visit your home? What kind are they? What critters live in our backyard? What is flowering at the moment? Draw, label and write about what you see. This is Our Blue Planet!

If you can't head outside, how about some dancing?

Or join the March Maker Ed Marble Run Challenge

We look forward to connecting again after the school holidays! Aroha nui!

Inquiry- The Blue Planet

Source https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/BlueMarble/BlueMarble_history.php

Our Earth is called The Blue Planet because it has so much water. Our new inquiry will focus on developing our understanding of our relationship to water.

Our Deep Understandings are:

- Water has interesting properties and is essential to life on Earth.
- Water is affected by how well we use it and care for it.

We will be thinking and behaving like scientists by asking questions and making observations during experiments to help us understand the essential place of water in our lives.

We launched into our inquiry by thinking about: What changes when there is no water? We used our Learner Attribute of Being a Thinker and shared ideas, thought about problems and shared our thinking in different ways.

Here are some of our initial ideas about how water impacts our world:

Measuring- maths is here, there and everywhere!

Maths helps us to explore the world around us.  This week we have begun to investigate different things to measure as well as different ways of measuring. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn some new language and new maths skills.

Some of us went outside and wondered about the different things we can measure in our vegetable boxes: the height, the width, how much soil is in them, how much water do the plants need and even how many plants could we put in them? (we will be working on them soon!)

Some of us have been investigating how to measure using blocks, thinking about that is longer, shorter or the same.

Using a ruler to measure can be a bit of a challenge because they all look a bit different. Finding the zero mark can change! Here we are measuring different things with increasing accuracy.

We are measuring our fingers! We found out that most of our nails on our thumbs were about 1cm. 

We are super sensible digital citizens!

This week we are diving into digital citizenship! We are learning the importance of being safe online and while using technology. Many from Tautoru knew that it was important to limit the amount of time we use on screens so then we can still enjoy all the benefits of using it! Digital technology helps us with our learning at school, such as using puppet pals to make our stories come alive and listening to stories that we have read with the teacher. It also helps us communicate with others through email, Seesaw and blogs!

What is in the Box?

Scott's literacy group have been writing descriptions of a Taniwha. We have described the way it moves, what is special about our creature, where it can be found and where it came from.



We had a mysterious box arrive in class this week. What is it? What was inside? Does it have anything to do with a Taniwha !?

We had a number of great ideas and the students were very creative in their responses. Here are just a few ....