Silhouette Art

 Following on from our Arts Celebration, we have been making silhouette art using themes from our Matariki stars. We have been experimenting with using different materials to create a background, a foreground, and the silhouettes. 

First, we learned how to blend watercolours carefully to create a background. Then we created a silhouette foreground, and finally, we added our elements as shapes cut out from black paper. We layered these on top to add more effect.

We stopped to look at our works in progress before we finished. This is called "A Gallery Walk'. We got share ideas for improvements.

We got discuss and share ideas for improvements.

Here are some examples of our finished pieces

Come to our Celebration of Learning!

We have been gearing up for the Celebration of Learning that is happening next week! We are being goal setters by reflecting on our goals from the start of the year and setting new goals or steps to achieve them. We have also been having a bit of fun by role playing being each other's families to practise sharing our learning and goals! There were lots of giggles when we had to pretend to be another students family.

Check out some child-written invitations for the Celebration of Learning happening next week below. We are all very excited to share our progress and achievements!

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the exciting celebration of learning, "din, din, din". It is at Worser Bay School, "yeah!" It is going to be the best time of your life. The doors are opening. Come see the great learning we have been doing. Your mind will be blown to pieces. Thank you for coming, we hope you like it. It is on Tuesday and Wednesday.

By Violet

Welcome Worser Bay Parents! On Tuesday and Wednesday we have a time, an amazing time that you can come and see our learning. We will teach you about magical moments, power ups, character strength spotting and shout outs for the character strengths. We will see you soon.

By Marlon

To Parents,

The school doors are opening. Come in and see all of the learning we have been doing. So be amazed! Only on Tuesday and Wednesday,

By Glacia

Come on, people! Come to school on Tuesday and Wednesday to Worser Bay. You can see our amazing learning! We have been working hard.

By Cam

Please come to Tautoru at school and see our learning. I hope you have fun! See our work and our school. See you then! We are working on optimism.

By Otto

Welcome Worser Bay Parents. Something fun is coming up on Tuesday and Wednesday. We are going to teach you about what we are learning at school.

By Finn

Come one, come all! Come and look at the amazing stuff we have done. We have done Art, Inquiry, Maths and Writing! Just learning all of that stuff. The end. I forgot to say "by Archie", so by Archie!

By Archie

Here are some photos of us role playing and sharing what we have learnt this year.

Here a group are practising an optimism strategy that some will share, called magical moments. You need to close your eyes hence the 'helping your family close your eyes' action in this shot. You'll have to ask your child for more information to find out what it is!

Getting stuck into play!

 On Friday last week, Scott's writing group learnt how to make 8 page books! Scott's group were very proud to become authors of books and to show off the writing skills that they have been working on.

Many other children in Tautoru and Autahi saw Scott's writing group's Love of Learning and wanted to make their own books too! Many children explored being a writer through play in Golden Time, Kids Led Learning and during our quiet time after lunch.

Other children have been working on so many different character strengths, social skills, math skills and literacy skills in their play during Kids Led Learning and Golden Time.

A group found the lily pads and started building tall towers. We could hear loud giggles as the tower toppled over and then thoughts of making patterns, counting and skip counting the lily pads to work out how tall the tower were starting to pop up. Here, the students were working on their math skills, social skills and many character strengths such as teamwork, resilience and optimism - among many other things!

The beyblade lovers once again, got out their beyblades and stadiums. Here, children are working on turn-taking, resilience when their beyblade doesn't win, how to cheer on our buddies when they might be feeling a little disappointed and being connected with others.

Stars of Matariki Writing

 We have learned about each of the stars of the Matariki cluster and what they are linked to, and this learning helped us design our dances. This week we have written about our learning journey so far: What have we learned? What has been a challenge? What are we looking forward to?

Here are some examples of our writing this week:

Milli- My star is Pōhutukawa. It is the star that guides the spirits of the people who have died up to heaven.  I am looking forward to the dance for the art celebration with my group Pōhutukawa. It is a star of Matariki. The Māori have that story is real. But other people have other minds. The star Pōhutukawa is a star that makes you remember all your loved people who have died. I am also looking forward to the arts celebration itself.

Lexi- My star is Waitā. It is the star of the ocean and the sea creatures like fish, jellyfish, sharks too. I am looking forward to eating Glacia and colourful lights shining on me and wearing my shark costume in front of the whole classroom.

Sam- My star, Urūrangi, is the guardian of wind, hurricanes, tornadoes. A challenge for me in the dance practice was concentration. I am looking forward to starting and finishing the dance because it is fun wondering what will happen and knowing after.

Scarlett- My star is Waitī, the star of eels. All eels are slow. Eels move with the water and they live in freshwater. We got to paint the eels and eels are like kids on a Sunday. We get to go in the middle of the star. We get to go down and spin around as the water.

Fabian- My star is called Waipuna-ā-rangi. It is like a torch in the sky. My dance is a challenge. I use teamwork and I need to be very focussed. I need to go on the floor and very high and middle. I need to do the right actions. I am looking forward to the performance and being filmed.

Petra- My star is shimmering, glittering Urūrangi. She glistens with the other stars. "Twinkle, twilight," Urūrnagi calls quietly shaking blue dust on flowing rivers. We walk into our circle. Floating up swaying our arms up lightly, forming our line. Up we go down we go. Into our circle again. Spin, spin, spin I go. Circle goes closer but I still spin. Before the music ends I walk off stage and everyone follows.

Source https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/images/3964-te-kahui-o-matariki

Our Arts Celebration

 We've learned, we've used our creativity to design our dances and we've practiced, practiced, practiced! Finally, today, we performed our hard work.We are looking forward to sharing our dances with you soon. 

Here is a preview of us getting ready for the big day!

The Arts Celebration

Another exciting week working our performances for the Arts Celebration. Tautoru have been dialing up their teamwork and creativity while helping to paint, glue and tie things together.

The costumes are looking great and we have even had time to make masks too.

 

Centennial Reserve visit.

 

Centennial Reserve visit.

We had a great day exploring and learning in the bush on Friday. We were so impressed with how everyone walked down with excited conversations and made it back after a big day with time to spare for Golden Time!

We had groups sketching, exploring the bush, searching for pests and more !  Everyone had fun getting their shoes muddy.

We are so lucky to have the bush so close to school. The students really enjoyed spending time in nature and making deeper connections to our learning in the classroom.