Developing Perseverance and Growth Mindset through the Arts

This week we have begun sketching as a new challenge. Sketching helps us to develop fine motor skills and observation skills. We learned about the use of clean lines and shading by adding depth to the outline of a tree. Practising sketching is a way to help us develop a Growth Mindset and Perseverance by learning that mistakes are part of learning. Sometimes our drawing may not turn out the way we expected and that's ok.

Next we will be observing and creating more lines to add depth to pictures.

How do scientists use sound?

Samantha is a scientist and she came to tell us today how scientists use sound.  It was really helpful to hear how some of our learning in inquiry gets used in different ways. Thank you Samantha! We learned about how doctors use ultrasound to look inside our bodies or a stethoscope to listen to our lungs and heart. We also learned how scientists use sonar to map the oceans and how sound travels in our ears.

Here are some reflections from today:

Cam- I enjoyed the diagram of the ear.

Finn- I like how doctors use a stethoscope to listen to our hearts and lungs.

Callum - We learned that ultrasound to see inside our bodies.

Amelia- Scientists can get a picture of how the ocean floor looks like using sonar and bouncing sound back.

She also showed us this fun video of how some musicians can experiment with sound and make it visible in different ways:

Te Reo Māori: E Hia? How Many?

 This week we've been learning how to ask and reply to 'how many' in Te Reo Māori. We practised this sentence structure:

He hia ngā _______? How many _______ are there?

E (number) ngā ________. There are _______ _________.

Here is an example:

We will keep practising this over the next few weeks as we have been learning to count to 20 and we can now extend our use of number in Te Reo Māori.

Stormy Weather

 Writing this week has been loads of fun. We have been working on how to hook our reader into our stories. We have also been learning about onomatopoeia and how to use them in our writing to add POP!

Here are some examples. 

Sophie F

BOOM!

My house cracks in half.

Lightening and thunder hit the sky

CRASH!

A tree crashes on a school and breaks things.

Jugni

SNAP!

A tornado picks up 1,000 people.

BOOM!

A tsunami crashes into boats and splits it into eight pieces.

CRASH!

A helicopter smashes down to save the people.

Luella

SWISH!

The tsunami floods houses!

BOOM!

The thunder shakes my house!

CRASH!

The waves and the wild hail!

CRACK!

My house has a hole!

Marco

Powerful Tornados zap the grey clouds.

Lightning bolts shake the boats.

Splash!

The boats sink to the bottom of the sea.

Waves smash together.

Louis

BOOM!

The people are scared.

WOOSH!

The tornado sucks up a home.

BOOM!

That was a lightning strike. It is attacking a home.

Ava-Jean

SPLAT!

The waves crash.

SPLAT!

The sea is smashing the sand.

My sandcastle broke.

NOOOOOOOO!

I have to make it again!

Welcome to Term 2

So great to see everyone back after a break filled with blue skies and sunny days. We are very excited about the new term and there is so much on the horizon.

But what about last term? What were our highlights?

"Maths was awesome" Sammy

"My best thing was reading because I got so much help." Samuel

I really liked Te Wahi Mahi because it was fun to build and let my imagination go wild!" Amelia

'I liked creating my Poppy art" Callum

"I liked the ASB for the futsal festival to see the futsal girls" Scarlett

"Learning to read chapter books was cool" Ava

Here are some things we are looking forward to in Term 2

Reading, swimming, trips away to ASB and the Art Gallery, playing with my friends, Golden Time, Sumdog, maths and science experiments.

Whānaungatanga

We have been learning about Whānaungatanga in Tautoru. Whānaungatanga means doing activities that develop the bonds of collaboration and connection. This week Tautoru played two games to think about which one showed more Whānaungatanga values. It was rob the nest where you steal balls from each others hoops or help where taggers tag and then others have to help free you. The Tautoru kids had a keen eye for spotting Whānaungatanga in the help game! It showed teamwork, kindness and collaboration.

Then, we learnt about kākahu (māori cloak). We made a kākahu and wrote down different ways to show whānaungatanga on the feathers.

Here is a video if you would like to learn more about kākahu. 

On Thursday, we had Whānau Day where we all mix up and get into our whānau groups. This is a great opportunity to mix with other kids from different areas of the school. On Whānau Day, the focus was using tuakana-teina to teach whānaungatanga. The Tautoru kids taught others in the school about the kākahu and made one together.

Manaakitanga - Sharing our learning

Last week we had the seniors come in and teach. They helped us to learn the meaning of our school karakia by using actions. This week we got a turn to be the teachers. The year 4s came to learn about our Manaakitanga Friendship Hands and Happiness Wheels.

It was so fun to catch up and reconnect through learning. The year 3s and year 4s were together in Tautoru last year and we spent a lot of time with our year 2s who were in Autahi last year.